Situations

One of my favorite parts of my critical theory class was when we talked about why representation matters. And while generally the discussion around representation focuses on people, I think it's also important to note the "representation" situations.

Last night on Grey's Anatomy the episode focused around the news that Harper Avery (a character's rich, dead grandfather who started the foundation that owns Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital) had sexually assaulted many women.

The episode dealt with how the hospital (and the 70+ others affiliated with Harper Avery) would try and deal with the situation. Jackson Avery and Meredith Grey ended up suggesting that they disassemble the foundation, and rebuild it in order to try to take away some of the power of another old dead white man.

They suggested renaming the foundation after Harper Avery's daughter-in-law, Catherine Fox Avery (Jackson's powerful POC mother). They also stated that they wanted all women who had been assaulted by Harper Avery to have the ability to be retrained for free (as his assault also derailed many of their careers in the medical field).

While that is just the start of the way the episode raised awareness for sexual assault and how it should be dealt with, this is not the first time during season 14 that Shonda Rhimes' show has created dialogue about meaningful issues.

Just this season, there have been story lines surrounding domestic assault and police violence against people of color, as well as realities of drug use and other forms of white privilege. And I think it's important for television (no matter how realistic or unrealistic the story lines are) to show how these things should be confronted in reality, since our society doesn't seem to get it "right" very often.

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