Sexual assault, consent, and TV

I've been watching Jessica Jones on Netflix, it is incredibly good, and really tough to watch, it's basically an extended lesson on sexual assault and the nature of consent couched in a private detective/superhero story, this post will be spoiler free, but I wanted to talk a bit about some of the issues that came up so far.

First the background, Jessica Jones is a "gifted" person, she has super strength and durability and currently makes a living as a private investigator in New York City, specifically Hell's Kitchen. She is recovering, well not really recovering, but maintaining after months of being under the influence of a man called Kilgrave, who has the power to tell anyone to do anything. As you might imagine, even short periods of this might be pretty traumatic, and she had six months of it, anyway, she thought he was dead, turns out he isn't, and the whole nightmare begins again.

The main thing that struck me was how realistic reactions are in the show, traumatic events are treated a just that, traumatic, Jones is the best example, she can literally lift a car and leap tall buildings with a single bound, but she drinks herself to sleep every night because if she doesn't the nightmares come, she isn't living exactly, just surviving. Something I suspect more than a few PTSD sufferers can relate to, even more so than that though is the idea of consent, I will explain.

You know those surveys that get done at colleges occasionally where many or most of the males surveyed responded that they would commit a sexual assault, as long as the question didn't specifically say rape? Kilgrave basically embodies that, his power makes people do what he tells them to, more than that it makes them feel like doing it was their own idea, and yes, this includes sex, thankfully not performed on camera, but alluded to and referenced. At one point he is called on it, accused of being a rapist by Jones, who would know, and he is actually offended! He thinks that because they said yes, it wasn't rape, never mind the mind control powers.

That's what is so disturbing about him as a villain to me, it isn't specifically that he is a terrible person, though he is, it's the way he avoids responsibility for his actions because she said yes, or because he didn't actually kill the guy, it was someone he told to do it. His victims struggle with guilt over the actions they perform under his influence, and he sheds the guilt by saying it wasn't his hand that did it anyway.

The problem is he isn't unique, remember the surveys I mentioned earlier, there are an astoundingly large number of men who think the exact same way about sex, obviously they can't do mind control, drugs and alcohol are the super power of choice for these people, and/or physical and emotional abuse, but the end result is the same, a victim crushed and an abuser denying responsibility.

There is no big take over the world story here, no grand scheme to be foiled, just a sick man with too much power who doesn't even realize that what he does is wrong, the stakes aren't high, except for those directly involved, and the law is largely useless, necessitating vast amounts of work before it can be of any help, it's basically like any average sexual assault case you care to name stretched over thirteen episodes and interspersed with fight scenes and a bit of legal drama.

Television just doesn't address issues this way, not in fictional drama series anyway, and not without being kind of unbearably preachy.
It's possibly the most important new show of the season and I hope a lot of people watch it, Netflix, and everyone involved, need to know that content like this is something people will watch so that we can get more of it.