The subject of rape has never been an easy one to tackle. When the hit HBO series decided to incorporate it into its storyline in season 5, a lot of fans fumed and decided to give up on the show altogether.
Now, "Jessica Jones," a series about a former super heroine turned private investigator is navigating through the same waters as well, and show runner Melissa Rosenberg has been extremely careful how to treat the topic with respect.
She decided not to show the rape scene and instead imply that it had already happened on the screen. At the same time, Rosenberg lamented how the aftermath of rape scenes are always about the men.
"For me, if I never see an actual rape on a screen again it'll be too soon. It's becoming ubiquitous, it's become lazy storytelling and it's always about the impact it has on the men around them," she told The Hollywood Reporter during an interview. "It's like, 'Oh his wife was raped and murdered so he's going to go out and destroy the world.' That's so often what it's about, just this kind of de rigueur storytelling to spice up often male characters."
Rosenberg considers it "damaging" and "hideous messaging," so for "Jessica Jones," the show runner said that "the events have already happened and this is really about the impact of rape on a person and about healing, survival, trauma and facing demons. To me it's much richer territory."
The show did not want to come across too preachy about the subject of rape as well. "We didn't want to tackle it as an 'issue,'" said Rosenberg. "Nobody wants to be preached to and I have no interest in doing any preaching, so it was really just informing her character."
Rosenberg is all about female empowerment, so they made sure that their protagonist does not need to doll herself up in order to get things done.
"One of the things I said out from the beginning is, 'I never need to see Jessica Jones in high heels and a miniskirt using her feminine wiles to get information out of a suspect.' Any time you have a woman in the role of cop, detective or something to that effect, one of the first things they do is put her in heels and nice, tight black dress and send her out to go and get the information.," she said. "Again, it's just frickin' lazy. Jessica Jones is just not someone who would ever do that. She'd beat it out of them first, that's actually a much more effective method."
