‘A Teacher’ series confronts a taboo relationship head on
Two beautiful young people snuggle under bedsheets, kiss by a fire pit and take in the sunset on a Texas ranch, all to the electronic thrum of an LCD Soundsystem jam. It’s a montage befitting a beguiling romance, gauzy with the glow of a new courtship.
But the sentiment oozing from the trailer for “A Teacher” is meant to end the instant viewers start watching the FX on Hulu series, which depicts the ruinous affair between a thirtysomething high school teacher (Kate Mara) and her teenage student (Nick Robinson). Even before the first scene, a content warning flashes on-screen advising viewer discretion.
“This series contains sexual situations as well as depictions of grooming that may be disturbing.”
That wording was developed by RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, which partnered with the series to help impart the gravity of the relationship it portrays. But straddling the line between illicit and criminal has been difficult for “A Teacher,” which premiered last month. In the post- #MeToo era, creator Hannah Fidell felt it was imperative that her show convey the psychological damage a sexually abusive relationship typically portends. But that choice has divided critics, some of whom feel she took it too far — “afterschool-special fearmongering,” per The New Yorker — and those who think the show feels more like a “tragic love story in emo-prairie style” (The New York Times).
“I like not making it easy for the audience. I like the idea of having them be, like: ‘Ew, why am I feeling this way?’ ” said Fidell.
“A Teacher” was born out of Fidell’s 2013 movie of the same name, which debuted to a warm reception at the
Sundance Film Festival that year. But the picture ended just as the relationship between the instructor and her pupil was exposed, and producer Michael Costigan saw potential in a television series that could explore the fallout. So he helped Fidell strike a deal with HBO, where she attempted to develop the show for a few years. Ultimately, creative differences led her to take back the TV rights and re-imagine the series — this time with Mara attached as its star.
The time gave Fidell the space she needed to process her own trauma, which had inspired her to make the movie to begin with. As a young woman, she said, she was raped by a longtime friend, and the film was her way of exploring how he’d justified his behavior to himself. But with the series, she wanted to delve into “the way your friends treat you, the way you blame yourself, the way the law handles it — or doesn’t” after sexual assault.
One in 53 males under age 18 experiences sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult, according to the Journal of Adolescent Health. The idea that a woman is the one perpetrating sexual violence in “A Teacher” has been challenging for some viewers to accept, said Mara.
“People keep saying, ‘How dare you play a character like this?,’ because the idea of the female as an abuser is a taboo subject,” said Mara. “I don’t think people would be asking me that if I was the male star of a show having an affair with a woman.”
“This is a real phenomenon happening with frequency that no one’s really tracking,” said Fidell. “I think at the end of the day it can be looked at as an advocacy piece, so I hope it gets a real national debate going about how to prevent this from happening. We didn’t want people to get lost in the love story because this is a tragedy. This is like a Shakespearean tragedy.”