Some stories refuse to stay on the page.The Hollywood Reporter’sBeyond the Bookcolumn explores what happens whenbooksmake the leap to screen and beyond — unpacking what changed, how it was done and why it matters with the creatives who made it.
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[Warning: This story contains major spoilers for Prime Video’s Off Campus Episode 4, “The Breakup.”]
Over a month since its release, the fervor around Off Campus, Prime Video’s sports romance based on Elle Kennedy’s book series of the same name, shows no signs of letting up. Since it debuted on May 13, the eight-episode first season based on The Deal and set within the orbit of the fictional Briar University’s hockey team has become one of the clearest examples of the trending success of Young and New Adult Romance book-to-screen adaptations.
But the series has also tapped into something distinct from its counterparts, through its explorations of sexual assault trauma and survivorship, as well as masculinity in relationships and sports. “We’ve been getting DMs and messages from parents that have been like, ‘I’m going to show my children this is the way that we talk about these issues,’” Off Campus writer Cheech Manohar tells The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s been fulfilling.”
The season’s fourth episode, entitled “The Breakup,” has made particular waves. In it, music composition major and rape survivor Hannah Wells (Ella Bright) is on the cusp of hooking up with crush Justin Kohl (Josh Heuston), but after being sexually assaulted in high school, she’s been unable to orgasm with a partner. Fearing she’ll become visibly triggered during sex with Justin, she makes a seemingly unconventional request of her friend, fake boyfriend and hockey captain, Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli): help her achieve orgasm.
Among a series of more explicit sequences in Kennedy’s 2015 novel, the scene — during which Hannah and Garrett masturbate together — is understood by readers as one of the more defining moments of the couple’s relationship. “The mutual masturbation scene is obviously a cornerstone of the book,” says co-showrunner Gina Fattore. It’s also part of a larger episodic puzzle that allowed Fattore and series creator and co-showrunner Louisa Levy to deftly address sexual assault and masculinity. With its survivor-centric approach, “The Breakup” tackles toxic and other seemingly innocuous behaviors that fuel rape culture while centering an undercovered aspect of life after sexual trauma: reclaiming one’s sexual pleasure.
Alongside being part of the rare season-long effort to explore the psychological and relational impacts of sexual assault trauma outside the (true) crime and drama genres, Off Campus’ fourth episode uses everything from a mutual masturbation scene to a pointed locker room talk to expand TV’s historical approach to rape narratives. That includes an opening card, which highlights support services for survivors — a meaningful shift from its usual placement after the credits, in a time when “streaming is invested in skipping to the next episode to keep you watching,” says Jennifer Simmons Kaleba, Vice President, Communications at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
It’s a groundbreaking storyline made possible through its diverse team, led by Levy and Fattore. “When I was reading the book, I think I was struck by how much of a character with such a different background than me — a cis[gender] white woman — I could see myself in,” says Manohar. “We’ve all been in the position where we think our progress and recovery is going to show up one way, and it shows up in a completely different way.”
“What is so magical about a lot of things in Off Campus is how universal it is, despite being this very specific romance story,” adds co-music supervisor Anna Romanoff, who worked alongside Amanda Krieg Thomas.
With each creative’s own entry points and lenses into the material, they help create a new vision for romance, particularly those of the straight white young adult variety. “I’m a woman of a certain age, and with that came wanting to be a part of a show that has such great representation of boundaries, and shows being open and vulnerable,” says editor Lisa Robison. “I was like, I really would love to be a part of a show that helps people become better.”
“I’ve taken it as a badge of honor that I help create spaces that are exciting cinematically, but also a safe space for young actors doing things they have never done before,” explains director Sam Bailey. “What I will also say is that I’m a survivor of sexual assault, and going in, I was very interested in approaching that topic with care and honesty, with the hope that there is another side of this. That you can show up and be embodied, and you can do it with community, even with white folks.”
Below, Off Campus’ co-showrunners break down the making of key scenes in “The Breakup” with the episode’s writer, director, editor and music supervisors, alongside advocates in media representation, crisis intervention counseling, and rape prevention. That includes Simmons Kaleba at RAINN; Jillian Furey, a clinical services supervisor at Resilience (formerly Rape Victim Advocates); and Sam McCarthy, a prevention manager and educator at the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE).
“The Breakup” Rewrites the Survivor’s Narrative, Starting With Hannah’s Agency
Off Campus offers an infrequent portrayal of what it can look like to disclose your own assault years after it happens — and what it means to seek help with your ongoing healing. In a sequence that centers on Hannah’s emotions and desires over Garrett’s or the audience’s, the episode provides one version of how young people can respond to others’ experiences that emphasize respecting and believing what survivors tell us — even when you feel inexperienced or underprepared.
LOUISA LEVY (CO-SHOWRUNNER) We have the ability in the book to drop inside Hannah’s head and know what’s going on. As a result, it’s a very emotional scene in a beautiful way. We knew that there was a version of the show that does it in that same way, but it’s also the beginning of an episode, and we wanted to build to the emotion of the mutual masturbation scene. We really thought about that as the centerpiece of episode four. Rhythmically, to front-load [the story] with a scene that is just as emotional made it difficult in the pacing, which is different from the pacing of a novel. So when we start the episode, we were dipping the toe in as opposed to jumping in the deep end.
CHEECH MANOHAR (WRITER) We talked about the character perspective in the book, and in the book, Hannah is at this stage of her recovery where she has done the work, she’s gone to therapy, but there are still some things that trigger her. We really wanted to depict that time in a survivor’s recovery, and it’s a time that is not often portrayed in the media. I think sometimes we focus on the more sensationalized version of it, but instead, we wanted to go with the more human emotional response. And we knew that if it was done correctly, it could mean so much to so many people. So we had a number of conversations with sexual health experts and therapists who specifically deal with sexual trauma.
LEVY We talked a lot in the writers’ room about how you tell somebody this thing in a way that feels psychologically true and real and how we honor how Hannah tells Garrett in the book. The way we do it in the show, it feels like Hannah is ripping the band-aid off. In my experience, in the experience of other writers in the room, it was very much about, “I’m telling you a thing, and I know how you’re going to react to it, because people have reacted this way over and over and over again, and I don’t want to manage your feelings. That’s not what this moment is about.” I’ve been on both sides of it, telling the information, also receiving the information, and I think there’s no perfect way to do it. So we wanted it to feel a little imperfect and a little messy, but also real.
LISA ROBISON (EDITOR) When Hannah says she was raped, we don’t see Garrett, and it has nothing to do with Bel’s acting. I wanted it all to flow so that we really feel what Hannah’s feeling. We want to be on her, so there are moments where I just let Ella say her lines, let her draw you in.
LEVY Going into the mix for this episode, it was really important this first scene be quiet, but not vacuum quiet. At one point in the mix, we had natural cars go by and natural dog barking, and I’m like, no, we can’t. Even though that’s real, it doesn’t feel emotional. Our fabulous mixers, Kelly [Cole] and Bill [Mellow], found a really lovely balance for the scene. There’s still room tone, but it should feel a little bit like the ground dropped out from underneath Garrett. It’s not at all what he expected Hannah to say, so he is playing catch-up and trying to do the right thing without any guide.
SAM BAILEY (DIRECTOR) There’s a lot of growth in episode four for [Garrett]. [Belmont and I] talked a lot about this being a level up for him because he’s being asked to do something that he hasn’t been before. A lot of times in heterosexual relationships, we talk around what we want instead of saying what we want. Hannah very clearly and vulnerably asked for something specific, and he knows why she’s asking for it.
Once he understands the context of it, even if he doesn’t have all the maturity in the world, he has been around abused women and has been abused by men. So he’s going to offer a level of care that he is also figuring out in the moment. This is based on a romantic erotic book, so he has to be the sexy hero, but I never wanted to lose the fact that he’s also a very young man who is going through these things.
LEVY Garrett is someone we meet in the pilot who doesn’t do girlfriends. That’s really important and crucial for the love story that we unfold and the fake dating trope. But the other reason it’s important on a deeper level is that he doesn’t have a roadmap. He hasn’t really done this before. He’s never really fallen in love. And talking to Belmont in shooting this episode, it was really important to him that he wasn’t doing it perfectly.
It’s on the page, but Bel I think took it even further as far as how Garrett reacts to Hannah. And I think he ultimately reacts in the correct way, so we’re setting a good model for men. I love that Bel came to me and Cheech on set that day and said, “I shouldn’t know what to say right away.” We were like, “No, you shouldn’t. You don’t.” This is both in that first scene when Hannah tells him about her assault, and also ultimately in the really beautiful Dean (Stephen Kalyn) advice scene.
BAILEY I wanted to make sure that it felt intimate, but also that he’s trying to figure out how to take care of this person that he has feelings for. I remember telling Bel I, too, have asked a friend to do a version of that, because how else do you get embodied again? You have to, at some point, try it out in real life. What better way than with someone that you trust and feel safe with? So I was very pleasantly surprised that it was in the book like that and was already on the [script] page to a certain extent, but then we were able to create a space that was both safe for the actors and also felt cinematically interesting and textured.
Experts Weigh In
JENNIFER SIMMONS KALEBA (RAINN) You see in episode four Hannah disclosing to Garrett and her saying, “Do not make a thing of this. I’m going to tell you what I need,” and he goes, “OK, tell me what you need.” What Off Campus so delicately and truthfully illustrates is that a healing journey is not linear, and that the way people respond to you when you disclose sexual violence is profoundly path-making for how your journey will go. And it does not mean that every single moment of a disclosure, every single new person that you disclose to, does not also change some aspect of the path. It is an incredibly survivor-centered arc of storytelling.
JILLIAN FUREY (RESILIENCE) Reclaiming your desires is not something that is encouraged for anyone, let alone for a survivor, so expressing that can be particularly scary. Many survivors are also not met with the medical, social and mental health attention that they need after sexual violence. Hannah’s story is that of someone who has been empowered in some sense. She is a person who received some level of comprehensive care and help when she was exposed to sexual assault. A huge portion of people never disclose it. A huge number of people go with untreated trauma. But from her behaviors, it’s completely healthy and wonderful to want to take back your power, to want to advocate for yourself, and to fully recognize that you deserve to have positive sexual experiences.
A lot of times, people may respond poorly because they are survivors themselves and have not received the help that they need. There’s another portion of people who may have stigmatizing ideologies around survivors of sexual violence. [Garrett’s] reaction is the perfect scenario, where she approached someone who is not only a good person, a more informed person, but a person who’s not operating out of a lens of their own trauma.
SAM MCCARTHY (CAASE) It’s not our role to play the judge, jury or detective, to know more information than the survivor is willing to share with us. The best approach to survivors is to not assume what we can expect. It’s really such a broad spectrum of how trauma impacts survivors. But being able to understand how we can show up and support people in the world is combating rape culture.
‘Off Campus’ Uses Garrett to Illustrate a Supportive Survivor Network — and Challenge Ideas About Masculinity and Consent
Helping Hannah with her request is new territory for Garrett, but in “The Breakup,” he doesn’t have to figure it out alone. In a playful but powerful scene that centers communication and vulnerability among young male athletes, the Prime Video series turns the “locker room talk” concept on its head as Dean (Kalyn) offers Garrett advice for how to show up for Hannah. In a show where its male leads are all distinct — and their approaches to romance and sex will vary — the moment also upends stereotypes about men’s relationship to sex, consent and respect for their partners.
LEVY There’s a version of [the weight room scene] in the book, where it’s Birdie (Josh Chambers) giving the advice. We shifted it to Dean in the show because Dean is not just one of our main characters, but has a particular way in. This is actually fully Cheech. I give him so much credit for this. We love that Dean, as the womanizer of the group, is all about consent. We think that there’s something both unexpected in an annoying way — like it shouldn’t be unexpected — but also in an entertaining way, as it’s very fun.
MANOHAR When we talk about the men in our show, it always comes from this place of what Dean says to Garrett in that weight room scene: trust. We always wanted our hockey players to be men that people could trust, that women could trust. So in every conversation that we had, whether it was the scene where Hannah tells Garrett about her rape, the mutual masturbation scene, or the Dean and Garrett weight room scene, we kept coming back to this touchstone of trust.
ROBISON There is the desire of wanting to not be in profile too much [and] really be on their closeups and see how they’re feeling. That was something that Louisa mentioned. She really wanted to see the guys connect.
MANOHAR I wrote so many iterations of that scene, really trying to get it. I didn’t want it to feel perfect. I didn’t want it to feel like a PSA. At the same time, I knew that it was an important conversation that we needed to have. So I kept going through with this fine-tooth comb, asking, “Is this moment the right moment to make a joke?” If yes, let him make a joke. If not, let him push forward earnestly.
BAILEY This was going to be one of the first times that we really got to see Dean as not just a player party boy. We don’t ever see the lead-up to him hooking up with anybody. So to have this conversation where he’s just like, “You have to have trust. You’re good if she asks you; that’s important,” shows me that Dean listens and that Dean is very keen on what his partner wants and doesn’t want.
Stephen and I also talked a lot about how we don’t want to lose the comedy of the moment, and how can this feel like you’re not a different character? This is just something else in your toolbox, and it’s probably the foundation of your toolbox so you can do all the things with the girl with the door open because she’s ok with it, too. I think for Garett, this is affirming to see in another guy that is of the same ilk. We talked about that a lot.
MANOHAR It’s not the fantasy that they have to say the absolute perfect thing every single time. They have the ability to be college boys and crack a joke, or feel insecure, or say the wrong thing at the wrong time. But at the end of the day, they are a safe space for the women in their lives, so they’ll always lean towards trust, patience, and understanding.
ROBISON That line [from Dean] about consent is key. During [filming], there was this whole trial going on about a woman who was assaulted by five hockey players in Canada. It was a big deal, and consent was the thing. She did not. So I was really proud to be working on something where you have these two good-looking men say consent is key, to really allow the audience across the board this understanding.
LEVY This is maybe the last person you expect to get the advice from, but if you think about it, probably the first person you should get this advice from. We love that Garrett isn’t really seeking it out because he’s not the kind of person who asks for advice openly, but he’s interested in receiving it, and that’s growth that we get to see from Garrett.
BAILEY I would love for Off Campus, especially this moment, to be what changed the idea of what locker room talk is. We don’t have to keep the bar in hell for straight men. None of the young men [on set] had any issues with that scene. They understood it. When we were doing intimate scenes, they were the ones that were also like, “Can we do rehearsal? Ella, are you good?”
I think it’s a false narrative that we just have to accept that boys will be boys and they’re never going to want to be better than that. Never going to want to be caring partners. You don’t have to accept that narrative. There’s this hold on how we should show up, and our tight hold on that doesn’t just harm us. It harms our partners as well.
Expert Weighs In
MCCARTHY When we have these really strict ideas of gender, it ultimately leads to this rape culture. If the world is telling men that all sex is good sex, they should be having sex with as many partners as possible, be celebrated for having that sex by other men and that they should also not demonstrate any level of vulnerability in the world, it sets men up to have more sex without consent. It also sets up a world where people don’t believe that men can be victims of sexual harm.
The Masturbation Sequence Explores Burgeoning Love, and the Unknowns That Come With It
In what Levy and Fattore affirm is the first time Hannah and Garrett have sex, Off Campus explores the discrepancies between what survivors expect versus reality as they re-engage in intimacy after sexual trauma. The extended scene also serves as a subtle look into Garrett’s growth — both in his understanding of himself as a man and in his feelings for Hannah — as he navigates trying to lead by following her through the experience. The sequence offers one vision for how survivors and the people around them can navigate trauma and intimacy with sensitivity, self-awareness and respect.
MANOHAR Our scripts are maybe 50 to 52 pages, and this entire sequence is like 10 to 12. It is a large part of the script, and I worked harder on this sequence than I think I’ve worked on anything in my life.
BAILEY The sequence starts from the minute she chooses to wear Allie (Mika Abdalla)’s outfit and walks up to the door — or even before that, the minute she asks him to perform this for her. So it was important to me to make sure that I was tracking from Hannah’s decision to ask Garrett, which is really vulnerable, to them eating pasta in the kitchen afterwards, and he’s opening up, being more vulnerable.
BAILEY I told Bel that this is a big moment. For me, this is when Garrett wins over the audience. It’s not expected for guys who sit in the bodies that he does to act in the way that he does.
FATTORE Love is attention, love is care. We wanted to show that in Garrett at every step.
MANOHAR What’s interesting about the survivor journey that people don’t necessarily talk about, and that is really the heartbeat of the scene in the book and also what we adapted to the screen, is that progress is not linear, and it doesn’t always happen in the way that you expect it to. We really wanted to show that Hannah has come into this situation thinking that her recovery is going to go a certain way. She’s in a dress that she’s uncomfortable in because she thinks that’s what she’s supposed to be doing. Then, instantly, because Garrett is the person who truly sees her, he realizes she’s uncomfortable and that she may be more comfortable in an oversized T-shirt.
ANNA ROMANOFF (CO-MUSIC SUPERVISOR) She’s out of her element, and Griff’s [song] “Vertigo” was always intentionally wanting to be in Hannah’s head, so we played with that a little bit. But it went to this space that is much more earnest. It immediately sets up this sequence where we’re exploring trust, safety, hope and excitement. What Griff does really well is that anticipatory nervousness — the butterflies, not fear. I think that’s an important tone to set from the beginning, especially because of Hannah’s trauma. This whole section does a really good job of, in a world where Hannah does not really know where this will go, saying we’re not going to play with the tension of whether this could go bad.
MANOHAR We’ve built out this idea that when Hannah is triggered, she turns to music. So Garrett asks her to pick a song to put her at ease, and the two of them dance together. At every step in this scene, there was a push and pull of what Hannah expected to happen, and then how her progress and her recovery actually show up. Every moment was carefully scripted so we would understand from beat to beat exactly what Hannah is thinking.
BAILEY The dancing between the two of them, there was a real freeing of the characters, both in the blocking and the acting, but also the writing that Cheech did. Me and [cinematographer] Nick [Thomas], chose to — the minute she selects that song — be on handheld. We just wanted to feel freer through that. I was telling the camera operator to let Ella go out of frame, let Bel go out of frame, let them come together, and then you really get to build that. It was very fun in the editing room.
AMANDA KRIEG THOMAS (CO-MUSIC SUPERVISOR) When we signed on, we were able to get early drafts of all of the scripts. “Baby Now That I Found You” was one that was in the script, and the idea is that the song plays in the bedroom, then she’s humming it a little later, and then she sings it. We needed to follow all of those beats. Cheech being behind how this song came to be makes it infinitely more special than if it were our creative idea. Getting the rights to the song, working with Alana [Da Fonseca], the executive music producer, and recording Ella bringing that to life was also so satisfying.
MANOHAR “Baby Now That I Found You” is a really important song to my family. I grew up listening to the Alison Krauss version, and it feels connected to our unit of four. It feels like home. We also knew we needed really specific parameters for this song. It needed to be a song that Garrett’s mom would have introduced him to, and we wanted Hannah to sing it to Garrett at some point, and that was going to change his feelings.
LEVY The hours we spent fine-tuning how the song fades out and into the score because it needed to feel like a seamless handoff. An emotional shift is happening as they kiss and as he picks her up. If you notice, we are in one shot, and it’s a long take. We needed to keep the audience leaning in, not bored, but also have it feel real and organic.
THOMAS It’s Garrett’s taste, but it’s different. Up until now, he’s been a classic rock guy, and this is very much like soul Motown. It’s a distinctly different feel, and that was very intentional by the writers. In the intimacy scene, it also really changes the tenor of the room, and Belmont and Ella’s acting and chemistry in that moment when they’re dancing clicks that into place. It’s the spark of making that such a sweet moment. When they start, and he does a little dance, and she starts laughing, it wouldn’t work necessarily without that. They bring the sweetness out of the song in such a beautiful way.
MANOHAR I sat down in the writers’ room one day, and I played The Foundation’s version for everyone. Everyone was like, “This is such a fun song.” When I played the Allison Krauss version for all of them, you could feel the entire episode kind of click into place. A couple of us started crying because we just knew that it was going to be this moment for the two of them. So now to see Ella Bright’s version of “Baby Now That I Found You” start to chart, and a whole new generation discover this song that means so much to my family — it makes my heart want to explode.
Experts Weigh In
FUREY A common challenge is just the notion that sex is for you and your own enjoyment, and the shared enjoyment of your partner. Younger folks are in a world that has not been clear about their bodies, what their choices are, or that they matter and are solely theirs. The younger that you are, the more male-centered sex can be, too, and that can lead to re-traumatization. From my experience working with survivors, from my experience as a survivor myself, everybody is different, but there may be people who have never, even before their sexual assault and post-sexual assault, viewed their body or sexuality as being of any importance other than to make a man orgasm.
MCCARTHY When Garrett goes to [Dean] to talk about how to give Hannah an orgasm, Garrett doesn’t share anything that Hannah shared with him. That’s so important. Hannah discloses to Garrett, and is very clearly not disclosing to everyone. He’s handling this with a lot of care. It’s great that he is able to look for support without breaking that boundary or that trust.
The Sequence Upends the “Rules” of Romantic Intimacy to Deliver a Model for Safe, Consensual Intimacy
Leaning into its romantic source material, “The Breakup” delicately balances depicting a love scene while navigating the natural realities of physical intimacy for a rape survivor. While people can have varying responses as they engage in partnered intimacy, the sequence’s “false start” challenges culture’s stigma around trauma responses and models the delicate but essential nature of consent during partnered sex.
BAILEY We were very quiet on set. We shot that whole sequence across two days, but it was the only thing we were doing. We did it in order so that they had that buildup. We couldn’t rush through her being surprised that he turned his face so she could change her shirt. We didn’t rush through them getting loose and dancing or the kiss, and we definitely didn’t rush that part where she does come out of her body.
LEVY [In the book] they watched Breaking Bad before the mutual masturbation takes place. That is such a relatable experience to sit down with someone and get comfortable. I love that in the book, but it’s so boring to watch two people on TV watching another TV show. We needed to adapt for a visual medium but still capture the essence of it.
One of the things that we actually talked about with Elle Kennedy is the line “You’re not broken, Wellsy.” It comes a little bit differently than in the book, based on the context, but it was really important to Elle that it be in there, and it was important to us as well because that is the core of the message that Hannah has to receive this season. She’s not really able to just yet, in episode four, though she tries.
BAILEY It starts with the music choices, and her putting on his shirt and being able to be comfortable. But there’s a difference between excitement and joy. I know the difference between being in a room with a guy and not feeling safe, just wanting to do what I have to do to get through it. So there’s an excitement and hurry-up feeling that Hannah has after they’re dancing together, and she’s like, “Cool, pick me up. Let’s go.” She’s trying to push through it, and her body is saying, “No, we’re not ready. It’s not going to happen today.” Sometimes your feelings don’t connect to what your body’s doing, and it was really allowing her to have that moment and have that beat.
LEVY We use heartbeat in a lot of different ways in the show, and it is a way to tap into what’s happening emotionally, whether it’s good or bad. So [Composer] Keegan [DeWitt] baked the heartbeat into that score. Our mixers layered in the breath, and the sound work, and the heartbeat is a musical heartbeat. The thing that I told [Keegan] was important is that it starts out slow. Hannah’s feeling herself, feeling good, and then there’s a moment when her hand reaches out and grabs the sheet, and it starts to pick up. It’s her anxiety, and in this case, it’s showing us that something’s not right. Garrett picks up on that, and he pulls back. All of that timing is so crucial.
BAILEY As a survivor myself, I know what it feels like to disassociate when this happens. The air gets taken out of the room, and you just want to get through it. I think initially it was written that the scene was going to take place on the bed with the two of them, but as we were talking about blocking and what that scene needed, it would make sense that he would give her as much space as possible.
So immediately, once he picks up that she’s uncomfortable, the choice that [Belmont] and I both talked about was that he had to create the space between the two of them. To me, it was really revealing about Garrett and how he’s growing as a man, but also giving space for Hannah to have autonomy and not have to speed-roll through something.
ROBISON There was a time in the ‘90s and in the early 2000s, when I did cop shows, and there was always a rape scene. It is not my favorite thing, and I didn’t want this to feel like that. It was trying to be very sensitive in the wide shot. When Garrett’s on top of her, and she’s clutching, we need to see that. But just enough because [assault is] not what’s happening. We want to see her uncomfortableness. We want to go to the close-up of her hand, but then we want to go to him going, “What’s wrong?” We don’t belabor that moment at all. It happens. She’s uncomfortable; she breaks; he lets her break. I wanted it to flow so that we really feel what Hannah is feeling.
LEVY It is an unusual thing to do in a sex scene filmed so romantically to say that something’s not right, but we needed that because we needed Garrett to pick up on this thing that’s nonverbal. And we needed to experience it with Hannah, so that when he picks up on it, we know he’s picking up on it. That’s part of the romance piece, this non-verbal communication. So much of consent is verbal and non-verbal, and in that moment, even though she’s saying yes and she’s trying to keep going, he’s picking up on the fact that something’s not right. That’s all from sound-mixing, from score, and that was really crucial, because consent is key, to quote Dean.
BAILEY I think it’s very vulnerable to say that I feel broken, and I think anyone who’s a survivor has been in that place and understands what that means. Am I ever going to be able to have intimacy again? Especially at such a young age, when you’re just figuring out what it feels like to feel good. I would say that this moment is the first time Hannah’s truly able to have that. She may have been able to perform it for other people, but this really was about her and her satisfaction. And in doing that, it was also able to give something to him, too. It is just as important, maybe even more than if they had penetrative sex.
Experts Weigh In
SIMMONS KALEBA It’s not just that a survivor will have questions about trusting anyone around them as they are on their journey to heal, but the sense of shame and guilt, self-blame — all these PTSD connections that make a survivor feel as though they are responsible. Trusting themselves, their judgment, their own body, their body’s response, [and] how someone else is going to respond to their body’s response — all of those things are wrapped up in the conversation.
MCCARTHY [The series] shows how we can demonstrate a culture of compassion rather than a victim-blaming rape culture. How can we say we can stop, we don’t have to do that. Let’s think of something different. Because sex is so celebrated in masculine circles, there’s this idea of just try what you want to try until someone says no, or until someone stops you, and that is not consent. We can connect this to these really broad misconceptions about sexual assault and sexual harm.
Consent is a practice; it’s not [only] a yes or a no or a one-time agreement. It’s freely agreeing because we really want to do something, not because we feel like we should do something, or because someone makes us feel like there’s something wrong if we don’t. It’s having a full understanding of what we’re going to do, and a partner can really help make that abundantly clear from the beginning, along with continuous checking in throughout.
This Mutual Masturbation Scene Challenges Stereotypes About Sex While Offering a Vision of Bodily Autonomy and Joy for Survivors
While TV has a history of positively or realistically depicting a variety of sex scenes among LGBTQ+ characters, penetrative sex among straight characters is often treated as the only “valid” form of physical intimacy. Masturbation, in particular, has been treated as sinful, a joke, or a sign of a failing or unhealthy relationship. In episode four, Off Campus rewrites that narrative, legitimizing a broader and survivor-inclusive definition of physical intimacy, allowing Hannah to reclaim her pleasure and her body on her own terms.
MANOHAR There were aspects of this moment that I wanted to focus on and display. Everything from their hands to their eyes to Hannah reaching for the bed sheet. This moment for me has always been about a young woman reclaiming a part of herself.
BAILEY Ella and Bel both seemed to really get it. There is nothing — and we talked about it later on at the end of the episode — your characters will do together that is more vulnerable than what they do in that bedroom. I think everyone felt the weight of that. This is the sex scene. And it was very different than what she was fantasizing with Justin. I think even that was performative in a way. Like, “I’m going to do it, so this is what it has to look like.” What we found and what I hope came across on the screen was the messiness of finding their way to what could be a just as, if not more pleasurable, experience for Hannah and Garrett.
ROBISON This is a very important thing to see for anybody who’s been assaulted. You’ve had a horrible, horrible thing happen, but you still need to be able to have pleasure for yourself. It’s an incredible hurdle, so [in the edit] it’s not throwing that out, but really allowing us to show that Hannah wants this and is not feeling pressured at all. It’s staying in those close-ups with her and not being gratuitous, allowing the eyes to connect. Louisa was all for that. Same with Sam.
MANOHAR When writing the episode, I focused on the emotional connection between Hannah and Garrett. I wanted to show these two people in love building this layer of trust and connection between them. When Louisa was telling me her vision for the show, she said that she wanted it to be sex positive. I knew at that moment that we have to positively display all of these different kinds of sex and we have to show all sex as valid, as joyful, and as emotionally and physically satisfying.
BAILEY [The actors] were really there for each other. Even though they weren’t in each other’s frames, Bel was on the other side of the camera for Ella and vice versa, so they could make eye contact and we could really feel that intimacy between the two of them. It was about really taking our time. We really just couldn’t rush through any of those beats. [The characters] really force each other to be present in a way that I haven’t seen on TV before. Once Garrett crosses over to the other side, she doesn’t have the pressure to perform or to go quicker than what she wants. She doesn’t have the pressure to respond to the way he moves.
ROBISON Hannah’s vulnerability is what made it so important for me. Especially with intimate scenes or sex scenes, I always think, “Protect the actor, protect the character, protect what the scene is about, and protect the show.” As an older woman, I was all about protecting Ella and how she’s going to come across. Belmont’s Garrett is also so sweet, so it’s how to have him lead, then allowing her as the character — and as somebody who’s been sexually assaulted and still wanting to have a sexual relationship — to.
BAILEY She is the artist and creator of her own orgasm. The only thing that ties them, which is the strongest thing, is that eye contact. So when we were talking about what we were going to see, it’s what they see — the eyes, the hand, the feet, the collarbone, the chest. These are the things that she’s taking in. But mostly he’s telling her, “Eyes on me.” That is such an intimate thing for a young man to do, and I don’t think he pulled it out of anywhere. I think he was trying things while his focus was on her, and because his focus was on her and not his pleasure, he’s able to tell when she’s drifting or not drifting. What he gives her in terms of space, intention and intimacy, she gives him in allowing him to be vulnerable, too.
THOMAS This scene really could have gone in a lot of different directions. It could have been scored because in the book it’s very long and explicit, and when you’re working on book adaptations, there’s a very vocal audience, and everybody wants it to be what they read in the book, especially key scenes. So the scene being what it is could have meant something way sexier. But the directive was it should feel more romantic versus sexy, and it was really Louisa and Lisa being like, “This is the shade.”
LEVY Sound was so crucial, and not all of it was captured on set. We go in with ADR after the fact to make sure that it’s right because our priorities on set were safety more than anything else. Sometimes you capture that sound on set organically, and sometimes you need to do it in a booth after the fact with a mic right up in your face, where you don’t have to worry about whether you’re fully clothed.
ROBISON My first edit of it was a little longer because there was beautiful footage, and I felt Hannah needed to maybe have a bit of a struggle, then there’s the release. Sam was like, “This is feeling a little too long,” so Sam shortened it. Then Louisa came in and was like, “Let me see the versions.” We talked about how long it goes while making it believable and making it feel respectful. That Garrett is just saying, “Eyes stay with me. I am here, and I’m going to help you over this,” because this is about the bond for them.
BAILEY They create the sexual tension that was happening, only this time, they’re closer than when their bodies were up against each other. In doing that, he gives her all the space she needs to make the choice herself. I would say that that moment is the first time she’s truly been able to have that. She may have been able to perform it for other people, but this really was about her and her satisfaction.
ROMANOFF Louisa really gravitated toward [Maggie Rogers’ “Back In My Body”] very strongly, very quickly. The only real discussions I remember having internally between Amanda and me were that we wanted the show to feel fresh, we wanted it to feel current, and this is an older Maggie song. I think we both just felt strongly that it’s so good for the scene, we can’t possibly hold it back over that.
LEVY We didn’t have this song in the cut originally. Something wasn’t working about this scene, and we couldn’t figure out why because it was shot beautifully, it was acted beautifully and it was edited beautifully. Then we got “Back In My Body.” I’m a big Maggie Rogers fan, and I love that song. Something just clicked, and it was so perfect, I honestly couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it before. Our fabulous editor, Lisa Robison, and her assistant, Noah [Christensen] dropped it in, and I asked to strip back the vocals. The vocals at the beginning were stepping on the moment, and also she wasn’t back in her body yet, so it felt wrong to get to the lyrics before the moment. There was one that had no vocals at all, and that wasn’t right either, because we’re missing the magic of the song. Then Noah put together a very rudimentary edit where all I asked was like no vocals at the beginning, and then when the backing vocals come in, that’s the next layer, and then ultimately Maddie’s vocal comes in. I gave him that rough instruction, really wasn’t that detailed, and he did this very rough edit very quickly. We sat, we watched it, were all just like, “Oh, well, that worked.”
ROBISON I knew when I was cutting it, I wanted music. I did reach out, and we were talking about source or score. I think at that point during my assembly, it was going to be a composer track, but I needed to find temp for that. Then Sam and I played with a track Sam found, but something wasn’t clicking. It’s really hard to find source music that works for that. With Louisa, we tried tracks and tracks, and then we were given a couple of options from our music department, and it was like, “Boom! ‘Back In My Body.’” It was a perfect track.
THOMAS It feels really protective of the assault space that the show falls in. It’s not having that scene be in service of the sexiness, but the sexiness being in service of that. That was the North Star, so the sentiment of “Back In My Body” works so incredibly well in terms of wanting to be in Hannah’s POV and focusing on what is giving her strength, trust and comfort right now. It was wanting the music to be one of many things in this sequence, adding to that effect alongside the writing, Ella’s performance [and] the directing.
Experts Weigh In
SIMMONS KALEBA In the world of romance and the female gaze, often the act of sexual violence is used as some sort of plot catalyst, but then not addressed. It is a shorthand, potentially, for someone to come in and save the person. But it is a jumping off point, and very rarely, in my experience, do we see the role of sexual violence as something that is a complex through line of a story.
MCCARTHY So much agency is taken away when someone is sexually assaulted. Giving someone options where they can reclaim that agency and control, and feel present in their body — allowing someone to choose to be sexual in whatever way makes them feel pleasure or is the goal of sex for them — means they’re much more likely to find a way to feel sexual that feels safe to engage in.
Episode 4 Brings Its Leads Closer by Rewriting the College Romance
Off Campus’ depictions of sexual trauma, consent, intimacy and masculinity are all set within the world of a college campus and hockey team, creating the opportunity for the Prime Video series to mirror, with some creative license, aspects of young people’s realities and experiences. The result is a series of sequences — from “Drunk Shakespeare” to a hockey practice — that play with and eventually challenge gender stereotypes and the conditions that make campuses centers of sexual assault. In the process, leading Hannah and Garrett to their respective romantic realizations.
LEVY I don’t think Garrett in the pilot is seeking out or receiving advice, and the Garrett we see in this episode receives it from Dean. Then, in the Bernardo bench scene, he’s actively seeking it out from his boys. It’s like “What do I do? I’m starting to have feelings for this girl,” and puts himself out there.
MANOHAR From a writing perspective, that bench scene is so planned out. We take our hockey pretty seriously in our show, and do try to make it as true to life as possible. So if there’s a character that comes off the bench that’s playing one position, that same position has to leave the bench. I created a grid with the different positions and the different spots, and basically wrote out line-by-line who was on the bench and who was popping off, just so all of the hockey would track, all of the lines would track, and all of the emotional realities would track.
ROBISON I had great options; the raking, looking down both ways of the bench, people coming in and out. The shots were really great about zoning in on Garrett and Brydie, and Garrett coming to the realization and letting it land, that “I guess I do like her.” But also the funniness of the background, the farcicalness of it. It’s great writing.
MANOHAR While we were planning this scene out, I became so fascinated with the idea of swapping these gender roles. Typically, after a sexual experience, the woman goes, “Is he thinking about me? What do we mean to each other?” And the man would go, “It was fine. It was fun.” The idea of swapping those two realities was so exciting and so unexpected to me — to not only see a man feel vulnerable and emotionally honest while realizing that the sexual experience meant more to him, but also to have a woman come out of the sexual experience and go, “That was fun. I did it, and I don’t feel bad about it.”
LEVY I think there’s an opportunity in such a hyper-masculine space —sports generally, but in our case it’s hockey — to show that men can be masculine and also vulnerable. Men can be masculine and also safe. They can be masculine and have conversations and talk about their feelings. That’s not something that has been modeled as often as women talking with their friends, and I think being able to do it in the context of a traditional hyper-masculine space is important.
MANOHAR With A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the four young lovers map so perfectly onto our characters and the emotional machinations between them. But really, the characters all go into this magical forest where their true desires are revealed. That happening, especially after Hannah and Garrett had this emotional, vulnerable moment together, was exciting to me. Every single moment was really crafted towards how we can bring to the surface what this character is really feeling — their true desires, their true emotional honesty.
And that’s how you kind of circumvent these ideas of jokes being dismissive or the alcohol creating an unsafe space. You always make them feel emotionally honest. That’s why at the end, you see Hannah and Garrett come to this realization that what they really want is each other, leading us to the swoony scene on the ice.
LEVY As TV writers, we have an opportunity to challenge culture and to set standards to live up to. Being able to juxtapose the traditionally feminine — and I’m putting very strong quotes around traditionally feminine — genre of romance and the traditionally masculine genre of sports, and mash those two things together gave us the opportunity to unpack some expectations and set new standards.
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Off Campus is available to stream now on Prime Video.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you are not alone. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support in English and en Español. Call 800.656.HOPE (4673), chat atRAINN.org/hotline, or text “HOPE” to 64673.