We all know that rape jokes are never funny, but apparently, the writers of "Resident Alien" didn't get the memo, because they decided it was a good idea to throw in a graphic sexual assault scene in the sitcom that features their main character as the assailant, and is not only crass but also makes a mockery of sexual violence and the trauma it causes.
You might expect this kind of thing from a sitcom that aired in the 60s alongside blackface and blatant misogny but not from a show in 2021. So why are more people not concerned about this?
Syfy network's new sitcom "Resident Alien", a 30 minute per episode show that follows the life of Harry, an alien who crash-landed on earth and with no way back to his home planet assumes the identity of a small Colorado town's doctor despite having no idea how to be a doctor and having to use google on his phone to figure out how to treat his human patients.
The acting and writing is decent, but the show is clearly meant to be brainless entertainment and not one to cover deep subjects or be thought-provoking, which is what made it pretty surprising that the show decided to cover a subject as serious and deep as sexual assault.
In the show's second episode the main character Harry, our impromptu doctor has to perform a pelvic exam on a female patient, while between her legs beneath the drape he goes to google what exactly a pelvic exam is, and while doing so accidentally takes a picture of the women's exposed genitals.
On the surface, this might seem like a lighthearted joke, but in reality, this would be considered sexual assault and a horrible violation.
As a survivor of sexual assault, when I turn on a mindless sitcom about an alien I may expect there to be a couple of crass one-liners, but what I do not expect is to see a graphic sexual assault scene played off as a joke.
I went into watching this show knowing the assault scene was coming and having already seen the commentary about it on Twitter and only watching it to write this piece and it was still hard for me to watch and a bit triggering, had I been an unsuspecting viewer there for laughs who didn't know it was coming... Yikes, that's the kind of thing that sends people into full-blown PTSD episodes.
When you turn on a crime drama like "Law and Order" or "Criminal Minds", or a science fiction drama like "The Walking Dead", you know what you are signing up to watch, you know the content is going to be about dark subjects and might have triggering graphic content, but when you turn on a sitcom, a historically safe form of media for survivors of sexual violence and abuse, you aren't expecting to watch someone get sexually assaulted.
Some shows use scenes of sexual violence to start conversions and bring up thought-provoking points that raise awareness for the issue at hand, this is the only role sexual violence scenes should ever play in media, they should never be reduced to a cheap joke. "Resident Alien" didn't do any of that, and broke every unspoken rule in the book when it comes to writing a sexual assault scene into any piece of media.
The sudden act of abuse is jarring and shocking and not in a good way.
The way the scene was played off and the fact that nobody has a conversion with Harry about what he'd done makes it seem almost like sexual assault is a joke to the people writing this show. But I am not laughing.
And worst of all hardly anybody is talking about it, other than a few Twitter users who were upset with it, for the most part, the show's viewership seems to see nothing wrong with the act of sexual violence played off as a harmless joke, the only media outlet to really call the scene what it was is Bleeding Cool but even then they leave the sexual assault part of their title and opt to say the show turned pelvic exams into a joke rather than turning sexual assault into a joke.
Real-life doctors have actually taken inappropriate pictures of their patients in vulnerable positions just like Harry did in the show, like Nikita Levy, a Johns Hopkins gynecologist who took inappropriate pictures of his patients using hidden cameras in pens and other objects. His disgusting actions caused irreversible harm and trauma to his patients, several of his victims report falling into paranoia, panic, and self-harm as a result of his actions, one woman saying she has panic attacks when she even sees a male doctor, another says she uses a smartphone app to detect hidden cameras in doctor's offices and public restrooms.
Other examples of predatory medical professionals include Paul Becton Jr. an Arkansas doctor who also took pornographic photos of his victims, and George Tyndall, a gynecologist who practiced at the University of Southern California for almost 30 years, who was charged with 18 counts of sexual assault and has maybe thousands of victims, and of course we can't forget Larry Nassar.
Photographing patients is not a joke, it isn't funny, it's a violation and form of sexual abuse. Why this dimwitted show thought it could get away with making a mockery of the pain and trauma victims of this behavior feel I don't know.
Why didn't any of the writers, directors, or production crew of this show take issue with this and say something?
A lot goes into creating a tv show, even one as stupid as this one, it takes a crew of hundreds of writers, storyboard artists, designers, directors, and network executives and that's all just all pre-production, yet somehow all of them looked at this scene and thought "this is fine".
And that doesn't even count all the actors, makeup artists, and camera crew that worked on the scene while it was being filmed, and editors and special effects folk who worked on it post-production, and the network executives who apporched the episode to air. All that to say a whole lot of people watched this scene unfold and not one of them thought "hey guys, maybe we shouldn't make a mockery of sexual assault and trivialize a very real and serious issue on a sitcom?"
After the scene is over it isn't talked about at all, and the only consequence Harry faces is some sideways glances from coworkers and patients. In reality Harry would hopefully be in jail or a very long time or at least banned from the medical profession.
One might argue that this is fiction, and not even good, realistic fiction, so what's the big deal? Everyone knows it's crass and in poor taste, that's the point, and nobody thinks this behavior is actually acceptable in real life, it's just sitcom logic. But the issue is whether we like it or not the media we consume and pop culture is inherently a part of our culture, and to some degree informs our thoughts and views. If a 13-year-old fan of "Resident Alien" sees a joke about sexual assault made in their favorite show they'll be more inclined to think that jokes of that nature are acceptable, or to feel sexual assault isn't "that big of a deal". This narrative could easily create a new generation of rape apologists.
And I can already see the next time a predatory doctor inevitably does this shit again somebody is going to respond to the accusation by saying something along the lines of "oh you mean like in that one episode of "Resident Alien"? haha". Even with the me too movement sexual assault is still a very stigmatized issue, and physician sexual assault is even more stigmatized to the point where many survivors never come forward against their abusers.
Phyiscan sexual assault is the dirty little secret locked in the medical professions basement.
Many predatory medical providers face no consequences at all for their actions, and their victims often never get justice in addition to being victims of harassment, bullying, and stigma, and oftentimes being used as the butt of the joke.
Unfourtnely many medical dramas on tv are guilty of romanticizing or glorifying problematic behavior from medical professionals, some of the worst ones include "The Good Doctor" where the fictional medical professionals often use manipulation and coercion to convince patients to do treatment they originally didn't want, and "Chicago Med" which glorified a doctor ignoring a DNR, and actually featured an episode in which the ethics of forcing a minor into an invasive rape kit exam, and sedating her and doing it anyway against her will was a seriously considered option.
However questionable the morals of these medical shows are, and inaccurately they portray medicine I've never seen anything quite so inappropriate and crass as "Resident Alien" and their normalization of sexual assault. Most shows would have at least somewhat addressed the inappropriateness of the situation even if they didn't do it well or take the subject matter seriously enough, this one didn't even try. They casually threw a sexual assault scene in a sitcom that comes on at 8 P.M, had their main character who we as an audience are supposed to like and root for be the assailant, and then played it off as a joke.
This is why I love the Office, the Office would never.
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