SMRT-TV: Be Careful Out There

July 25, 2005

In the world of television, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the writers and producers of hour-long crime dramas, and the viewers, who watch said dramas. These are their stories.

Be Careful Out There
Can A Feminist Love Crime Drama?
by Andreanna Ditton

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine suggested writing a column on how crime dramas emphasize the vicitimization of women. Now, since I tend to be even more of a raging die-hard commie pinko feminazi than she is, the topic was intriguing. And my eventual response, upon really considering the topic was even more so. Aside from The Inside, which sadly plays far more into the victimization of women at the hands of serial killers, the bulk of the police procedurals that I watch tend to be fairly equal in their description of violence against persons. In fact, another reader had e-mailed me to suggest a further exploration of the way that the female criminals and secondary characters tend to come off as far more venal and duplicitous in CSI than the men do. So somewhere in between those two premises, I began to think about portrayal and victimization of both sexes.

Most of my analysis has focused on the detectives, the purveyors of justice, and far less on the criminals or those who fall prey to the violence so well depicted on these shows. And while it's kind of the point to follow the detectives, being as they are the POV of the storyline, the victims do get left behind. If anything bothers me about procedurals, or really the whole serial killer genre, it's that. The victims are a plot device, the crime's against them meant to draw us in, horrify and terrify us so that we can blink against daylight and think, wow, glad that wasn't me.

There's nothing that hits closer to home for nearly all potential viewers than violence against children. So in a way, these violent acts are being exploited for our entertainment and I find that far more disturbing than the continual use of women as victims.

In Law and Order: SVU, children of both gender are victims as frequently as either men or women, and it's the exploitation of their innocence that bothers me far more than a portrayal of women as victims of sexual violence. The show looks into these horrific acts committed against children as a way to expose these behaviors, to represent actual examples of this sort of crime and to provide an instant draw for the viewer. There's nothing that hits closer to home for nearly all potential viewers than violence against children. So in a way, these violent acts are being exploited for our entertainment and I find that far more disturbing than the continual use of women as victims.

Instead of this being a gender Episode , I think viewers have the right to take issues with our police procedurals for helping to deaden us to examples of violence and violation against people in general. In my first SMRT-TV article, I discussed the justification for procedurals, the way that the visual violence is a way for us to distance ourselves from the reality of violence, which is rarely wrapped up in 42 minutes, which rarely comes with any sort of justice. However, I also think it's necessary to remind ourselves that the crimes we see on CSI, on NCIS, on Medium and Law and Order, and hell even the lighter shows like Monk are all representative of actual violations against people and property. That each of these violations that we view, that we see as a puzzle to be solved, as an hour of our lives that takes us out of our everyday existence also represents that hours, days, years and months of trauma that real people feel.

I think the crime drama plays an important cultural role. In addition to providing us insight into the workings of detectives, it shows us the wide scope of horrors that people are capable of inflicting upon each other. They make us more aware of possibility, make us cautious and careful, and more willing to trust that the police will do what they can to help us. However, they also numb us to the real trauma of violence. Everyday, the news is filled with death that we tend to shuttle aside as a way to cope. If we tried to process every death that we heard about, we'd never have time to mourn out of grieving and mourning for humanity. Procedurals allow us to turn this horror into something salvageable, and from their helps to give us the faith to go on. But we need to be careful to remember that behind each of these shocking cases, there is a real child, a real man and a woman who has suffered, and in cases survived this sort of trauma and violation.

It's great to be entertained, it's great to hone or investigative skills, to draw conclusions based on Eliot Stabler's dissipating marriage and Catherine Willows dedication to making a good life for her child, but often times we let our entertainment get in the way of our sense of reality, and these shows don't necessarily help that cause. In the CSI's, the evidence is often far of a character than the victim. In Law and Order, the victim is a past presence, and the villain is the draw, the Hannibal Lector-ish figure that draws the eye and horrified attention, and while this makes good drama, I think we need to always take the time to remind ourselves that drama is drama, it's artifice and climax and three full acts, but behind each drama lies a victim in need of advocacy and memory.

From that perspective, I think police procedurals are doing a lot to continue to showcase the capabilities of women.

So, yeah, as a feminist, I have no problem with the current run of crime dramas. They feature smart, strong women who are good at their jobs, who are compassionate and capable, who get their man and have crappy sex lives and difficult family relationships and realistic lives. From that perspective, I think police procedurals are doing a lot to continue to showcase the capabilities of women. However, as a humanist, I think we need to be careful not to let our need for titillation and entertainment blind us to rising violence in our society, violence that won't necessarily have advocates like Olivia Benson to help to counteract it.

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Return to Vol. 1, Episode 9.