Yep. Also, it kind of tickles me that the attribution is the US Dept of Defense.
Note: I’ll be discussing sexual assault. Please do what’s best for you. To survivors, I hope you have all the support and help you need. You’re awesome, and I love you. Links to follow, if anyone needs them.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a modern reboot of the 90s’ Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and an animated series from the 70s, themselves adaptations of the Archie Comics character of the same name, about a young woman trying to navigate the usual waters of teenagerdom, with the twist that she’s a powerfully magical witch. As a reboot made in the last few years of retooling in the entertainment industry for the sake of diversity long absent, it is naturally a fair hand at representation (not always stellar, but making an honest effort), with major characters played by and played as traditionally marginalized groups. Furthermore, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is written with today’s sensibilities in mind, and as such contains many good messages of acceptance, consideration, and a morality based on treating others as they wish to be treated.
None of this, however, speaks to the quality of the entertainment, which in its four season run was generally quite good, filled with snappy dialogue, clever twists, and plenty of tongue-in-cheek horror that didn’t flinch from the gory details of its conceptual landscape (they like to throw fake blood around the set quite a bit). The writers developed a fairly coherent mythology that served as both backdrop and showpiece when necessary, flexible enough for monster-of-the-week stories, and the overarching plot of each season. The acting ran from better-than-average to outstanding, and while the titular character is the center of the show, it doesn’t skimp (much) on the supporting cast. The Greendale of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a lived-in world with a rich, complex history.
In fact, I’d go so far as to recommend the show, if they hadn’t ruined it for me in the first 30 minutes.
SPOILER WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Legion.
There is a trope in sci-fi/fantasy entertainment. I don’t know what the proper name for this trope is, or if there even is one, but I’ve seen it so often, I’ve decided to call it Forget-Me-Now, from the third episode of the third season of Arrested Development.
In Forget-Me-Now, Person A (who is powerfully supernatural) is in a relationship with Person B (who is not as powerfully supernatural, or not supernatural at all), when Person B discovers something about Person A that alters Person B’s perception of Person A in a negative way. As a result, Person B begins to pull away from Person A, whereupon Person A uses their supernatural powers to edit the memories of Person B, restoring Person B to a state before they made the discovery. To drive home what a monstrous act this is, this is usually followed by acts of physical and sexual “intimacy,” to which Person B has obviously lost the capacity to consent.
The influential late 90s/early 00s show Buffy the Vampire Slayer did this, starting in the sixth episode of their sixth season. Person B (Tara) discovers Person A (Willow) is abusing her magic, and begins to pull away from Willow. Willow edits Tara’s memories to a state before they fought about it, and later, Willow sexually assaults Tara, because (again) she cannot give consent to Willow. This act is later discovered, Tara tells Willow she violated her, and they of course break up, continuing Willow’s descent into being the Big Bad of Season 6.
More recently, in 2018, the less-influential show Legion did Forget-Me-Now, at the end of its second season. Person B (Syd) discovers Person A (David) will commit terrible crimes in the future, and begins to pull away from him (in rather dramatic fashion). David edits Syd’s memories to a state before they fought, and later, David sexually assaults Syd, who once again cannot consent to David.
Being 2018, this development was handled much differently than in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (though BtVS didn’t exactly treat it lightly). For one thing, David is instantly transformed from the series hero into the series villain by this act alone. In the age of MeToo, this plot development sent both critics and the fanbase into a spiral of anger, hurt, confusion, and dismay. Articles were written questioning if the show had “gone too far”. This was a concern right up to the series finale, with many reviewers and fans unsatisfied that David had sufficiently paid for his crime. All of which was as it had to be. David could not be the show’s hero after what he’d done, only its villain, and Legion’s tone and writing for David changed accordingly.
In the second season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Person B (Aunt Zelda) married Person A (series villain Faustus Blackwood) in a political alliance, but recoils from his villainy, whereupon Blackwood edits Zelda’s memory to make her a compliant wife. It isn’t explicitly mentioned he sexually assaults her, but the implication is pretty clear. This is treated as a gross violation, and further evidence of Blackwood’s villainy.
As a trope, Forget-Me-Now appears in comic books, anime, movies, television, and likely other mediums I’m not thinking of, just now. It happens that often. And until Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I’ve never seen it treated as anything less than the gross violation it is.
Less than thirty minutes into its very first episode, Person B (Harvey) discovers Person A (Sabrina) is a witch, whereupon Harvey begins to pull away from Sabrina, who immediately responds by magically editing Harvey’s memories. She then proceeds to sexually assault Harvey — who, again, cannot consent to her — for most of the first season. This is treated...
*crickets*
...as if it never happened. Or at best, it’s treated as if it were one among a number of mildly rude things to do, and la la la nothing further to discuss. For four seasons, I waited in vain for somebody — anybody — to call out Sabrina. No one does. Not in the show, and not in real life. Sabrina carries on as the series protagonist, right through virtually the same thing happening to her aunt, without once noticing that the evil thing Blackwood did to Zelda is morally (and nearly literally) the same as what Sabrina did to Harvey. I cannot find the words to express how this sours the entire series for me.
In a later episode — and a scene that seemed designed to give the finger to anyone waiting for Sabrina to be held accountable — she confronts Dracula, is momentarily put in his thrall, bitten, and regains the upper hand, freeing herself. Sabrina then turns to the defeated Dracula and sneers, “Also, consent: It’s real!”
Except it isn’t. Not in Harvey’s case. Not to Sabrina Spellman, not to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, not to the critics, and not to the fans. When I said I waited in vain for anyone to call her out, I meant anyone. Go ahead, try to google any reference to Sabrina’s rape of Harvey. TheMarySue comes closest, mentioning it in an article that specifically references the Willow/Tara parallel, before breezing past it to talk about a much-less-horrible-than-violating-your-boyfriend-for-months-on-end thing she did.
So, after finishing the fourth and final season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina to my disappointment and disgust, I’m left to wonder: Why? Why was this universally-recognized act of violation and sexual assault completely ignored — even when the specific actions that composed the violation were revisited in a later episode? It’s so common, it’s a fucking trope. What’s different about this instance, that Sabrina never so much as has her crime questioned, by anyone, ever? Certainly not because the show has a blind spot to issues of consent; it repeatedly goes to that well, with an empowered Sabrina telling the viewing audience in a dramatic close-up that consent is real. And again, it’s not just the show. Nobody called her out. Not the critics, not the fans, nobody. Why?
Honestly, I can’t say for certain. But I’ll give you my best guess. My best guess is that the psychic violation and repeated rape of Harvey Kinkle doesn’t register with the show or its critics or its fans because Harvey Kinkle is a man, and the sexual assault of men in the US is a joke. Literally. I’d go on and on about how ubiquitous the jokes about sexually assaulting men are, but as is usually the case, someone already did it, and better than I would have. If you’re interested, the videos below, by Pop Culture Detective, do a very good job of illustrating and discussing the problem, in its many forms. Each is about a half-hour long, so if you don’t want to spend the time, take my word for it: It’s everywhere. It’s in children’s cartoons, for fuck’s sake.
Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs - Part 1 Male Perpetrators
Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs - Part 2 Female Perpetrators
In a 2012 viral incident, “comedian” Daniel Tosh was excoriated for making rape “jokes” to a woman heckler. As a comic, I was asked about this a lot. I answered with a question of my own: Why did Tosh think it was okay - even funny - to make “jokes” about this heckler being raped? I answered that way because it was nicer than saying, maybe he thought it was funny because for his entire life, and continuing on past the incident, he has been bombarded by the proposition that joking about sexually violating people is hilarious, (especially if it happens to someone who looks like him). Hell, it’s only recently begun to be widely seen as not-funny when the object of the joke is a woman. And that’s progress, of course. But unfortunately, in the here and now, raping men is still considered a fucking knee-slapper by a sizable majority, who eat up the jokes by the ladle. So why not make rape jokes about a woman heckler? Even the consent-wokest of consent-woke shows in the age of MeToo doesn’t seem to think rape is that big a deal. Why should Daniel Tosh?
The answers to those questions might seem obvious to you or me; we regularly operate in high-information, highly-conscious bubbles like Daily Kos. Then again, if a show like Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, with all its seeming awareness and sensitivity, has such a massive blind spot they don’t even see their main character doing it, and no one called them out for it, maybe the answer isn’t so obvious on the left as I wish it were. Again, it’s not just that the show did it. It’s also that nobody said boo, instead giving the show props for all its awareness and sensitivity.
As a survivor of multiple sexual assaults, this doesn’t exactly make me feel seen. And I’m not alone by a long shot. This doesn’t just affect men who are survivors; it affects everybody. I don’t want to dive too deeply into this, as it’s not the focus of this diary, but as part of my effort to make the world a better, safer place for women, I regularly engage with and try to “de-radicalize” men either in or on the cusp of joining the “manosphere”. (Around here, incels are the poster boys for these men. The “manosphere” is basically seen as an oversimplified monolith by the left — and here I mean men of the left, since women are neither responsible for nor capable of fixing men — and pretty much dismissed en toto). And from my experience, one major reason these men don’t think rape is that big a deal is exactly this. Because they see the outrage at, say, Daniel Tosh, while joke after joke after joke about raping men sails right by, unacknowledged. Because Chilling Adventures of Sabrina sees what happened to Zelda as a horrible violation, and doesn’t see what happened to Harvey at all.
Obviously, my experiences affect the way I see this. But I don’t think I’m wrong in this instance to feel unseen, and I don’t think I’m wrong to say this is a problem that affects everybody. I go into the lion’s den, to talk to people I’m sad to say many progressive men think are beneath their notice. These people don’t waft in from the Misogyny Dimension; they’re recruited. They’re given something they don’t get elsewhere, especially from progressive men: support. community. validation. fellowship. All the woman-hating stuff? It’s fed to them almost incidentally. First you make the cultist, then you give them the handbook.
Like I said, I don’t want to get too deep in the weeds, here. My point is, my anger at watching a show whistle past what happened to me hasn’t changed my commitment to stopping sexual assault no matter what. But that’s me. Others let that anger drive them further into the arms of misogynist recruiters, and frankly, I’m not quick to blame them. Obviously, fuck their misogyny, and fuck about 95% of their worldview for being wrongheaded and dangerous, but I can’t tell them their anger in this particular case — which is my anger — is unjustified. That’s a problem, and I don’t think it’s just my problem.
Anyway, here are some links, if you’re struggling, and/or think you need help, and/or want to help:
About the RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673)
Find help at the NSVRC (National Sexual Violence Resource Center)
A .pdf guide for helping someone you know
More information on supporting someone you know, from the Rape Crisis Center webpage (RCCs are a network of support centers all over the US, and can provide help locally, and/or point you to resources in your area, like support groups.)
