Criminal Minds is a popular TV show focused on an elite team of FBI profilers that identify and try to take down some of the country’s craziest criminals. The main characters of the show consist of three male characters and three female characters. The gender roles vary throughout the show but generally the men are the ones taking the risks. The woman, on the other hand, are generally gathering intel or trying to be a calming voice to get a criminal to cooperate, but on the rare occasion, they are also at a standoff trying to take down the criminal. When taking a quick glance at the show Criminal Minds you notice that each character generally follows the normal gender roles, but each character has a few traits that go against the normal gender roles.
Derek Morgan, a supervisory special agent, is portrayed as the typical male FBI agent. He is a very big and strong man. In one episode, his is talking about how he was abused as a child and brings up the thought of what a “real man” is. He believes that his abusers were not “real men” because of the certain morals and thoughts those men had. He goes on to give examples of who a “real man” is to him. He says that all of the male agents he works with a “real men” because of the morals and how they are as people. The morals he thinks a “real man” should posses are protective, intelligent, and doing the right thing. Derek Morgan is always involved in the action within every episode of the show. He portrays a typical male after one
When the criminal justice system was established, the main objective was to create neutrality and fairness between the sexes. Even though people might believe that there is no such thing as ‘stereotyping’ in the criminal justice system, it is quite obvious that women are constantly being look down upon because of their sex. In general, women tend to be treated like fragile objects that could break at any moment; the truth is that women can be strong and courageous just like men. Society stereotypes women and the criminal justice system is no different.
Women have different personalities and motivations, and they form relationships with men for many different reasons. Some of these reasons include love, money, and even lust and manipulation. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett is a novel about Sam Spade, who is a huge figure of the hard-boiled detective genre. Sam Spade goes on a quest to find a valuable falcon, solve murders and jump over the obstacle that surround him on a daily basis. The novel is also about the three women who surround Spade during his quest. The names of these women are Iva Archer, Effie Perine, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and they all have different roles in Sam Spade’s life. In The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, Brigid O’Shaughnessy plays the role of femme fatale, Iva Archer plays the role of Spade’s unfortunate future, and Effie Perine plays the role of Spade’s right-hand woman.
Behavior Analysis Unit Agent: Does Black Background of Derek Morgan Inspire America’s Youth to Pursue a Career of a Police Officer Who Combats His Own Fears and Psychological Problems? Criminal Minds in a television series, which premiered in 2005 on CBS. It is a drama where agents of the agents of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) investigate diverse crimes, focusing on profiling, finding behavioral patterns, and solving cases by often encountering maniacs and serial killers. The overall cast changed several times with minor alterations, but the basis remained the same with the only black agent of the team being Derek Morgan portrayed by Shemar Moore, who plays a Supervisory Special Agent.
Hatfield states, “Fictional television can be seen either as an influence on, or reflection of, culture—the shared norms, values, and beliefs held by a society. Yet many groups exist within a society and multiple value systems may be at play” (p.530). On television and in movies there are very few forms of masculinity shown. The majority of male masculinity usually ranges from gun toting hard asses, to a playboy, to the effeminate man that is often there for comic relief. Men in society do not always fit into these three categories. Masculinity is a much more complex and complicated identity to develop. There are shows like 24 where the main character, Jack Bauer, is a governmental agent going around the world in twenty-four hours to stop terrorism. He is unattached emotionally and highly dangerous. This does not represent a real form of masculinity that we have in today’s culture. There are men that probably do fit into the same category as the fictional character, but they are very unlike the average males in society today. A second common type of masculinity shown on television is the playboy style masculinity: men that have multiple sexual partners and seem to have the ultimate bachelor lifestyle with no worries or concerns. According to Ward, Merriwether, and Caruthers “ because men do not live in isolation, their beliefs about masculinity are likely to influence not only
Female police officers have appeared on television shows since the 1970s with shows like “Policewomen” and “Get Christie Love”. “Policewomen” paved the way for shows like “Honey West”, “NYPD Blue”, “CSI” and many more. As time went by more and more TV shows include female police officers as part of the main cast, shows like “Law and Order: Special Units Victims”, “Charles’s Angels”, “Hawaii 5-0”, etc. Policewomen on TV shows are not portrayed realistically but it is starting to change. In the earlier days, shows like “Charlie’s Angels” had detectives wear tight dress, glamorous body’s, makeup on, etc.
These differences are not highlighted during the movie. However, they remain key in our understanding of how each gender understands and plays a role in the rise of surveillance debate. One major factor of why there is such a heavily male presence in the surveillance the debate, is the idea the men are able to think quick on their feet and remain calm. This can be seen when Jeff was not visibly distraught as the killer was approaching him. This increases the societal stigma that men are able to remain calm, in a time of stress, or danger, and come up with solutions, whereas women are
In the clip of Prime Suspect, gender is represented in many ways using mise en scene and camera movement.
The criminal justice system is a male dominated occupation. For many years women have tried to break down the barrier and some have succeeded. But unlike men, women have to fight to be respected and to be heard. There has always been a gender bias. Women have decided to work outside the home and “move in” on careers that were specified as male professions. Females unfortunately have to
Sitcoms reflect the changes going on in the world to show what society is like. Sometimes it’s a show about nothing and oftentimes sitcoms actually affect the world. Sitcoms created gender role stereotypes for society and they did not always show an accurate representation of life. Early on, sitcoms were family focused and they eventually begin to shed light on different problems in society. Throughout the sitcoms The Trouble With Father, Sex and the City, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Bewitched women transitioned from being in the traditional role to being an effective part of the workplace. Women were portrayed differently throughout these sitcoms; they portray women to be leaders, submissive, or the fool.
While watching the “Ladies Room” episode of Mad Men, a lot of traditional gender roles were portrayed. Gender roles are often defined as how a society defines how women and men should think and behave. Men are often taught to show instrumental qualities, such as competitiveness, dominance, and confidence, while women exhibit more expressional qualities, such as empathy and sensitivity. The Mad Men episode started off with a man showing dominance by being demanding towards a waitress. While at work, the men competed against each other all while messing around and having fun at work. Women in the episode expressed themselves by gossiping and showing feelings towards others.
The Star Trek television series was truly a groundbreaking show not just for its plot lines and ideological messages, but also for its revolutionary cast. Two of the main actors were Jewish, one main actor was a gay Asian, and of course, one was a black woman. Uhura was one of the first main black characters on a television show – and of course, her kiss with Kirk was the first interracial kiss ever on television. For a show in the 1960s, Star Trek broke many barriers across religious, racial, but most significantly gender lines.
As Judith Butler once said, “Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed.” Throughout history and even today, being too masculine and being too feminine affects society's views on people. Individuals can’t be too much of one thing or they will ultimately be judged. Throughout, City of Thieves, characters are illustrated as withholding subversions and conformations to the established gender roles. Consequently, David Benioff uses City of Thieves to illustrate subverting and conforming gender roles through the main characters, Kolya, Lev, and Vika.
All feminist theorists share a common focus on gender inequality; however feminism can be described as a set of perspectives rather than a single viewpoint (Strider, N.d.). Therefore, challenging gender biasness in the criminal justice system from the feminist perspective can take many forms given the fact that there a lot of sources of gender inequality in the system. For example, the early theories of criminal behavior largely ignored gender all together and as a result the field has become largely male dominated and males have also been shown to commit more crimes than women on average.
Gender socialization often begins early once parents are shown the sex of their child; from then on, baby showers are planned according to gender “appropriate” colors, which are often pink for girls and blue for boys. Even differences in how children are spoke to can be picked up easily in Western cultures. Girls are called pretty and sweet, whereas boys are handsome and strong. Ultimately, the way children learn to identify with their gender culture is in part due to not only family and friends, media, schools, and religion, but also from the toys that may inexplicitly advertise gender expectations. Gender-typed toys may be bought for children as a way for parents to encourage and reinforce gender-appropriate behaviors. However, recent debates have engulfed toy manufacturers and major retailers, which has brought about changes in toy design and marketing in an effort to make reflect more realistic and gender neutral options.
Criminal Minds is one of the most interesting television shows I have come across. What sets it apart from various other shows based on forensic science and FBI storylines is that the BAU (Behavioral Analyst Unit) catches various criminals often referred to as ‘Unsubs’ in the show through behavioral profiling which means the team solves the cases through focusing on the psychology and point of view of the criminals, deeply understanding their stressors, statutory requirements, thought processes and more that lead them into committing some of the deadliest crimes. The show is written extremely well and is believable unlike other crime shows, infact a lot of episodes are based on real crimes committed by infamous criminals. What makes this ever-so-interesting series better is its wonderful cast. Each character in this show namely Hotch, Reid, Morgan, Rossi, Garcia and Prentis have their own quirks and set of skills which they contribute to the team. From Dr. Spencer Reid’s photographic memory and unlimited knowledge about everything to Garcia and