Warning - gets kind of personal, maybe not a fun read. I'd have emailed it directly to any of the show's writers if I could have found the contact info.
I watch the show, not on a regular basis, but when I do with a religious intensity. It's a kind of catharsis for me, as an in-the-closet survivor, to see people surviving, being honored, being supported and the detectives fighting for them. So it's a very personal experience, almost a therapy, and even though I know it's just a TV show I take it very personally.
One thing about it bothers me - the fact that there are no survivors on the team. Olivia was assaulted several times, but makes it a point of pride to say she was never actually raped. In the last episode I watched on Hulu, detective Benson was awarded custody of a baby boy who was rescued from a kiddy porn operation. There were older children in the ring as well, but Olivia's charge happens to be the one who was too young to have been raped. Well, as a survivor of foster care, I really wish Olivia would adopt a young child who was raped. I really wish they'd show that on this show - all the drama, the pain, and the resiliency of a child who has seen the worst and still is that - a child. It's a real way they could incorporate the survivor experience into the show in a more realistic way - it's sad to say, but the fact is there is a lot more rape in most of our lives than TV makes it seem, and no one is acknowledging the pain of the closet survivors, the quiet struggle to just be normal afterward. Statistically, one in five people are survivors of rape - there's a survivor in just about every family, and it can be a real challenge to navigate the aftermath. Think of all the opportunity for drama, and for hope - Olivia trying to figure out how to mother a child big enough to speak of nightmares, and to have learned to love independence and fight every form of control. How does Olivia negotiate her natural protectiveness and need to help people with a child who does not want to feel dependent on anyone? Would there be a time when her kid was afraid to go to sleep, and she exhaustedly tells him or her that there's no such thing as monsters - because once you have a kid and realize he or she is pretty much a normal kid, you might forget from time to time what it is that makes them so afraid and so angry at being told what to do. How does she come to terms with the fact that something bad happened to her kid, when she might prefer to forget it? Would there come a moment when she realized that in not talking about the abuse, her child was not protecting him or herself, but Olivia - that the child wanted to talk about it, was ok talking about, was ok to begin with, because survival is a thing you can learn to live with?
I want to see it engrained in the fabric of the show, not as a sporadic nod, but as a continual affirmation - that rape happens to very normal people, that even if the worst things happen to you, you can still live and excel and be yourself. I want to see the drama that I went through with my parents after they adopted me. One of whom was a cop, the other of whom is a nurse, both very nurturing and protective, neither of whom was at all comfortable talking about or acknowledging what I'd gone through. I kept silent about all my memories to protect them, but every time they tried to take care of me I felt the urge to throw them off. I didn't ever want to be treated like someone weak and fragile, though that is the way people are prone to treat survivors. There is a weakness and fragility in me because of what I've survived, but what a survivor needs more than pity is respect. Surviving means you know how much you can take, and being treated like someone who can break is kind of a disavowal of all you've already been through, kind of this insinuation that you're weak when the most important thing in the world to you is to not feel weak. There's so much more scope for rich and human drama if her kid was one of the raped ones instead of the lucky one who wasn't.
I watch the show, not on a regular basis, but when I do with a religious intensity. It's a kind of catharsis for me, as an in-the-closet survivor, to see people surviving, being honored, being supported and the detectives fighting for them. So it's a very personal experience, almost a therapy, and even though I know it's just a TV show I take it very personally.
One thing about it bothers me - the fact that there are no survivors on the team. Olivia was assaulted several times, but makes it a point of pride to say she was never actually raped. In the last episode I watched on Hulu, detective Benson was awarded custody of a baby boy who was rescued from a kiddy porn operation. There were older children in the ring as well, but Olivia's charge happens to be the one who was too young to have been raped. Well, as a survivor of foster care, I really wish Olivia would adopt a young child who was raped. I really wish they'd show that on this show - all the drama, the pain, and the resiliency of a child who has seen the worst and still is that - a child. It's a real way they could incorporate the survivor experience into the show in a more realistic way - it's sad to say, but the fact is there is a lot more rape in most of our lives than TV makes it seem, and no one is acknowledging the pain of the closet survivors, the quiet struggle to just be normal afterward. Statistically, one in five people are survivors of rape - there's a survivor in just about every family, and it can be a real challenge to navigate the aftermath. Think of all the opportunity for drama, and for hope - Olivia trying to figure out how to mother a child big enough to speak of nightmares, and to have learned to love independence and fight every form of control. How does Olivia negotiate her natural protectiveness and need to help people with a child who does not want to feel dependent on anyone? Would there be a time when her kid was afraid to go to sleep, and she exhaustedly tells him or her that there's no such thing as monsters - because once you have a kid and realize he or she is pretty much a normal kid, you might forget from time to time what it is that makes them so afraid and so angry at being told what to do. How does she come to terms with the fact that something bad happened to her kid, when she might prefer to forget it? Would there come a moment when she realized that in not talking about the abuse, her child was not protecting him or herself, but Olivia - that the child wanted to talk about it, was ok talking about, was ok to begin with, because survival is a thing you can learn to live with?
I want to see it engrained in the fabric of the show, not as a sporadic nod, but as a continual affirmation - that rape happens to very normal people, that even if the worst things happen to you, you can still live and excel and be yourself. I want to see the drama that I went through with my parents after they adopted me. One of whom was a cop, the other of whom is a nurse, both very nurturing and protective, neither of whom was at all comfortable talking about or acknowledging what I'd gone through. I kept silent about all my memories to protect them, but every time they tried to take care of me I felt the urge to throw them off. I didn't ever want to be treated like someone weak and fragile, though that is the way people are prone to treat survivors. There is a weakness and fragility in me because of what I've survived, but what a survivor needs more than pity is respect. Surviving means you know how much you can take, and being treated like someone who can break is kind of a disavowal of all you've already been through, kind of this insinuation that you're weak when the most important thing in the world to you is to not feel weak. There's so much more scope for rich and human drama if her kid was one of the raped ones instead of the lucky one who wasn't.
