The Good Fight, following in the tradition of its parent TV show The Good Wife, is diving into stories ripped straight from the headlines.
The legal TV drama - fast tracked on SBS - recently explored the issue of sexual consent with a storyline centred around the ruthless high-stakes world of reality television and managed to neatly define this controversial and often misunderstood concept.
In fact, consent is so misunderstood that an explainer as a metaphor for sex went viral.
In episode three of season two, the firm where senior partner Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) now works takes on the case of Melanie, a reality show contestant suing a television network after claiming she was sexually assaulted on the set of the dating series.
The character is filmed having sex in a jacuzzi with fellow contestant Blake. The only problem is that she was drunk and she can't remember consenting to it. Further complicating matters, she claims she was plied with alcohol and denied food by the show's producers.
The Good Fight creators Robert and Michelle King have admitted the storyline was on the real-life US show The Bachelor in Paradise and in light of #MeToo, offered a timely opportunity to explain sexual consent.
The episode deliberately muddies the water exploring how contestants Blake and Melanie interact within the jostling frat-party coercion of the television series, including their plan to 'hook up' in front of the cameras to make sure they aren't eliminated.
In this environment, Blake feels that he has received consent from Melanie. Speaking at a deposition, Blake defends his actions: “I didn’t rape her. She was into it, I am not the kind of guy who does something like that.”
Afterwards he confronts Melanie, telling her “It was a drunken hook-up.”
"I have zero memory of that,” she says.
“Well I do,” he retorts.
And in the next breath, Melanie explains to Blake exactly why it was assault and in doing so provides a quick explainer for viewers at home.
Melanie...the reality show contestant from 'Chicago Penthouse'. Source: Supplied
(Spoiler alert)
It's only at the end of the show, the viewers see secret un-aired footage of Melanie passed out on a nearby couch and the show's producer – the one who denied her food and plied her with alcohol - carrying her back to the jacuzzi so Blake can continue having sex with her on camera.
Interestingly, Melanie is going after the TV network, not Blake, as she believes he is a victim in this scenario too.
“What interested us is the swirling debate around consent, both in colleges and also in a lot of areas of the world,” Robert King told the . “It was the idea of these kind of gray areas where it’s unclear where the line lies … especially if the woman didn’t remember what happened.”
As well as the issue of consent, the episodes exposes the blurry ethical line these shows traverse contracting fame-hungry young people who become collateral damage in commercial television's quest for ratings and revenue, and the public appetite for titillation and exposure.
The show's exploration of how the law and wider society frames 'guilt' and the 'good victim' as well as how and when consent can be real and meaningful in relation to women's actual lived experiences, puts this episode in this year's top picks.
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