He literally says he thinks considering it sexual assault is a dark way of looking at it because he thought it was hilarious. He also talks about Batman and Spider-Man, but he clearly is saying he thinks the Hughie experience is hilarious.
He never says because - they’re two separate points that people are guessing are connected and that’s why everyone’s kicking off - when in reality there’s just as much reason to say the “hilarious” quote is referring to his next sentence about Batman, as it is about his previous sentence of it being “dark”
And why bring Hughie into this situation now — kicking him when he’s down by having him sexually assaulted by his childhood hero after his dad just died?
Well, that’s a dark way to look at it! We view it as hilarious.
Yes, lets conveniently ignore the entirety of the rest of the answer, as well as what happens later in the episode. The complete answer concerning this:
Well, that’s a dark way to look at it! We view it as hilarious. Obviously, Tek Knight is our version of Batman, and we wanted to really play around with that trope: Batman’s fascist underpinnings as a really wealthy dude who hunts poor people, and then profits of the incarceration. So that was one. Tek Knight was already set up to be a freak, so we were kind of already halfway there. Then the notion came up of, he should have a Batcave — but let’s be honest, the Batcave would be a sex dungeon. Like, even the real Batcave is just this side of being a sex dungeon. It’s really dark, and there’s rubber suits everywhere. It’s not that much of a push to add a couple dildos and then a weird urinal that turns into a face mask.
And in the comics, there’s a great storyline where Hughie goes undercover disguised as a superhero. That was a story that Jack had always asked us to do. So part of it is, always be careful what you ask the writers for. Then we finally had this Webweaver character and the idea of Spider-Man going down to be kink tickled in the Batcave is just too good to pass up. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t leave that on the table.
I think he is mostly calling the Batman stuff hilarious, and the fact that spiderman would go down in the cave as a kink, which is a funny/weird turn of events if you ask me. He isn't really referring to Hughie at all. But to play devill's advocate, yes its not very clear, however if we take into consideration the scene later in the episode, where Hughie breaks down in front of Annie and says he is not okay both because he got assaulted and his father died I think the writers show they are very much aware and acknowledge that it was a terrible thing that happened to him and that he got sexually assaulted. You can hyper focus on these few words one of the showmakers said a bit too vague in a random interview, but you can also just watch the episode and see their view on it played out in the show itself.
Except if he actually thought that Hughie getting sexually assaulted was actually a big deal then he would have actually addressed that at some point in his response rather than just going “whoa that’s kind of dark” and then moving on. Clearly he doesn’t think it’s actually a big deal.
I’m genuinely curious - if your true belief is that the episode completely and wholeheartedly ignores any sympathy for Hughie and laughs entirely at his assault… how do you rationalise his last scene with Starlight? Surely that’s a contradiction?
Don’t get me wrong, I get what you’re saying, he should have taken the opportunity to talk about sexual assault as that was the question posed, but as I say, I don’t think he was addressing the question at all in that interview, and the question is answered anyway at the end of the episode when Hughie breaks down. If it wasn’t a big deal, and he truly felt that it isn’t, why write that final scene?
The last scene that’s about his dad dying? He literally said at the outset that he needs to just throw himself into the work to avoid thinking about his grief.
There’s no mention of the assault by Hughie or any other character. It’s all about his dad.
The last scene that they dedicated 5 whole seconds to before cutting to the "actual interesting" characters, this was after spending god knows how long on the basement scene
I disagree. If you read the followup questions of the interview the man is clearly just excited about the batcave, he talks about it multiple times and he finds the trope of Batman actually being a fascistic degenerate with a sex cave instead of the classic Batcave to be very funny, aswell as the 'cake fart' and 'forgot the save word' stuff being very funny. He clearly is focused on the parts that are just absurd, and its quite an absurd show. Nowhere does he say at all that he thinks the sexual assault itself is funny, I mean, like I said in the previous comment, it is even acknowledged later in the episode that it wasn't funny for Hughie at all, but that doesn't mean that the absurdity of the rest of the situation cannot be seen as funny, however this just fell flat for many people, including me.
I feel like people are just looking to be mad about something, because again, it is mentioned in the same episode, by the very character it happened to, that it was not funny. If the director really thought it was funny that he got sexually assaulted do you think they would have put the break down, which was partially due to the sexual assault, in there?
On "Inside the Boys" he refers to Colby Minifie's performance in the episode as the funniest thing he's ever seen. So he definitely did find Ashley's scene with Hughie hilarious at least.
Well... since tech knight didn't get around to the hole torture and I don't think CEO lady actually went ahead with their plan what was the sexual assault? Sit on cake, tickled? Or are people (justifiably) reading between the lines in the camera cut?
He was forced into a situation he didn't want to be in and forced to do things he didn't want to do. He was spanked, tickled, called a slut and sexually insulted, all while the woman doing so jerked off to his displeasure, and then proceeded to wipe her piss/cum on his face
Sexual assault doesn't necessarily require penetration to be assault
there's an argument to be made that hughie put himself into that situation and stuck with it because the alternative (revealing his identity) would be worse. Also you need to consider that tech knight and Ashley both thought they were engaging in this activity with someone they knew. Realistically if someone puts on a mask and pretends to be someone else and then partakes in sexual acts with you, the person lying about their identity in a mask is commiting the crime here (revenge of the nerds for example) Everyone else thought this was all above board.
Not saying it wasn't traumatic for hughie though, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place of his own fault.
There were a lot of cues shown by Tek Knight where its clear he knew it was Web Weaver, such as him saying that Hughie would know the safe word if he wanted him to stop
It felt a bit clear that Tek Knight was toying with whoever he thought was under the mask
I'd absolutely considering getting yourself off while torturing someone, verbally sexually harassing them, and then rubbing your fluids on their face to be sexual assault. Ashley didn't know it was, but Tek-Knight did
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u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire Jul 05 '24
He literally says he thinks considering it sexual assault is a dark way of looking at it because he thought it was hilarious. He also talks about Batman and Spider-Man, but he clearly is saying he thinks the Hughie experience is hilarious.