Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: HRL, mtv, sweet/vicious, tv

MTV's 'Sweet/Vicious' Is "Actively" Looking For A New Network

Sometimes a show can come out with a hell of an elevator pitch and it just doesn't click. In the case of MTV's Sweet/Vicious, it came out with "female Batman beats the snot out of rapists on her college campus" and it just didn't click with audiences. There are countless reasons as to why the show couldn't find an audience, but when MTV canceled the show after just one season, it was a bit of a letdown. The show was tackling hard issues like rape culture, the problem with assaults on college campuses, and dealing with PTSD.

Sweet/Vicious executive producer Stacey Sher talked about what happened at the ATX Television Festival and her hopes for the future:

"MTV took a really long time. It killed us slowly and not so kindly, but they said to us, 'If you can find a studio that will partner, we will go forward,' which ultimately didn't happen. We found four studios, and all we really need is a network now, and we're still incredibly hopeful."

Despite the fact that MTV dragging their feet is the reason the show is no more, Sher had nothing but good things to say about the network:

"They've been very gracious and have said they'll make it very easy for us, because they were very proud of the show and many people there cheerlead the show. They had a lot of regime changes, which was challenging."

The show follows two main characters, Ophelia (Taylor Dearden) and Jules (Eliza Bennett). Jules is a sexual assault survivor who takes to the streets to carry out justice for other victims at her college, and Ophelia jumps in to help. Both actresses have talked about how the role has changed their lives. Bennett said she was moved by the survivors that have reached out to her:

"I'm playing a sexual assault survivor, so the most important thing was listening to people. That was hard, I get so emotional, because that's when I found out that half of my friends had been raped and had never told anyone. That was so horrific. I would never have found that out unless we'd done the show."

Sher went on to talk about how everyone involved with the show was a woman:

"The thing that was really extraordinary for me was I've been doing this for 30 years and I've never had an experience at work where everybody making decisions was a woman. Not to take anything away from any of the men I've worked with — the wonderful men — but I think the way we approached the very difficult scenes, there was kind of a cocoon in knowing what it was like because we've all been vulnerable in that way."

Creator Jennifer Kaytin Robinson knew that there would be people accusing Sweet/Vicious of man-bashing, but that was not her intent. She went into the show making sure that all of men in the show, even the perpetrators of assault, were fully formed human beings. Maybe not ones you could relate to, but ones that felt like people and not caricatures:

"Most people were going to come at this show saying things like, 'Oh, it's man-bashing.' They're probably not going to watch it, but for people who do take the time to see what it is, we wanted to make sure that they knew that was not our message, because that does a huge disservice to survivors, and does a huge disservice to everything we're building."

Robinson went on to say that the business side can really get in the way of important storytelling, but that's just the way it is:

"[Shows] get cancelled for reasons that have literally nothing to do with the show. That is what happened here. Unfortunately, our show is about something extremely important, and the disconnect between the business and the heart sucks."

It wouldn't be the first time a show has jumped networks, so perhaps someone else will take up Sweet/Vicious so it can get the chance to thrive that it deserves.

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