As for Jessica herself, NPR’s Eric Deggans says that “Gifted with the strength to lift a car and jump three stories in the air, Jones nevertheless reacts the way many survivors of abusive relationships do; she blames herself for not being strong enough to overcome a situation, no one should have to endure in the first place…This is the kind of storytelling you hope to see as comic book television and movie franchises finally feature female heroes.”

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This points out that men can understand women at a supportive level in the case of rape culture. Luke Cage understands Jessica Jones after he’s been victimized by Kilgrave to destroy his bar and try to kill Jessica. He helps her track the villain, even though Jessica has no idea he is being controlled. The victimization of Simpson turned him into the abuser, but Luke Cage wound up in a bed because Jessica was not going to let him hurt others.

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Jessica Jones represents a lot of different themes on trauma, survival, and rape culture, but Julie Ooms of “Christ and Pop Culture” sums it up quite nicely: “So, Jessica Jones is a show about hell – two hells, in fact. One is the hell of losing control, a postmodern hell who chief dread is the loss of autonomy. The second is the hell we find when we discover that even being able to control our actions – our bodies, our thoughts, and that we do with them – does not mean we will be able to make the right choices or even that there will be right choices to make.”

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The show is about choices that survivors of trauma make: Jessica goes back to some semblance of superheroism, Luke goes off to Harlem to deal with his trauma, Trish defends herself against Simpson and her own mother, Simpson becomes an abuser, Hope winds up dead (committing suicide rather than live with the torment Kilgrave subjected her to), and Kilgrave winds up with his neck snapped by Jessica as a sort of vindication for survivors that a superhero has saved them in a way.

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All of these are viable, but Jessica Jones is more than a superhero or a character. She’s a human with her share of trauma and heartache. Rape and rape culture are hard topics to think about, let alone write about, but with the advent of Jessica Jones, maybe we can use it as a catalyst for more open discussion and education about rape, survival, and the cultural situations that surround them, becoming superheroes ourselves in the process.