It’s been more than a week since The Newsroom’s controversial episode Oh Shenandoah, gave viewers a very uncomfortable rape-related plot, but the stir it caused still lingers. Like a conversation you wish you never had, what was said and portrayed in the episode has left a mark.

If you haven’t seen the penultimate episode of HBO’s drama The Newsroom, then what you missed was a very disturbing campus rape plot that not only seemed unnecessary and sensationalist, but also insensitive having aired days after the Rolling Stone magazine University of Virginia rape article scandal.

Created by acclaimed director Aaron Sorkin, the drama hasn’t been popular with both critics and viewers recently. Oh Shenandoah wasn’t just a poorly written episode; it was an episode that struck a note with many who advocate against sexual assault.

In the episode, The Newsroom’s fictional broadcasting news service Atlantis Cable News wants to reach a younger audience, and therefore sends one of their producers to cover a campus rape story. A young woman who is a student at Princeton University, runs a website where victims can anonymously name their perpetrators. Having been a victim herself, she believes that by doing so she is giving a voice to a community of victims who fear their assaulters but still wish to warn any future victims.

ACN sends their producer Don to reach out to the victim and ask her to be interviewed live about the website, in the presence of some of the accused rapists listed on her site, including the man who she accused of assaulting her. He finds the young college student and shows up at her dorm, only to convince her not to appear at the show because she will be criticized and the men being accused will be unfairly tried. He believes she may be telling the truth, because she does not seem to have reason to lie. He also goes on to say that the men accused seem sketchy, but that he was “morally obligated” to side with the accused, because they are not proven guilty until they have been tried by America’s judicial system.

After having an emotional discussion that leaves the young woman in tears, he convinces her not to appear on their show and goes back to his team at ACN, only to tell them he could not find her and therefore the story is dead.

And just like that, a very uncomfortable story line was dropped, and The Newsroom moved on to another drama.

It was a very disturbing scene, and unlike the fictional characters of ACN, it was not forgotten by many. The episode gathered much criticism from television critics and viewers alike, and the debate of how to properly report sexual assault, was under the public eye again.

The disturbing part is not the fact that the writers have portrayed a character who manipulates a rape victim, or sympathizes with rapists, but the fact that the writers seem to share this attitude. After all, writing about it is fine if you are using it as a metaphor to suggest that it is immoral, but it is unlikely that this was what The Newsroom was trying to do. Especially considering how inappropriately timed the episode was.

Since the episode aired days after the Rolling Stone article scandal, it left many wondering how to address the shaky subject of sexual assault, and how victims report these assaults.

Though from a legal stance point, the fictional Don makes a valid albeit insensitive point, the way the writers of The Newsroom handled that episode was just insensitive.

Former writer Alena Smith that was in the writer’s room when this episode was being brainstormed, tried to debate with the other writers that they were approaching a sensitive topic in a harsh manner, but she was banned from the room. It seemed that the writers of this episode wanted to sink their teeth into a scandalous timely topic, and their intent was to stir controversy and cheap drama. But these are people’s lives were talking about. Flirting with controversy for the sake of being relevant and shocking just further proves that the handling of situations as fragile as this should not be taken lightly.

In a way, this single episode was a way to victim blame. The mishandling of the Rolling Stone article was already a perfect example of a victim possibly lying about the assault and her perpetrators. One of the most popular magazines in the world published a woman’s testimony of a gang rape, without fact checking, and therefore possibly publishing an incident partially, or wholly, made up story.

Victims may now be even more fearful of coming forward about their assaults because one woman might have publicly fabricated a campus rape. So to have an episode air days after, only to criticize how victims might choose to name their assaulters, is just another finger of suspicion pointed at the faces of actual victims. It may have only been one mere episode, but it is an example of how America does not know how to handle sexual assault. Though we offer the medical support needed, we do not know as a society how to offer the emotional support a victim will need.

Because America does not know how to handle a rare incident of false accusations, so rare that only 0.6 percent of rape accusations are actually found to be false. We seem to not know how to handle any accusations at all, whether true or not, and to publicly use this as a plot for a television episode, only shows that our sensitivity can be easily reflected in an episode meant for entertainment.

Maybe if television programs stopped using rape as plot-fillers for episodes, then the subject could be taken more seriously.

Though this is a topic with a large gray area, it does not give producers the excuse to feed viewers “ifs” and “maybes” over a topic so fragile. Rolling Stone already caused enough damage as it is, please don’t add to the mess with more stories like Oh Shenandoah.

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