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Law and Abuse: Representations of Intimate Partner Homicide in Law Procedural Dramas

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Law and Abuse: Representations of Intimate Partner Homicide in Law Procedural Dramas Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-22-2016 12:00 AM Law and Abuse: Representations of Intimate Partner Homicide in Law Procedural Dramas Jaime A. Campbell The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Sasha Torres The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Media Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts © Jaime A. Campbell 2016 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Campbell, Jaime A., "Law and Abuse: Representations of Intimate Partner Homicide in Law Procedural Dramas" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 4076. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4076 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact wlswadmin@uwo.ca. Abstract In the early 1970s, feminists began to raise awareness about intimate partner violence (IPV), transforming it from a private family matter into a social problem. Popular media representations of IPV, which exposed the extent and severity of the problem, played a key role in this transition. Surprisingly, however, there has been very little research on media representations of IPV or intimate partner homicide (IPH). This thesis conducts a critical discourse analysis on recent media representations of abused women who kill their abusive partners in law procedural dramas, a genre of television that both commands a wide prime- time audience and impacts viewers’ understanding of the legal system. I argue that the common representational tropes used in these episodes actively harm abused women by constructing only abuse narratives that reinforce misogynistic tropes as valid and by suggesting that the legal system meets abused women’s needs. Keywords Intimate Partner Violence, Intimate Partner Homicide, The Burning Bed, Francine Hughes, Representation, Cultural Studies, Discourse Analysis, Hall, Television Studies, Law Procedural, Domestic Violence, Self-Defense, Battered Woman’s Syndrome. i Acknowledgments First thanks, of course, must go to my supervisor, Dr. Sasha Torres, for helping me to piece together what often felt like an unending project. From the early days of grad school when I came to your office to tell you I wanted to radically change my thesis from Marxist theory to something about the relationship between media and intimate partner violence through to applying for my MSW, your guidance and support have been invaluable. Thank you for being patient with me as I worked through several major transitions in my academic work and in my personal life. I would also like to thank many of the other incredible professors that I have had the great pleasure of working with and learning from at FIMS. Special thanks go to Dr. Warren Steele for being an integral part of my academic and moral development throughout my undergraduate and graduate degrees at FIMS and for his many kind and encouraging words about my work. I must also extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Nick Dyer-Witheford for supporting a mostly clueless third-year undergrad in their attempts to struggle through volume 1 of Capital and for his many kind letters of recommendations. Thank you to my parents, Kelly and Michael, for loving me endlessly and supporting me through the many, many changes that have occurred in my life over the past few years. I would not be where I am today without you. Thank you also to my younger sister, Nicole, for loving me and trying to understand me in spite of our many differences, and to my grandparents, Jack and Maggie. To my cohort (and to those informally part of our cohort): I could not have asked for a better group of friends and colleagues to drink and bemoan the perils of grad school with. I will miss you all dearly. To my friends outside of academia: I love you too. I would like to thank Tania in particular for her love, companionship, and support as I progressed through this degree and other major transitions in my life. Thank you also to my Ways2Raise family for their friendship, love, and commitment to helping the trans community. Finally (and you all knew this was coming): I would like to thank my cats for their companionship, soothing purrs, and silly antics. You bring so much joy to my life. ii Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... v Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................... 1 1 Introduction: Setting the Stage ........................................................................................... 1 1.1 Theoretical Framework and Research Questions ..................................................................... 5 1.2 Chapter Breakdown .................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................................... 8 2 What We Know About IPV: A Review of the Literature................................................... 8 2.1 Statistics About IPV ................................................................................................................. 9 2.2 The Etiology of IPV ............................................................................................................... 16 2.2.1 Psychological Theories .................................................................................................... 16 2.2.2 Sociological Theories ...................................................................................................... 18 2.2.3 Feminist Theories ............................................................................................................ 21 2.3 Who Says That She Stays? ..................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................. 36 3 The Burning Bed: IPV, BWS, and the Media ................................................................... 36 3.1 A History of Misogyny ........................................................................................................... 41 3.2 The Burning Bed ..................................................................................................................... 46 3.2.1 An NBC Original ............................................................................................................. 52 3.3 Self-Defense and Battered Woman’s Syndrome .................................................................... 60 3.3.1 Self-Defense Laws ........................................................................................................... 60 3.3.2 The Battered Woman’s Syndrome................................................................................... 64 3.3.3 Expert Testimony ............................................................................................................ 67 Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................................. 73 iii 4 The BWS Effect: Law Procedurals and IPH .................................................................... 73 4.1 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 74 4.2 Analysis .................................................................................................................................. 76 4.2.1 Tropes About Abused Women ........................................................................................ 77 4.2.2 Tropes About Abusers ..................................................................................................... 87 4.2.3 Tropes About Law Enforcement and the Legal System .................................................. 93 4.3 Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 96 Chapter 5 ............................................................................................................................... 100 5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 100 5.1 Limitations and Directions for Future Research ................................................................... 103 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 105 Curriculum Vitae .................................................................................................................
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