TW: Now that I've changed the title of this video, I realize that I need to include a warning that the content of this video contains discussions of predatory behavior, sexual harassment, and assault.
Honestly I think that the world has a double standard love hate relationship with this sort of thing. Oh its illegal, but that don't stop a lot of fictions from flirting with what they can get away with in the name of fantasy and people being secretly drawn to all the licentious scandals in the name of moral outrage.
If you want to see a storyline that portrays the trauma of Male rape you should watch coronation street it's a British daytime soap opera a few years ago the show did the storyline of David Platt who is drugged and is sexually assaulted and the show Outlander 🤔👍
@@Tuberiascaesar oh it is but both the book series and the tv show also deals with series issues like rape I read the books months before the show aired
@@Tuberiascaesar and in both versions the character of jaime Fraser is sexually assaulted by another man and he learns to deal with the trauma from the assault
Emily had just 2 relationships who we're good for her Maya and I think her name was Samra? Or something like that Paige and Alison we're just disgusting and her boyfriend was even worse he tried to rape her Then Aria got Ezra who is not much better than Emily's ex boyfriend Spencer got Wren and Ian Was Hannah the only one with actual good guys? Only remember her first who was extremely religious and Caleb
Victim blaming has been a big problem on this show. Whether it was spencers drug problem, Hannah being hit on, Melissas guys hitting on Spencer.. there were soo many instances where there was such a strong victim blaming. I hate that so much.
The blatant victim blaming Aria does to Hanna in season 5 after what happens with Zack is not only disgusting in general but made me hate Aria’s character
@@schizounicorns9291 yeah that was hard to watch “you’re always the problem” what the hell, it was so out of character. Maybe it was one of her other personalities
It doesn’t help that the show takes place in Pennsylvania, which has their age of consent is 16 there and that the majority of actors were in their later 20s. I honestly wish they would have let the girls grow up if they wanted them to date these people (as in like 5-10 years to even start to actually date, in their late 20s, so they actually have time to grow up and to date people their own age). I’m not against people having age gaps, but only when they are both adults and have time to be children and teens.
Nice way of taking responsibility from any of them and blaming others our society now has become good at that by calling it victim blaming. It for once in today's climate would be great to see a TV show where people actually take responsibility for say doing drugs. Imagine a TV show people can actually emulate and learn from
Ezra is honestly an awful person in general. He humiliates and speaks down to his students, planned to date Aria to expose her in his book, and lied to Aria and her friends for a YEAR. Even if the liars had been college aged and/or Ezra had been a character the same age as Aria I still would have seen him as a total antagonist.
The whole "age of consent" thing has always bothered me in discussions of predatory relationship because, at least from my understanding of it, the age of consent doesn't simply refer to the age at which someone can legally be deemed as a consenting partner, but rather the age at which *minors can consent to relationships with other minors.* Even if Aria was the "age of consent" and Ezra hadn't been her teacher, he was still a man in his 20's getting involved with a teenager. Age of consent simply should not matter because he was an adult, and she was a child.
It wouldn’t even apply to their relationship bc he was her teacher. I. A position of power over her. The state it takes place in has that rule for age of consent
It's a little bit more complex than that. "Age of consent" means different things in different jurisdictions, states and countries. In Pennsylvania, the age of consent is 16. What you're describing is the period between 13 and 16 in which teenagers can consent to relationships with peer within a 4-year range (a 13 with a 17 yo, a 14 with an 18 yo, etc). When they turn 16, they can consent to relationships with other teenagers or adults. It doesn't matter. They case of Aria and Ezra is not a case of statutory r4p3. It's a case of potential abuse because he was his teacher and there was a power imbalance. The issue wasn't the age of the people involved, at least not legally.
@@NawiTheCore Exactly. You can literally google this very quickly and get your answer. Not sure if OP was confused on the subject, and I’m certainly not condoning Aria and Ezra’s relationship since it’s still very weird and creepy even without the teacher aspect (and if you remember how Ezra was dating Allison presumably before she turned 16, so that would be both illegal and disturbing), but you’re correct. If Ezra weren’t Aria’s teacher, their relationship would be deemed legal in the eyes of the law, but since he is it’s very illegal and an abuse of power.
Troian is a woke feminist. The kind that hates other women but pretend to care about women’s rights while also being married to the guy who publicly slapped her
What I hate about Ezria is when people rightfully call out how bad and inappropriate their relationship is. Is that their portrayed as the bad guys for trying to break up Ezria.
I think that Emily and Alison were pretty icky couple too. Since Alison used to manipulate and threaten Emily, knowing about Emily's sexuality and how it's very sensitive topic to Emily. Of course, people can change, but it shouldn't have been the "endgame ship". It just shows how normalized these problematic and toxic relationships are, especially in PLL, and how many types of those are there. It's just sad.
The fact that turn Alison into a " good character" in the first place was outrageous. She literally bullied, manipulated and threaten all of her friends to make herself feel better about herself or to keep her secrets, but they give her a season of holding her accountable and then all is forgotten?
I know you couldn't mention all predatory behaviour in PLL because there are so many, but I just couldn't forget how Ben sexually harassed Emily in the locker room and who knows what would've happened if Toby didn't save her.
@Μαία I agree Is probably because ben is a minor? No matter what no one can tell me the writters aren't paedophiles ,or they would have considered real consequences for those The parents of Spencer and her sister wouldn't have blamed her and called the cops on both grown men Aria was if I remember correctly also with 2 adults,(Forgot the name of the boxing teacher) Other TV shows did similar things but the adults/teacher got a punishment or at least had to leave the city or the parent's would have gone to the police
I agree. Another case I find disturbing is Wilden and Ashley. Seeing the flashback episode as well as Ashely discussing it in series 4 (when finding the hard-drive with NAT videoes in the church) it's obvious he took advantage of her as an officer driving her home when she was drunk. Also their whole "affair" in season 1 is based on an officer sexually coercing a mother wanting to protect her child.. it's sick and disgusting how many in the fandom who adresses Ashely as promiscuous.
Oh, I even forgot one thing about these awful predator relationships: All of the liars, including Mona (with the exception of Alison) had actresses that were all over the age of twenty when they played fifteen-eighteen year old girls. Troian was around twentyfive years old when the pilot episode aired, even though Spencer was around fifteen-sixteen. While Ezra was around twentytwo years old and Aria's high school teacher, Ian Harding is only a few years older than Lucy Hale. I think this adds to the romantization of Ezria; the actors doesn't have a big age difference.
I totally agree. Ian was around 24 and Lucy 20-21 in PLL's first season. If Lucy had actually looked like she did at 16 when Ezria's scenes were filmed, that relationship would have come across very, very differently.
Yes! This is why child me didn't see it as much of a problem. If Lucy Hale and Ian Harding were to have a relationship (which if I recall correctly they did) it would be okay! But not Aria Montgomery and Ezra Fitzgerald.
God looking back on all those red flags in Ezria it’s just disturbing, CRUEL SUMMER DISTURBING (thank god that show exists to point out the horribleness of grooming)! & I used to be a HUGE a fan of that ship when it aired! Ughhhh teenage me really was duped by these tv writers! Amazing analysis video & especially fantastic attention to detail & scene picks! Definitely can never look at PLL the same “nostalgic” way again. 😖
I also will NEVER forget Aria’s horrible reaction to Hanna’s harassment! God it just makes me so angry & this also includes the reactions from her other friends too! 😡
Thank you so much for this video. The show normalized disgusting behavior that the books themselves portrayed as messed up. Marlene King should be ashamed of herself.
@@Mia.S13 the problem is that they're not portrayed as serious issues- for example, Ezra, a whole adult and someone who is/used to be their teacher, was in his underwear in front of children and it was portrayed as something humorous/heartwarming where no one felt uncomfortable. I presume that's what Enrique meant
@@colabray2348 You're right, that's what i meant. The problem isn't the portrayal of something, every issue imo should be portrayed in fiction one way or another. It's the romanticization of it that is problematic.
I still think one of the worst things that PLL ever did was make Aria and Ezra endgame. Aria deserved to have someone that wasn't grooming her... Ezra deserved prison.
The problem was that the actors were pretty close in age, so it didn't look weird having them together as it would if the age difference was more visibly clear.
Thank you for addressing this topic with the seriousness it deserves. No hand holding the PLL fanbase and apeasing them on that particular front. Thanks so much for this video.
this issue could have (partially) been solved so easily if they had made the girls college age in the present day rather than still in high school, and have ali go missing in high school. i mean, why not? the show basically wrote and treated them like grown women anyway. why not actually make them grown women? have them all go to a college in the area - maybe a community one. you could still have emily be a swimmer and play sports aria dating her professor would be fun and scandalous but not illegal as they would both be adults and possibly very close in age. still controversial depending on how you view it but still not pedophilia or grooming. nothing they did felt realistic to high school. either that or they could have not written in these relationships at all.
i wrote this comment before i got to the sexual harassment segment of the video so obviously this does not apply to that but should have greatly solved the issue of relationships with grown men and women except for where ali was concerned of course in her flashbacks. however, i think it would make it easier to portray certain behaviors towards her as predatory.
Yeah and it could have made for an interesting discussion on power dynamics and imbalances in relationships and how the couple navigate a setup that can be looked down apon Aria could’ve been 21 and Ezra 30 or something like that it would’ve been so interesting
Immediately when Ezra made out with aria when he knew she was a CHILD I was like no. Like it’s so gross they stayed together. I feel bad for all of them. They all were taken advantage of by grown men. So nasty
@@IchibanOjousama if you google or search on TH-cam there are many video's about aria and Ezra and what's wrong about it Which we're released already when season 1 aired
@@1cheness as an 18 year old I disagree with this statement . I think they know it’s bad they just choose to ignore it. They think their grown bc they’re told that they are mature . All these men want is power and they’re manipulative. Teens should understand that all these men do is take advantage of them .
Of course Aria didn’t see Zach sexually pursuing Hanna as a problem because she was so used to her abnormal predatory relationship with her teacher that it did not phase her. 🙄 Shame
This is why I don’t go on that PLL subreddit. They can’t take any other opinion other than their own, and when you make strong,valid arguments that they can’t rebut, they suspend your account. Definitely don’t recommend that place
I cannot believe how fooled I was because of this show, I watched PLL as a tween, and can't believe that this all flew over my head. This really is dangerous.
I think the reason that aria didn’t want to see Zach as a villain is that if she admitted that it was predatory she would have to see that Ezra is the same.
wtf? Ian Harding did it too, he addressed Ezra as pedophile AND wanted a scene in 7B SPOILER where Aria tells him that she wanted to call the cops on him
I was ride or die for Ezria until 4B. I was a fanfic writer, a founder of the Twitter fandom, and just adored their relationship to the point of bullying the writers and producers into giving us more Ezria content. That was until 4B where it was clear that their entire relationship was manipulative and predatory, even more so than any previous critic could have predicted. One of my biggest problems with Ezria is the framing in general. It wasn't only framed as romantic but as the pursuit of a teenage girl on a predatory male who has groomed her into thinking she's in control. Ezra essentially put all of the so called power into Aria's hands while he was abusing his power over her and, in retrospect, that makes it SO MUCH WORSE because it makes it seem like adults who abuse and groom teenagers are just giving into the passion of said teenager. Too many of my friends in the Ezria fandom were manipulated into thinking that the adult men that were pursuing and preying on them because "they were mature for their age." And that's why I think no other relationship worked for Aria because she was so invested into this grown ass man who had stolen so much from her. The only part of the redemption arc that I appreciated was the last minute storyline in 7B when it was revealed that Aria almost had Ezra arrested in 4B and Ezra told her to submit the report to the police, realizing that HE was the abuser in the situation and this was because IAN HARDING wanted to address it. It was so random and so thrown in at the last minute but I'm glad it was included. As for me years later, I still struggle with my view of relationships and power dynamics because of Ezria and I think I always will.
With the way that Jenna was so sure their parents would believe her over Toby, when she blackmailed him, she must have been the golden child of the family.
I had always considerably disliked Aria, but after what she did to Hannah... omg I'd be lying if I said I don't want to kill her every time I think about that
@@5bc500 in s5, Ella Montgomery's fiance kissed Hanna and when Hanna told Aria, she told Hanna that she was the problem, implied that Hanna "invited" him into her car and yelled at her for her addiction
@@jennytimelord9689 Yes but if you think about it ali was abused and got pregnant against her Will so she needed more time to think I think it was so fast because she was thinking about what Emily wanted but thats just my opinion
I don’t see how her asking her to do the pregnancy is a problem, as long as she is big demanding or trying to manipulate her into doing. At the end of the day it’s Ali’s choice, and as long as Emily doesn’t try to take that away….
I've never thought about the whole Alex - Toby - Spencer thing like that. Is beyond sad and disgusting that they ruined such a powerful shipp like that :((( but it's also highly reprehensible how poorly handled these situations were on the show
You are so right that hole thing between alex and toby reminds me of a storyline from the show supernatural where Lucifer impregnates a woman without her knowledge or consent while inside of the body of her lover that's straight up rape because she gave her consent to her lover not to Lucifer I have only watch season 12 only once I was so disgusted and triggered by the hole thing 😡🤬🤢🤮
If pll ever returns for a movie or some sort of special or honestly in any capacity. I’d seriously love to see Aria come to her senses and Ezra go to JAIL lol…
When you mentioned Jason I was like „wait what“ bc I totally ship Aria with him. But I thought he was a teen too but then I looked it up and he’s the same age as Ezra. I hate it😭
Marlene King and the PLL writers should’ve been investigated for this. They literally made this show try to normalize romantic and sexual relationships between grown adults, and teen girls. Like you’d have to have a disturbing and sick mindset to not only wanna think about grown adults dating teen girls and that being okay…..but to make a show out of it, and to try and normalize it. Idk what Marlene or the writers were truly thinking when they wrote these storylines…..but the fact that they pretty much had all of the girls involved with much older men, and then tried to make it seem like a good thing….that should’ve been investigated because I can’t imagine how many romantic and sexual relationships, between grown adults and teen girls ended up truly happening due to this show.
this is hands down the best video I have seen on this topic. I've seen a lot of other videos about this but the way you explain it all is so clear and make sense. You break it down very well and address so many essential details. Very well done!
Oh my goddess, best show analysis ever! I love the show, I really do, but it has a lot of problems. When I started to watch the show I was already an adult, but some of my friends watched it when they were younger. I was 19 when the show premiered, but I started to watch it when I was 23, so I saw most of the predatory problems at once. However, some of my younger (and even older!) friends didn't. One of my friends was a teenager and she loved Ezria. She thought I was stupid and idiotic for hating them together. Another one of my older friends refused to see the problems with Emison. Probably because she was the Emily and was in love with an Alison. Her crush played with her feelings, used them against her and always tried to use her when it suited her interests. She didn't like Ezria very much, but she didn't like how I "overanalysed" their relationship either. Another friend of mine, however, was horrified by Ezria when I told her about the show. She is going to be a teacher herself and she, as well as her husband, agreed that Ezra was a predator who abused his powers. I also told them about how Noel reacted and how scared he was for Aria, both agreed that it was a sane reaction. My friend's husband said that he would also get scared and worried if he in high school had seen a teacher kissing a student. Also, I love that you also included the part where Hanna's friends victimblamed her. That part almost broke my heart. It was horrible. Even if Hanna had been drunk, what difference would it make? Zack was a creep. I can't believe that Emily and Spencer tried to stop her from telling Aria, not to mention how Aria later victimblamed her. Was it maybe too personal for her because she also dated a predator and couldn't handle the reality of older men hitting on young girls? Jake was 21 when he dated Aria, who was 18 at that time. I don't think that's a huge problem. If he had been her official teacher, I would dislike him. Since he wasn't and didn't abuse any powers he had, I actually liked him a lot. He tried to talk some sense into Aria about Ezra, without pushing her. Liam did too. It's awful how the show tried to paint anyone who was against Ezria as being in the wrong or villainized. Jake and Liam were the only sane men Aria ever dated. It's horrible how she took Ezra back after the book and that she later betrayed her friends to protect him. Lucy Hale herself even believed that Aria was going to be the ultimate endgame A because of how she treated her friends. She was actually a horrible person and friend. Ezra was the one in the wrong for dating both Alison and Aria, but how Aria was towards her friends was awful. Another example is when Hanna was kidnapped, potentially killed, by AD. All Aria was concerned with was only her relationship with Ezra, not at all about Hanna. Again, lovely video! Many people (including the creators) say that it is a show about female friendship, but is it really? Is it really about this so called "female friendship"? That's nonsense.
I had to pause at 9:20, so forgive me if this is addressed but you gotta love how Ezra outright gave Aria preferential treatment, when they were "off" he was outright nasty to her.
I really hated the way hannah was treated by her friends because she told the truth at least caleb had the decency to stand up for her I was so furious when aria went off on hannah about what that creep tried to do this is why people who have been sexually abused or harrassed don't speak up about what has happened 😡🤬🤯🤢🤮
I remember being really upset with Hannah's mom dating the detective to help her daughter get off on her charges. I had to quit the show for a bit. I was not upset with Hannah or her mom but with the detective clearly taking advantage of the situation.
My Jason headcanon, posted here to be accepted or discarded, is that he started the NAT club as a way to cope with the constant gaslighting he was subjected to when his parents convinced him he only had one sibling. He couldn't trust his own eyes, and he couldn't trust what his parents told him. I think his solution was to secretly record everything around him so that he'd have an unbiased record that at the time would have been hard to manipulate. I can see him getting caught by Ian and Garrett and using the "recording girls" story as a cover, which is really its own commentary on society. And then when he couldn't cope with what they were doing, he decided to tune everything out with a whole lot of drugs. Admittedly, it's a stretch, but I've never been able to reconcile the character as shown with the character as told. The person we saw looked lost and sad all the time, and not the sort of person who would spy on young girls. Perhaps that's naive, but it's my read on him.
I like that headcannon! I don't like the Jason/Aria ship as is, but my headcannon has always been that Jason had an obsession with recording things around him for some reason (I like your explanation), and the older boys manipulated him into handing over the footage and then they started the NAT club. I say "older boys" because in my headcannon, Jason is only like 2 years older than Aria. Still an age difference, but I think there's a major difference between a 16 and 18 yo dating and a 16 and 23 yo dating.
He never said that. He said it was his idea with a small smirk on his face. He said he was messed up but being sad or having an unhappy home life isn’t a reason or excuse. That club was started when the girls were still in middle school, yk, literal children. I know it’s your “head canon” but there’s no need to make things up when it comes to these disturbing acts especially when they are in a show who’s audience was mostly young girls. There are plenty of “NAT clubs” irl. He’s terrible. Just like his conversation with spencer in season one- when she said he was just like Alison and he replied with his smirk “in some ways even worse.”
Aria telling Hannah she’s the problem lives rent free in my mind and now that I remember the context it makes me even more mad hearing it. This line always bothered me hate how they treated her. This is an amazing video well thought out with many good points. This show was so messy with such bad things. Great video 🙂
This is the literal reason I could never rewatch the show. I would throw up. Even back then I kept hoping A would kill him or Aria would have some sort of epiphany as she got older like something anything that would make this make sense but no. They gave the statutory rapist and his victim a happily ever after and made the whole thing seem A-okay
10:18 tw: trauma dumping . I *remember* a teacher I had a crush on saying this exact thing word for word. "I don't see you as a child". And this goddamn show made me think that was a good thing. Brought me to tears. This stuff is truly dangerous to present positively in front of an underage audience. This show *actively* negatively affected myself and girls I knew
tw: further elaboration on predatory behaviour and grooming. honestly, a lot of these kinds of narratives that were (and still are) so aggressively pushed in media, not least in pll itself, were a great factor in making my young teenage self feel like getting the (romantic/sexual) attention from grown men was something desirable and cool. i would be lying if i said that these shows did not play a hand in me being blind to the fact that i was being groomed by several of them. thanks for saying it like it is. though i think a trigger warning would have been really useful here, cause a lot of this definitely is hard to hear. edit: what you said about that false sense of maturity is *SO* true. probably one of the harder parts to listen to, because i heard that all my life, which is what made my young self feel so special when grown men 'saw that maturity in me' too, but always mixed with my innocence. i felt like 'well, since ppl always say im so mature, i might as well act like it.'
I think part of the reason why some of the predatory behavior got normalized or overlooked by a lot of young viewers was because most of the actors/actresses if I'm not mistaken, were in their 20s, thereby giving young people the false impression that the characters' inappropriate age gaps were small, nonexistent, or morally/legally irrelevant. In hindsight, Aria and Ezra's relationship *was* honestly a blatant attempt to normalize pedophilia by villainizing parents and police, and sensationalizing it by having 'A' threaten to expose the relationship. As kids, we should've been cheering for Aria's dad, Jackie, and 'A' not Aria and Ezra's 'romance.' And when you think about it, Aria represents a pervert's fantasy--a girl who is 'mature for her age,' totally in love with him, is herself attractive and intelligent, shares his tastes, readily sacrifices for him, sees the need for secrecy as an injustice sometimes but is good at maintaining it, finds their relationship moral/ethical and defends it when confronted by parents/cops, feels that an imbalance of power is attractive or no big deal, has accepting friends; eventually wants to go public with their relationship/get married and succeeds in doing so. And because young girls wanted to be like Aria and "find themselves an Ezra," as OP put it, this show has made it that much easier for pervs to groom girls via the phone and internet; thinking keeping such a secret will make them a 'pretty little liar' instead of a victim of abuse and trauma.
It really is so awful how the writers who should have known better romanticised grooming and paedophilia. Its really heart breaking reading a lot of the comments under this video. Especially from those who were victims of grooming and paedophilia and because of this show thought it was 'normalised' behaviour.
It honestly makes me wonder if the writers themselves were predators in their own ways…..because the way they write these scenes just seemed way too realistic and creepy to what happens in real life predatory relationships.
I really like the video! Also, I really have no idea why or how Spencer was okay with Ian getting *so* close to her. Or why Ali didn't push him away from her immediately, but I guess that was just her personality or way of thinking. It was just really weird and I don't think I would've been okay with this. Oh and remember when Zach was harassing Hanna? I'm happy nothing romantically happened between them, even though I'm still confused and kind of outraged by the reactions of the other girls. One tells you she's being harassed by some older creep and you tell her she's lying just to despite you? Quote "You're the problem, you're always the problem!" Great job being a friend there, Aria. When I think about Emily and Talia, I, for myself, hated that woman to be honest. Not just because of the fact she was several years older than Em, but also because she *used* her as an experiment. I would've been more than heartbroken. Speaking of the book Ezra was writing: He could've just asked. He could've just went up to the girls, introduce himself friendly and ask if he could write a book about them. Then grasp all the informations together and write it. I have to admit he wouldn't have gotten everything he got when he acted out his plan. Well, now speaking of the sentence "romance with a teacher"... I still don't get why Byron completely ignored the fact he did the same thing. It does matter Meredith was an adult, but it also matters that she was his student. Oh god, don't even get me started on Jenna and Toby! I also liked that the roles were switched up once. I kind of still can't *hate* Jenna, of course I don't love her or approve of what she did over the years, including Toby. The "Jenna Thing" is too strong as that I could fully hate her. It's really not her fault for holding a grudge against the group, since they literally took away her sight for good. I was writing this while I watched the video, so I kind of didn't know you'd mention some parts when I wrote those 😅 Hope you took time to read these^^
Hannah is my favorite, it hurt my heart when they all doubted her about a grown man hitting on her, that’s their bestfriend how could Aria react like that?? Aria is a bad friend.
Ezra just made me super uncomfortable with the way he would stare at Aria and the others. Also he's a hypocrite because he yelled at Alison after finding out she was underage but he had no problem getting with Aria after seeing her sitting in his classroom. Yes, he already knew her from his "research" but doing it anyway?? And when Aria forgave him I knew I lost her. Their relationship was just cringe and creepy. I laughed when he found out his son wasn't his, because karma!
I'm just going to say I don't hate the Aria and Ezra as a storyline BUT the relationship should've ended in about season 2 with Ezra being arrested and Aria seeing him as a predator (also would like to see Aria deal with it in the next season before moving on). the storyline of teacher/student is interesting (a bit overdone in 2021 tho) but it shouldn't be romanticized and an endgame for one of the main characters.
Oh, I haven't seen this one before now. Good thing I found this! And you're so right! Thank you for this, it's so important to look at it without the romance glasses on!
One of Ezra’s friends in season one makes a point about the relationship leading to Ezra wearing an orange jumpsuit, so the writers can’t claim ignorance. I’m uncomfortable with putting Jenna as a disabled woman in the role of predator, when in reality the power dynamics make it unrealistic. And many blind women have shared their experience of their disability being used to aid men sexually assaulting them.
"Many" blind women isn't all blind women though. Being disabled doesn't immediately make someone more likely to be a victim than a predator. Being unwilling to acknowledge that someone can still be capable of predatory behaviour just because they're blind is just as much of a problem as people* sexually assaulting people.
as far as i know, jenna sexually assaulted toby before she was blind though. she obviously makes moves after as well, but she was forcing herself on him before the "jenna thing"
@@carolins4240 IIRC wasn't she faking being blind anyway? It's been a long time since I watched it, but I feel like I remember it being a big deal that she faked being blind the whole time.
@@mydogeatspuke there was a plot line where she got eye surgery and regained some of her eye sight but pretended to be fully blind still, yes but that was in season three or four. her forcing herself on toby happened/started before the series even started timeline wise
16:56 Can I also point out that Emily herself was assaulted by Ben in S1 ? But it is never brought up again that it's easy to forgot it even happens. Emily should have understood Hannah's position but nope. Thanks Marlene King for talking about such serious issues in your show and always handling them terribly.
@@shanouboubou the person behind the reboot is also the showrunner for the show riverdale I really loved the first season of the show but the past few seasons not so much
Sometimes I wonder, when watching diff predator catchers, why would kids be on dating apps. But then you see this and Riverdale multiple ad type references to Bumble and it all becomes clear. Creepy TV execs are doing this on purpose to normalize
Emily and Spencer we’re not bad friends too, Hannah. They just were internally, hoping that it wasn’t real because of how much it would hurt aria. They advised Hannah to be sure of what happened before making such claims, knowing the state that her friend had been which was going downward spiral.
Rewatching this show as an adult is even more cringey because of all the liars being involved with fully grown adults especially Ezria. I feel like the writers look at the liars as being college age. Another big problem of PLL is the treatment of POC and LGBTQ characters and how most of them ended up being the villain (Mona, Nate/Lyndon, Shana, Cece) or getting killed off (Maya, Nate/Lyndon, Shana, Wayne Fields, and Yvonne)
What makes this show even worse is the casting for Emily and Alison. Season 1/season 2 any kiss scenes between Alison and Emily were basically between a minor Alison's actress Sasha who was 12/13/14 years old at the time with an adult, Emily's actress, Shay, who is ten years older that Sasha, basically she was in her 20s and fans were shipping that. They should have either casted someone Sasha's age for Emily or they should have casted someone Shay's age for Alison instead of casting a minor and an adult and having them kissing in some scenes.
It's a wonder Sasha doesn't have serious mental health problems after having to portray such a mature and troubled character at such a young age. Very strange that she was allowed to audition let alone given the role. There are surely plenty of suitably aged young women just waiting to get a call back. Looking back at women like Drew Barrymore and some of the stories she has told about her formative years and drug use because she was treated like an adult despite very much still being a child, I would have thought we "as a society" would have learned by now that these things have an incredible impact on the psyche.
Hi Marina I agree all under age relationships. Mostly that parents did do much . ARia should have left Ezra after knowing the truth about knowing Ali.. And Also when being older should have report it him or some consequences should have happened. Ian Wren Jason and especially Wilden . Parents friends police did nothing. The last season its like they gave up . Knowing who AD make no sense . ali and emily did all that baby story for nothing so was better if Emily found someone new. Ect ect..Jenny should had got some type of help not Radley some other place after what happened with Toby. Toby and Spencer should have ended up together. And Aria alone to be love her self again.
I always thought Holbrook handled the whole kiss thing with Hanna the right way but then how they turned around and had him go down that road with Allison made me so mad. Like they took a somewhat decent adult character who recognized hey you're 17 we can't do this with one character but then completely threw that exact same reasoning out the window with another.
i have to say that the only two relationships that i like is Toby & Spencer and then Hannah & Caleb i just love Them , but what i also like is when the girls are solving these mysteries that there is and of course i just love all the jokes that they say , as a adult i Can see that is was wrong that Aria was in a relationship with Ezria because he should have stoppet what he and Aria had and let her see guys in her own age
I was 13 when I watched PLL and I was obsessed with Ezria. I had a major crush on Ian Harding and thought their relationship was amazing, rewatching their scenes over and over. Having thought that, I can’t imagine what would have happened to me had a similar situation occurred at my school or in my life in which an attractive adult I looked up to attempted to manipulate, abuse or assault me. I probably wouldn’t have seen an issue with it until it was too late. I’m thankful nothing like that has ever happened to me, but it scares me that PLL had such an influence on me when I was so young regarding my views on teacher/student relationships.
There is also the fact that a character was practically sacrificed to keep Aria and Ezra together. Noel Kahn was destroyed as a character. All the character development he had in the books was stripped away from him in the tv show. They turned Noel Kahn into one of the bad guys to keep Aria with Ezra. In the books, Noel grows as a person and he ultimately ends up with Aria.
thank you for this. i always thought i was the only one who thought that the show constantly showed predators as normal. ezra and aria, for instance, never sat right with me. first of all, ezra took advantage of aria knowing she had lost her best friend to try and hookup with her. whenever aria tried to end it, ezra always tugged her back. i don't care if they were actually in love or not, ezra was her teacher. their relationship was wrong on all accounts. and the fact that aria's parents were ok with her being with ezra, like what?
I had a friend when i was in high school that started a relationship with a dance teacher who was in his late 20s. I remember that when she told me about it i was worried and i disapproved and tried to make her see that it wasnt right. A few months later someone foundoutand told her parents and my friend asked me if i had been the one to let the secret out. I assured her i hadnt and heres the thing: as a young girl myself, i knew it was wrong but i couldnt UNDERSTAND just HOW wrong, so i NEVER would have told her parents bc that would have been a "bad friend" thing to do. Now, i know i would have risked losing her friendship a thousand times over if it meant telling her parents about the disgustingman that was grooming their daughter. Sometimes i think about it and i shudder because i watched PLL when i was a teenager and idk...my attitude towards ezria was "this is creepy i dont like this, but no lets not call the cops and dont tell aria's parents that would be terrible :(", and thats the exact same attitude i had in real life. They never should have normalized these type of predatory relationships
If the girls were college students instead of high school students then their ages wouldn't have been as much of an issue. The men would still have been scum for cheating, but they wouldn't have been sexualising literal children. But their absurd behaviour surrounding threatening text messages from "anonymous" numbers would have been a lot harder to believe if they weren't infants. It often surprises me that this show was written by an older woman because so much of it comes across as Tumblr fanfic from the mind of a 13 year old.
The entire idea of PLL only works because of the small town honestly. In the time jump, they all come back to Rosewood because no one gives a shit in a big city! So if they were college age it would be better, but it would still have to be set in Rosewood since even the adults of the town clearly care what others may think or know about their family and want to keep it under wraps.
One of the biggest problems with the show is the fact that it taught me that its cool and exciting to date someone so much older and in a position of authority is pretty cool, actually. It has caused me to make mistakes that im not ashamed of but wish i hadnt made them. Its really gross to allow this shoe to go on for as long as it did and not once mention how predatory some of these older men were.
Thank you so much for making this video. I always argue about all of these points and get shut down every time. I appreciate you adding in Toby being a victim of rape. Most people would ignore that or not address it at all.
i must have been following the right people because every time i'd get online to talk about this show everyone hated Ezra as soon as we realized they weren't going to cut off the relationship.
I think there's something important to remember with the girls reaction to Zack hitting on Hanna. The fact that Spencer was blamed by adults, including her own lawyer parents for both Wren and lan kissing her sets the stage for the girls blaming Hanna. When the smart and responsible one is the group is to blame for grown men kissing her, why wouldn't they blame Hanna? It wasn't right but at that point they were taught that it was the victims fault.
Honestly I think it would have done the show some good if Hanna had distanced herself from the others in a major way after the Zach arc. It would have shown how affected she really was with the way they viewed her in the situation and also given the writer’s an opportunity to organically develop her character apart from the liars for even half a season or a whole season. As for what she would have been doing if she did distance herself, I think they should have given some focus on the moments where she showed almost as much or if not equally as much intellect as Spencer. Much as she’s been on the show as long as everyone else, for some reason she’s one of the characters that I feel doesn’t have as much character development as someone like Spencer or even Aria. And that’s mostly because it’s been one of those underlying jokes in the show’s watchers that in the beginning Aria was Marlene’s favorite so her character had more fleshing out compared to everyone else. And then midway through Season 3 that favoritism shifted to Spencer and stayed there. Hanna and Emily I believe deserved more than being written as what I now see as “serial monogamists” and not much else. 😳
literally i love PLL and it's plots, but the fact that they normalized a student-teacher relationship was a big problem. Like they made it seem like "sure everyone can go hook up with their teacher! You might have some problems but as long as you sneak around, it'll all work out and you guys can get married in the end!" Also, even if Ezra wasn't Aria's teacher, their age difference was also a problem cuz he had already graduated college when they met and Aria was in 10th grade I'm pre sure. like wrong on too many levels
I just watched pll for their first season, but my gut was right the only “couple” that i ever shipped was haleb and spoby, both of them are the ones who i feel like “normal” and based on mutual respect and attraction.
Following the zack and hanna thing, i was soo relieved that caleb believed her the second she told him and defended, tho it was supposed the normal thing to do 🥴
Thank you! I so glad to see this video. finally, someone who agrees with how damaging the shows dynamic is. It is one of the most disgusting children/teen targeted shows I have ever seen. It should be addressed negatively as they did such a poor job of dealing with these sensitive topics. It deeply upsets me just thinking of all the damage this show has done and the audience it has affected by promoting all these different types of abuse and just brushing it off.
I have to say that I think Lorenzo must have been Toby’s age and Ally was already of age by that time so I wouldn’t consider it problematic when a 18 year old has a boyfriend who is 19 or 20. But Ezra, Wilden, Ian and all the others are super creepy. Also I think Jake was Ariad age or maybe a year older.
Thank you for covering this topic. I think what is so important is the cultural timing of the show. Teenagers at this time were on a very unregulated internet. It wasn’t uncommon for young girls to go on Chatroulette, meet older strangers online, share photos, and ultimately become sexualised at a very young age.
You should have seen us in the late 90s and early 2000s. The internet has always been dangerous for children and always will be. It has always been utilised by predators and has always attracted lonely children looking for someone to understand and value them.
@@mydogeatspuke oh yeah 100% I think the bloom of social media in the late 00’s was especially more related to this era but no doubt the onset of the internet was a disturbing new avenue for predators. This is random but did you ever play InkLink? That was one of my first run ins with that stuff and I’ve found so many others who did too!
@@mariella2884 nah, I was very much an adult with other interests by the late 2000s so Drawing With Friends etc weren't my thing. It's quite strange to me tbh having grown up with the internet in a very different way to kids these days that nothing has really changed. I remember when we didn't have the internet, it was completely unfathomable, and how everyone I knew that had it wgen it became available to the public was either wealthy or had a parent with a tech obsession who gave up other things in order to be one of the first to have it at home. It was acknowledged that strangers online could be axe murderers or dirty old men but it wasn't really taken seriously. My first and longest (and realistically my only) relationship was with a man 6 years older than me who I met in a chat room at 13 and eventually met in person at 17. It took 20 years of on again, off again for me to realise the enduring abuse and grooming that happened and it still sometimes feels like I lost my soul mate, and nobody ever thought it was strange that an adult was interested in a child. I was "so mature for my age" so it was somehow acceptable. He's now in his 40s and dating girls in their early 20s, but I guess it's harder to hide engaging with literal children when you're that old, so he just goes for old enough to be their actual parent instead. Many of the people I grew up with have their own children now, some of whom are also teenagers, and yet there still isn't much in the way of protection of children online. We still acknowledge that someone could be an axe murderer, shake our heads in disbelief when hearing experiences like mine from our peers, but people will still meet strangers after matching on an app based on a picture that could be someone else entirely and a couple of text messages. Back in the day we would talk for 10 hours a day for months or even years if one of you wasn't old enough to legally consent before meeting each other. We all know these horrible things are happening, many of them behind ajar doors that predators don't bother closing anymore because nobody takes it that seriously despite the endless discussions about how problematic it all is, and then shows like this glorify adults pursuing children. Predators utilise the internet because they're allowed to. Sticking a label that says 18+ only or 13 and under only on a website doesn't mean much, it isn't enforceable. Young girls increasingly thing it's exciting to be pursued by grown men and even with child pornography laws, continue to distribute lewd and nude images of themselves and their friends. It doesn't help that girls now look much older than they did when I was a teen, and many of them lie about their age too. That's not to say that it's their fault, but I have to wonder what if anything their parents are doing to deter this behaviour and protect them from bad people. We know much better than we did in the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s etc, and yet things are only getting worse.
well i got a somewhat personal example. i know a 20 year old dating a 31 year old. we both have a mutual best friend( they've been friends since childhood and i met that friend in uni). so that 20 year old gets sexually harassed by a family friend, tells her 31 year old boyfriend and he gets MAD AT HER BECAUSE SHE DOESNT KNOW HOW TO "DEFEND HERSELF" AND THAT HE CANT TRUST HER NOW. my best friend was like "oh he made a mistake and appologised" NO NO NO NO THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS. THATS NOT A MISTAKE, THATS A FUCKED UP FIRST REACTION. I WISH I CAN TELL HER TO GET THE FUCK AWAY BUT WE ARENT REALLY FRIENDS JUST KINDA KNOW ABOUT EACH OTHER
Pretty Little Liars is basically the show the members of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) watches if they need inspiration to keep on pushing and get Ezra's dream that one day, you too can get your fairytale wedding on a underage kid.
People who root for Jason & Aria, Ian & Ali or Spencer, and Spencer & Wren but hate Ezria always confused me. While Ezra was 100% creep worthy for pursuing Aria for his book when he was her teacher is wrong, Jason, Ian, & Wren are even more disturbing in their circumstance. Jason has known Aria pretty much her whole life and watched her grow up and obviously noticed her appeal change as she aged. Their was never any instance Jason didn’t know Aria’s age or anything. So he was even more wrong to wanting her. He was just waiting for his turn because he knew her & Ezra might not last. Ian & Wren were just insanely creepy to me. They both used to be at Spencer’s house with Melissa having s3x with her but secretly wanting to know what the little sister was like 🤮 Ian basically used to try and keep Spencer quiet on their romance like he wasn’t grooming her. And Wren kept trying to get with Spencer throughout the entire show. He even went as far as getting with her twin because she was the version of Spencer he could have and it resulted in his death 🤦🏾♀️ he was OBSESSED with Spencer and didn’t really know her. I hated how when she became of age she willingly hooked up with him when he was on another break with Melissa. Why would you want anything to do with a man that has slept with your sister and repeatedly trying to be with you behind her back?? It never made sense to me why Wren was so creepy. He even kissed Hanna in the show too. At least Ezra and Jason only had eyes for Aria, Ian and Wren were to get which ever Pretty Little Liar they could
This is the problem with casting people in their mid-twenties as teens. It makes it too easy to cross these lines and makes it too hard to remember what the age gaps are supposed to be. When it is two 26 year old performers that look like the adults that they are, it’s hard to remember that one of them is still supposed to be a kid. Not only for the audience, but I feel for the writers as well. I would venture that the predatory behavior not being commented on is not because they think it’s okay, but because the writers didn’t fully remember how inappropriate the relationships would be in canon because they were too distracted by the fact that the actors are the same age.
I think the reason for why they cast grown adults in these “teen” roles, is because they don’t want actual teens to get involved in roles that could have a serious impact on them both mentally and emotionally. However, it’s also hard when teens today….look like grown adults, but that isn’t their faults….it’s actually do to all of the fast food that they eat, and those ingredients which impacts their hormones and causes them to go through puberty in a way that makes them look older than what they are, as well as of course how they dress. Back then when PLL first came out, teens looked like teens, dressed like teens, and nobody was going crazy on fast food.
I was 14 when this show first came out, I never understood why they pushed horrible relationships as positive. I HATED ezra and aria. I was so angry that Ezra WASNT A
How i feel about student teacher relationship in teen shows I'm OK with it being there for drama as long as they dont try to romanticise and glorify it
through re-watching the series in the past few days I have noticed so many lines of dialogue on Ezra‘s part that are literally verbatim written examples I’ve seen in textbooks of grooming
Middle school me watching PLL for the first time: I love Ezra I would honestly date him too 20 Y/O me who’s read the books rewatching; THAT IS A CHILD KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF HER ARIA YOU COULDVE BEEN WITH NOEL. GOD I WISH THE SHOW WOULDVE MADE HER HOOK UP WITH HIS LITTLE BROTHER
I am SO shocked with the amount of inappropriate relationships in this show… I stopped watching after season 3 but I always thought of doing a marathon just for fun, but after this video I’m definitely not doing this.
Agree!! I watched it because it’s so hard to tell by rating what’s appropriate anymore! My kids won’t be watching it! It’s really disappointing how many shows advertised for kids are actually not appropriate!!
To everyone hating on Ezria, their relationship, Ezra, etc. Calm down guys it was just a TV show. There's no need to analyse FICTION and see whether it was legal. Ezria fans are just enjoying the chemistry and the cute love story. Just because it happens on a TV show doesn't mean it's okay to copy in real life and we all know that. That way, entire PLL was twisted, with girls being blackmailed, buried alive, kidnapped and locked up in a house like dolls. Literally no one's going to do that irl. Most TV shows/OTT Platforms even have disclaimers at the beginning stating that the content is entertainment/fiction only. It's just a drama kinda exaggerated TV show, enjoy it for what it is without taking it too literally!
There is nothing cute about a teacher grooming their student, idc if it’s a tv show, Marlene is disgusting for romanticizing a predatory relationship. It doesn’t matter that it’s fiction, because situations like this happen in real life. Ezria is a predatory relationship and PLL has a history of romanticizing predatory behavior. Ezra knew how old Aria was in the bar and he still pursued/preyed on her anyway. Aria is a victim of grooming, so no ezria is not some “cute little love story” it is a story of grooming. You’re allowed to ship ezria, and people are allowed to criticize the ship for being predatory and wrong
@@jaydas8976 Everything in PLL is illegal and twisted IRL - predatory behaviour, stalking, locking girls up and pretending they were dolls, kidnapping, blackmailing, murder and burying dead bodies. The whole point is that it was created as FICTION TV show for profitable purposes, so NONE of it should be copied in real life. In no way does PLL propagate themselves as a reality, non profit show. If you don't like TV shows with fictional scary storylines, then don't watch those shows that's all. If you think a kid might be influenced by these shows, don't let the kid watch it until they are old enough to know better. Producers like Marlene are free to create whatever fiction they want to, for a target audience that can enjoy these shows without taking them literally, doesn't mean she means harm to society or is "disgusting".
@@jaydas8976 then stay away from shows like PLL. Every single thing shown in PLL was characteristic of psychopathic behavior. There's a reason it's fiction lol.
Thank god for talking about people like Jason and Emily's girlfriend. So many people always say that their ok and then say that Ezria is awful like make it make sense.
i remember watching PLL for the first time when i was around eleven or so. i LOVED ezra with all my heart. now that i'm eighteen everytime ezra and aria have a scene it's cringe central!! like boy GET OUT OF HERE. all i can think about is that one clip from the office.
TW: Now that I've changed the title of this video, I realize that I need to include a warning that the content of this video contains discussions of predatory behavior, sexual harassment, and assault.
Honestly I think that the world has a double standard love hate relationship with this sort of thing. Oh its illegal, but that don't stop a lot of fictions from flirting with what they can get away with in the name of fantasy and people being secretly drawn to all the licentious scandals in the name of moral outrage.
If you want to see a storyline that portrays the trauma of Male rape you should watch coronation street it's a British daytime soap opera a few years ago the show did the storyline of David Platt who is drugged and is sexually assaulted and the show Outlander 🤔👍
@@angelaholmes8888 I thought outlander is that time travel romance saga
@@Tuberiascaesar oh it is but both the book series and the tv show also deals with series issues like rape I read the books months before the show aired
@@Tuberiascaesar and in both versions the character of jaime Fraser is sexually assaulted by another man and he learns to deal with the trauma from the assault
Just another thing that was brushed over was Emily's relationship with Paige, who had very stalkerish tendencies and, oh yeah TRIED TO DROWN HER
Exactly. Never liked Paige. And even though Alison was horrible, she turned in proof that Alison was alive, so she could be hurt or worse.
@@atyourbesturluv.7106 I totally forgot that!!
Paige was abusive and it was horrible
Emily had just 2 relationships who we're good for her
Maya and I think her name was Samra? Or something like that
Paige and Alison we're just disgusting and her boyfriend was even worse he tried to rape her
Then Aria got Ezra who is not much better than Emily's ex boyfriend
Spencer got Wren and Ian
Was Hannah the only one with actual good guys? Only remember her first who was extremely religious and Caleb
@@ChrisAtheist sounds about right. I can’t even talk about “Ezria” it infuriates be
Victim blaming has been a big problem on this show. Whether it was spencers drug problem, Hannah being hit on, Melissas guys hitting on Spencer.. there were soo many instances where there was such a strong victim blaming. I hate that so much.
The blatant victim blaming Aria does to Hanna in season 5 after what happens with Zack is not only disgusting in general but made me hate Aria’s character
@@schizounicorns9291 Same. I hated her character a little before, but I was done after that.
@@schizounicorns9291 yeah that was hard to watch “you’re always the problem” what the hell, it was so out of character. Maybe it was one of her other personalities
It doesn’t help that the show takes place in Pennsylvania, which has their age of consent is 16 there and that the majority of actors were in their later 20s. I honestly wish they would have let the girls grow up if they wanted them to date these people (as in like 5-10 years to even start to actually date, in their late 20s, so they actually have time to grow up and to date people their own age). I’m not against people having age gaps, but only when they are both adults and have time to be children and teens.
Nice way of taking responsibility from any of them and blaming others our society now has become good at that by calling it victim blaming. It for once in today's climate would be great to see a TV show where people actually take responsibility for say doing drugs. Imagine a TV show people can actually emulate and learn from
Ezra is honestly an awful person in general. He humiliates and speaks down to his students, planned to date Aria to expose her in his book, and lied to Aria and her friends for a YEAR. Even if the liars had been college aged and/or Ezra had been a character the same age as Aria I still would have seen him as a total antagonist.
The whole "age of consent" thing has always bothered me in discussions of predatory relationship because, at least from my understanding of it, the age of consent doesn't simply refer to the age at which someone can legally be deemed as a consenting partner, but rather the age at which *minors can consent to relationships with other minors.* Even if Aria was the "age of consent" and Ezra hadn't been her teacher, he was still a man in his 20's getting involved with a teenager. Age of consent simply should not matter because he was an adult, and she was a child.
It wouldn’t even apply to their relationship bc he was her teacher. I. A position of power over her. The state it takes place in has that rule for age of consent
💯😩
The fact that he knew Aria was underage when he met her tho 🤢
It's a little bit more complex than that. "Age of consent" means different things in different jurisdictions, states and countries. In Pennsylvania, the age of consent is 16. What you're describing is the period between 13 and 16 in which teenagers can consent to relationships with peer within a 4-year range (a 13 with a 17 yo, a 14 with an 18 yo, etc). When they turn 16, they can consent to relationships with other teenagers or adults. It doesn't matter. They case of Aria and Ezra is not a case of statutory r4p3. It's a case of potential abuse because he was his teacher and there was a power imbalance. The issue wasn't the age of the people involved, at least not legally.
@@NawiTheCore Exactly. You can literally google this very quickly and get your answer. Not sure if OP was confused on the subject, and I’m certainly not condoning Aria and Ezra’s relationship since it’s still very weird and creepy even without the teacher aspect (and if you remember how Ezra was dating Allison presumably before she turned 16, so that would be both illegal and disturbing), but you’re correct. If Ezra weren’t Aria’s teacher, their relationship would be deemed legal in the eyes of the law, but since he is it’s very illegal and an abuse of power.
Troian is awesome. I love how fired up she gets defending the characters in this show.
Troian is a woke feminist. The kind that hates other women but pretend to care about women’s rights while also being married to the guy who publicly slapped her
“Source: I’m an actual teacher” DAMN 😩🙌🏾
Had to throw in those credentials somehow 😉
What I hate about Ezria is when people rightfully call out how bad and inappropriate their relationship is. Is that their portrayed as the bad guys for trying to break up Ezria.
Ella and Byron 1000%, they were being good parents and they did them dirty
exactly. at first, aria's parents reactions were completely justified and right. idk why they changed their minds.
I think that Emily and Alison were pretty icky couple too. Since Alison used to manipulate and threaten Emily, knowing about Emily's sexuality and how it's very sensitive topic to Emily. Of course, people can change, but it shouldn't have been the "endgame ship". It just shows how normalized these problematic and toxic relationships are, especially in PLL, and how many types of those are there. It's just sad.
The fact that turn Alison into a " good character" in the first place was outrageous. She literally bullied, manipulated and threaten all of her friends to make herself feel better about herself or to keep her secrets, but they give her a season of holding her accountable and then all is forgotten?
True...Emison being the Endgame was an absolute joke. Honestly I liked Paily. I know I'm the minority here.
@@justowlit9942i liked Paily too and wished they were endgame
She was generally emotionally manipulative toward emily even after her redemption atc
She was generally emotionally manipulative toward emily even after her redemption atc
I know you couldn't mention all predatory behaviour in PLL because there are so many, but I just couldn't forget how Ben sexually harassed Emily in the locker room and who knows what would've happened if Toby didn't save her.
God I forgot about Ben
Yeah I remembered that in season 1 thank god toby showed up
@Μαία I agree
Is probably because ben is a minor?
No matter what no one can tell me the writters aren't paedophiles ,or they would have considered real consequences for those
The parents of Spencer and her sister wouldn't have blamed her and called the cops on both grown men
Aria was if I remember correctly also with 2 adults,(Forgot the name of the boxing teacher)
Other TV shows did similar things but the adults/teacher got a punishment or at least had to leave the city or the parent's would have gone to the police
@@sneakymia1 wasn't Toby in juvie?
@@ChrisAtheist Toby just came back in Rosewood when this happened.
I agree. Another case I find disturbing is Wilden and Ashley. Seeing the flashback episode as well as Ashely discussing it in series 4 (when finding the hard-drive with NAT videoes in the church) it's obvious he took advantage of her as an officer driving her home when she was drunk. Also their whole "affair" in season 1 is based on an officer sexually coercing a mother wanting to protect her child.. it's sick and disgusting how many in the fandom who adresses Ashely as promiscuous.
Oh, I even forgot one thing about these awful predator relationships: All of the liars, including Mona (with the exception of Alison) had actresses that were all over the age of twenty when they played fifteen-eighteen year old girls. Troian was around twentyfive years old when the pilot episode aired, even though Spencer was around fifteen-sixteen. While Ezra was around twentytwo years old and Aria's high school teacher, Ian Harding is only a few years older than Lucy Hale. I think this adds to the romantization of Ezria; the actors doesn't have a big age difference.
I totally agree. Ian was around 24 and Lucy 20-21 in PLL's first season. If Lucy had actually looked like she did at 16 when Ezria's scenes were filmed, that relationship would have come across very, very differently.
Very true. I wonder if they had casted age appropriate actors if they wouldn't have gotten away with writing Ezria
Yes! This is why child me didn't see it as much of a problem. If Lucy Hale and Ian Harding were to have a relationship (which if I recall correctly they did) it would be okay! But not Aria Montgomery and Ezra Fitzgerald.
@@CAPTAIN_CLOCK they didn't, Lucy had a crush on him though
To give casting the slightest bit of benefit of the doubt, you don't have to deal with child labor laws when you're not working with children
God looking back on all those red flags in Ezria it’s just disturbing, CRUEL SUMMER DISTURBING (thank god that show exists to point out the horribleness of grooming)! & I used to be a HUGE a fan of that ship when it aired! Ughhhh teenage me really was duped by these tv writers! Amazing analysis video & especially fantastic attention to detail & scene picks! Definitely can never look at PLL the same “nostalgic” way again. 😖
I also will NEVER forget Aria’s horrible reaction to Hanna’s harassment! God it just makes me so angry & this also includes the reactions from her other friends too! 😡
@@HaleyRadiant Yeah I agree. I was so happy when Caleb punched Zack.
@@HaleyRadiant Same. And her apology wasn’t even an apology. Smh!
I love cruel summer sm!!
@Life with Ty'jana'e 🦋 Yeah that young people watched & praised a bad relationship.
Thank you so much for this video. The show normalized disgusting behavior that the books themselves portrayed as messed up. Marlene King should be ashamed of herself.
I agree but also she shouldn’t be ashamed of herself for portraying serious issues like what-
@@Mia.S13 the problem is that they're not portrayed as serious issues- for example, Ezra, a whole adult and someone who is/used to be their teacher, was in his underwear in front of children and it was portrayed as something humorous/heartwarming where no one felt uncomfortable. I presume that's what Enrique meant
@@colabray2348 oh
@@colabray2348 You're right, that's what i meant. The problem isn't the portrayal of something, every issue imo should be portrayed in fiction one way or another. It's the romanticization of it that is problematic.
I still think one of the worst things that PLL ever did was make Aria and Ezra endgame. Aria deserved to have someone that wasn't grooming her... Ezra deserved prison.
The problem was that the actors were pretty close in age, so it didn't look weird having them together as it would if the age difference was more visibly clear.
Also, the fact that the character Noel Kahn had to be destroyed to keep those two together, as Noel was who Aria ended up with in the books.
Thank you for addressing this topic with the seriousness it deserves. No hand holding the PLL fanbase and apeasing them on that particular front. Thanks so much for this video.
this issue could have (partially) been solved so easily if they had made the girls college age in the present day rather than still in high school, and have ali go missing in high school. i mean, why not? the show basically wrote and treated them like grown women anyway. why not actually make them grown women? have them all go to a college in the area - maybe a community one. you could still have emily be a swimmer and play sports aria dating her professor would be fun and scandalous but not illegal as they would both be adults and possibly very close in age. still controversial depending on how you view it but still not pedophilia or grooming. nothing they did felt realistic to high school. either that or they could have not written in these relationships at all.
i wrote this comment before i got to the sexual harassment segment of the video so obviously this does not apply to that but should have greatly solved the issue of relationships with grown men and women except for where ali was concerned of course in her flashbacks. however, i think it would make it easier to portray certain behaviors towards her as predatory.
Yeah and it could have made for an interesting discussion on power dynamics and imbalances in relationships and how the couple navigate a setup that can be looked down apon Aria could’ve been 21 and Ezra 30 or something like that it would’ve been so interesting
Agreed 100%
This would’ve been so much better omg
Immediately when Ezra made out with aria when he knew she was a CHILD I was like no. Like it’s so gross they stayed together. I feel bad for all of them. They all were taken advantage of by grown men. So nasty
The liars also didn’t end the relationship it is both their fault not just the men’s ,the liars didn’t end the relationship they also gave in.
@@TOGlamCosmetics Young girls don't usually realize how bad is it to be in a relationship with a grown man.
Lol but it's the way of the world. It was always wrong, not just in 2022 except no one batted an eyelash before
@@IchibanOjousama if you google or search on TH-cam there are many video's about aria and Ezra and what's wrong about it
Which we're released already when season 1 aired
@@1cheness as an 18 year old I disagree with this statement . I think they know it’s bad they just choose to ignore it. They think their grown bc they’re told that they are mature . All these men want is power and they’re manipulative. Teens should understand that all these men do is take advantage of them .
Of course Aria didn’t see Zach sexually pursuing Hanna as a problem because she was so used to her abnormal predatory relationship with her teacher that it did not phase her. 🙄 Shame
Didn't Aria not believe Hanna and act like Hanna was just having a downward spiral, when Hanna told her what happened?
Thank you for addressing this. A lot of people on the PLL subreddit are in denial that any grooming ever took place in the series. Like what?
yeah, they usually hate on aria for being groomed….
@@faildabortion as usual, women and girls are blamed for everything that men do to them..
@@mugiworld and people act like we don’t need feminism anymore and then, they blame woman for being victims :/
@@faildabortion Exactly. And anytime they see a rude woman they call them “feminists” like stfu.
This is why I don’t go on that PLL subreddit. They can’t take any other opinion other than their own, and when you make strong,valid arguments that they can’t rebut, they suspend your account. Definitely don’t recommend that place
I cannot believe how fooled I was because of this show, I watched PLL as a tween, and can't believe that this all flew over my head. This really is dangerous.
Genuinely dangerous because it told me and all my freinds who watched it- that these type of relationships were okay.
I think the reason that aria didn’t want to see Zach as a villain is that if she admitted that it was predatory she would have to see that Ezra is the same.
the fact that troian was the only cast member that talked about this
Lucy hale def should’ve
wtf? Ian Harding did it too, he addressed Ezra as pedophile AND wanted a scene in 7B SPOILER where Aria tells him that she wanted to call the cops on him
There was also Spencer’s “college coach” her parents hired to get her into college. He hit on Emily too
And Spencer’s sobriety coach too
I was ride or die for Ezria until 4B. I was a fanfic writer, a founder of the Twitter fandom, and just adored their relationship to the point of bullying the writers and producers into giving us more Ezria content. That was until 4B where it was clear that their entire relationship was manipulative and predatory, even more so than any previous critic could have predicted.
One of my biggest problems with Ezria is the framing in general. It wasn't only framed as romantic but as the pursuit of a teenage girl on a predatory male who has groomed her into thinking she's in control. Ezra essentially put all of the so called power into Aria's hands while he was abusing his power over her and, in retrospect, that makes it SO MUCH WORSE because it makes it seem like adults who abuse and groom teenagers are just giving into the passion of said teenager. Too many of my friends in the Ezria fandom were manipulated into thinking that the adult men that were pursuing and preying on them because "they were mature for their age." And that's why I think no other relationship worked for Aria because she was so invested into this grown ass man who had stolen so much from her.
The only part of the redemption arc that I appreciated was the last minute storyline in 7B when it was revealed that Aria almost had Ezra arrested in 4B and Ezra told her to submit the report to the police, realizing that HE was the abuser in the situation and this was because IAN HARDING wanted to address it. It was so random and so thrown in at the last minute but I'm glad it was included.
As for me years later, I still struggle with my view of relationships and power dynamics because of Ezria and I think I always will.
I still can not believe how the show never seemed to see a problem with Toby having to walk around assisting his abuser.
Yeah that was weird
With the way that Jenna was so sure their parents would believe her over Toby, when she blackmailed him, she must have been the golden child of the family.
I think everyone forgets that Jason is actually 6-7 years older than the liars 😐
6 years is a very big difference when one of you is a teenager. Even early 20s IMHO.
@@mydogeatspuke I agree. 25 and 31? Sure go ahead. 16 and 22 though????? So disturbing
He also came up with the idea for and founded the NAT club
I had always considerably disliked Aria, but after what she did to Hannah... omg I'd be lying if I said I don't want to kill her every time I think about that
i never finished the show explain
@@5bc500 in s5, Ella Montgomery's fiance kissed Hanna and when Hanna told Aria, she told Hanna that she was the problem, implied that Hanna "invited" him into her car and yelled at her for her addiction
Yeah I was so furious with aria about that at least caleb had hannah back and punch that creep 😡🤬
I literally hate Ezra. He should have gone to jail
I hate how Emily asked ali to go on with the pregnancy because ali just didnt want too, IF Emily was a boy People would be sooo mad.
@@jennytimelord9689 Yes but if you think about it ali was abused and got pregnant against her Will so she needed more time to think
I think it was so fast because she was thinking about what Emily wanted but thats just my opinion
I don’t see how her asking her to do the pregnancy is a problem, as long as she is big demanding or trying to manipulate her into doing. At the end of the day it’s Ali’s choice, and as long as Emily doesn’t try to take that away….
The more I look back on this show the worse it gets. This topic is one of main reasons why I stopped watching it back then
and something worse, some of us didn't even notice the predatory behavior
I've never thought about the whole Alex - Toby - Spencer thing like that. Is beyond sad and disgusting that they ruined such a powerful shipp like that :((( but it's also highly reprehensible how poorly handled these situations were on the show
You are so right that hole thing between alex and toby reminds me of a storyline from the show supernatural where Lucifer impregnates a woman without her knowledge or consent while inside of the body of her lover that's straight up rape because she gave her consent to her lover not to Lucifer I have only watch season 12 only once I was so disgusted and triggered by the hole thing 😡🤬🤢🤮
If pll ever returns for a movie or some sort of special or honestly in any capacity. I’d seriously love to see Aria come to her senses and Ezra go to JAIL lol…
😂😂😂😂
When you mentioned Jason I was like „wait what“ bc I totally ship Aria with him. But I thought he was a teen too but then I looked it up and he’s the same age as Ezra. I hate it😭
SAME
Lolol
He’s also a predator, NAT club was his idea.
Marlene King and the PLL writers should’ve been investigated for this. They literally made this show try to normalize romantic and sexual relationships between grown adults, and teen girls. Like you’d have to have a disturbing and sick mindset to not only wanna think about grown adults dating teen girls and that being okay…..but to make a show out of it, and to try and normalize it. Idk what Marlene or the writers were truly thinking when they wrote these storylines…..but the fact that they pretty much had all of the girls involved with much older men, and then tried to make it seem like a good thing….that should’ve been investigated because I can’t imagine how many romantic and sexual relationships, between grown adults and teen girls ended up truly happening due to this show.
this is hands down the best video I have seen on this topic. I've seen a lot of other videos about this but the way you explain it all is so clear and make sense. You break it down very well and address so many essential details. Very well done!
Oh my goddess, best show analysis ever! I love the show, I really do, but it has a lot of problems. When I started to watch the show I was already an adult, but some of my friends watched it when they were younger. I was 19 when the show premiered, but I started to watch it when I was 23, so I saw most of the predatory problems at once. However, some of my younger (and even older!) friends didn't. One of my friends was a teenager and she loved Ezria. She thought I was stupid and idiotic for hating them together. Another one of my older friends refused to see the problems with Emison. Probably because she was the Emily and was in love with an Alison. Her crush played with her feelings, used them against her and always tried to use her when it suited her interests. She didn't like Ezria very much, but she didn't like how I "overanalysed" their relationship either. Another friend of mine, however, was horrified by Ezria when I told her about the show. She is going to be a teacher herself and she, as well as her husband, agreed that Ezra was a predator who abused his powers. I also told them about how Noel reacted and how scared he was for Aria, both agreed that it was a sane reaction. My friend's husband said that he would also get scared and worried if he in high school had seen a teacher kissing a student.
Also, I love that you also included the part where Hanna's friends victimblamed her. That part almost broke my heart. It was horrible. Even if Hanna had been drunk, what difference would it make? Zack was a creep. I can't believe that Emily and Spencer tried to stop her from telling Aria, not to mention how Aria later victimblamed her. Was it maybe too personal for her because she also dated a predator and couldn't handle the reality of older men hitting on young girls?
Jake was 21 when he dated Aria, who was 18 at that time. I don't think that's a huge problem. If he had been her official teacher, I would dislike him. Since he wasn't and didn't abuse any powers he had, I actually liked him a lot. He tried to talk some sense into Aria about Ezra, without pushing her. Liam did too. It's awful how the show tried to paint anyone who was against Ezria as being in the wrong or villainized. Jake and Liam were the only sane men Aria ever dated. It's horrible how she took Ezra back after the book and that she later betrayed her friends to protect him. Lucy Hale herself even believed that Aria was going to be the ultimate endgame A because of how she treated her friends. She was actually a horrible person and friend. Ezra was the one in the wrong for dating both Alison and Aria, but how Aria was towards her friends was awful. Another example is when Hanna was kidnapped, potentially killed, by AD. All Aria was concerned with was only her relationship with Ezra, not at all about Hanna.
Again, lovely video! Many people (including the creators) say that it is a show about female friendship, but is it really? Is it really about this so called "female friendship"? That's nonsense.
I had to pause at 9:20, so forgive me if this is addressed but you gotta love how Ezra outright gave Aria preferential treatment, when they were "off" he was outright nasty to her.
I really hated the way hannah was treated by her friends because she told the truth at least caleb had the decency to stand up for her I was so furious when aria went off on hannah about what that creep tried to do this is why people who have been sexually abused or harrassed don't speak up about what has happened 😡🤬🤯🤢🤮
I remember being really upset with Hannah's mom dating the detective to help her daughter get off on her charges. I had to quit the show for a bit. I was not upset with Hannah or her mom but with the detective clearly taking advantage of the situation.
My Jason headcanon, posted here to be accepted or discarded, is that he started the NAT club as a way to cope with the constant gaslighting he was subjected to when his parents convinced him he only had one sibling. He couldn't trust his own eyes, and he couldn't trust what his parents told him. I think his solution was to secretly record everything around him so that he'd have an unbiased record that at the time would have been hard to manipulate. I can see him getting caught by Ian and Garrett and using the "recording girls" story as a cover, which is really its own commentary on society. And then when he couldn't cope with what they were doing, he decided to tune everything out with a whole lot of drugs.
Admittedly, it's a stretch, but I've never been able to reconcile the character as shown with the character as told. The person we saw looked lost and sad all the time, and not the sort of person who would spy on young girls. Perhaps that's naive, but it's my read on him.
I like that headcannon! I don't like the Jason/Aria ship as is, but my headcannon has always been that Jason had an obsession with recording things around him for some reason (I like your explanation), and the older boys manipulated him into handing over the footage and then they started the NAT club. I say "older boys" because in my headcannon, Jason is only like 2 years older than Aria. Still an age difference, but I think there's a major difference between a 16 and 18 yo dating and a 16 and 23 yo dating.
He never said that. He said it was his idea with a small smirk on his face. He said he was messed up but being sad or having an unhappy home life isn’t a reason or excuse. That club was started when the girls were still in middle school, yk, literal children. I know it’s your “head canon” but there’s no need to make things up when it comes to these disturbing acts especially when they are in a show who’s audience was mostly young girls. There are plenty of “NAT clubs” irl. He’s terrible. Just like his conversation with spencer in season one- when she said he was just like Alison and he replied with his smirk “in some ways even worse.”
Aria telling Hannah she’s the problem lives rent free in my mind and now that I remember the context it makes me even more mad hearing it. This line always bothered me hate how they treated her. This is an amazing video well thought out with many good points. This show was so messy with such bad things. Great video 🙂
this video was amazingly written and edited
Thank you for the kind words!
This is the literal reason I could never rewatch the show. I would throw up. Even back then I kept hoping A would kill him or Aria would have some sort of epiphany as she got older like something anything that would make this make sense but no. They gave the statutory rapist and his victim a happily ever after and made the whole thing seem A-okay
10:18 tw: trauma dumping . I *remember* a teacher I had a crush on saying this exact thing word for word. "I don't see you as a child". And this goddamn show made me think that was a good thing.
Brought me to tears. This stuff is truly dangerous to present positively in front of an underage audience. This show *actively* negatively affected myself and girls I knew
THANK YOU! Someone is finally talking about this in the way it should be talked about
tw: further elaboration on predatory behaviour and grooming.
honestly, a lot of these kinds of narratives that were (and still are) so aggressively pushed in media, not least in pll itself, were a great factor in making my young teenage self feel like getting the (romantic/sexual) attention from grown men was something desirable and cool. i would be lying if i said that these shows did not play a hand in me being blind to the fact that i was being groomed by several of them. thanks for saying it like it is. though i think a trigger warning would have been really useful here, cause a lot of this definitely is hard to hear.
edit: what you said about that false sense of maturity is *SO* true. probably one of the harder parts to listen to, because i heard that all my life, which is what made my young self feel so special when grown men 'saw that maturity in me' too, but always mixed with my innocence. i felt like 'well, since ppl always say im so mature, i might as well act like it.'
definitely agree ! also re: the tw 🤝🏼
I think part of the reason why some of the predatory behavior got normalized or overlooked by a lot of young viewers was because most of the actors/actresses if I'm not mistaken, were in their 20s, thereby giving young people the false impression that the characters' inappropriate age gaps were small, nonexistent, or morally/legally irrelevant.
In hindsight, Aria and Ezra's relationship *was* honestly a blatant attempt to normalize pedophilia by villainizing parents and police, and sensationalizing it by having 'A' threaten to expose the relationship. As kids, we should've been cheering for Aria's dad, Jackie, and 'A' not Aria and Ezra's 'romance.'
And when you think about it, Aria represents a pervert's fantasy--a girl who is 'mature for her age,' totally in love with him, is herself attractive and intelligent, shares his tastes, readily sacrifices for him, sees the need for secrecy as an injustice sometimes but is good at maintaining it, finds their relationship moral/ethical and defends it when confronted by parents/cops, feels that an imbalance of power is attractive or no big deal, has accepting friends; eventually wants to go public with their relationship/get married and succeeds in doing so. And because young girls wanted to be like Aria and "find themselves an Ezra," as OP put it, this show has made it that much easier for pervs to groom girls via the phone and internet; thinking keeping such a secret will make them a 'pretty little liar' instead of a victim of abuse and trauma.
It really is so awful how the writers who should have known better romanticised grooming and paedophilia.
Its really heart breaking reading a lot of the comments under this video. Especially from those who were victims of grooming and paedophilia and because of this show thought it was 'normalised' behaviour.
@@user-ix7rj3pc7r You are right :/
It honestly makes me wonder if the writers themselves were predators in their own ways…..because the way they write these scenes just seemed way too realistic and creepy to what happens in real life predatory relationships.
@@tiamarrow6366 I was wondering the same thing.
I really like the video! Also, I really have no idea why or how Spencer was okay with Ian getting *so* close to her. Or why Ali didn't push him away from her immediately, but I guess that was just her personality or way of thinking.
It was just really weird and I don't think I would've been okay with this.
Oh and remember when Zach was harassing Hanna? I'm happy nothing romantically happened between them, even though I'm still confused and kind of outraged by the reactions of the other girls. One tells you she's being harassed by some older creep and you tell her she's lying just to despite you?
Quote "You're the problem, you're always the problem!" Great job being a friend there, Aria.
When I think about Emily and Talia, I, for myself, hated that woman to be honest. Not just because of the fact she was several years older than Em, but also because she *used* her as an experiment. I would've been more than heartbroken.
Speaking of the book Ezra was writing: He could've just asked. He could've just went up to the girls, introduce himself friendly and ask if he could write a book about them. Then grasp all the informations together and write it. I have to admit he wouldn't have gotten everything he got when he acted out his plan.
Well, now speaking of the sentence "romance with a teacher"... I still don't get why Byron completely ignored the fact he did the same thing. It does matter Meredith was an adult, but it also matters that she was his student.
Oh god, don't even get me started on Jenna and Toby! I also liked that the roles were switched up once. I kind of still can't *hate* Jenna, of course I don't love her or approve of what she did over the years, including Toby.
The "Jenna Thing" is too strong as that I could fully hate her. It's really not her fault for holding a grudge against the group, since they literally took away her sight for good.
I was writing this while I watched the video, so I kind of didn't know you'd mention some parts when I wrote those 😅 Hope you took time to read these^^
Hannah is my favorite, it hurt my heart when they all doubted her about a grown man hitting on her, that’s their bestfriend how could Aria react like that?? Aria is a bad friend.
Ezra just made me super uncomfortable with the way he would stare at Aria and the others. Also he's a hypocrite because he yelled at Alison after finding out she was underage but he had no problem getting with Aria after seeing her sitting in his classroom. Yes, he already knew her from his "research" but doing it anyway?? And when Aria forgave him I knew I lost her. Their relationship was just cringe and creepy. I laughed when he found out his son wasn't his, because karma!
I'm just going to say I don't hate the Aria and Ezra as a storyline BUT the relationship should've ended in about season 2 with Ezra being arrested and Aria seeing him as a predator (also would like to see Aria deal with it in the next season before moving on). the storyline of teacher/student is interesting (a bit overdone in 2021 tho) but it shouldn't be romanticized and an endgame for one of the main characters.
Oh, I haven't seen this one before now. Good thing I found this!
And you're so right! Thank you for this, it's so important to look at it without the romance glasses on!
One of Ezra’s friends in season one makes a point about the relationship leading to Ezra wearing an orange jumpsuit, so the writers can’t claim ignorance.
I’m uncomfortable with putting Jenna as a disabled woman in the role of predator, when in reality the power dynamics make it unrealistic. And many blind women have shared their experience of their disability being used to aid men sexually assaulting them.
"Many" blind women isn't all blind women though. Being disabled doesn't immediately make someone more likely to be a victim than a predator. Being unwilling to acknowledge that someone can still be capable of predatory behaviour just because they're blind is just as much of a problem as people* sexually assaulting people.
as far as i know, jenna sexually assaulted toby before she was blind though. she obviously makes moves after as well, but she was forcing herself on him before the "jenna thing"
@@carolins4240 IIRC wasn't she faking being blind anyway? It's been a long time since I watched it, but I feel like I remember it being a big deal that she faked being blind the whole time.
@@mydogeatspuke there was a plot line where she got eye surgery and regained some of her eye sight but pretended to be fully blind still, yes but that was in season three or four. her forcing herself on toby happened/started before the series even started timeline wise
@@carolins4240 so well before the girls left her in.. christ, testing my memory now lol, a burning building? They're all terrible people either way.
16:56 Can I also point out that Emily herself was assaulted by Ben in S1 ? But it is never brought up again that it's easy to forgot it even happens. Emily should have understood Hannah's position but nope.
Thanks Marlene King for talking about such serious issues in your show and always handling them terribly.
You got that right Marlene really dropped the ball on that and I fear that's exactly what will happen in the reboot version
@@angelaholmes8888 I heard she is not involved in the reboot, thanks god !
But it's hard to say if the new show runner will do a better job or not.
@@shanouboubou the person behind the reboot is also the showrunner for the show riverdale I really loved the first season of the show but the past few seasons not so much
@@angelaholmes8888 HOLY CRAP 😭 They're going to handle all of this TERRIBLY
@@shanouboubou yes I'm afraid 😥😢😭
They really made these predatory relationships not only normalized, but extremely common.
Sometimes I wonder, when watching diff predator catchers, why would kids be on dating apps. But then you see this and Riverdale multiple ad type references to Bumble and it all becomes clear. Creepy TV execs are doing this on purpose to normalize
I used to watch this show when I was 11 and I even realized that Ezra was a creep and his and Aria's relationship was inappropriate
Emily and Spencer we’re not bad friends too, Hannah. They just were internally, hoping that it wasn’t real because of how much it would hurt aria. They advised Hannah to be sure of what happened before making such claims, knowing the state that her friend had been which was going downward spiral.
Rewatching this show as an adult is even more cringey because of all the liars being involved with fully grown adults especially Ezria. I feel like the writers look at the liars as being college age. Another big problem of PLL is the treatment of POC and LGBTQ characters and how most of them ended up being the villain (Mona, Nate/Lyndon, Shana, Cece) or getting killed off (Maya, Nate/Lyndon, Shana, Wayne Fields, and Yvonne)
What makes this show even worse is the casting for Emily and Alison.
Season 1/season 2 any kiss scenes between Alison and Emily were basically between a minor Alison's actress Sasha who was 12/13/14 years old at the time with an adult, Emily's actress, Shay, who is ten years older that Sasha, basically she was in her 20s and fans were shipping that.
They should have either casted someone Sasha's age for Emily or they should have casted someone Shay's age for Alison instead of casting a minor and an adult and having them kissing in some scenes.
It's a wonder Sasha doesn't have serious mental health problems after having to portray such a mature and troubled character at such a young age. Very strange that she was allowed to audition let alone given the role. There are surely plenty of suitably aged young women just waiting to get a call back. Looking back at women like Drew Barrymore and some of the stories she has told about her formative years and drug use because she was treated like an adult despite very much still being a child, I would have thought we "as a society" would have learned by now that these things have an incredible impact on the psyche.
Hi Marina I agree all under age relationships. Mostly that parents did do much . ARia should have left Ezra after knowing the truth about knowing Ali.. And Also when being older should have report it him or some consequences should have happened. Ian Wren Jason and especially Wilden . Parents friends police did nothing. The last season its like they gave up . Knowing who AD make no sense . ali and emily did all that baby story for nothing so was better if Emily found someone new. Ect ect..Jenny should had got some type of help not Radley some other place after what happened with Toby. Toby and Spencer should have ended up together. And Aria alone to be love her self again.
Thank you for mentioning Lorenzo like no one ever talks about him but Alison is still a young girl!!
I always thought Holbrook handled the whole kiss thing with Hanna the right way but then how they turned around and had him go down that road with Allison made me so mad. Like they took a somewhat decent adult character who recognized hey you're 17 we can't do this with one character but then completely threw that exact same reasoning out the window with another.
i have to say that the only two relationships that i like is Toby & Spencer and then Hannah & Caleb i just love Them , but what i also like is when the girls are solving these mysteries that there is and of course i just love all the jokes that they say , as a adult i Can see that is was wrong that Aria was in a relationship with Ezria because he should have stoppet what he and Aria had and let her see guys in her own age
I was 13 when I watched PLL and I was obsessed with Ezria. I had a major crush on Ian Harding and thought their relationship was amazing, rewatching their scenes over and over. Having thought that, I can’t imagine what would have happened to me had a similar situation occurred at my school or in my life in which an attractive adult I looked up to attempted to manipulate, abuse or assault me. I probably wouldn’t have seen an issue with it until it was too late. I’m thankful nothing like that has ever happened to me, but it scares me that PLL had such an influence on me when I was so young regarding my views on teacher/student relationships.
I’m pretty sure this is why Troian was happy when pll was ending and why she wants nothing to do with it ..
Same with Ashley Benson (Hanna). You could literally tell she was over it.
There is also the fact that a character was practically sacrificed to keep Aria and Ezra together. Noel Kahn was destroyed as a character. All the character development he had in the books was stripped away from him in the tv show. They turned Noel Kahn into one of the bad guys to keep Aria with Ezra. In the books, Noel grows as a person and he ultimately ends up with Aria.
thank you for this. i always thought i was the only one who thought that the show constantly showed predators as normal. ezra and aria, for instance, never sat right with me. first of all, ezra took advantage of aria knowing she had lost her best friend to try and hookup with her. whenever aria tried to end it, ezra always tugged her back. i don't care if they were actually in love or not, ezra was her teacher. their relationship was wrong on all accounts. and the fact that aria's parents were ok with her being with ezra, like what?
I had a friend when i was in high school that started a relationship with a dance teacher who was in his late 20s. I remember that when she told me about it i was worried and i disapproved and tried to make her see that it wasnt right. A few months later someone foundoutand told her parents and my friend asked me if i had been the one to let the secret out. I assured her i hadnt and heres the thing: as a young girl myself, i knew it was wrong but i couldnt UNDERSTAND just HOW wrong, so i NEVER would have told her parents bc that would have been a "bad friend" thing to do. Now, i know i would have risked losing her friendship a thousand times over if it meant telling her parents about the disgustingman that was grooming their daughter. Sometimes i think about it and i shudder because i watched PLL when i was a teenager and idk...my attitude towards ezria was "this is creepy i dont like this, but no lets not call the cops and dont tell aria's parents that would be terrible :(", and thats the exact same attitude i had in real life. They never should have normalized these type of predatory relationships
If the girls were college students instead of high school students then their ages wouldn't have been as much of an issue. The men would still have been scum for cheating, but they wouldn't have been sexualising literal children. But their absurd behaviour surrounding threatening text messages from "anonymous" numbers would have been a lot harder to believe if they weren't infants. It often surprises me that this show was written by an older woman because so much of it comes across as Tumblr fanfic from the mind of a 13 year old.
The entire idea of PLL only works because of the small town honestly. In the time jump, they all come back to Rosewood because no one gives a shit in a big city! So if they were college age it would be better, but it would still have to be set in Rosewood since even the adults of the town clearly care what others may think or know about their family and want to keep it under wraps.
@@alitaylor2622 The college could be Hollis which is in Rosewood.
@@alitaylor2622 lol ya as a city kid we get anonymous semi threatening texts all the time, I just block them and move on we don’t give a shit 😂
Thank you for doing this video, it's so hard to watch what happened to Aria being framed as romantic 🤢
One of the biggest problems with the show is the fact that it taught me that its cool and exciting to date someone so much older and in a position of authority is pretty cool, actually. It has caused me to make mistakes that im not ashamed of but wish i hadnt made them.
Its really gross to allow this shoe to go on for as long as it did and not once mention how predatory some of these older men were.
Thank you so much for making this video. I always argue about all of these points and get shut down every time. I appreciate you adding in Toby being a victim of rape. Most people would ignore that or not address it at all.
i must have been following the right people because every time i'd get online to talk about this show everyone hated Ezra as soon as we realized they weren't going to cut off the relationship.
I think there's something important to remember with the girls reaction to Zack hitting on Hanna. The fact that Spencer was blamed by adults, including her own lawyer parents for both Wren and lan kissing her sets the stage for the girls blaming Hanna. When the smart and responsible one is the group is to blame for grown men kissing her, why wouldn't they blame Hanna? It wasn't right but at that point they were taught that it was the victims fault.
This is such a great point and I so wish it had been addressed on the show.
I been waiting for this one 🎉🎉
The only one in the show who ever called Spencer a sl*t was Spencer herself when she went “Just assume it’s Spencer y’know sluttin’ it up” 😂
Honestly I think it would have done the show some good if Hanna had distanced herself from the others in a major way after the Zach arc. It would have shown how affected she really was with the way they viewed her in the situation and also given the writer’s an opportunity to organically develop her character apart from the liars for even half a season or a whole season. As for what she would have been doing if she did distance herself, I think they should have given some focus on the moments where she showed almost as much or if not equally as much intellect as Spencer. Much as she’s been on the show as long as everyone else, for some reason she’s one of the characters that I feel doesn’t have as much character development as someone like Spencer or even Aria. And that’s mostly because it’s been one of those underlying jokes in the show’s watchers that in the beginning Aria was Marlene’s favorite so her character had more fleshing out compared to everyone else. And then midway through Season 3 that favoritism shifted to Spencer and stayed there. Hanna and Emily I believe deserved more than being written as what I now see as “serial monogamists” and not much else. 😳
literally i love PLL and it's plots, but the fact that they normalized a student-teacher relationship was a big problem. Like they made it seem like "sure everyone can go hook up with their teacher! You might have some problems but as long as you sneak around, it'll all work out and you guys can get married in the end!"
Also, even if Ezra wasn't Aria's teacher, their age difference was also a problem cuz he had already graduated college when they met and Aria was in 10th grade I'm pre sure. like wrong on too many levels
I just watched pll for their first season, but my gut was right the only “couple” that i ever shipped was haleb and spoby, both of them are the ones who i feel like “normal” and based on mutual respect and attraction.
Following the zack and hanna thing, i was soo relieved that caleb believed her the second she told him and defended, tho it was supposed the normal thing to do 🥴
Thank you for making this. The pervasiveness of crustlords in this show has always bothered me.
Thank you! I so glad to see this video. finally, someone who agrees with how damaging the shows dynamic is. It is one of the most disgusting children/teen targeted shows I have ever seen. It should be addressed negatively as they did such a poor job of dealing with these sensitive topics. It deeply upsets me just thinking of all the damage this show has done and the audience it has affected by promoting all these different types of abuse and just brushing it off.
I have to say that I think Lorenzo must have been Toby’s age and Ally was already of age by that time so I wouldn’t consider it problematic when a 18 year old has a boyfriend who is 19 or 20. But Ezra, Wilden, Ian and all the others are super creepy. Also I think Jake was Ariad age or maybe a year older.
Thank you for covering this topic. I think what is so important is the cultural timing of the show.
Teenagers at this time were on a very unregulated internet. It wasn’t uncommon for young girls to go on Chatroulette, meet older strangers online, share photos, and ultimately become sexualised at a very young age.
You should have seen us in the late 90s and early 2000s. The internet has always been dangerous for children and always will be. It has always been utilised by predators and has always attracted lonely children looking for someone to understand and value them.
@@mydogeatspuke oh yeah 100% I think the bloom of social media in the late 00’s was especially more related to this era but no doubt the onset of the internet was a disturbing new avenue for predators. This is random but did you ever play InkLink? That was one of my first run ins with that stuff and I’ve found so many others who did too!
@@mariella2884 nah, I was very much an adult with other interests by the late 2000s so Drawing With Friends etc weren't my thing. It's quite strange to me tbh having grown up with the internet in a very different way to kids these days that nothing has really changed. I remember when we didn't have the internet, it was completely unfathomable, and how everyone I knew that had it wgen it became available to the public was either wealthy or had a parent with a tech obsession who gave up other things in order to be one of the first to have it at home. It was acknowledged that strangers online could be axe murderers or dirty old men but it wasn't really taken seriously. My first and longest (and realistically my only) relationship was with a man 6 years older than me who I met in a chat room at 13 and eventually met in person at 17. It took 20 years of on again, off again for me to realise the enduring abuse and grooming that happened and it still sometimes feels like I lost my soul mate, and nobody ever thought it was strange that an adult was interested in a child. I was "so mature for my age" so it was somehow acceptable. He's now in his 40s and dating girls in their early 20s, but I guess it's harder to hide engaging with literal children when you're that old, so he just goes for old enough to be their actual parent instead. Many of the people I grew up with have their own children now, some of whom are also teenagers, and yet there still isn't much in the way of protection of children online. We still acknowledge that someone could be an axe murderer, shake our heads in disbelief when hearing experiences like mine from our peers, but people will still meet strangers after matching on an app based on a picture that could be someone else entirely and a couple of text messages. Back in the day we would talk for 10 hours a day for months or even years if one of you wasn't old enough to legally consent before meeting each other. We all know these horrible things are happening, many of them behind ajar doors that predators don't bother closing anymore because nobody takes it that seriously despite the endless discussions about how problematic it all is, and then shows like this glorify adults pursuing children. Predators utilise the internet because they're allowed to. Sticking a label that says 18+ only or 13 and under only on a website doesn't mean much, it isn't enforceable. Young girls increasingly thing it's exciting to be pursued by grown men and even with child pornography laws, continue to distribute lewd and nude images of themselves and their friends. It doesn't help that girls now look much older than they did when I was a teen, and many of them lie about their age too. That's not to say that it's their fault, but I have to wonder what if anything their parents are doing to deter this behaviour and protect them from bad people. We know much better than we did in the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s etc, and yet things are only getting worse.
well i got a somewhat personal example. i know a 20 year old dating a 31 year old. we both have a mutual best friend( they've been friends since childhood and i met that friend in uni). so that 20 year old gets sexually harassed by a family friend, tells her 31 year old boyfriend and he gets MAD AT HER BECAUSE SHE DOESNT KNOW HOW TO "DEFEND HERSELF" AND THAT HE CANT TRUST HER NOW. my best friend was like "oh he made a mistake and appologised" NO NO NO NO THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS. THATS NOT A MISTAKE, THATS A FUCKED UP FIRST REACTION. I WISH I CAN TELL HER TO GET THE FUCK AWAY BUT WE ARENT REALLY FRIENDS JUST KINDA KNOW ABOUT EACH OTHER
Pretty Little Liars is basically the show the members of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) watches if they need inspiration to keep on pushing and get Ezra's dream that one day, you too can get your fairytale wedding on a underage kid.
People who root for Jason & Aria, Ian & Ali or Spencer, and Spencer & Wren but hate Ezria always confused me. While Ezra was 100% creep worthy for pursuing Aria for his book when he was her teacher is wrong, Jason, Ian, & Wren are even more disturbing in their circumstance.
Jason has known Aria pretty much her whole life and watched her grow up and obviously noticed her appeal change as she aged. Their was never any instance Jason didn’t know Aria’s age or anything. So he was even more wrong to wanting her. He was just waiting for his turn because he knew her & Ezra might not last.
Ian & Wren were just insanely creepy to me. They both used to be at Spencer’s house with Melissa having s3x with her but secretly wanting to know what the little sister was like 🤮 Ian basically used to try and keep Spencer quiet on their romance like he wasn’t grooming her. And Wren kept trying to get with Spencer throughout the entire show. He even went as far as getting with her twin because she was the version of Spencer he could have and it resulted in his death 🤦🏾♀️ he was OBSESSED with Spencer and didn’t really know her. I hated how when she became of age she willingly hooked up with him when he was on another break with Melissa. Why would you want anything to do with a man that has slept with your sister and repeatedly trying to be with you behind her back?? It never made sense to me why Wren was so creepy. He even kissed Hanna in the show too.
At least Ezra and Jason only had eyes for Aria, Ian and Wren were to get which ever Pretty Little Liar they could
If Aria should've ended up with anyone it should've been Holden. I will die on this hill.
This is the problem with casting people in their mid-twenties as teens. It makes it too easy to cross these lines and makes it too hard to remember what the age gaps are supposed to be. When it is two 26 year old performers that look like the adults that they are, it’s hard to remember that one of them is still supposed to be a kid. Not only for the audience, but I feel for the writers as well. I would venture that the predatory behavior not being commented on is not because they think it’s okay, but because the writers didn’t fully remember how inappropriate the relationships would be in canon because they were too distracted by the fact that the actors are the same age.
I think the reason for why they cast grown adults in these “teen” roles, is because they don’t want actual teens to get involved in roles that could have a serious impact on them both mentally and emotionally. However, it’s also hard when teens today….look like grown adults, but that isn’t their faults….it’s actually do to all of the fast food that they eat, and those ingredients which impacts their hormones and causes them to go through puberty in a way that makes them look older than what they are, as well as of course how they dress. Back then when PLL first came out, teens looked like teens, dressed like teens, and nobody was going crazy on fast food.
I was 14 when this show first came out, I never understood why they pushed horrible relationships as positive. I HATED ezra and aria. I was so angry that Ezra WASNT A
How i feel about student teacher relationship in teen shows I'm OK with it being there for drama as long as they dont try to romanticise and glorify it
Aria and ezra are a bad example for all the kids watching
I started watching PLL when I was 7💀
through re-watching the series in the past few days I have noticed so many lines of dialogue on Ezra‘s part that are literally verbatim written examples I’ve seen in textbooks of grooming
Middle school me watching PLL for the first time: I love Ezra I would honestly date him too
20 Y/O me who’s read the books rewatching; THAT IS A CHILD KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF HER ARIA YOU COULDVE BEEN WITH NOEL. GOD I WISH THE SHOW WOULDVE MADE HER HOOK UP WITH HIS LITTLE BROTHER
I am SO shocked with the amount of inappropriate relationships in this show… I stopped watching after season 3 but I always thought of doing a marathon just for fun, but after this video I’m definitely not doing this.
Agree!! I watched it because it’s so hard to tell by rating what’s appropriate anymore! My kids won’t be watching it! It’s really disappointing how many shows advertised for kids are actually not appropriate!!
To everyone hating on Ezria, their relationship, Ezra, etc. Calm down guys it was just a TV show. There's no need to analyse FICTION and see whether it was legal. Ezria fans are just enjoying the chemistry and the cute love story. Just because it happens on a TV show doesn't mean it's okay to copy in real life and we all know that. That way, entire PLL was twisted, with girls being blackmailed, buried alive, kidnapped and locked up in a house like dolls. Literally no one's going to do that irl. Most TV shows/OTT Platforms even have disclaimers at the beginning stating that the content is entertainment/fiction only. It's just a drama kinda exaggerated TV show, enjoy it for what it is without taking it too literally!
There is nothing cute about a teacher grooming their student, idc if it’s a tv show, Marlene is disgusting for romanticizing a predatory relationship. It doesn’t matter that it’s fiction, because situations like this happen in real life. Ezria is a predatory relationship and PLL has a history of romanticizing predatory behavior. Ezra knew how old Aria was in the bar and he still pursued/preyed on her anyway. Aria is a victim of grooming, so no ezria is not some “cute little love story” it is a story of grooming. You’re allowed to ship ezria, and people are allowed to criticize the ship for being predatory and wrong
@@jaydas8976 Everything in PLL is illegal and twisted IRL - predatory behaviour, stalking, locking girls up and pretending they were dolls, kidnapping, blackmailing, murder and burying dead bodies. The whole point is that it was created as FICTION TV show for profitable purposes, so NONE of it should be copied in real life. In no way does PLL propagate themselves as a reality, non profit show. If you don't like TV shows with fictional scary storylines, then don't watch those shows that's all. If you think a kid might be influenced by these shows, don't let the kid watch it until they are old enough to know better.
Producers like Marlene are free to create whatever fiction they want to, for a target audience that can enjoy these shows without taking them literally, doesn't mean she means harm to society or is "disgusting".
@@jaydas8976 then stay away from shows like PLL. Every single thing shown in PLL was characteristic of psychopathic behavior. There's a reason it's fiction lol.
@@a22967-b just because it’s “fiction” doesn’t mean that it’s okay to romanticize predatory relationships.
Thank god for talking about people like Jason and Emily's girlfriend. So many people always say that their ok and then say that Ezria is awful like make it make sense.
i remember watching PLL for the first time when i was around eleven or so. i LOVED ezra with all my heart. now that i'm eighteen everytime ezra and aria have a scene it's cringe central!! like boy GET OUT OF HERE. all i can think about is that one clip from the office.
This has changed my feelings about PLLs.