Rape-Revenge Television in the #MeToo Era: Proxy and Imagined Violence in Big Little Lies and I May Destroy You

Abstract

Rape-revenge narratives are no stranger to our screens. However, these stories take on new implications in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Originally a staple of exploitation cinema in the 1970s, rape-revenge narratives conventionally feature a survivor of rape who hunts down and brutally murders their rapist(s). However, the exact form these acts of violence take has shifted with changing sociocultural contexts. This article analyzes how rape-revenge television narratives in the #MeToo era opt for violence occurring on behalf of the survivor by a woman and/or abuse survivor (proxy violence) or through a fantasy sequence (imagined violence). Through an analysis of the series Big Little Lies (Kelley 2017–2019) and I May Destroy You (Coel 2020), I articulate how this redevelopment reveals changing cultural attitudes toward sexual violence embodied by the #MeToo movement. Ultimately, #MeToo-era rape-revenge television texts engage with past rape-revenge narratives and contemporary sociocultural contexts to participate in feminist discourses.