Free Critical Thinking About Crime Show Violence Assignment

I chose to watch episodes of Law and Order: SVU because they were readily available on Hulu. Watching the episodes I noticed that the violence portrayed on primetime TV crime shows can vary depending on current issues in society. Some of the episodes also depend on crimes committed in popular culture like the elevator fight between rapper Jay-Z and Beyonce’s sister Solange. The producers changed the scenario into a fight between an athlete and a woman accusing the athlete of rape; taking the idea of the scenario, the producers were able to expand on the storyline of rape and how accusations of rape can also be damaging. Violence depicted on crime shows today show everything from murder, rape, and suicide; many of the scenes are bloody and as graphic as possible for primetime TV.
I think I’d still notice the violence on the TV show even if it weren’t for this assignment. Some of the violence shown is really evocative because of the messages it tries to give to viewers. Some of the images are pretty graphic and the subject content can seem a little obscene especially when an episode involves children. If it is a very violent episode theme, it would be hard to ignore the violence. This class has definitely impacted how I feel about violence on crime shows because it allows us to view it from the victim’s and criminal’s perspective. It doesn’t make me sympathetic towards the criminal but it does shed light on the criminal’s possible thought processes and how they are affected along with the victim. This class has basically helped me understand how all the sides are affected and how even though they are criminals, they are still humans.