<em>I May Destroy You </em>Explodes the Idea of Consent
In the fifth episode of I May Destroy You, Arabella (played by Michaela Coel), an up-and-coming, internet-famous writer, explains to her literary agents and a sharklike publisher, Susy (Franc Ashman), that she’s just come from the police station, because she was raped. Susy’s eyes flicker with concern, and then burn with interest. “You’d better get going, missy,” she tells Arabella. “I want to see that story.”
The most obvious way to interpret is as a brilliant, explosive consideration of modern sexual mores, and of how flimsy the line can be between gratification and exploitation. (As Lili Loofbourow in in 2018, “The world is disturbingly comfortable with the fact that women sometimes leave a sexual encounter short story had probed the month before.) But Coel, who created the show in part based on , is also aware of how exploitation can play out in art—how one woman’s traumatic experience can easily be manipulated and transformed into sales figures or a social-media storm. Or a television series. As a character, Arabella is brash and irresistible and sexually fearless. As a woman, she’s also inherently vulnerable when she sleeps with strangers. And as a black woman, she’s exposed on yet another level, whether to companies seeking out people of color for online kudos or to fans who desperately want her to mirror their own under-portrayed perspectives.
