December 12, 2012 The television shows I watched were Law and Order Special Victims Unit (SVU), Criminal Minds and NCIS Los Angeles. For Law and Order, I watched season 12, episode 23. It had aired on April 20 2011. Its duration time was an hour. Criminal Minds, I watched season 8, episode 11; it had aired on December 12 2012. It duration time was 42 minutes. Lastly NCIS was season 4, episode 9 and that aired on December 11 2012. Its duration time was an hour also. When watching this shows, I noticed that there was at least one woman playing a lead character, whether she was victim or one of the detectives who were trying to solve the crime committed. However Law and Order SVU was the only show I observed that had a juvenile delinquent playing one of the lead characters. In the Law and Order SVU, the teenage boy was found naked asleep in a woman’s bed apparently waiting for her return so that he can rape and kill her. When taken into custody, they find out that this wasn’t his first homicide; in fact this delinquent has been raping and killing women prior to this event. As the detectives dig deeper, they discover that the teenage boy was molested when he was younger by his babysitter. They were several women portrayed as victims in this episode and none were offenders. The offender was a juvenile but no victims were juveniles Then there was Criminal Minds, in this episode the FBI agents head south to investigate a fast moving criminal who is trying to replicate another serial killer from 30 years ago. Most of the criminal’s victims were women only one was a man and his last victim was a child. There were no juveniles considered offenders in this episode but the child was victim. In NCIS Los Angeles, the episode was about the NCIS team investigating the strange and brazen heist executed by gunmen in costumes that could directly impact the U.S economy. None of the victims were women and none of the women were offenders. One of gunmen was in relationship with a women who ultimately tried to protect him by not informing the detectives of his where bouts. There weren’t any victims or offenders portrayed as juveniles either. Overall the usual images I saw on these shows were the women who played detectives were attractive and had sex appeal not very professional. They usually got the easier tasks like background checks, running DNA tests, etc. There were usually dependent on the male detectives as well. An example of this would be NCIS Los Angeles, when the woman detective (Kens) gets paired up with Granger the new assistant director of NCIS; it was one of highlights of the episode. While working together, Granger criticizes everything Ken says or does. It was almost as if he was undermining her work as a detective. Another thing I noticed throughout this shows was that every time a crime was to light that involved a woman. She was usually raped and killed or both and most times she is the victim. The males on this show were strong, cocky, sarcastic, independent, and stubborn appeared brave.
In the one program, that had a juvenile delinquent which was Law and Order SVU, the images I saw was that the child was troubled at home, very stubborn, unpredictable. The teen’s mother was in denial of her son’s behavior only because she didn’t want to be blamed for his actions or judged as a fit mother. In criminal minds, the juvenile’s victim had a very brief scene. He was kidnapped by the criminal only because the initial victim was his father. I think television producers use such images to promote good entertainment. Our society is built on sex and violence which is very disappointing but true. In order for them to have a successful show they need to give the public what they want instead of what is right. I think for the juvenile’s aspect of things, there is some truth to what is being portrayed in these programs. Most juveniles delinquents come from a bad home or something happened in their past childhood that made them cynical. Like in Law and Order SVU, the child was clearly molested so he developed this obsessed behavior of fondness for older women. He had no father figure in his life and his mother did not promote this behavior but she definitely did not take the necessary actions to get help her son. The producers should and can promote better images of women in these programs, it should not be about how gorgeous or beautiful a woman is in order to play lead role. Don’t get me wrong, the producers have done a better job when it comes down to giving women better roles like playing detectives in crime television shows. We used to only see women behind the scenes doing all the paper work while they men went out and did all the dirty work but it is different now. As far as victims are concerned, in reality White women are by far the least victimized by homicide, actually more men are killed than women, yet cable TV crime shows think the opposite. All these programs I have watched cover one topic almost exclusively: the murder of white women, night after night. I don’t know if they seek to capitalize on the gender compassion gap that generates more sympathy for female victims and hence draws more viewers? However the overall effect of such images has negative effects on both gender and age. For gender, it definitely exposes women as weak and easier targets. As for the age, these shows allows kids to go out and commit crimes because they do what they see on television and if the juveniles are smart enough to pay attention to what is being said during the program. They learn a lot about crimes and which crimes they can get away with. Like on SVU, the juvenile at first got away with first crime because it was his first offense; he only got 50 hours of community service, 3 years of probation and he had to attend drug and alcohol class. If he did not kill another woman and leave a trail that led him to be suspect again; he would have got away with it. Watching these shows can make people slightly uncomfortable especially a woman or a man that has gone through similar experiences. The scenes are extremely vivid especially the murder ones. In conclusion, this assignment allowed me to see these shows in a different perspective. I watch these shows all the time but have never paid attention to the little details like most the women that are victims are usually white or that most crimes that portray women as victims are usually homicides and rape.