no comment, no consent: media violence in I Hate Suzie

As tersely as its succinct title, I Hate Suzie immerses you in its fundamental message from the outset: the media is suffocating, and fame is detrimental to mental health. This is not news to anyone; it’s a societal discussion that we have been having since musicians started dying at 27 in the 1960s. The ubiquity of the idea is undeniable. And yet, nothing changes. OK! Magazine still draws red circles around cellulite, and The Sun’s ‘Showbiz’ section hones in on issues that, as the general public, are entirely none of our business. There is no way of knowing whether I Hate Suzie will make any difference; however, this forthright show paves the way for progressive thought through its candid production and unique expression of the effects of fame on a celebrity’s mental health.  

Co-created by Billie Piper and Lucy Prebble (a match made in heaven back in 2007 for the TV adaptation of Secret Diary of a Call Girl), I Hate Suzie follows Suzie Pickles, a now 35-year-old child star who shot to fame on a singing contest at 15. Suzie opens The Daily Mail one morning to find that the internet now possesses an image of her giving, and enjoying, a blow job – and thus ensues the chaotic story of one woman’s descent into media-induced despair.  

Prebble and Piper could not be more experienced for this project – Suzie is based loosely on Piper’s own experiences (the shooting-to-fame-as-a-singer-at-15 stuff, not the nude leak stuff), and Prebble has made a career in feminist theatre and TV, as well as spear-heading a discourse around consent in the creative industries with her article ‘Short Cuts Harvey Weinstein’ in the London Review of Books. What emerges from this collaboration is a piece that manages to be deeply personal in its discussion of wider issues of consent and respect; both of which seem to have been dragged under the water as the increasingly invasive nature of social (and traditional) media has been normalised.  

In an interview with Glamour, Billie Piper tentatively approaches the way that her own experiences with anxiety influenced the show’s production. One of its biggest feats is how the cinematography immerses you in Suzie’s panic attacks, her IBS, her drug fuelled rampages, and any other bodily reactions she has. In her interview with Glamour, Piper touches on how the beginnings of her career facilitated an adverse effect on her mental health, while being sensitive to the fact she is interacting with one of the show’s main perpetrators- the media itself. The truth is that we all benefit from the media, both for educational and entertainment purposes, but why does the entertainment have to come at the expense of the vulnerable? 

I Hate Suzie particularly emphasises the negative conditions that fame and public exposure create for women. Both Suzie and her manager Naomi, played by Leila Farzad, are perpetually ignored by the men with whom they interact. The script masters those unbearable conversations with romantic interests when you can feel that their mind is intentionally elsewhere. And, in light of the show’s core narrative, you can’t help but wonder- would things be different if the media we absorb took women more seriously?  

I Hate Suzie makes steps towards reframing the feminine image by placing value on all the things that no one likes to talk about with regards to women: sex, masturbation, bowel movements and anger, to name just a few within the show’s neat, but thorough, eight episodes. While the presentations of these experiences are, at first, comedic, you come to realise that the time dedicated to showing Suzie’s struggle to pleasure herself is in fact a radical act of feminism against the media which controls and criticises women. A thirty-minute episode entirely about having a wank is kind of funny, until you realise that we live in a world where women are discouraged from knowing their own sexuality, because it is consistently controlled for them by external factors. It is in this way that the show pitches its tone perfectly, using constant exposure to that which makes us uncomfortable to force the audience to think.  

The show structures itself loosely around the five stages of grief, as Suzie reconciles with the loss of her privacy and the inevitable fallout that comes with it. At each stage of this process Suzie battles with the push-back from a society that doesn’t like women feeling anything at all, which is in contrast to Naomi who, cool and stoic, can’t seem to get to where she wants to be as a result of her, quite justified, guardedness. The performance of these two characters is in perfect asymmetry, summarising the dichotomous relationship between women and the expectations imposed upon them. The truth is that, by the end, you do kind of hate Suzie – but you also see her as a perfectly disastrous product of her circumstances, clambering her way out the best that she can through the wave of opinions stacked against her.  

Through Piper’s performance and Prebble’s creative skill, I Hate Suzie slams the breaks on our ambivalence to the treatment of women in the media. In an age where we are, allegedly, enlightened about mental health and anxiety, the constant suffocation of the media just doesn’t make any sense. And in the age of ‘Me Too’, where’s the consent in the way that we treat public figures? Over the course of the show Suzie abruptly comes to realise that there is none. Do you think if our celebrities shouted no consent, instead of no comment, would anyone listen?  

Rachel Baker is the Editor-in-Chief for Mxogyny and a freelance writer contributing to various publications. She is interested in film, TV and theatre that contributes to a discourse around consent, feminism, and activism, as well as writing general reviews on her blog- A Baker’s Opinion.