Postmodern Problems in Law & Order Thesis Submitted to the Graduate
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Morality, Metanarratives, and Mea Culpa: Postmodern Problems in Law & Order Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Program in Popular Culture Brock University In Fulfillment ofthe Requirements For the Degree of Master ofArts in Popular Culture Andrea Braithwaite May 2003 © Andrea Braithwaite 2003 Table Of Contents Chapter One: Introduction - In Limine (At the Threshold) 1-20 Chapter Two: Ad Hoc Postmodemism 21-38 Chapter Three: Genre - 'Two Separate Yet Equally Important Groups' 39-85 Chapter Four: Narrative - 'These Are Their Stories' 86-123 Chapter Five: Conclusion - Ex Post Facto (After the Fact) 124-137 Appendix - Law & Order's Various Award Received 138 Works Cited 139-144 Vide0 graphy 145 1 Chapter One: Introduction - In Limine (At the Threshold) In the criminaljustice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. So begins each episode ofLaw & Order, NBC's long running police and legal television drama. What follows this solemn incantation is an hour-long investigation ofthe concepts ofcrime and justice, which both police and lawyers are struggling not just to achieve but to define. The premise of I Law & Order is simple, and the same structure underlies almost every episode: in the first half the detectives investigate a crime and eventually apprehend their suspect, after which the plot moves to criminal court, where the district attorneys juggle the legal system to try and convict the accused. Yet despite the formulaic nature ofthe program, its continued popularity is impressive; now in its thirteenth season, Law & Order has been renewed through May 2005, which will make it televisiol1'S longest running police series and second-longest running dramatic series. Since its debut on NBC in October 1990, Law & Order has won consistent critically acclaimed, receiving numerous awards from various organizations and associations (see Appendix). For example, in 1997 the program won an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series, and holds the record for most consecutive nominations in that category with 10. The series has also been praised for its complex portrayal ofthe legal system, as well as its work within the mystery genre. The success ofLaw & Order has led executive producer Dick Wolfto create three spin-off programs: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC 1999-present), Law & Order: Criminal 2 Intent (NBC 2001-present), and Law & Order: Crime and Punishment (NBC 2002-present). Now in its fourth season, SVU chronicles an elite police squad's investigation and apprehension of perpetrators ofsexual crimes, while Criminal Intent, which debuted in the fall of2001, centres on the criminals, their state ofmind, and the psychological approaches use by the Major Case squad to solve crimes. The most recent Law & Order incarnation, Crime and Punishment, is a self-described "dramamentary" ofactual criminal cases prosecuted by the San Diego District Attorney's Office, using 'verite' footage to follow the lawyers through the trial to the verdict. Along with being one ofthe most enduring programs on prime time network television, Law & Order is an example ofthe present nature oftelevision as an aesthetic medium as well as a mode of public communication and discourse. The ways in which the program's themes are explored through the narrative are enhanced by its commingling ofgenres, both the police procedural and the legal drama. Law & Order strategically demonstrates the intersection between postmodernism and television,most notably in terms ofthe series' exploration ofwhat Jean Fran90is Lyotard sees as metanarratives, cultural myths that surround concepts like morality, justice, and criminal and individual responsibility. Law & Order's treatment ofthese metanarratives includes challenging assumptions about "the natural" and "the just," the relationship between justice and law,. power relations, and binary oppositions such as right/wrong and moral/immoral. Both genre and narrative provide entry points from which to examine Law & Order, and these frameworks work alongside each other to foreground and reinforce postmodem techniques and themes. Interpretive textual analysis will be employed to delve into the program, given "the capacity oftextual criticism to reveal what a first glance overlooks" (Geraghty and Lusted 12). While not necessarily an investigation ofwhy Law & Order is popular, a 3 textual analysis can elicit the possible meanings in the program, and so demonstrate the value of studying popular culture artifacts, by revealing their potential as sites ofsignificant social expression. Genre and narrative theory will be the main interrogatory tools used to inform the discussion ofLaw & Order's postmodern qualities and to address the show's treatment ofcultural myths. Therefore, a variety ofepisodes spanning the show's entire duration will be looked at in order to illustrate and support generalizations regarding the program as a ,whole. This approach shares many ofthe same objectives with, and problems inherent in, the growing field ofTelevision Studies. Initially problematic in this theoretical endeavour is a form ofsemantic I confusion over what the term 'television' encompasses, leading to uncertainty about what (and how) to study. Seen alternately, and simultaneously, as a "disorderly collection ofdiscrete programs, a . technological device and an enormous industry," Television Studies poses an immediate problem of definition (Boddy 2). Such terminological confusion creates the need to clarify what is meant by 'television' in any given study, and inthis instance to differentiate between television as a medium and its varying levels ofindustrial or commercial aspects, such as North America's network and cable television. Within this work, then, the term 'television' will be used to broadly designate the American commercial television system, thus encompassing Law & Order's production and initial broadcast in network television, along with including cable television, where the program is widely syndicated. Most often excluded from the definition is the perception oftelevision as a text or collection of texts, for much academic work tends to "conceptualise television either through notions ofits social function and effects, or within a governing question ofcui bono? (whose good is served?)" (Brunsdon 99). While analyses oftelevision increasingly regard programs as texts, a residual antagonism is often 5 service orientation ofBritish television influences. the perception.ofthe way television 'should' function, in that "This television, and this television studies, was one in which, at a deep level, there was an assumed address to a viewer as citizen" (Brunsdon 96). Such an address is not always implied by North America's commercially-driven broadcasting system, and so this pervasive assumption ofthe medium as civic-minded affects the extent to which the existing literature will be applied to Law & 1 Order, given their fundamental differences • Regardless ofnational inflections, a twofold theoretical desire underlies most textual analyses of television, including this one: to identify television as a medium with distinct aesthetic and cultural I characteristics, and to legitimize television studies as an area ofacademic inquiry (Brunsdon 96). These urges are a response to the continued antipathy toward television in other disciplines, as both a social activity and an object worthy ofcritical examination, for "debate about the significance and value of television persists, and much academic and popular writing about the medium is haunted by anxiety about the cultural legitimacy ofwatching television" (Brunsdon 96). This concern does notilecessarily reflect upon the medium itself, as Hartley points out, but from a more pervasive fear ofcultural degeneration brought on by the advent of 'popular' tastes: "the critical onslaught which television has faced throughout its existence has its roots not in the medium itself, but in a pre-existing discourse of anxiety about popularization and modernity: a quite straightforward fear ofand hostility to the' democratization oftaste" (Hartley 34). Television Studies has emerged within this largely hostile IFor a more detailed overview ofthe differences between and literature regarding British and American television studies, see Gill Branston's "Histories ofBritish Television" and Lynn Spigel's "The Making ofa TV Literate Elite," in Geraghty and Lusted's The Television Studies Book. 6 climate, and since the 1970s has developed into its own field with distinct features gleaned from or created in reaction to the variety ofdisciplines that have shaped its practitioners~ The interdisciplinary approach characteristic ofthe study ofpopular narratives like television texts is reflected in the use ofgenre and narrative theory in the forthcoming discussion ofLaw & Order. The notion ofthe popular narrative also alludes to this dual focus, implying both a type ofstory and a manner ofstorytelling. As theoretical concepts, genre and narrative have lengthy and well-established histories in both film and literature, and while the genesis ofthese ideas is instrumental· to their current formulation, grafting them onto television reveals some shortcomings. This project thus indirectly reiterates one ofthe tenets evolving as central to television studies: the need to see the medium as distinct, linked to and influenced by other media but also possessing specific characteristics