I was amazed at all the crime on the TV.
There was a show on "Criminal Minds" about a band of serial killers (not the musical kind of band, the kind of band that "bands" together when committing their crimes). As if there are actually "bands" of serial killers roaming the streets. In fact, serial killers are extremely rare and are only responsible for a tiny fraction of all murders in any year.
There was a show about people in prison -- "Lock Up" -- titled something like "Never a Dull Moment in Prison." Strangely the show description claimed that prison life is routine and monotonous (in spite of the title of the show) and it of course focused on those random and uncommon moments of sheer terror that occur in prison. The show featured on what the producer called "the most violent act they've ever witnessed while filming, a stabbing on one inmate by another (although thankfully that was not caught on film, only the man stumbling down the yard bleeding.
There are at least three movies on that were violent and dealt with murder and punishment.
Then there was CSI and Law & Order (I think it was the "new one" -- Law & Order: Los Angeles), two shows that have been carefully studied and shown to be very inaccurate in their portrayals of criminal justice processes.
And who knows what other shows were also on. I turned it off and picked up my book (I really want to finish this one).
The point is that crime makes up a large part of TV programming, as you already know. And most of it is completely inaccurate.
To the credit of CBS and its 60 Minutes program, it focused on supposedly American corporations who have moved their headquarters overseas (oftentimes just an office space staffed by a secretary) in order to avoid paying US taxes. The CEOs complained about the 35% tax rate assessed against corporations in the US (ignoring that more than half of corporations actually pay NO taxes each year), saying they wanted to move the jobs and money back to the US but that they were "forced" to move overseas by US legislators.
If we cut the tax rate of these corporations to match that of countries with lower rates (let's say to 15%), the US government would lose trillions of dollars in taxes. And yeah, we can afford that right now, can't we?
That's the kind of story we need to see more often.
But, tonight, I will be watching the new show "Chicago Code" about police officers and corruption in the city. I don't think it is particularly accurate, but I like the characters and think it is entertaining, and besides, it's the only show I watch on TV.
I think that the media attempts to accurately portray crime and the criminal justice with the use of fictional television dramas. However, the media falls short on representing what is real and what is not. For example, the show "Lock Up" is supposed to be based on the real prison experience, but it is not. They can only film for a certain amount of time, and can in no way truly depict what prison really is like. Also, with shows like CSI and Law and Order, people are lead to believe that the criminal justice system, is always able to find the bad guy and solve the case, which isn't always true. I think that the media needs to focus more on real crime and real aspects of the criminal justice system!
ReplyDeleteMedia will cover crime like they cover anything else. It still must be, in some way, entertaining. You don't cover sports by showing all the timeouts and back and forth play; you show the highlights (goals, touchdowns, dunks, etc). The same is true for showing things of a criminal nature. It has to be glamorized for the average person to be interested. Who wants to see a show about criminals going through an incredibly boring daily routine? So, they show fights and prisoners not doing what they are supposed to. Violence in society is not something new to the modern day civilians of this country. It has drawn people throughout history and it won't change anytime soon. As long as that is the case, the medias depiction of our criminal justice system will continue to entertain us in as graphic of a way as possible.
ReplyDeleteActually when i think of this i think of the pendemic about crack being everywhere in the 1980's when it was so horrible for babys even though everything else is too. People that see shows like this think that crime is everywhere and they are afraid of crime but the odds of you being victimized by crime are actually very slim. I was ammused in class when we were talking about Columbine shooting, even though it was a terrible thing that happend, Mr Robinson said that the odds of you getting victimized at school are as good as being struck by lightning TWICE. I remember that same year we had a bomb threat at school at least once a week and East Burke is still on the map....
ReplyDeleteI can't help but wonder when screen writers are all going to run out of ideas for new shows, or have they already??? It seems that they show reruns of Law & Order all day long! The storyline always follows the same structure. Crime is everywhere on TV. It is not everwhere in life. Most people are unfortunately under the misconception that it abounds. We could name off crime shows all day long, then we could start all over with movies about crime. It would take maybe 10 minutes for everyone to tell about their personal experience with crime in the last year. Why is there not something that better portrays our American lives on television? It is not CRIME, CRIME, CRIME all the time!!
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