K’esidee Ndukwe

Sexual harassment is any form of unwanted sexual behavior that creates an

environment of hostility, offense, and/or intimidation. It can be done through verbal,

physical, and/or visual means. Anybody can commit sexual harassment on another person,

no matter what gender on either side of it. It could happen anywhere, anytime; school and

other education facilities, workplace environments, public places, even your own home. In

all of these places, it’s been known to happen to mostly women, and often by men. It causes

feelings of fear, panic, dread, and traumatic repression in its victims. And yet, a large 85%

of sexual harassment cases go unreported. There are many varying reasons for this;

shame, fear. This sort of thing has been captured in every form of media, be it song, audio,

video games, movies or short films, tv shows, or drawing and paintings. This media can

help bring these issues to light and help start discussions about them that could lead to

reduce issues of sexual harassment. It is, indeed, important for us to bring encouragement

to those to report sexual harassment when they see it, to keep it from happening further.

King Of The Hill is an American animated sitcom released from 1997 - 2010,

created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels. The show chronicles Hank Hill, an American

conservative and salesman of propane and propane accessories in a changing world who

lives in the fictional town of Arlen, Texas. Hank lives with his wife Peggy Hill, his son

Bobby Hill, and his niece Luanne Platter. Hank usually spends his afternoons in the

suburban alley, mainly drinking beer with his friends Dale Gribble, a chain-smoking

conspiracy theorist and exterminator, Bill Dauterive, a depressed veteran divorcee, and

Jeffery Boomhauer, a bachelor ladies man who speaks in a rapid, near-incomprehensible

speech. The particular episode we will be focusing on is from season 3, episode 16: “John

Vitti Presents: Return to La Grunta”. In this episode, Hank gets Luanne a job as a golf
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course drink girl at the La Grunta country club, and in return, Luanne gets him tickets to

a dolphin encounter. At her job, Luanne faces sexual harassment from the boys on the golf

course when one of them gropes her. At the dolphin encounter, Hank accidentally arouses

the dolphin by rubbing its stomach, and the dolphin drags him underwater and starts

humping him. Both Luanne and Hank keep quiet about the sexual harassment, with Hank

deciding to take La Grunta’s payoff to not tell anyone, and Luanne deciding to adapt by

wearing less attractive clothing. Eventually, Hank can’t keep quiet anymore. While

returning the payoff to the La Grunta people, Hank confronts the golfer who groped

Luanne, takes him by the pants, throws him into the dolphin pool, and arouses the dolphin

so it’ll attack the golfer as punishment. This also empowers Luanne to change back into

her original clothing, telling others to simply deal with it.

This episode clearly deals with the social issue of sexual harassment. It does this

through two different plotlines. There’s the comical plotline, where Hank is molested by a

dolphin, which is bizarre and humiliating to Hank, but then there’s Luanne’s plotline that

deals with her being ogled and sexualized by a group of country club boys on her job as a

golf course drink girl. These plotlines both take place within the same setting (the La

Grunta country club), and they both look at Hank and Luanne’s different, yet similar

reactions to being sexually assaulted. Hank and Luanne both elect to stay quiet about it,

but Hank doesn’t agree with Luanne staying quiet about the boys groping her, and Luanne

feels that if she should expose the sexual assault on her, Hank should expose the dolphin

incident. Both plotlines combine and affect each other, especially in the end, where Hank

punishes the groper by tossing him into the pool with the lusty dolphin. In the end, the

dolphin is also sent away for its sexual assault incidents. In the end, both Hank and
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Luanne win out by standing up against sexual harassment and not letting it go unpunished.

And that is what I believe to be the central message behind this episode’s plotline: do not let

sexual abuse of any kind go unreported.

However, there are still people out there who don’t report it when sexual harassment

happens to or around them. There was a reason Hank and Luanne initially kept quiet

about the incidents. Hank definitely didn’t want to admit to being molested by a dolphin

because of fear of how he would be treated by others, mainly his friends. But Luanne’s

case was a bit more complex. At first, she is greeted by the golf boys with a compliment,

them stating that she looks much better than the “sea hag” who brought them their drinks

previously. But the next time, after Hank’s dolphin debacle, one of the boys, under the

guise of positioning Luanne into the proper golf form, gropes her bum and states that she

has “good form.” Luanne, embarrassed, leaves quickly. Luanne equates this situation to

Hank’s dolphin incident; something to not be talked about. In an article by Bill Geibler,

it’s stated that “... it’s common for the victims of sexual abuse to blame themselves for the

abuse. They might believe that their situation could have been avoided for various

reasons...” (Geibler, 2023). Luanne blames herself for letting herself be in that position by

moving from her position as the drinks girl. “... I shouldn’t have taken the putt in the first

place. That was unprofessional.” So instead of exposing it, she chooses to hide her

attractiveness under less attractive clothing, because “Looking pretty in public is just

asking for trouble...”

Hank and Luanne’s troubles aren’t the only incidents of sexual harassment

happening, even within the episode. The story brings two more characters that it’s

happened two; Bill Dauterive and Peggy Hill. Peggy, in an attempt to sympathize with
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Hank and his dolphin situation, mentions that she has had a dog hump her leg once. Bill,

however, admits to having the same thing that happened to Hank happen to him too. He

would go swimming with the dolphins and the experience was supposed to change his life

all for the better, but then he was molested by a dolphin, and the company bought him off

to keep quiet with a t-shirt (turned tank-top) that he still wears to this day. Peggy’s recount

of her small incident shows that it is indeed possible to overcome the negative effects of

sexual harassment, while Bill’s story shows that sexual abuse can stunt its victims for life

and mess them up greatly if they keep it all inside instead of speaking out about it and

getting help. Having seen most other episodes of the show, I wouldn’t equate Bill’s main

problems in the entire show to chalk down to sexual assault from an animal, but it was

definitely a big part of his life that he kept hidden. “Emotions such as fear, shame,

humiliation, guilt, and self–blame are common and lead to depression and anxiety.”

(ACOG, 2024). Bill claimed that taking the payoff made him feel cheap and used, which

seem to be feelings that he repressed from both 6 years ago and 4 years ago.

Bill’s story encourages Hank to start collecting all of the stuff he and his family

received from the La Grunta payoff, and return it back. He won’t stand for staying quiet

and letting this assault on him go unpunished. He confronts the La Grunta people, and

while he does that, he sees Luanne. Even in her defensive unattractive clothing, she’s being

harassed, as one of the boys slips a dollar into her bra. To kill two birds with one stone,

Hank grabs the country club by the pants, dunks him into the dolphin pool, arouses one of

the dolphins and gets him to attack the boy, both exposing the dolphin and punishing the

boy. Luanne is empowered to dress however she wants, and the dolphin, Duke, is sent

away back to the ocean. As a final joke, Luanne asks if she can release the recording of
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Hank being humped by the dolphin. Hank says no, only for Luanne to reveal that she

already sent the tape anyways, having believed he would say yes. In the end, the truth

came out in all storylines. Sexual harassment has been exposed.

While this story presents exposing sexual harassment in its comical ways, there are

realistic ways it presents it too; through telling others and properly reporting it. “We

recommend that you take the extra step of reporting incidents in writing regardless of

whether the harasser is a supervisor or a co-worker. Reporting complaints in writing is also

one way of showing that the harassment was unwelcome.”(Employee Rights Attorney

Group). It is also important that you find out whether or not the incident was unwelcome,

or even intentional harassment, lest you create more trouble than needs to be caused.

All in all, sexual harassment is an awful and devastating thing that still happens

today. But with the media we watch, the discussions we have, and the actions we take, it is

possible for us to reduce it substantially. Through making it clear anywhere; at home, at

the workplace, in public establishments, that sexual harassment will not be tolerated, we

can press down on it, and eventually reduce it to its littlest form, to nothing at all.
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Works Cited

“Adult Manifestations of Childhood Sexual Abuse.” ACOG,

https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2011/08/adult

-manifestations-of-childhood-sexual-abuse. Accessed 7 October 2024.

Geibler, Bill. “5 Reasons Why Sex Abuse Victims Stay Silent | Brown & Barron.” Brown &

Barron, LLC, 8 May 2023,

https://www.brownbarron.com/blog/2023/may/five-reasons-why-victims-of-sexual-abuse

-stay-si/. Accessed 30 September 2024.

“Sexual Harassment Lawyer - How can I prove sexual harassment?” Employee Rights Attorney

Group,

https://www.employeerightsattorneygroup.com/employment-law/sexual-harassment/provi

ng-sexual-harassment/. Accessed 7 October 2024.

“Statistics: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace.” Makarem & Associates, 9 November 2023,

https://www.makaremlaw.com/blog/2023/11/statistics-sexual-harassment-in-the-workplac

e/. Accessed 30 September 2024.