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Troy Cummings
Dr. Leontine Jefferies
English 101.0-76658
24 September 2020
Evaluation Essay
I May Destroy You or Make You Stronger
As sexual violence and rape culture are pushed to the forefront of television as a plot
device to make characters stronger, it’s common for series’ to illustrate damaging
misconceptions around sexual assault, and narratives that takes focus away from the survivors
and their feelings. Shifting the focus back to survivors by focusing on the aftermath of the attack
rather than the attack itself, is dramedy series, I May Destroy You.
Premiering on HBO and BBC-One on June 8, 2020 and completing its 12-part run on
July 14, 2020 the series is based on the personal experiences of sexual assault of its writer,
creator, co-director and lead actress, Michaela Coel. I May Destroy You focuses on Arabella
Essiedu (Coel), an up-and-coming Black London writer, with some measure of Twitter-fame,
who is drugged and raped the night before a deadline, now as the truth comes to her in brief,
devastating flashbacks, she works to seek justice, and to find a way to live her life anew (Slaton,
2020). Though Arabella is at the forefront of the series, she is supported by her two best friends,
aspiring actress Terry (Weruche Opia), and aerobics instructor Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), both of
whom have disturbing experiences of their own. I May Destroy You draws the one of the most
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nuanced portraits of sexual assault and its psychological fallout (Brown, 2020), as it explores the
themes of rape culture, consent, and recovery to dissect the different areas of sex, the people who
rape and the effects of rape on its survivors.
With depictions of rape in television dramas that often contribute to rape culture rather
than subvert it, it’s easy to understand why critics of the narrative have expressed concern that
highlighting rape culture makes “it harder to stop sexual violence, since it removes the focus
from the individual at fault, and seemingly mitigates personal responsibility for his or her own
actions” (Kitchens, 2014). However, I May Destroy You consistently illustrates how the
representation of rape culture is crucial to understanding our own social mores, especially in
connection with sexual relations.
In episode one, when Arabella is drugged, viewers see her alone, disoriented, and
stumbling around the bar, with people watching her and not stepping in. People deliberately
move out of her way to avoid interacting with her, and she is met with judging stares; she is later
raped in a bathroom stall. In the aftermath of her rape, when she finally tells Biagio, the man she
considers her boyfriend about the rape, he shames and blames her for her own assault, saying, “If
you had watched your drink, you wouldn’t have gotten raped,” reducing her to tears.
This episode illustrates how social mores such as these perpetuate rape culture and create
a real-world environment where rape is normalized. Putting the burden of safety on the potential
victims’ shoulders and blaming them when they don't succeed, punishes and silences survivors
for speaking out. And while rape culture doesn’t order perpetrators to rape, that it does make it
appealing and lowers the possibility rapists will be identified, arrested, and punished. The series
highlights how an understanding of rape culture and the behaviors that perpetuate it, can change
society’s conception of rape prevention.
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Part of the reason why I May Destroy You is so compelling is that it does not simply
portray sexual violence, it illustrates real-life lessons about consent. The series not only delivers
a nuanced perspective on consent, and on violations that many people may not realize are forms
of sexual assault (Westenfeld, 2020); not all of it as immediately readable as a violent rape, and
not always committed by obvious villains (Brown, 2020), but also depicts predators in different
environments, as well as the different ways that someone can be exploited for sexual purposes.
Throughout the series, we repeatedly see characters in the show lie to get people in bed or lie
once they have already started having sex.
Episode four offers at least two events where the survivors willingly engage in sex, but
that wasn’t enough for the perpetrators. Arabella meets Zain, a fellow author hired by her
publisher to help her write her book. As they grow closer, Arabella wants to have sex with Zain,
and he wants to have sex with her, too. As she willingly has sex with Zain, he removes the
condom she insisted he wear, without her knowledge, and proceeds to have sex with her. This
scene illustrates the act of “stealthing” (the non-consensual removal of a condom); a practice
most don’t even realize constitutes as sexual assault. In a concurrent scene, Kwame plans a
hook-up with a man he met on a dating app. The disconnect between them becomes clear, when
Kwame declines the man's request to have sex without a condom, but the two willingly have
consensual sex. When Kwame tries to leave, his man overpowers him, pins him face-down to the
bed, and forces Kwame into non-consensual sex.
Throughout this thought-provoking episode, viewers not only get to see one of the most
infrequently told stories - sexual assault involving two men, but are also educated on the shades
of gray that dominate sexual experiences such as: the violations of informed consent; consent
given once, is not consent given twice; deceit being a form of assault; the insufficiency of
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language around consent and sex; the different expectations of what sex will look like and how
the lack of nuance in consent structure allows people to take advantage and be taken advantage
of. The series’ exploration of consent hinges on the questions the characters struggle with: “What
does 'sex' mean to you?” and “What will you do if it means something different to me?”(Whiting,
2020), and compels both its characters and viewers to examine their own sexual experiences and
ask difficult questions around what constitutes fully consensual sex.
Alongside it’s actual depictions of assault, I May Destroy You dedicates a significant
amount of time to representing rape trauma and the reality of what a difficult mess healing looks
like. Often making viewers uncomfortable, the series covers the various emotions the characters
must deal with in order to reclaim their sense of autonomy. For example, Arabella’s journey to
recovery from rape is far from easy. In one of the scenes, Arabella mentions in meeting at her
publishers’ office, that she had just come from the police station where she reported that she had
been raped, and that Zain was the rapist. Like those around her in the scene, viewers are not
given a chance to react, as she minimizes it, and then the others minimize it, and then the viewers
are also inclined to minimize it (Bhandaram, 2020). In other instances, she’s displayed selfblame; when she flies to Italy to apologize to Biagio who blamed her for her assault because she
was too drunk, and when she is finally ready to accept and deal with what happened to her, she
takes on a feminist online persona and weaponizes her victimhood, even against her friends. This
depiction mirrors the ways in which real-life survivors internalize their trauma, undermine their
own experiences, and question their own memories.
Through Kwame’s subjectivity, the idea of who we allow to be victims is highlighted.
When Kwame goes to report the rape he survived, he is judged not only for his actions, but for
not knowing the name of the man who raped him. Like Kwame, viewers are confronted with the
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intersection of different prejudices of a criminal justice system that could not comprehend his
identity as a black gay man and discover the relative privilege the police give female survivors
like Arabella. Let down by an institution he thought would protect him, and trying to process his
own assault, his response is to give upon dating men and begins to date women. But
unfortunately, he finds himself in a position where he’s triggered into thinking about his assault.
This illustrates how rape and sexual assault survivors lose control over their own body,
over their own life; how one can’t control how they respond to life-changing events and trying to
find ways to feel a sense of power again makes sense to someone who feels powerless. As the
series unfolds, each character wrestles with the ways in which their actions have hurt others,
taking control of their own narrative, and try to pull themselves together after being assaulted each with varying results.
In the end, I May Destroy You keeps its promise. Through its poignant and bold dissection
of sexual assault, consent and recovery, I contend that the 12-part series shifts the focus back to
survivors and sparks nuanced conversations about rape and sexual assault. Potential viewers
shouldn't be scared off by the premise of a young woman and her friends dealing with the trauma
of sexual abuse (Lind-Westbrook, 2020), as I May Destroy You reinforces the importance of
using art as a vehicle to illustrate predatory behavior, the different forms of assault and the
horrors of rape, in order to raise awareness for how it affects its survivors and reduce the
frequency with which sexual assault occurs.
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Works Cited
Westenfeld, Adrienne. “Paapa Essiedu Felt a Sense of Responsibility in Showing a Sexual
Assault He'd Never Seen on TV.” Esquire, 20 Aug. 2020,
www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a32997892/i-may-destroy-you-episode-4-paapaessiedu-kwame-sexual-assault-interview/.
Bhandaram, Vishnupriya. “I May Destroy You: Discussing Trauma, Rape Culture and Coping,
with Focus on the HBO-BBC Series - Entertainment News, Firstpost.” Firstpost, Firstpost,
21 July 2020, www.firstpost.com/entertainment/i-may-destroy-you-discussing-traumarape-culture-and-coping-with-focus-on-the-hbo-bbc-series-8619711.html.
Brown, Pat. “Review: I May Destroy You Boldly Dissects Notions of Sexual Assault and
Consent.” Slant Magazine, 3 Oct. 2020, www.slantmagazine.com/tv/review-i-may-destroyyou-boldly-dissects-notions-of-sexual-assault-and-consent/.
Kitchens, Caroline. “RAINN, the Anti-Sexual-Violence Organization, Rejects 'Rape Culture'
Hysteria.” Time, Time, 20 Mar. 2014, time.com/30545/its-time-to-end-rape-culturehysteria/.
Lind-Westbrook, Jennifer. “Why HBO's I May Destroy You Is Getting Rave Reviews.”
ScreenRant, ScreenRant, 20 July 2020, screenrant.com/i-may-destroy-you-hbo-positivereviews-reason/.
Slaton, Joyce. “I May Destroy You - TV Review.” Common Sense Media: Ratings, Reviews, and
Advice, Common Sense Media, 8 June 2020, www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/imay-destroy-you.
Whiting, Amanda. “In 'I May Destroy You,' Consent Is More Than A Yes Or No Question.”
Bustle, Bustle, 30 June 2020, www.bustle.com/entertainment/in-i-may-destroy-youconsent-is-more-than-a-yes-no-question-27635872.