I admit it. I'm a bit obsessed with Law and Order: SVU. And I have a bit of a love affair with Mariska Hargitay (Detective Olivia Benson on said show).
Thankfully for me, the USA Network plays reruns pretty regularly.
But....what the shit, man.
I just saw this episode where this graduate art student, Myra, was raped by her professor, Ron something.
Olivia, of course, believes her the entire time, but Elliott (Olivia's partner) does the whole victim-blaming thing, because she went to the guy's apartment late at night, wore sexy underwear, didn't object to kissing him, drank some wine, etc. And the defense tries to mount a case against Myra because of these reasons, plus her "promiscuous" past, and the assertion that it was consensual (and consensually rough) sex. Basically saying that Myra was just upset because after her and Ron had "consensual sex," he didn't want her to spend the night. So she got pissed and accused him of rape.
The ADA (Casey Novak, in this episode) mounted a very very effective counter to this, simply:
Why would Myra put herself through this hell if she wasn't telling the truth?
And the end of the episode?
The jury foreman stating, "And we find the defendant...."
And then, the credits roll.
It's not a 2-part episode.
That's just where it ends.
What the FUCK, Dick Wolf? You can't do shit like that.
NOT cool, man. Not cool at all.
Ok, maybe it's trying to make a statement socially, about how these things are never really settled, and nobody really believes the verdicts, and blahdeblah. How they never actually end.
But, dude. It's TV. Don't do shit like that. I can barely handle it in real life. TV is supposed to be the nice place where there are happy endings.
Or, at least, where there are endings at all.
AUGH.
[EDITED TO ADD: Turns out that in the episode, originally aired Nov 23, 2004, the verdict was left up to the viewers in a poll.
The kicker?
Approximately 3/5 of viewers taking the poll believed it was consensual. Only 1/5 believed it was rape, and another 1/5 said they needed more evidence.
THREE-FIFTHS of people believed the victim-blaming bullshit.
What the FUCK, America? What THE fuck??]
1 comment:
Yea i just watched that episode...I was pretty pissed there was no ending...main;y cause i had seen it before, and forgot how it ended...nomatter how hard i though i couldn;t remember who won...
then when it ended with "we find the defendant..." i was pretty damn angry>:o
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