In a darkly ironic turn of events, the show is a monster of its own creating. The narrative dismissal of Kwame’s assault at the hands of a stranger he met from Grindr, the dismissal of the fact that he was likely raped as a child by two strangers, are all identical to the way the police officer dismissed his experiences. It’s mentioned in passing that his first sexual experience occurred when he was a child, with 2 much older men who urged him to jump into their car as he walked home from school. This confession sounds eerily like a story of child molestation, but of course the attention has been on Kwame for decidedly too long, and the scene abruptly ends with Kwame calling his own anecdote ‘kind of dark’- he laughs it off and Terry, his best friend, gives a concerned look which immediately wears off as Kwame brings in the cake for her birthday party.
In fact, Kwame repeatedly has shocking, yet impoverished storylines- if they can be called storylines at all. We don’t see his family life, there is no scene of him alone, brooding his storylines jump between his Grindr adventures and his duty as the gay best friend. In between, he walks around with tears in his eyes, and nobody asks why, not even his closest friends. It’s one thing for the show to isolate Kwame in order to represent the reality of sexual assault victims who self-isolate out of internalised shame or a lack of vocabulary to describe their experiences- but the show ignores Kwame altogether. But the show cannot boast of having done better than the negligent police officer: as a character, Kwame is ignored by the writers as much as he is ignored by the fictional police officer. Scenes including him account for less than half of every episode- often his scenes are no more than 5 minutes, if that. But for the LGBT audience who might have related to Kwame’s storyline, no such appeal was made for a healing journey. The show criticises the negligent police officer, in an attempt to expose the wider reality of how gay black men are often dismissed when they speak about their sexual assaults. While, ultimately, the show insists that there is no perfect way to conclude a sexual assault storyline, no poetic justice that can compensate for the harrowing experience, Arabella’s own storyline at least offered her (and in turn, her audience- specifically the audience of young black women who Arabella appeals to) some kind of healing. In fact, no mention is made again of Kwame’s abuser, so the audience can assume that he will not be brought to justice for Arabella, the narrative doesn’t stop probing the very concept of ‘justice’ for a proper answer. Terry stands firmly by Arabella’s side, her trusted and constant companion Kwame remains alone throughout his narrative, and his interiority is rarely interrogated in a similar manner to Arabella’s own emotional trajectory. Yet one considers if the show doesn’t fall into the same patterns it criticises: where is the sympathy for Kwame in the wider narrative? His brief visit to the station is juxtaposed with the scene of Arabella outing her assaulter before an audience of hundreds, all of whom applaud her for her bravery. Coel wages a damning critique of the failures of the police to treat male victims of sexual violence with the same empathy that would be expected toward female victims: there is a stark contrast between how Arabella reported to two sympathetic officers who responded in soft, encouraging tones and always took her seriously, compared to the unprofessional conduct of the police officer Kwame deals with. Kwame’s outfit is notably muted, no longer the bright pastel tones of the episodes earlier, but dark muted tones to match the dark purgatorial environment- the officer doesn’t even extend the common courtesy of closing the door as Kwame relates his experience, despite the fact that he is legally obligated to do so. One flinches as the police officer awkwardly smiles, sometimes even laughs at Kwame’s story.
Kwame reports the sexual assault to the police, the scene is jarring- to say the least. *Disclaimer-This blog post talks about sexual assault* To read part one of the blog, please click here.