Aria and Ezra’s Problematic Relationship on ‘Pretty Little Liars’

Spoiler Warning

The relationsip between Aria and Ezra is established in the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars. At the beginning, I think the relationship very much represents the ultimate realization of the school girl fantasy that the older guy/teacher/pop-star that you are hopelessly crushing on will see you. Not just notice that you exist but see you for who you really are. Someone who is “different” from all those other girls, someone who is not just a child but a whole person.

While Spencer considers herself to be the most mature of the Liars, it is Aria’s relationship that is the least like most high school relationships. She and Ezra at times behave like a young married couple. She makes him tea before he goes to work, and they stay in and watch classic movies. Their problems tend to be driven by external factors, Ezra’s mother wanting him to make an appropriate match, Ezra finding out he has a child. these are challenges that we expect to see in a relationship between people in their 20s and of course Ezra  IS in his 20s.

Initially their story follows a fairly well-trodden arc when it comes to older-guy younger-girl relationships. They run into each other at a cafe and get to talking. Ezra assumes she is in college and she does nothing to dissuade those assumptions. They end up kissing in a toilet. Later on in that same episode Ezra finds out pretty abruptly that Aria is only 16 when he turns out to be teaching her English class. He makes out that he wants to do the right thing and says they can’t see each other anymore. She claims that  they have a special connection and is deeply disappointing with his decisions. However he reneges when Aria is sad and kisses her deeply, re-establishing their relationship.

Generally Ezra’s interest in Aria is presented as fairly unproblematic. Aria’s parents react really badly initially, and they are both conscious that if the truth comes out the consequences could be dire. A fact that doesn’t come up till season four when Ezra returns to teach at Rosewood, is that in Pennsylvania where the show is set, while  the age of consent is technically 16  if  the minor is under the age of 18, the adult can be charged with “Corruption of a Minor,” a  misdemeanor offence,  and if the adult is in a position of power (teacher, clergy, or police for example) it is a felony.

In one scene Aria imagines what would happen if A leaked evidence of the relationship to the school administration and the end result is that Ezra is arrested and ends up in jail. However these appear  to be minor intrusions into their happy life of domestic bliss. Under pressure from their daughter, Aria’s parents become tacitly permissive of the relationship and they manage to avoid any problems with the school administration despite sometimes not being very circumspect on the school grounds. Ezra considers it prudent to leave his position at Rosewood High and moves on to teaching at the local college. He ends up getting fired from there in a last ditch endeavor by Aria’s father to get him to stop seeing his daughter.

The relationship lives in this sort of netherworld where it is both seen as illicit but also fundamentally acceptable because they are in love with each other and that has to mean something. While Aria’s parents react badly the question of why Ezra, a college-educated man in his 20s is attracted to and in love with Aria, a 16-year-old high school girl, the power differential between them is never ever addressed. The subtext that we are meant to swallow is that it is because Aria is exceptional, she is mature and amazing. One of the problems with this though, is that this perception of Aria doesn’t really jive with the many poor decisions she makes on the show that are pretty understandable in a teenage girl.

One big problem with how  this relationship is portrayed, especially its beginnings, is that it feeds into the mythology that teenage girls are temptresses who seek out older men and seduce them, applying pressure until these helpless men give in against their better judgement. This mythology has real world implications. A tragic example of this is the case of Stacey Dean Rambold, who was convicted with raping one of his 14-year-old students repeatedly but only given a 30-day sentence because he believed that  she was “older than her chronological age” and was “as much in control of the situation” as the man who raped her. The judge has since been censured but, this should never have happened in the first place.  Rambold’s victim has since committed suicide in the aftermath of the case.

One could argue that for much of their relationship Ezra is not actually Aria’s teacher; they didn’t meet in that context and so the power differential is not really an issue. I do not believe that large gaps in relationships are intrinsically negative, so if you take the teacher part out of the equation does that make it less problematic? I’m not sure. I don’t want to deny Aria’s agency as a young woman but I still think we would have to question why Ezra would want to have a relationship with someone so young, It would be a little different if he was a 35-year-old interested in a 23-year-old because adolescence is a very difficult time.

The whole thing is made very (even more?) creepy in season four when it is revealed to us that Ezra knew who Aria was from the very beginning. He was aware of her age, he was aware that she was a student at the high school he was going to teach at, and he was aware of her relationship with Alison. So Ezra knowingly committed a felony in order to gain insight into Alison and her friends for his book – at least this is what he claims. He is effectively a stalker who manages to convince Aria that they have a very special relationship. He uses his prior knowledge of her to manipulate her. This pretty much sinks the final nail into the coffin on this relationship with me. I think overall I come down on the side that the Aria/Ezra relationship is highly problematic and I am interested to see how the show goes on to handle these new revelations about him.

Gaayathri Nair is currently living and writing in Auckland, New Zealand. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri.