The criminal justice system has been anything but just to sexual assault survivors. So it would seem counterintuitive that so many women find comfort in watching the long-running SVU — but there's a good reason for it.
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Every few years, a writer comes along to extol the virtues of NBC’s police procedural Law & Order SVU, which had its 27th season premiere last Thursday. Praising a copaganda show may seem strange at a time like this, when we’ve become increasingly aware of racial profiling and police brutality, but there’s something so comforting and reassuring about how Mariska Hargitay’s Captain Olivia Benson sticks her neck out to save sexual assault victims and puts away perps — she’s become something of a superhero for Gen X and millennial women.
One might think such a premise, especially at a time like this, would be triggering enough to require a frothy Bravo palate cleanser, so why, you might ask, do so many women cozy up to a TV series devoted to police solving “especially heinous” crimes? All you have to do is glance at a three-month-old Law & Order SVU comfort-watch Reddit thread with almost 1,500 likes (yes, such a thing exists) to understand the appeal.
“Honestly, it’s a comfort show for me because 9.5 times out of 10 the abuser goes to jail and justice is served. Unlike the real world,” wrote Jmabeebiz2.
Eisheth13 hits the point home:
“I think a lot of women (self-included) have been through assaults and things like what are depicted in the show, but have either been too afraid of law enforcement’s reactions to actually press charges, or they’ve tried to press charges and been met with victim-blaming or overwhelming amounts of bureaucracy. SVU is comforting because the victims are believed and the ‘bad guy’ is almost always caught. Even if the ‘bad guy’ isn’t brought to justice, there’s a whole team dedicated to finding him and making sure he can’t hurt anyone else, and that’s something that a lot of us never get to experience IRL, so seeing it in a fictional TV show is comforting in a way.”
It’s true that many survivors of sexual assault only see justice on TV. According to RAINN, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted every 74 seconds, and for every 1,000 sexual assaults, 50 reports lead to arrests, 28 cases lead to felony convictions, and only 25 perpetrators are sentenced to incarceration.
That despicable little fact, and the crimes you read about in the headlines, are what inspire SVU’s writers and showrunners — and they have enough material for the show to go another 27 years. Its storylines are often “ripped from the headlines” and we can often guess which ones: “I’m Going To Make You A Star,” from 2019, was an episode about an actress who accuses a high-powered media mogul of attempted rape, obviously inspired by the Harvey Weinstein case. Another episode called “Unstoppable,” from October 2016, was about a politician (played by Veep’s Gary Cole) whose campaign implodes when several women make damaging accusations against him.
In the midst of such real-life mayhem, watching a woman like Captain Benson dole out the swift hand of justice when survivors are shown time and again that there is no such thing goes a long way in making women feel seen. “With all the laws being rolled back, and more and more women feeling a sense of wrongdoing, having the ability to escape from this reality into a world where a woman is very powerful, in control, and can bring people to justice, gives us a sense of collective sigh and, for a moment, takes us out of our experience where we are feeling like it’s harder and harder to have justice and retribution, and the ability to fight back for all those things,” says Monica O’Neal, Boston-based clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and Harvard Medical School lecturer.
“There’s a psychological defense — defense meaning Anna Freud’s way of trying to understand how our mind works — called ‘undoing,’ which is a thing that people with trauma typically do,” explains O’Neal. “In some ways, usually it is unconscious. They revisit aspects of their trauma as a way to have a different outcome as a means to undo it. Watching this show and seeing somebody be convicted, probably is, on some psychological level, a means of undoing trauma.”
This also relates to how much American women have come to love true crime — a preference so embedded in our ethos that there’s an SNL sketch about how women love to unwind by watching their “murder shows.” Last year, New York Times columnist Jessica Grose argued women watch true crime as a means of self-protection. “We are usually less physically powerful than men are, and we think that by understanding the psychology of criminals, we can better avoid them,” she writes. “It wasn’t until I was processing my anger about America electing a man who was found liable for sexual abuse and nominating people who were accused of sex trafficking to run the Justice Department that I could finally explain to myself why I find the genre so irresistible.”
She goes on to explain how much witnessing the unwavering dedication and determination of those seeking justice for the victims they care about reassures her: “My favorite true crime does not just show good people doing their jobs. It also celebrates the emotional and intuitive; victims, including their families, often have hunches about perpetrators that elude law enforcement and defy norms.”
Because Olivia Benson was conceived from a sexual assault, and has herself faced down assault, avenging each victim isn’t just business for the police captain — it’s personal. Better than any male cop ever could, Benson understands how it feels to be violated, and what it means to have that violation haunt every breath you take. I don’t know whether it’s the confident, capable swagger she brings to the role, or the way her deep, honeyed voice promises victims her protection, or a trustworthy sense of honor they see reflected in her deep brown eyes, but ever since SVU’s series premiere episode, “Payback,” which first aired on September 20, 1999, Hargitay immediately made us fall in love with Benson.
For Hargitay to continue this role for 27 seasons is something of a feat. A recent study called “Boxed In: Women On Screen and Behind The Scenes” from San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film revealed that only 9% of female characters are in their 50s. For seven straight years, Hargitay earned Emmy nominations, finally winning in 2006 for “911,” an episode in which her character ditches an after-work date to spend the night on an emergency call from a young girl being held against her will. The level of devotion to justice for women at any cost depicted in that episode is exemplary of the kind of heroism we long for, but rarely see.
Inhabiting a role this intense for such a sustained period of time has had to have an impact on Hargitay — and indeed it has. She has been using her platform to support victims of sexual violence. After learning the staggering statistics of sexual assault survivors in this country, Hargitay created The Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004, an organization that seeks to transform society’s response to sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse by prioritizing survivors’ healing through awareness and community building, policy and advocacy, and healing programs. In the founder’s message she penned for the Joyful Heart Foundation site, Hargitay says she receives “thousands” of fan letters disclosing their stories of abuse. “I remember my breath going out of me when the first letter came, and I’ve gotten thousands like it since then,” she wrote. “That these individuals would reveal something so intensely personal — often for the very first time — to someone they knew only as a character on television demonstrated to me how desperate they were to be heard, believed, supported, and healed.” Further demonstrating her real-life commitment to helping survivors, the first documentary Hargitay made, the 2017 Emmy-nominated I AM EVIDENCE, illustrates the reasons behind the alarming national rape kit backlog in the United States.
This coming season, viewers will surely be glued to their sets to see the lengths the series will go to reflect our current reality. Considering the damage done against women’s civil rights — from the overturning of Roe, to the scapegoating of the trans community, to a bill that could potentially snatch the right to vote from married women, to our president saying aloud that he doesn’t think domestic violence is a big deal, the headlines couldn’t be more ripe for the ripping — even with the looming threat of censorship.
The opening scene of the season 27 premiere found Captain Benson at the funeral of her mentor, Captain Cragen, mourning alongside partners and co-workers past and present. When longtime co-worker Tutuola (Ice-T) asks her if she’s considered retirement, she admits it’s the furthest thing from her mind. Then, a new chief of detectives, a woman called Kathryn Tynan (Noma Dumezweni), introduces herself. “Your clearance rate is unbelievable,” Tynan says. “I’m very excited to work with you. When you get a moment, let’s talk big picture. You’re the standard I’d like everyone else to meet. I really want us to work closely, learn how you do what you do.” She’s seeking Captain Olivia Benson’s tutelage because she’s the gold standard of honor and justice, and the same goes for us. Reality may not be on our side, but at least Captain Benson — and the compassionate actor who brings her to life — can remind us what honor and justice look like.