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#MeToo on TV: popular feminism and episodic sexual violence

ABSTRACT After the tremendous response to actor Alyssa Milano’s 2017 #MeToo tweet, U.S. television series began incorporating explicit #MeToo episodes. As feminist scholars amply demonstrate, television has a poor history of portraying feminist activism—especially sexual assault activism, often dramatizing rape myths that undermine feminism and survivors. In this analysis, we draw on sexual assault activism and #MeToo scholarship to survey television’s #MeToo episodes. Specifically, we demonstrate how television’s popular fictional genres—from sitcoms to medical dramas—portray sexual violence and #MeToo activism, attending to (1) whether the episode individualizes sexual violence or reveals its structural nature, (2) how the episode portrays disclosures of sexual violence, and (3) how the episode portrays bystanders’ responses to sexual violence. Ultimately, our analysis traces the influence of popular feminism, demonstrating significant progress in the ways episodic programming portrays sexual harm.