I followed the six seasons of District 31 diligently and with great pleasure. On the other hand, the daily series often angered me for its macho treatment of certain situations, more particularly its treatment of subjects such as domestic violence or sexual assault.
Contrary to what happens in real life, the majority of victims in the series are… men. Find the error ! Indeed, in the stories told by the author Luc Dionne, the women are too often hysterical, crazy or lying.
Here are some examples.
During an episode of season 3, a man comes to the station to file a complaint against his wife for domestic violence. Madame gave him AIDS and, when he wants to confront her, she beats him with a sweeper. We also learn that she had sex with ten men without telling them that she was HIV positive. He ends up killing his wife and blames the police for not protecting him when he was a victim of domestic violence.
In Season 2, another case of domestic abuse arises. This time, it’s a woman, Alicha, who comes to the station to file a complaint against her husband. Sure enough, she has bruises on her face and looks pretty messed up. A few episodes later, Madame finds herself in the hospital. This time, she is more seriously injured. Monsieur is arrested and imprisoned.
But, a dramatic turn of events, Monsieur’s lawyer arrives at the station and shows the detective sergeant a video of Madame being hit by someone. It is clear that Madame asked someone to beat her, enough to be hospitalized, and especially to be able to accuse Monsieur of assault.
Later, Monsieur returns to the station to lecture Isabelle, the detective sergeant in charge of the file. “You know, Isabelle, the presumption of innocence in matters of domestic violence does not exist. The rest of us, the guys, are immediately rotten. »
Remark of detective sergeant Poupou after the departure of Monsieur: “The worst thing is that he is right. We land on (sic) disputes, and it’s the guy we take on all the time ”.
And Poupou concludes: “It’s not always easy, being a man. »
The damage is done…
From the first season of District 31, we present the characters of lying and crafty women, who make false accusations. Thus, in episode 105, we tell the story of Jimmy Munroe, a great Quebec star accused of rape by a young groupie, Delphine.
Later, Delphine meets her friend Catherine at the restaurant, who seems very happy with Munroe’s setbacks and that the story of sexual assault has made the headlines. Both girls gloat over the consequences for Munroe’s career. “And if we organized a boycott of his next concert? they wonder.
Munroe goes to the station and gives his version of the facts: “Catherine got pregnant. I stayed with her for two months just to convince her to abort. When I left her, she went crazy. »
Delphine and Catherine will be charged with mischief.
A heated discussion between Poupou and Isabelle ensues. Stéphane concludes: “We are quick to make accusations, but we are not so bad when the truth is not quite that. They almost took this guy’s life. I want to believe that charges will be brought against them, but the damage is done. “Reminds you of something?
But the most twisted story is that of the girl who throws herself off the balcony. (Season 5)
In one scene, we see her going out on a balcony in a t-shirt despite the intense cold. A man embarrasses her outside, the girl screams for him to open the door, which he doesn’t. She then tries to go down the balcony. The drama, it then falls from the 6and floor and kills himself.
The scene is filmed by a neighbor and circulates widely on social networks.
Mr loses his job. In addition, the rumor runs on social networks that he would have raped her. Later, whoever spread this story ends up admitting that it is false.
Then, surprised, Monsieur transmits to the police a video where we clearly see the young girl beating him and pursuing him with a knife. The only undeniable fact is that she is really crazy. We understand then why he stuck her on the bacon, although we wonder why he did not present this video to the police before. He would have had fewer problems, but we understand that the demonstration that he is a victim would have been less convincing.
Give the right time
Finally, let’s move on to the author’s vision of feminism. In season 4, there are reports of a plot to kill feminists. For Detective Sergeant Bruno, the person responsible for this plot “…was psychologically ill, and his mother was not much better”.
He also allowed himself to yell at the feminist who denounced the plot, because “… he hates that, the people who divide the world in two, the men on one side, the women on the other”.
Here, a total refusal to admit that this is an anti-feminist, anti-women plot and that there might be a link to be made with a certain misogyny existing in society. It seems to me that we already had this debate during the massacre at Polytechnique, when Marc Lépine killed 14 women by calling them feminists.
Admittedly, women have improved their lot enormously over the past 60 years. But there is one area where there has been no progress, that of violence against women. To this day, there are still as many sexual assaults and rapes. The number of feminicides has peaked in 2021. It seems to be an insoluble problem. Hence the responsibility of authors as popular as Luc Dionne to set the record straight.
In conclusion, I will listen District 31 until the end. But I can’t help but be pained that this hugely popular show distorts the reality of women so much.