So those of you who are habitual readers know that Wrather and Sheely have a podcast on this site called “These Flirting Teenagers,” which purports to be about Glee and Gossip Girl. Those of you who actually listen to said podcast know that almost as much of their time is devoted to talking about Law and Order: SVU. Or rather, making one particular point about it: that what the show is meant to be about—i.e. Law and Order—is not what it is actually about, which is the vicarious enjoyment of forbidden sexuality. One of Wrather’s more elegant ways of getting at it is to claim that “We go to entertainment to see things we secretly wish we could do… if you are watching [SVU], you want the cheerleader to be raped. If you were not happy with a representation of the adorable nubile cheerleader being raped, you would turn off the show.”
I can understand why he would think this. What separates SVU from “vanilla” Law & Order is the fact that it wallows in a kind of crime that is, per the opening narration, “especially heinous.” If we weren’t interested in something about the representation of those crimes, the show would not find an audience. And if you pay attention to the casting choices… well, there’s kind of an unspoken law for casting directors in America, which is that—barring extraordinary circumstances—any actor or actress cast on a TV show shall be wicked hawt. This applies for SVU as much as for any other show if not more. And whether it’s intentional or not, this means that the actress who will portray the victim of a sex crime is going to be chosen partially so that she can serve as a desire-object. So Wrather’s argument seems to make sense. But there are three problems with it.
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”
— Thomas Jefferson
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“The spirit of enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved.”
— Alexander Hamilton
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“Excuse me, I have to go. Somewhere there is a crime happening.”
— Robocop
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I had always intended for the second installment of this oldest and most waited-for (if not awaited) Overthinking It series to be about a character I have often described as the Quintessential American Tragic Hero: Alex Murphy, a.k.a. Robocop from the truly excellent Paul Verhoeven film of the same name. Then, of course, other things happened.
Well, this is VerhOeverthinking It week, and as Darren Aronofsky will hopefully showcase for us Robocop’s durability — both as a cinematic subject and as a cybernetic apparatus — so will I persevere in hewing to one of my earliest intentions on this site.
Let us venture into the glory, the flaws, the fall and the suffering of that bechromed bulwark of semivoluntary justice — the American who is Half Jeffersonian, Half Hamiltonian, All Cop.
Do you want to learn more? Well, dead or alive, you are coming with me –
[Overthinking It Magazine is the weekly feature where we give you articles you'll like all the more since the sabbath gives you an extra minute to ponder them. It may not replace your Sunday morning tryst with the newspaper of record, but we promise it will give you lots to overthink about. Oh, and if you're in a newsreader, click through to the site. I spent precious time on that graphic. --Ed.]
For your overthinking consideration, I give you Mediocre Film’s hit web series,
Retarded Policeman:
It stars the very funny Josh “The Ponceman” Perry, who is an aspiring professional actor and has Down Syndrome.
If you’re like me, your first reaction after laughing (it’s a good little show that’s very funny in its own right) was, “How am I supposed to feel about this?”
Discussion and more video, after the jump.
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