Emily D Ryalls. Popular Communication. Volume 19, Issue 1, 2021.
In 2012, images of two Steubenville High School football players engaging in sexual assault were posted on social media. Despite the fact that, according to witness accounts, their victim vomited twice and was unable to walk or speak, initial media reports expressed sympathy for “these two young men that had such promising futures” (North, 2017). In 2014, Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz gained national attention when she began a work of endurance performance art in which she carried a 50-pound mattress everywhere she went; the performance was designed to continue until the school expelled her rapist or she graduated. When Sulkowicz graduated, she carried the mattress across the stage. In 2015, Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was found guilty of raping an unconscious women. Debates around issues of rape, privilege, and whiteness activated when Turner was sentenced to only six months in jail. In handing down his sentence, Judge Aaron Persky argued prison would have a “severe impact” and “adverse collateral consequences” on Turner (Koren, 2017). Judge Persky was eventually recalled. The 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground arrived in the midst of this “vigorous, sometimes furious and at times crudely simplistic national discussion about sexual assault” (Dargis, 2015). Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, the documentary was positioned as “a piercing, monumental exposé of rape culture on campuses” (Phillips, 2017, p. 155).
Cultural discourse surrounding news stories about sexual violence in high schools and colleges engaged feminist work on rape and questions of law, which has focused on consent (Ahmed, 2014). Feminists have long called for the normalization of consent that is given “freely and enthusiastically” (Friedman & Valenti, 2008, p. 8). In turn, some states have begun to implement laws popularly known as “yes means yes.” For instance, in California, SB967 “requires colleges and universities to evaluate disciplinary charges of sexual assault under an ‘affirmative consent’ standard” (Young, 2014). Comparable legislation in New York considers affirmative consent “a knowing, voluntary and mutual decision among all participants to engage in sexual activity” (Keenan, 2015). While not binding in criminal court, these laws require colleges to use affirmative consent as the standard in campus disciplinary decisions (Medina, 2015). Beyond legislation, student codes of sexual conduct may make specific regulations regarding affirmative consent. An estimated 1,400 institutions of higher education now use some type of affirmative consent definition in their sexual assault policies (Keenan, 2015).
While colleges and universities struggle to deal with sexual assault on campus, far less focus has been placed on these issues within high schools. According to the Center for Disease Control, 30% of female rape survivors were first raped between the ages of 11 to 17 (Sneed, 2015). Despite this startling statistic, California is, at the time of this writing, the only state to require high school health education classes to include lessons on affirmative consent, including explanations that “someone who is drunk or asleep cannot grant consent” (Medina, 2015). While the law requires that high school students be educated about affirmative consent, as is the case with college students, they are not held to that standard from a legal perspective (Medina, 2015).
Given this particular cultural moment’s intensified focus on issues regarding sexual violence and consent, it is perhaps not surprising that two recent teen television programs, 13 Reasons Why (Golin, 2017-2020) and Sweet/Vicious (Lasher, 2016–2017), draw their narratives primarily from discourses about sexual violence. In the New York Times, Hess (2017) suggests “these stories arrive in the midst of a public reckoning with rape.” While rape and sexual violence narratives have always held a place in the teen drama series genre, these shows are specifically reflective of the contemporary cultural move from the outdated “no means no” model to articulations of “yes means yes.” For Cuklanz (1996), rape reform does not end with changes in legal statutes, “but rather extends necessarily into the realm of public communication and consciousness” (p. 6). As such, careful analysis of the treatment of rape culture and affirmative consent in these contemporary teen television series may provide insight into how our mainstream discussions take into account new feminist formulations of sexual violence, including affirmative consent, which is an important indicator of the success of rape reform efforts (Cuklanz, 2000).
In the conclusion of their analysis of rape on teen television, Polletta and Tomlinson (2014) suggest that while the 1980s and 1990s took seriously portrayals of acquaintance rape, this trend would never again be replicated. Instead, they argue acquaintance rape would only be used “to depict certain kinds of characters or to advance sequences of events,” as opposed to being the focus of the show (p. 545). 13 Reasons Why (13RW) and Sweet/Vicious (S/V) prove this not to be the case. In each show, sexual assault and harassment stand at the center of the narrative. In contrast to the trend in media to represent rape narratives with a focus on the individual, 13RW and S/V speak to how rape culture normalizes the objectification of girls and women, point to structural issues survivors of sexual assault may face when reporting rape (i.e., with the police and school administrators), and highlight how sexual harassment is a mundane part of everyday life. The shows make clear that, as opposed to rape being caused solely by individual problematic men (Cuklanz, 2000), the creation and maintenance of rape culture permits, indeed encourages, sexual violence. 13RW and S/V include references to or representations of sexual assault in nearly every episode. In so doing, the shows construct a world in which rape culture is rampant, allowing rape and rapists to run amok. Moreover, both shows do the important work of emphasizing why affirmative consent is essential by representing rape as a lack of consent, as opposed to outright refusal or resistance. While the shows progressively suggest that rape culture necessitates affirmative consent, they simultaneously contribute to rape culture by relying on the long-standing trope that, when it comes to girls and rape, “no” may actually mean “yes.”
Sexual violence narratives, rape culture, and consent
Sexual violence storylines have a long history in the teen television genre. When featured in a single self-contained episode (as opposed to over the course of a season), these narratives are typically used to develop a story about other themes, such as a budding romance (Berridge, 2011; Polletta & Tomlinson, 2014). Storylines that pass over sexual violence quickly ignore the long-term consequences of rape on female characters (Joy, 2019; Polletta & Tomlinson, 2014). In contrast, the structure of serialized narratives may allow for a focus on the lasting effects on the survivor (Joy, 2019), while underscoring the systemic nature of sexual violence (Braithwaite, 2008). Horeck (2019) suggests that, in contrast, “the seriality of 13 Reasons Why as a binge-able Netflix product places a premium upon the ‘next episode’ in a way that ultimately forecloses a deeper, more meaningful engagement with the serious issues of sexual violence and victimization” (p. 1).
In some female-fronted teen series, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars, central male characters are positioned as perpetrators of sexual violence (Berridge, 2010, 2013; Bolte, 2008; Sibielski, 2010). According to Berridge (2013), portraying central male characters as perpetrators makes “it difficult to see sexual violence as a one-off occurrence” (p. 484). However, in episodic rape narratives, rapists are typically underdeveloped, marginal, and repugnant characters (Berridge, 2011; Polletta & Tomlinson, 2014), which works to recenter “good” white men. Mediated rape narratives contrast the dangerous masculinity of the rapist with a strong, sensitive, “good” masculinity of the police officer or friend (Berridge, 2011; Cuklanz, 2000; Moorti, 2002; Polletta & Tomlinson, 2014; Projansky, 2001). This process situates the honorable white man as the protector of women as potential victims of rape (Cuklanz, 2000, p. 68).
In situating individual “bad” men as the perpetrators of sexual violence, episodic teen television narratives simultaneously frame rape “as a personal concern for the female teenager, rather than a more widespread social or political concern” (Berridge, 2013, p. 482). This focus on individual narratives of sexual assault dismisses rape culture, “a term introduced by feminist scholars in the 1970s to highlight the cultural normalization of sexual violence against women” (Phillips, 2017, p. 3). Rape culture includes “practices that excuse or otherwise tolerate sexual violence … situations in which sexual assault, rape, and incidents of violence are ignored, trivialized, normalized, or made into jokes” (Ridgway, 2014). For Friedman and Valenti (2008) a key element of rape culture is the “no means no model” (p. 6). If, as Cuklanz (2000) suggests, date and acquaintance rape on television often raises questions about possible miscommunication and female indecision, such representations may contribute to rape culture.
In this analysis, I consider how contemporary rape reform efforts have been incorporated into narratives in teen television. I ask: Have cultural understandings of affirmative consent altered the ways in which rapists and survivors are represented in teen television? How is affirmative consent constructed in narratives about teen sexuality? Are representations of rapists and survivors altered through a mediated recognition of rape culture as systemic and institutionalized?
Rape on contemporary teen television
13 Reasons Why dropped on Netflix March 31, 2017. Just three weeks later, it was “the most tweeted-about TV series of 2017, with 11 million tweets” (Highfill, 2017, p. 26). The series is based on Jay Asher’s 2007 Young Adult novel of the same name. 13RW begins when high school student, Clay, finds a box of cassette tapes on his front porch. The tapes, recorded by Hannah, detail the “thirteen reasons why” Hannah committed suicide. Each tape, and hence each episode of the series, is dedicated to an individual who played a role in Hannah’s decision to end her life. We listen to the stories along with Clay. The other teens featured on the tapes include Hannah’s one time friend, Jessica, Jessica’s ex-boyfriend Alex, and her current boyfriend, Justin, who plays on the basketball team, along with Bryce, who rapes both Jessica and Hannah. Lastly, although not featured on the tapes, Tony is tasked with making sure the tapes are listened to and passed on (Hannah originally left the tapes with him).
The single season of Sweet/Vicious debuted on MTV on November 15, 2016. The MTV website (2017) describes the show as “an offbeat superhero story about two girls, who never felt like they belonged, finding a home in each other … and trying to kick a lot of ass.” S/V opens as a person dressed entirely in black and using an electronic voice changer climbs the ivy covered walls of a fraternity house and through the window of one of the rooms. Once inside, the intruder sees a young man sitting at his computer and slams his head into the keyboard. As the attack continues, the electronic voice says, “Are you scared? Do you feel powerless? Do I have consent?” Upon leaving the room, after lodging a knife in the boy’s thigh, the attacker removes the mask to reveal her long blonde hair. Jules, who is constructed as a bubbly sorority girl, later teams up with pot-head hacker Ophelia. The two begin to “terrorize accused rapists at their college. Every time the cops shelve a sexual assault case, these women dress up like ninjas and slam the accused against brick walls, slash them with switchblades and Taser them in the crotch” (Hess, 2017). Through flashbacks, the viewer learns that Jules was raped by the school’s star quarterback, Nate, who is the boyfriend of her best friend, Kennedy. In Variety, TV critic Ryan (2016) hails Sweet/Vicious as “one of the most innovative shows of the year, in that it treats the survival of sexual assault seriously and yet manages to be a fairly nimble mixture of comedy, drama and superhero tropes.”
Rape or regret?
S/V highlights the systemic failure to take victims’ reports seriously – a symptom of rape culture. Despite legal and cultural changes in understandings of consent, the adults on S/V and 13RW are shown to hold tight to outdated interpretations of rape that “no means no.” For instance, when Jules tells the Title IX officer at her college, “I think that I was sexually assaulted,” she immediately responds, “You think or you know?” Jules replies, “I know. I mean I know, because I was asleep, and he got on top of me, and I didn’t, uh, I wasn’t awake.” The counselor explains, “I do need to make sure that this was assault and not regret,” and she proceeds to ask a series of questions: “Were you drinking? Were you drunk? You passed out?” With these questions, the counselor reverts to historical myths about rape, which suggest women “might be outright and deliberate liars, but also that they might actually be uncertain as to whether consent had been given” (Cuklanz, 1996, p. 26).
In 13RW, Hannah similarly faces incredulity from the guidance counselor from whom she seeks help. As in S/V, the administrator’s immediate response is to suspect regret, not rape. Mr. Porter explains, “Listen, Hannah, I’m not going to judge you, but did anything happen that night that you regret? Maybe you made a decision, a decision to do something with a boy that you now you regret.” Hannah, horrified, exclaims, “Oh my God, no! That’s just what you assume? Look, I didn’t make a decision.” Continuing down the same path, Mr. Porter asks, “Did anything happen at the party that may be considered illegal? Alcohol?” Again, Hannah is forced to defend herself when she explains that she was not drinking. Finally, Mr. Porter asks, “Did he force himself on you?” When Hannah replies, “I think so,” Mr. Porter shows a complete lack of understanding of affirmative consent, “You think so, but you’re not sure? Did you tell him to stop? Did you tell him ‘no?’ Maybe you consented and you changed your mind?” As in S/V, the counselor who is tasked with helping survivors of assault clings tightly to outmoded ideas of consent.
Notably, on both S/V and 13RW the girls’ rapes are shown in graphic detail prior to the scenes in which they seek help from their counselors. As a result, the shows leave no potential for an understanding that Hannah or Jules simply regrets having consensual sex. In turn, the administrators tasked with accommodating students who face sexual violence are shown as old-fashioned. Viewer sympathies align with Hannah and Jules, not the adults who are portrayed as sustaining, rather than working against, rape culture. While Hannah and Jules suffer because campus administrators are incapable of helping them, the suggestion remains that, with time, these outdated notions will pass. The counselors on both shows are villainized through their treatment of rape victims; however, placing these outmoded ideas on adults simultaneously troublingly instantiates a binary in which adults cling to “no means no,” while youth understand that “yes means yes.”
S/V additionally illuminates how, despite more attention paid to sexual assault by campus administrators, systemic failure to take survivors’ reports seriously continues both on campus and through legal systems. For instance, the Darlington University Security Guard explains that a really strong case against a member of a fraternity, Brady, was dismissed by the school because the reporting party contacted him after the fact: “The girl, Cindy, the bracelet she was wearing snapped off her wrist. She wanted it back, so she texted Brady about it” (Episode 8, “Back to Black”). Despite the fact that multiple witnesses saw Brady feeding Cindy drinks, and reported she went up to his room completely incapacitated, Cindy texting Brady in an attempt to get her bracelet back was ultimately used against her in the investigation. A pattern develops on S/V in which the rape narratives bring to mind high profile rape cases. For instance, Emma Sulkowicz’s rape accusation (discussed above) was framed by some as one of regretted sex, because Sulkowicz maintained friendly correspondence with her accused rapist on social media. Grounding the fictional narratives on S/V in real life examples contributes to an understanding of rape culture as systemic and institutionalized.
In another example, Ophelia and Jules go to the police station when Ophelia’s car is towed (Episode 2, “The Writing’s on the Wall”). While Ophelia waits for Jules, she overhears the young woman sitting next to her tearfully describe a sexual assault. When she ends her phone conversation, Ophelia introduces herself, and the young woman responds, “Hailey McMahon. I’m sorry, I’ve been here all morning, and I still haven’t filed my complaint. They just keep making me wait in different areas. I’m just very tired.” Noticing the Title IX brochure on Hailey’s lap, Ophelia asks, “Title IX is the school right? They didn’t help?” Hailey explains, “They said I didn’t have a case, so now I’m here, and they clearly don’t want to help me either. When the cops come back out, will you just tell them I left? I don’t want to make a statement.” This scene works to show the systemic failure in response to rape reports from the school and the law, a connection that is bolstered when Ophelia’s best friend, Harris, who interns with the local District Attorney, explains, in the last year, 26 cases were taken to the DA and “either entirely mishandled, dismissed, or flat out unattended to” (Episode 10, “Pure Heroin”). When Jules finally decides to report her rape, in a surprising turn, things go her way and Nate is found guilty. However, soon thereafter Jules learns that the university President overturned the ruling, since “Title IX proceedings are not legal proceedings.” The systemic failure in dealing with rape and rape survivors is cemented. Even when Title IX “works,” the outcomes are not legally binding in court and can be quickly overturned.
Rape culture visibility
Aside from representing rape culture as a context in which victims’ claims are not taken seriously, both shows highlight the ways in which evidence of rape culture proliferates, easily seen by students, yet goes unnoticed or is ignored by legal institutions and school administration. The lack of attention by adults to the overt and obvious signs of rape culture again functions to villainize the adults who are tasked with taking care of the students. For example, on S/V, a wall in a women’s bathroom on campus is covered in warnings about campus rape and rapists: “No means no,” “Stay away from Kappa,” “Don’t drink the Jungle Juice,” “Peter Lansing spikes drinks, drugs girls” (Episode 2, “The Writing’s on the Wall”). This, too, is a nod to the Sulkowicz case in which the name of her accused rapist appeared on a list anonymously scrawled in campus bathrooms (Phillips, 2017). On 13RW, it is common knowledge among the students that Bryce, who rapes Hannah and Jessica, is a dangerous rapist who faces no repercussions. In the series’ premiere, Hannah’s friend, Kat, warns her against flirting with Bryce, explaining, “Solid no. Hannah, he is like frat boy Darth Vader.” In “Tape 3, Side B,” students participate in a school fundraiser, “Oh My Dollar Valentines,” in which they fill out dating surveys, so they can receive a list of five students of the opposite sex whom the results deem are a good romantic match. When Hannah tells Sheri, a school cheerleader, that her number one match is Bryce, Sheri replies, “No, not that one. Trust me.”
Additionally, both shows point to the ways in which collective slut shaming, a form of sexual harassment, operates on a highly visible level and, as a result, is positioned as shockingly mundane. In the premiere of S/V, “The Blueprint,” a social is canceled when the fraternity is put on probation because one of its members “took a picture of Chloe Friedman’s boobs.” The picture is mentioned again in the second episode, “The Writing’s on the Wall,” by a basketball player in a locker room when he asks his teammates, “You guys see that new Chloe tit pic? God bless.” As explained by Hasinoff (2015), while endemic in mainstream culture, “social media bring slut shaming and rape culture into the light of day” (p. 155). The use of social media images to shame victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault is shown again when, after Jules reports her rape, the slut shaming begins. As is common with rape culture, the students support the school’s quarterback, and a meme circulates that includes a picture of Jules drinking a beer with the caption, “I’m a Slut.” The use of social media to slut shame is reminiscent of the Steubenville case described above. When video of the assault was shared, the victim was labeled a slut and viciously tormented on social media. Importantly, S/V makes it clear that rape culture is not solely perpetuated by men. In “Tragic Kingdom,” Ophelia infiltrates a sorority that uses sexual harassment as a tool during the hazing process when they strip the pledges clothes off and write sexist insults on their exposed bodies like “piggy” and “slut.” Moreover, Ophelia discovers the sorority is running a hazing website in which they record the pledges being hazed and charge people to watch, highlighting the broad reach and visibility of sexual harassment in the guise of slut shaming.
13RW underscores how, in the process of normalizing sexual harassment, men and boys reframe sexually tinged abuse as a form of flattery. In “Tape 1, Side B,” Alex creates a “Best/Worst” list in which he assigns the girls in the school labels such as “Best Ass” or “Worst Lips.” Much to her chagrin, Hannah is listed as “Best Ass.” When her mom finds the list after Hannah’s death, her father claims, “It’s nothing. It’s a compliment.” Similarly, Clay tells Hannah making the list is “high praise” (Episode 3, “Tape 2, Side A”). This reframing of harassment as flattery is contradicted by Hannah in her tapes, as she explains, “Maybe you think I’m being silly, like I get my titties in a twist over the littlest things, but you didn’t walk that hall. You didn’t feel those eyes on you. You never heard those whispers” (Episode 3, “Tape 2, Side A”). The show drives home that this behavior is not a “joke” or a “compliment” with repeated instances of Hannah being slapped on her butt by male students, pointing to the ramifications of objectifying women. Moreover, the list’s creator, Alex, admits to Clay that he did not mean it as a compliment, but, instead, “I meant it to piss off Jessica because she wouldn’t have sex with me” (Episode 3, “Tape 2, Side A”).
As in S/V, these incidents are shown as clearly visible, yet ignored by the school administration. At the high school, the walls in the girls’ bathroom are covered in sexist and misogynistic markings such as, “Fuck Bitches – Get Money” and “Fuck off Whores” (Episode 3, “Tape 2, Side A”). When Hannah’s parents decide to pursue a case against the school for not protecting Hannah from bullying, the students give testimony that solidifies the rape culture at the school. According to Tyler, a male student also featured on the tapes, “Guys would call her a ‘slut’ and say that she’s ‘easy,’” while Jessica explains, “Guys talk at our school, and they do shit. They do things to girls that no one ever talks about or does anything about” (Episode 12, “Tape 6, Side B”). Kat claims, “The jocks, they walk the halls like they own the place. The teachers feed in to it. Bolan (the principal) feeds in to it” (Episode 13, “Tape 7, Side A”). Despite the fact that Hannah was sexually harassed and raped, the legal case her parents pursue against the school revolves around her “bullying.” As a result, 13RW highlights a “troubling slippage between sexual violence and bullying” that is common in U.S. culture (Ryalls, 2018, p. 75). “The use of the term ‘bullying’ in these contexts obscures the relationship between gendered constructions of sexuality and power” (Berridge, 2017). Subsuming sexual violence within bullying actively works to ignore rape culture by normalizing sexual harassment and violence. The downplaying of rape and rape culture is confirmed by the cultural response to 13RW. Not long after the show’s premiere, concerns, specifically about the graphic portrayal of suicide, “extended to schools across the country” (Porreca, 2017). “Some schools banned talk of the show; others sent home letters advising parents how to speak to their kids about it” (Highfill, 2017, pp. 29–30), indicating schools, parents, and mental health experts took issue not with the representation of two rapes, but instead with the portrayal of Hannah’s suicide.
Affirmative consent
Although 13RW and S/V work to frame rape culture as a systemic, institutional problem, the trend of depicting “honorable masculinity” (Cuklanz, 2000, p. 68) continues, particularly through the shows’ representations of affirmative consent. S/V and 13RW are progressive in representing rape as a lack of consent, as opposed to outright refusal or resistance, thus challenging the mythology of the “perfect victim” who fights aggressively and loudly throughout the attack, never giving up. Feminists contest the idea that rape is defined by physical resistance (Feminist Perspectives on Rape, 2017), insisting “silence is not consent” (Bussel, 2008). In 13RW, when Bryce rapes Hannah, she does not fight back or scream for help (Episode 12, “Tape 6, Side B”). Instead, when Hannah finds herself in the hot tub alone with Bryce, whom she had recently seen rape Jessica, she seems nearly resigned to her assault. Hannah gasps and cries quietly, while Bryce pulls off her underwear and pulls down his shorts. When Bryce pulls Hannah’s hair, the camera pans in on a close up of Hannah’s her face, which looks nearly passive, as though she has left her body, and she slowly unclenches her hand, signifying her resignation. Hannah does not fight back nor does she utter the words “no” or “stop.” A rape survivor in S/V articulates a similar response to her attack: “He held me down, and he violated me, and I was paralyzed. I just left my body, and I watched him” (Episode 7, “Heartbreaker”). These episodes do the important work of emphasizing why affirmative consent is necessary, since girls are often too terrified to articulate a “no” or to run away or fight back.
While seemingly progressive in their attempts to show the necessity of affirmative consent, 13RW and S/V undercut their anti-sexual assault messages by centering “good” white guys as those who seek affirmative consent. Additionally, through representations of affirmative consent, the shows portray girls as not always meaning what they say, in line with long standing tropes of women and consent. For instance, on S/V although Jules is apparently attracted to fellow student, Tyler, the trauma of her sexual assault causes her to shrink away from him. In “Sucker,” after encouragement from Ophelia that Tyler “seems like one of the good guys,” Jules invites him to her sorority house. Jules explains to Tyler that she’s “been sending some pretty mixed messages … (which) might send the message that I don’t like you and that I don’t want to see you, and I do. I want to see you a lot.” Tyler is thrilled, but admits that it has been “a little confusing.” Jules continues that she is no longer unsure, but needs “to take things slow, like really, really slow.” Tyler immediately agrees and asks, “So, are you comfortable with me telling you that I think you look incredibly beautiful right now?” Jules smiles, “Yeah, I can handle that.” He grabs her hand, “And, uh, would it be ok if I kissed you?” Tyler leans in for a chaste kiss. When he pulls away, Jules smiles and kisses Tyler again, far more aggressively. The suggestion is not only are girls’ signals “confusing,” but, even when a rape survivor says she needs to take things slowly, she does not mean it.
In “Tape 3, Side A,” Hannah sets up the continuum of good to bad guys when she explains, “Boys are assholes. Some are assholes all of the time; all are assholes some of the time. It’s just how boys are.” After each statement, the camera cuts to a boy who reflects Hannah’s statement. Bryce, the rapist, is an all-the-time-asshole, but this continuum elevates Alex, the some-of-the-time-asshole, to the truly terrible Bryce. Although Alex dubbed Hannah “Best Ass,” thus participating in her harassment, the show is at pains to paint him as a good guy who regrets his behavior. On 13 W, one way in which “good guys” are developed is through a focus on the trauma they face as a result of Hannah’s suicide, centering them in her story. In “Tape 2, Side A,” Alex articulates his trauma, exclaiming:
It’s not OK! You want it to be OK, because then you get off the hook, but you’re losing your shit, and you want to think that whatever you did, it couldn’t be the reason that Hannah killed herself, but the truth is that I did. I killed Hannah Baker.
Alex begins to suffer from anxiety, which manifests in stomach pain. In these ways, Alex is shown to be a good guy who just made a bad choice. Indeed, aside from that of Bryce, the boys’ abusive behavior is largely assuaged. As the narrative builds toward Hannah’s rape, “the other more ‘minor’ forms of sexual assault – such as one of the boys sticking his hand up Hannah’s skirt – become obscured” (Berridge, 2017). Moreover, given that Alex articulates that he broke up with Jessica because she wouldn’t have sex with him, he is positioned as the sort of boyfriend who seeks affirmative consent. When he was unable to get consent from Jessica, he did not push harder or ignore her, he ended the relationship. This narrative further cements Alex as a “some of the time” asshole, but given that he is constructed as ultimately regretting this decision, he is again elevated above Bryce.
Despite taking aim at a culture in which affirmative consent is necessary, 13RW falls back on long standing tropes that “no” actually means “yes,” particularly when “no” is expressed to a “good guy,” simultaneously situating good guys as the protectors of girls. In “Tape 6, Side A,” Alex explains to Clay that the only reason he came to Jessica’s party is that it is “part of my ongoing plan (to) hang around Jessica enough she gets annoyed and falls back in love with me.” Alex’s “plan” to continually put himself in the same space as Jessica, despite her clarity that she no longer wants to date him, could be viewed as stalking or harassment. Instead, Jessica’s desire to pursue a relationship with Justin as opposed to Alex is undercut through knowledge the viewer gained in “Tape 5, Side A,” which reveals that Justin allowed Bryce to rape Jessica while she was unconscious. Because Jessica was unconscious, she has no memory of the rape, but the viewer (and Hannah who is hiding in a closet) sees the attack in graphic detail. Thus, viewer sympathy is aligned with Alex, seeing this stalking as a romantic gesture, given the horror of what her boyfriend did. In turn, Jessica is represented as not really knowing what is best for her since she chose Justin, a participant in her rape, over Alex, a sweet guy who just wants her to love him.
Much like Alex, Clay’s good guy status is bolstered through the ongoing focus on how distressed he is by Hannah’s suicide. Given that the viewer listens to the tapes with Clay, he becomes the vessel through which her story is told and, in turn, his trauma is forefronted. Unlike the other recipients of the tapes, 13RW infers that Clay’s trauma is so significant, he is barely able to make his way through the tapes – listening is too painful. When Tony tells Clay, he is the “slowest (listener) yet,” Clay replies, “It’s hard to listen” (Episode 2, “Tape 1, Side B”). Later, he tells Alex, “I can only listen in bits and pieces, or I freak out. I feel a panic attack coming on” (Episode 4, “Tape 2, Side B”). While the majority of students are concerned about what might happen to them if the information on the tapes gets out, Clay says, “When I listen to the tapes, I want to see her in school tomorrow … I want to dance with her again and kiss her when I should have kissed her” (Episode 5, “Tape 3, Side A”). “Tape 3, Side A” ends with an image of Clay sobbing in the shower, overcome with emotion brought on by Hannah’s death. While Hannah is treated poorly by the school’s athletes (e.g., Justin and Bryce), Clay is situated as her savior, the kind of guy she should have dated.
In seeking affirmative consent, Clay is again shown to be a good guy. When making out with a cheerleader, Clay asks, “Hey, is this okay?” (Episode 6, “Tape 3, Side B”). Then, at Jessica’s party, when Hannah and Clay find themselves alone in a bedroom and begin to kiss, Clay again asks, “Is this okay?” Hannah replies, “Better than okay.” Through narration, Hannah explains, “At that moment, everything was perfect, and, for the first time in a long time, I could imagine a future where I was happy, how good life could be.” Although Hannah explains she wanted Clay to “do everything (he was) doing,” her mind wanders to her previous sexual traumas. When she yells at Clay to “stop,” he is startled and confused, but immediately stops. He asks repeatedly what is wrong, but Hannah just tells him to leave. Although seemingly assured in her decision that she wants to be left alone, Hannah’s narration tells a different story: “Part of me was saying, please don’t leave … but you walked out the door, like I told you to. Why’d you have to leave? It was the worst thing ever.” Historically, women have been presumed as unable to adequately define consent, popularly expressed in the assertion that for women “no means yes” (Cuklanz, 1996, p. 26). Clay confirms that he should not have Hannah taken at her word, “I knew I shouldn’t have left … I killed Hannah Baker.” Thus, both Hannah and Clay confirm that Hannah did not mean what she said, that her message was confusing, so you can never trust what a girl says, and, in some cases, taking a girl at her word puts her in danger. These portrayals of affirmative consent in teen television narratives function to dangerously uphold the idea that girls do not really know what they want when it comes to sex.
Interestingly, Clay is the second boy to suggest he “killed” Hannah (Alex expresses the same sentiment, as discussed above). In taking responsibility for Hannah’s death, these good guys strip her entirely of any autonomy that she might have showed in choosing to take her life. Moreover, as opposed to showing rape survivors as empowered, 13RW portrays girls as in need of protection from good boys. For instance, despite hearing the description of her rape on Hannah’s tapes, Jessica continues to deny that anything happened. Clay exclaims, “Maybe Jessica’s been able to convince herself that nothing happened that night, but if she’s not going to do anything about it, then I will” (Episode 9, “Tape 5, Side A”). Although his statement is framed as benevolent, particularly since the show spends ample time showing Jessica’s rape, Clay is explicitly going against the wishes of a rape survivor who unequivocally told him to “move on.” Again, Clay is framed as a good guy who wants to help because he knows better than a girl, despite what she clearly articulates.
Concluding thoughts
This analysis extends previous feminist media scholarship on the ways in which feminist ideas about rape are implemented with differing results into narratives on television (Berridge, 2010, 2011, 2013; Cuklanz, 1996, 2000; Moorti, 2002; Projansky, 2001). 13RW and S/V, two contemporary teen television shows, provide access to how feminist ideas of what constitutes consent have been incorporated into mainstream discussions about rape. The shows continue mediated trends that juxtapose good and honorable masculinity with that which is framed as bad and abnormal, but with a twist. In 13RW and S/V, seeking affirmative consent becomes the marker of honorable masculinity.
13RW and S/V do the important work of representing rape culture as systemic and institutionalized, a normalization of sexual violence that allows for ongoing rape and sexual assault. As opposed to previous representations of rape as merely a problem of pathological and dangerous men (Cuklanz, 2000), these shows drive home the role of pathological systems in maintaining rape culture. Specifically, in S/V, the process of using fictional narratives that reflect real life cases of sexual assault (i.e., Emma Sulkowicz and Steubenville) cements an understanding of rape culture as systematic. Paradoxically, the shows simultaneously insist that seeking affirmative consent is characteristic of honorable masculinity. In so doing, they regressively rely on myths of rapists as repugnant and evil characters easily recognizable as the opposite of “good” guys.
While progressively insisting that a girl need not say “no” in order to not be raped, both shows situate girls as not knowing what is best for them, and, in some cases, that taking a girl at her world puts her in danger. Thus, 13 RW and S/V contribute to rape culture by situating rape as inevitable and elevating good guys, as opposed to structural change, as the saviors of girls. Notions of girls as in need of protection are particularly dangerous given the current development of bills such as Florida House Bill 1335, which would require a girl in need of an abortion to plead her case to a judge who would need to find “clear and convincing evidence” that she is mature enough to terminate her pregnancy (Fink, 2019).
On September 22, 2017, Department of Education Secretary Betsy Devos formally announced the Department’s decision to rescind the previous administration’s guidance on handling sexual assault allegations on college and university campuses. Flying in the face of any progress that we should believe women and girls when they say they have been raped, the decision increases the burden of proof for investigations in the interest of due process for the accused. S/V and 13 RW suggest that adults are solely responsible for holding tightly to archaic notions that, when it comes to rape and sexual assault, women and girls cannot be trusted. As critical media scholars, however, we must be attuned to representations that suggest we need only “wait” to see changes in cultural understandings of violence against girls and women.