Artwork by James Cowen
I May Destroy You hit our screens earlier this year on both HBO and BBC amidst the abyss that was early lockdown back in June. A raw, emotional story, its creator and lead actor Michaela Coel draws upon her own experience of rape to construct the story of struggling writer Arabella (Coel) and her close friends Terry (Weruche Opia) and Kwame (Paapa Essiedu). In a first for Voices, and in our spirit of conversation and listening, we feature two of our regular writers, Tim Shaw and Lydia Johnson present their differing takes on the series.
First Impressions...
Tim
For weeks afterwards the story of Arabella, Terry and Kwame was rolling around in my head, as I was trying hard to pin down my thoughts and feelings about the issues as they unfolded across the series. For me this is the hallmark of good drama and storytelling. ‘I May Destroy You’ was billed by the BBC as ‘Drama/Comedy’ but I didn’t laugh once, though Mike
Hale in the New York Times said that the series was, “Touching and quietly hilarious”. If the humour was present it was dark, or maybe it was just me?
Initially I felt so far removed from it that it may as well have happened on another planet. However, even as I write this I am still unpacking it.
The whole thing feels like the writer, Michaela Coel has gone through a compendium of sociological hot potatoes and created a tick-list (or maybe a whole pack of Post-it notes) to put before us, as layer upon layer are presented to us through plots and subplots. As Zain instructs Arabella on how to put together a plot structure so we are getting our own masterclass on how it is done; art imitating life and the other way round. The later episodes had me smiling and silently applauding the audacity of the reality within the story and the cheekiness of the fantasy scenes (the bloodied corpse of David following the ‘real’ David out of the bedroom!). Michaela Coel’s tick-list theme continued as in episode 12 David (the villain, played by Lewis Reeves) catalogued the various forms and sub-forms of rape he had committed.
Lydia
Creator, Michaela Coel, took this opportunity to portray a very personal experience about her own rape story. I May Destroy You is a truly bare, all-angled exploration on the question of sexual consent within the contemporary life we live in today, with a new take on dating and relationships and how we make, within this, the distinction between liberation and exploitation. It focusses and follows the experience of Arabella while she deals with the undeniably heavy topic.
To be honest, I was overwhelmed with what was going on throughout the whole 12-episode series, it’s true there are some brilliant highs and hilarious content, but the majority of the content was ‘30 degrees off where you were expecting it to come from’ [1] and because of that I always felt lost.
On the face of it, the series is an ‘honest and unparalleled exploration of sexual assault and survival’[2] which alone puts into question how much commentary I can make on it. Arabella herself makes the point to state that ‘as someone who has not experienced rape, you shouldn’t be concluding conversations’[3] on it and I do believe this to be true. Experiencing sexual assault must be such an individual, personal experience that no one ever wants to go through but, unfortunately, people do. From an outsider I honestly believe it is one of the most violating things one human can do to another but I can’t relate, I can’t even begin to imagine to relate, and therefore I can’t pass judgement or attempt to understand.
On Consent...
Tim
A while ago I became aware that the protocols around the dating game and what I will call ‘the rules of engagement’ were being re-written. I was getting this second-hand from friends who were involved in Internet dating and from university students I spoke to. Initially I couldn’t figure out why there was a necessity to reinvent the wheel, the biology of attraction is surely not that complicated? It’s the same old display signalling, bright plumage, courtship dances of strutting turkey cocks that has been around since we climbed out of the slime. Further enquires told me that some of this was coming out of the university campuses. Courting rituals floundering in confusion, then evolving into some kind of algorithmic traffic light system; red light, green light, read the signals buddy! But accounts in the media seem to indicate that toxicity among young people in universities is now rampant, with demands for ‘consent training’ for students and reports of out of control statistics for sexual assaults and what seems like a population of wall to wall sexual predators.
The writer Michaela Coel also took us through the grey area of victimhood. In more than one of the concluding multiple endings where Arabella confronts her attacker David there is a suggestion that David himself was also a victim. In an interview Michaela Coel made an allusion to Russian dolls; if we unpack and unpack we end up down a rabbit hole; not dissimilar to the ‘consent’ issue, or the narrowness of identity categorisations. In constructing her various ‘endings’ on Post-It notes Arabella creates various incarnations of David, starting with ‘David the monster’, then ‘David the victim (but still a monster with flaws aplenty)’ and ‘David the lover’, and I suppose, ‘David the Nobody, or David the springboard into my successful book’.
Was this an unflinching look at rape in the 21st century? I have my doubts. My thoughts turned to the barrel load of contradictions that had its roots in the ‘free love’ ‘liberation’ of the 1960’s. Which then developed into a whole ‘you can do what the hell you want’ sexual philosophy, a creature that then proceeded to eat itself, until it arrived at its current state where you can still ‘do what the hell you want’ but only with the blessing of the gatekeepers, who have mandated and codified the new ‘rules of engagement’. And woe betide those who step beyond the bounds. To me it looks like the dawning of a new age Puritanism, a wolf in sheep’s clothing if ever there was one. The new legislature of sexual conduct has now constructed a Byzantian cacophony of categories, rules and taboos with the severest of penalties awaiting those who transgress.
Lydia
I May Destroy You explores the idea of sexual assault, rape, in many different forms: there’s the rape Arabella experiences after being drugged in the bar, then there’s the ‘stealthing’ she experiences, there’s the consensual sex between Grindr dates that turns immediately into assault experienced by Kwame, and then the threesome that turns out to be planned by two known guys experienced by Terry, let alone the questionable consent story explored during a flashback to their schooling years. Each experience is personal and unique and yet all scrutinise the different forms of consent and so it is important to remember that although we may be seeing it all through Arabella’s eyes, this is definitely not just Arabella’s story.
What drew my attention the most was how the series truly held up a light to our ability to rewrite stories to make bad experiences bearable or put their damage to some use while demonstrating the subtlety of power distribution even within a single conversation.[4] There’s so much commentary on people’s mental health and the fact that you really don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors within this perpetually changing millennial world we live in. There’s the classic signs of using humour as a defence, replying ‘yeah’ to the question ‘are you okay?’ when it’s obvious that you are not, the idea that girls have to watch their drinks as if it’s their fault they get spiked, the fact that ‘white girl tears are high currency’[5] and the different ways in which the police deal with women and men being assaulted and how after 9 months from the initial interview with Arabella, the investigation is no longer active.
Biggest takeway from the series...
Tim
High (or Low) points for me were; the scales falling from Terry’s eyes when the pinnacle life-
milestone of her ‘threesome’, is revealed as a scam and turned into a retrospective example of yet another manifestation of abuse. Or, Arabella’s blinding flash of realisation about Zane’s condom caper; poor Zane hero to zero with all the subtlety of a falling safe. Here again we have Coel’s categories laid out for us.
I couldn’t help wondering if some previous generation male viewers were squirming in their leather armchairs as they were watching this? Perhaps their youthful ‘adventures’ were now categorised as abuse and the threat of chickens coming home to roost was looming over their shoulders. Coel juxtaposes the unreliability of memory with the fickleness of the online world, two forms of ‘reality’ that we are all working with. Your movements are stored in the digital world, on a cloud, we leave a digital trail wherever we go. Arabella disappointed me by her lack of utilisation of this reality, and if the police were as serious about this as was suggested they would have nailed the attacker in an instant. This was London after all, not the Outer Hebrides.
Initially I had some concerns that this kind of drama was not for me; I’m not sure I matched the demographic; this was a millennial drama, but although it was released in 2020 ironically it is now categorised as a pre-Covid story, hence, technically a retro-piece – weird how these things work out.
Lydia
While watching I felt as though there was a deeper theme running through that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, that was until episode 11 when Ben watches the video on his phone all about being lonely.
Finally! Yes, I May Destroy You may be an ‘extraordinary, breath taking exploration of consent, rape and millennial life’[6], but it is actually so much more. The series as a whole, develops into a general meditation on our responsibilities to ourselves and each other focussing on ‘loneliness, denial, and powerlessness’[7] brutally forcing the viewers’ own identity into question. As one critic put it, ‘the show allowed Coel to examine all the other villains we don’t notice, but who do just as much damage by breaking others’ boundaries in complex, insidious ways’[8]; this show wasn’t just about recovering from sexual assault, it highlighted the fact that throughout our lives, we will all be victim and perpetrator. We will all damage others and be damaged by them, whether it is through something physical, or mental, we will all realise at one point or another that we can’t rely on anyone else to be there for us as much as we expect others to be, and you can’t just keep on shoving everything under your bed when you don’t want to deal with it, it won’t go away and you will just keep on carrying it around with you. We may never know in today’s age what is going on behind closed doors, but even more than that, we will never know in today’s age what is going on behind someone’s outward façade they show the world and this can be just as damaging.
It isn’t until Arabella deals with the stuff under her bed that she can finally see things for what they are and can focus on writing her book. This develops into the last episode of her finding the man who raped her and dealing with the decision over what to do with that information. Episode 12 considers three very different storylines – revenge, forgiveness and justice -. Arabella only moves on when she changes the scenario, she forces herself out of the loop, she starts to focus on the things she can control, she focusses on the right people and in doing this helps those who she didn’t even know needed the help. Arabella finishes her book, Terry gets an acting job, Ben isn’t as lonely, and Arabella independently publishes her novel. When she finally starts holding herself accountable and realises that if she wants to do something, she will have to do it herself, she starts moving forward in her life. This isn’t selfish behaviour, but a general actualisation that she is the one in control of her life and how her life is going to affect others around her too.
I don’t want this to seem as though I have missed the obvious message shown in I May Destroy You, the very personal journey Coel explores on screen, and it did open my eyes to many issues that although we know are there, we don’t really understand until we may be experiencing them, but because of a lack of experience in that area I couldn’t connect as deeply to it as perhaps the next person will have done. This also isn’t me stating that it isn’t important simply because I can’t connect with it on a deeper level but an acknowledgement that I don’t feel connected to the issue enough to comment on it in a review when it is such a personal, serious issue.
I May Destroy You may be about the journey of Arabella after she is raped in the toilet of a bar, but it is also a very important commentary on the different levels of loneliness, or feelings of isolation, that everyone experiences day after day in today’s world, even if we may appear to be the most connected we have ever been before. Talking doesn’t mean people will listen, hiding things doesn’t mean they won’t ever resurface, keeping quiet doesn’t mean you’re being a martyr, believing times have changed and different voices can be heard does not mean this is the case, and getting revenge does not mean you have solved the problem. Allowing yourself time to heal, to face your challenges and let go of the challenges that are no longer important to you, focussing on your relationships that truly matter, and believing in yourself to reach your own dreams and aspirations – that’s the message that I May Destroy You left me with, with talent and character to burn at every perfectly plotted turn. Coel truly did herself proud and it is no wonder that people believe this series to be the best drama of the year. It truly is a masterpiece on portraying the ever-shifting boundaries that people are perpetually navigating in their 20s and early 30s and is a masterpiece for her own reflection that Coel should have no regret in sharing with us. She has no idea how many people this may have touched and helped in so many ways.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/08/i-may-destroy-you-review-michaela-coel-could-this-be-the-best-drama-of-the-year [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/i-may-destroy-you-review-michaela-coel-bbc-hbo-chewing-gum-a9554746.html [3] I May Destroy You, Episode 9 [4] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/08/i-may-destroy-you-review-michaela-coel-could-this-be-the-best-drama-of-the-year [5] I May Destroy You, Episode 6 [6] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/08/i-may-destroy-you-review-michaela-coel-could-this-be-the-best-drama-of-the-year [7] https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/08/may-destroy-review-michaela-coels-chaotic-sexual-assault-drama-explores-consent-non-preachy-way-12822012/ [8] https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/i-may-destroy-you-review-michaela-coel-finale-identity-545941