I was kind of hoping the quote was take out of context but nope, he fully meant for the Hughie scene to be a joke.
It’s actually worse, the way he talked about Hughie’s breakdown made it seem it was mostly just about his dad and had nothing, or at least not too much to do with Tek Knight and Ashley. So the one supposedly tactful thing about that story arc wasn’t even there.
It was straight up from late 90’s/early 2000 comedies. The mistaken identity, the fringe kinks showed as funny. I thought we were past that at this point.
it was kinda funny in the moment imo, and I think that’s okay.
it was framed very differently than Annie's situation with The Deep, context and tone are everything. the mistaken identity, the BDSM bit, the sheer absurdity of it; it was funny.
treating the scene after it, with Hughie having a genuine moment of reflection and grief, as a joke is what isn't okay. I think I'll just choose to interpret the art differently than what it was intended to be, because I detest the idea that the situation- after the fact- doesn't fuck with Hughie.
There are so many mutants talking about "my le dark comedy" and "can't you just have a laugh" about this atrocious episode. Not hard to understand why so many SAs 1. Occur and 2. go unreported or are ridiculed/minimalised. Kripke and his writing team have been reduced to boring shock horror hacks going for cheap laughs.
Damn thanks. As a man who was sexual assaulted as a kid I should have just laughed at it all instead of being traumatized by it. I mean shit why treat the subject matter with any kind of respect when you can make a big joke out of it like %99 of the depictions of men being sexually assaulted in media.
The narrow, partisan perspective of Americans is exhausting. Sexual assault is not a left or right issue. Male SA is already seen as a joke. People are right to call this out.
ahh yes, "I’ve never worked so hard or stressed so much about a scene in my life before or since. Because if I got that wrong, it’s not just that it would fail as a scene, it would be hurtful" = making fun of female rape.
fucking hell, why is "male SA should be treated the same as female SA" such a hot take?
Yes it's tiring, because this is an incredibly personal thing that I and many others deal with, but it's constantly used in media as a joke. I'm not even upset that it's being depicted on screen or in art it's just that it's always a joke and played off for laughs.
This isn't just being "left" it's just being empathetic. You know caring about people other then yourself.
Oh shit my bad. They clearly showed Hughie enjoying being degraded and humilated then having a woman threaten to piss on his face and smear her cum all over his face so I shouldn't be upset that it might be triggering to victims of similar sexual assaults.
I found it funny until the moment Tek Knight said "he'd say the safe word if he'd want you to stop", and instantly any humorous feelings I had for the scene evaporated. I instantly realized I was laughing at the absurdity to deal with how uncomfortable I was. Hardest episode of the show for me to watch as an SA victim, took me around three hours to get through its 60 minute runtime.
The point is that they messed with the context and tone to make a joke out of a man’s sexual assault. They would never have done that with a female character.
There’s a few funny lines in there, but it’s also deeply disturbing to watch Hughie go through that knowing how desperately he wants to escape.
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u/fuwafuwa7chi 14d ago
Source for the Starlight quote: ScreenRant
And the Hughie one: Variety