Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Law and Order SVU is a TV show that focuses on the interrelationships of the institutions of policing and prosecution as equally

Amidst the dullness of a summer years ago, my absentminded flicking through T.V. channels was interrupted by Law & Order: SVU’s iconic opening monologue. One episode slipped into the next, the plots merging into an indistinguishable tangle of vile criminals and traumatized victims. Soon the glow of streetlights signaled the night’s most important conclusion—I was hooked.

Perpetrators have remained primarily male with females as accomplices. The representations of male law enforcement agents have changed over time while the representations

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (often abbreviated to Law & Order: SVU or just SVU) is an American police procedural, legal, crime drama television series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced. In the style of the original Law & Order, episodes are often "ripped from the headlines" or loosely based on real crimes that have received media attention. Created and produced by Dick Wolf, the series premiered on NBC on September 20, 1999, as the first spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama, Law & Order. The show started its 17th season on September 23, 2015, and has aired 385 original episodes as of March 30, 2016. It is the current longest running scripted non-animated U.S. primetime TV series since the cancellation of the

Women usually assume they need to act like men to be respected. They feel like they don’t have the choice: either they act in a masculine way and they succeed or they stay as they are but success won’t be part of their lives. Jane Rizzoli strongly believes that she has to act like a man to be respected. She is blunt, tenacious, proud and unmaternal and her work is all she knows, it’s her universe. In the books, Jane Rizzoli is a thirty-three-year-old detective who newly works at the Boston Homicide Unit and used to work at Vice and Narcotics.

The opening credits of a television show can convey significant meaning concerning what topics and themes the show will be discussing. While it’s true that some opening credits, for example One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl, are superficial and paired with nothing but a catchy song, some also offer potential insight. After examining the introduction for Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, it’s clear this show’s opening credits falls under the later category. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit deals with sexual crimes, which is made evident in the opening, but also focuses on New York City law enforcements’ role in preventing these crimes. Through the us of color and pairing inspiring city shots with pictures symbolizing death and criminal activity,

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.

I chose to analyze the opening credits of the long-time running show, Law and Order Special Victims Unit, better known as SVU. The reason that I chose this show is that it has long been one of my personal favorite shows of all time, and was one of the first crime shows that I ever watched. I also chose this show because I knew that the entire Law and Order franchise has a very distinct aura regarding the aesthetes of their shows as that has always struck me. Additionally, as the show is truly one of my favorites, my best friend and I have memorized the beginning monologue so that we can recite it with the show every time we watch it. The show has meant a lot to me over several years as I believe it has to others as well considering it’s nineteen and continuing season-long production since 1999.

This is due to the fact that the BAU team is called by local police departments around the United States to aid in solving serial or extremely violent crimes in that area (Huggo). The situations that the show portrays are experiences that defines the denial of reality. Horrors of

There are two things that will always be a part of daily life in the USA: crime and media. They shamelessly use each to bolster their own ratings in a “forced marriage” (Surette). In the news media they are given a story or finding information about one that has already happened in real life; but, with fictional crime shows the storyline and casting is up to the producers. Sexism and xenophobic behavior tend to be the norm when looking at the news, but some television crime dramas are trying to change the perceptions of certain groups of people such law enforcement officials, victims, and criminals.

Television has become a vital aspect of daily life, within modern society; every aspect of television exhibits, to a certain extent, a reliance on genre (Mittell, 2001). Industries rely on genre to produce programs, and audiences use genres as a means of organizing fan practices (Mittell, 2001). According to a 2006 Nelson Media Research study, ratings confirm that aside from prime time shows such as American Idol and Survivor, part-time crime drama’s have been classified as one of the most favoured genre (DeTardo-Bora, pg. 154, 2009). The relationship between the media and criminal justice system is delicate, where more often than not, crimes are portrayed in a false light (Graveline, pg. 1, 2015). These misconceptions lead to

Law and order: especial victims unit is a television series is set in new york city and is based around police procedural, crime and how the criminal is treated in the eyes of the law.

The media today, is highly selective in their constructions of offences, offenders and victims. Media representations of crime are moulded and women are portrayed in a way that is entertainment driven and is appealing to the audience. Despite the fact that women seldom stalk, murder outsiders or commit sequential murders- in fact they are rarely vehement, “accounting for only ten percent of convicted violent offenders- those who do so are highly newsworthy because of their novelty” (Jewkes 2011, p. 123) Present day media admits that because fierce women are comparatively uncommon, they are all the more appealing and diabolical to the audience as a result. The essay shall discuss the reason and presentation in the media of female offenders, female victims and women specific crimes.

While most of the violent crimes that happens most are them are belongs to men, women have not been the wilting flowers promoted so heartily by Victorian adorers and (right or wrong) often evident in today's society. Before we get into detail about the fascinating phenomenon of the Black Widow, it is worth a brief overview of women's escalating role in the world of violent crime, particularly in the United States.

Tackling difficult topics such as Rape, sexual assault, and overall violent crimes is an uncommon topic for a television shows to address. Law and order special victims unit is an exceptional show because of its ability to make taboo subjects a little easier to talk about.