During my day off, I stumbled upon the new MTV series Sweet/Vicious: two day-to-day girls out for sweet, bad ass revenge? Count me in. It portrays one of my wildest fantasies of being a campus vigilante. Currently, there are 3 episodes, all of which you can watch for free on MTV’s website. After binge watching all 3, I think it’s a series I will continue to watch as the season moves forward. Here’s what I like about it so far.
The characters seem realistic and/or are not your typical cookie cutter Hollywood roles. First of all, most of these characters don’t look like straight up supermodels like in a lot of college/high school based shows. You don’t have your typical sexy badass or manic pixie dream girl: you have a green-haired, weed smoking (and dealing) mess of a hacker-genius and a blue-collar sorority girl that kicks serious ass who is attempting to deal with her past/problems and make things right for not only herself, but others as well. Secondly, there are minority characters, and they are not just the background extras. Both of the best friends of the Sweet/Vicious duo are black, and neither are “stereotypically” black (aka the sassy black friend that makes snide remarks). The show is only 3 episodes in, but a handful of characters have already shown depth and I am keen on seeing how the relationship between the two main characters plays out.
Most importantly, this show highlights the hell out of rape culture, especially college rape culture. Catfishing, problems within the Greek system and trauma are some of the things that have already been covered in the show so far. Even though rape culture is the main theme of this show, the topic of racial inequality has also been touched on and I’m going to assume it will be a recurring theme the in the future.
Has there been a show that blatantly talks about rape culture all the while having two girls team up to serve justice and help others girls? I’ve never heard of one. To see the kind of thing that I have legit fantasied about come to life as a TV show is something I never knew I needed. As a feminist who studies the media, I pray that this show does well. Having this show become mainstream can help people to talk more openly about the prevalent issue that is rape culture and hopefully it can give more attention to how serious rape culture actually is in places that seem just wave it off as no big deal.
Yes, in places the show can be corny and some of the relationships make me cringe, but overall the concept for this show is so fresh, interesting and exciting, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
