Why are paedophiles used so often in comedic material and what happens when we use comedy to give power back to survivors? In this Secrets Worth Screening episode a child sexual abuse survivor (Sophia Luu) is joined by comedian Mark O'Sullivan, writer and director of Channel 4's 'My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom', to discuss.
In this episode, we look at comedic depictions of childhood sexual abuse in film & TV, including scenes from Scary Movie (2000), The Inbetweeners (2009) and My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom (2024). Previous knowledge of these films is not essential, but we recommend that you watch 'My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom' before.
Your Hosts
Sophia — Founder of Secrets Worth Sharing
Sophia (she/her) is a survivor of child sexual abuse, designer and the founder of Secrets Worth Sharing, where she builds a community of having these difficult conversations with 'serious joy'.
Mark O’Sullivan — Comedian & Writer
Mark O’Sullivan is a comedian and writer. His most recent project was the RTS Award-winning Channel 4 documentary — My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom about his experience of child sexual abuse.
Key takeaways from the film club
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Scary Movie is a horror parody, and the scene we explored showed teenage Cindy going to her teacher, Miss Mann, for advice about a secret she’s been carrying. Miss Mann is played by a cisgender female bodybuilder with stereotypically masculine features, including large muscles, a strong jawline and broad shoulders. During the scene, Miss Mann opens her legs and deliberately exposes her testicles to Cindy, and the joke is that she is secretly a man. She touches Cindy’s shoulders, and Cindy is visibly uncomfortable before getting up and quickly leaving. We talked about how the scene relies on anti-trans stereotypes for its punchline, and how harmful this is to the trans community, who are statistically far more likely to be survivors than abusers. We felt the scene added very little to the plot, and that the humour had no clear purpose other than to be transphobic.
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The Inbetweeners is a British sitcom about a group of teenage boys at school. The scene we explored was the one in which the boys are on a school trip and a teacher, nicknamed “Pedo Kennedy,” walks into their room and gives Neil a leg massage while the other boys watch, disturbed. The head of sixth form then enters and removes the teacher, giving the boys a warning look as if to make them stay quiet. The boys discuss what happened. One blames Neil for “leading on pedos” and calls him a “slut.” Another says he thinks Neil has been groomed, but Neil brushes this off cheerily and goes to sleep. We noted that, like the Scary Movie clip, the scene does nothing for the plot and is mostly forgotten. We found the other teacher’s silencing of the boys especially dark, as survivors know how much abuse relies on secrecy. We also discussed how the group acknowledging the abuse, followed by Neil brushing it off, trivialises it.
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My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom is a Channel 4 sitcom and documentary, created by our co-host, Mark O’Sullivan, about his own experience of childhood sexual abuse. It touches on themes of grooming, family, disbelief and the legal system. The scenes we explored were the opening courtroom scene, where Mark gives evidence against his abuser, who is played by a teddy bear, and the ending, where he reflects on what changed after his abuse was reported. Mark explained that the bear shows how abuse often comes from someone seemingly safe, and means we don’t have to get inside the abuser’s mind. He talked about how he played both himself as an adult and his 12-year-old self so that no child actor was put in that situation. He stressed that he isn’t asking people to laugh at abuse, but at the mental gymnastics people use to avoid seeing it. We also reflected on how humour can open up conversations, and Mark shared that thousands of people have contacted him to say they told someone, or went to the police, after watching.
Download the Handout!
At each of our film clubs, we give a hand out to the audience so they can see why we chose the scenes we did. Download this here for free!
