I May Destroy You makes a firm point that under the rape culture we live in, we are all victims, and we should be supporting each other. When Arabella talks to the police who are helping her with her case, she is shocked to learn that acts such as taking the condom off during sex are legally treated as rape “when people don’t know what is and what isn’t a crime, they don’t report it,” the police tell her. Coel here makes the point that there is no grey area of sexual assault and that it should not be normalised as an ‘everyday’ trauma. Arabella’s friends, Kwame (Paapa Essiedu) and Terry also experience acts of sexual coercion and violence, but initially don’t take them seriously as they are more ‘everyday’. BBCĪlongside capturing how PTSD can change a person, what I May Destroy You also does well is show how sexual acts that fall into the ‘grey’ area of consent can be just as traumatising. This is symbolised quite literally in the Halloween episode Social Media is a Great Way to Connect, which has Arabella dressed as the devil and her best friend Terry (Weruche Opia) as an angel. This is much the same as what happened to Coel herself, who told Vulture she deleted social media after feeling as if it was polarising her views “I make a line and I say dangerous/safe angel/devil, me/not me,”. To understand her own experiences, she uses social media to elevate other victims of assault, but ultimately becomes negatively consumed by it, lashing out on those around her.
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The bar in which the assault takes place is called Ego Death, and that’s much of what she experiences as the series progresses. Instead of making the protagonist an angelic character, Arabella is flawed, and thereby more human.
Unlike many other famous depictions of rape on television, such as The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson)-which follows a rape victim watching her family from heaven- it deals with the real-life consequences: PTSD and rapists being allowed to walk free. The mini-series follows Arabella (Coel), a struggling writer, and shows how she deals with the after-effects of assault. It took her 191 drafts of the show until she was satisfied, a remarkable commitment to artistry. For its release, she fought to get as much creative control as possible, turning down a one million pound deal from Netflix as they wouldn’t allow her its rights.
I May Destroy You was inspired by her real-life sexual assault, which took place when she was working on series two of Chewing Gum.
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Coel, who found fame through her play Chewing Gum Dreams and then TV series Chewing Gum, is known for writing devastatingly honest pieces that draw on her experiences about what it means to be growing up black and poor in London.
I May Destroy You by Michaela Coel has been advertised as the show that ‘everyone is talking about’, and with good reason.
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