Introduction

            For this project I explored the representation of African-Americans in crime investigation television. Instead of focusing on African-Americans’ portrayals as victims or suspects, I chose to analyze the image of African-American detectives, Odafin Tutuola (Ice-T) and Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) from Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. I chose CSI: Crime Scene Investigation mainly because of its popularity and recognition. “On Friday, 6 October 2000, the pilot episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) premiered on CBS. It debuted to 17.3 million television viewers and was ranked eighth on Nielsen’s weekly top 10 television programs (Armstrong quoted in Cavender & Deutsch 2010, 67).” As a nationally ranked and syndicated show, CSI is still on air even over a decade later. Likewise, the critically acclaimed NBC show, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) is also widely recognized. Fourteen time Emmy nominated producer Dick Wolf was quoted stating that, “Since ‘SVU’ went on the air, it has been a really profoundly influential show in terms of reporting of sex crimes, in terms of reporting both child abuse and elder abuse, a whole range of topics.” (Tulsa World, 2012)

I researched this topic in particular because of how the representation of such individuals can affect society and how important it is that we know exactly how they are being portrayed. According to one of the scholarly articles I discovered, “Stereotype formation is one of the major consequences of media cultivation” (Tamborini & Mastro 2005, 640). How we view African-Americans in the criminal investigation field is largely altered by how popular television series portray those characters. Those authors also go on to state that African-Americans in particular are “under-represented and stereotyped in their portrayals and have typically appeared in minor roles” (641). This coincides with Carlen Lavigne’s article where she states that the family dynamic within criminal investigation television is as follows:  “…A white male in charge of a crime lab, his white female second-in-command, and assorted underling ‘‘children’’— some of whom may belong to minorities.” Thus, leading to a “father knows best” narrative base (Lavigne 2009, 385).  In contrast, Phillipa Gates argues, “the black detective of contemporary film tends to be isolated from a black community and family and, therefore, from potential issues of race and culture” (Gates 2004, 28). Through my research I have found that my evidence supports these arguments in that Detective Warrick Brown and Fin Tutuola, although slightly different in their individual portrayals and visibility in each episode, both maintain a stereotypical African-American detective character type in fulfilling a “child” role in the family dynamic and as an underdeveloped character, maintaining a peripheral and largely subordinate role within their respective shows.

Context and Methods

CSI has switched out many of the main characters that were part of the first couple of seasons, namely Detective Warrick Brown. With that said, my research comes from the first season of CSI, in which all characters are introduced and the “family dynamic” of the unit is established. Detective Gil Grissom, a constant source of advice for Detective Brown, fills the role of “father” in this unit, Catherine Willows the “female second-in-command” and Warrick fulfilling the minority child role. In SVU, Captain Don Cragen plays the commanding figure in this unit; Olivia Benson is the white female lead. Detective Fin Tutuola is introduced in the first episode of the second season. Airing on NBC, their network site contains short biographies on each character. Detective Tutuola is described as adding, “a unique sense of humor and undercover investigative experience, making him a formidable match for any partner” (NBCUniversal Media, LLC)

I chose three articles for my paper. Other than the fact that these three articles all discuss minority representation in mass media, I chose them specifically because of the information they provided me. As they all share a common goal in analyzing African-American representation, I was able to obtain an insight into different examples and statistics that I would not be able to research on my own. Always a Partner in Crime was a rare find that explored the representation of African-American detectives, much like my own project. The author’s history of past representation of African-American detectives in film was helpful in providing background information on how far mass media has changed in its portrayal of black detectives. Namely, Philippa Gates’s claims that “the black detective of contemporary film tends to be isolated from a black community and family and therefore, from potential issues of race and culture.” She goes on to agree with Lavigne’s article in her work stating, “the black man can be put into ‘protective custody’ of a white man,” thus holding him at the periphery while the white man occupies the center (28).

Of the remaining two articles, The Color of Crime and the Court: A Content Analysis of Minority Respresentation on Television is the Mastro and Tamborini scholarly article mentioned earlier. This piece provided information on how “African-Americans have been under-represented and stereotyped in their portrayals and have typically appeared in minor roles” (641). African Americans in Film and Television takes this sentiment one step further by describing the representation of African-Americans as largely negative, one where African-Americans are “one-dimensional in their portrayals… usually frozen images, often incapable of growth, change, innovation, or transformation” (52).

For each show, I viewed six, roughly 45 minute long, episodes that included Brown or Tutuola in its’ main storyline. I based this selection off the episode summaries given for each episode on iTunes for CSI and Netflix for SVU. In searching for scholarly articles to support my paper further, I looked in the Communication and Mass Media Complete database. I vetted these articles by using the search limiters on the Communication and Mass Media Complete database to show strictly peer-reviewed pieces. Upon discovering the scholarly articles I wished to use, I double-checked their validity as peer reviewed articles by using the website www.ulrichsweb.com that was given to us in class.

Analysis

            Off the bat, I noticed that Warrick Brown appears to hold a more prominent role than Fin Tutuola in terms of visibility. Even when looking for episodes to view, Tutuola was included in the episode summaries around one episode per season, whereas I was able to find episodes about Brown all in the first season. I naturally hypothesized that Brown would assume a more developed character type than Fin but was surprised to find that the frequent visibly of Warrick Brown’s character over Tutuola’s did not provide for a more well-rounded character.

Within the “family dynamic,” Warrick and Fin both embody the minority child role. Within the families however, Fin portrays a more rebellious child-like role in his interactions with Captain Cragen. However, he is still wise to come to Cragen when he needs help. In season six, Tutuola is shot and put on leave but insists on rectifying a wrong he committed five years ago while working as an undercover narcotics agent. In this episode he goes against the captain’s wishes to stay on leave and rest; however, he does not hesitate to come to Captain Cragen when he needs further assistance in his investigation. On the other hand, in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, newcomer Sara Sidle is quick to point out to Grissom, “Oh Warrick, your favorite CSI” (“Sex, Lies, and Larvae”). In many ways Brown represents a golden-child role in how well he adopts Grissom’s methods and sayings. In episode three, Catherine wants to discontinue the investigation because the evidence will put a young boy behind bars and Warrick says to her that they “got to follow the evidence, even if we don’t like where it takes us” (“Crate and Burial”). This echoes many of Gil Grissom’s favorite sentiments about evidence being the tell-all truth and that they should “chase the lie ‘til it leads to the truth’” (“I-15 Murders” quoted in Cavender & Deutsch 2007, 75). This portrayal of their two African-American detectives in such a subordinate role further supports evidence that they are peripheral in their roles in comparison to their Caucasian co-workers on the show, and in Gates terms, “space is related to power, and those at the center – white – have power, and those on the periphery – ‘other’– do not” (25).

Continuing with Gates, a large aspect of his argument centers on how black detectives in film have developed to no longer cast aside the black detective’s significance but as mentioned earlier, simply “place the black character in a white context.” Gates suggests that, “for all intents and purposes, this strategy basically ignores the fact that the character is black” (26). I found it interesting that he would conclude contemporary media to have come to the point where “race is often relegated to being a non issue… and the hero could be played just as easily by a white star as he is by a black one” (28) when my evidence seems to point to the contrary, in which race is indeed a factor of characterization and within the plot of some episodes.

The first scene that Tutuola appears in features him wearing baggy pants, an oversized jacket, and a doo-rag to the station. (“Wrong is Right”) He proceeds to try and get the attention of Captain Cragen, only to be ignored. Tutuola is assigned to the Special Victims Unit as a replacement of Detective Monique Jefferies, the sole African-American detective on the unit, filling in her role as the “minority child” within the family dynamic. It is immediately evident in this scene that the portrayal of Fin is going to be put in a more stereotypical light of playing on his race. Tutuola acknowledges his race as a conflicting matter in more than one instance in episode four of season three. When confronted by a Harlem resident and accused of negligence because of their color, he proceeds to get in the accuser’s face and tells him to “save that for someone else. We’re from the same place and we’re the same color.” Later in the episode, the rebellious side of him arises in a scene where he argues with Captain Cragen and angrily responds, “no matter what you say Captain, you’re not black, and you’re not from the hood” (“Rooftop”).

Likewise, Detective Warrick Brown, although presented in a much more professional attire than Tutuola when he is first introduced, seems to compensate for his dress by repeatedly using curse words in his speech. The inclusion of race is again exhibited when Warrick is outside a judge’s house and confronted by police officers at gunpoint. Although he yells that he is an officer as well, they refuse to listen until the judge comes outside and tells them to put their guns away. Their excuse being that they had received a “call from a neighbor about a black man outside your house” (“Pilot”).  If it were as Gates argues, a difference in “his background, attitude, and class” (27), race would not be mentioned in these confrontations and the character could easily be replaced with a Caucasian actor; however, that is not the case.

Further proving that they are underdeveloped characters is the lack of background information provided throughout the episodes I watched. In the case of Fin, it takes a whole season after his character is introduced to learn he has a son and was originally from Harlem, New York City before moving to Brooklyn. These moments of insights into his background are only relevant in accordance with the episodes plot. For instance, the episode in which we learn the most about Fin the most is “Rooftop” in which the crimes occur in Harlem and one of Fin’s old friends is involved. His own co-workers are unaware of all his background information until this episode. This is later proven once more, three seasons later when co-worker, Olivia Benson states, “the only family he’s ever mentioned is his son” (“Haunted”). In standard episodes, Tutuola has minimal lines and appears to only chime in with one or two lines when the opportunity arises in group conversation. This coincides more closely with the Dates and Mascaro’s article on “African Americans in Film and Television,” in which they conclude that one of many black media stereotypes is that they are “one dimensional in their portrayals of African-Americans” (52). Further evidence supporting this idea can be found by simply looking at the description given by the network itself on the character. By describing him as a “formidable match for any partner,” they are essentially resigning him to a character that is doomed to be underdeveloped and easily replaceable, much like Detective Jefferies, the officer Tutuola replaces.

Similar to this, Warrick Brown’s only substantial background information is that he has a gambling addiction. This gambling addiction seems to appear only when it provides conflict within the show, not really adding any depth to Brown’s character. In the episode, “Sex, Lies, and Larvae” his lies for failure to appear in court are caught by Grissom, thus creating a difficult dilemma for the main white male, instead of a substantial affect on Brown.

Conclusion

World-renowned speaker, Malcolm X believed that “the media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” By not simply casting the black detectives in a role that can easily be replaced with a white detective as contemporary entertainment is inclined to do these days according to Gates, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Law and Order: SVU force viewers to recognize the characters of Warrick Brown and Odafin Tutuola for their race. However, this, while helping to curb stereotypes against these characters in particular, feed a larger stereotype of a peripheral role as a “child” to the greater family dynamic that Lavigne acknowledges within the show, thus putting these characters in a underdeveloped and powerless character type. This can cause complications in that “media images may serve to reinforce and validate learned stereotypes, thereby indicating norms for the treatment of certain groups” (Mastro & Tamborini 641).

Works Cited

1)    Cavender, G., and S. K. Deutsch. “CSI and Moral Authority: The Police and Science.” Crime, Media, Culture 3.1 (2007): 67-81. Print.

2)    Sherrow, Rita. “Dick Wolf Talks about 300th ‘SVU’” Tulsa World. World Publishing Co., 23 Oct. 2012. Web. 08 Dec. 2012.

3)    Tamborini R, Mastro D. THE COLOR OF CRIME AND THE COURT: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF MINORITY RESPRESENTATION ON TELEVISION. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, September 2000; 77(3): 639-653.

4)    Lavigne, Carlen. “Death Wore Black Chiffon: Sex and Gender in CSI1.” Canadian Review of American Studies 39.4 (2009): 383-98. Print.

5)    Gates, Philippa. “Always a Partner in Crime: Black Masculinity in the Hollywood Detective Film.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 32.1 (2004): 20-29. Print.

6)    Dates J, Mascaro T. African Americans in Film and Television. Journal Of Popular Film & Television, Summer2005 2005; 33(2): 50-54.

7)    “Ice-T | Detective Odafin Tutuola.” Ice-T Bio. NBCUniversal Media, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

Appendix

1)             CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Season One Episode One, “Pilot”

Season One Episode Two, “Cool Change”

Season One Episode Three, “Crate and Burial”

Season One Episode Five, “Friends and Lovers”

Season One Episode Six, “Who Are You?”

Season One Episode Ten, “Sex, Lies, and Larvae”

2)             Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

Season Two Episode 1, “Wrong is Right”

Season Two Episode 2, “Honor”

Season Three, Episode Four, “Rooftop”

Season Three, Episode Fourteen, “Counterfeit”

Season Four, Episode Eighteen, “Careless”

Season Six, Episode Ten, “Haunted”

The film Die Hard, although released in 1988, is still considered a classic to many people today. Starring Bruce Willis as John McClane, Die Hard is a intense action film containing a great deal of violence. To briefly introduce plot of the movie, Willis plays the main character, McClane: A New York City police officer visiting his estranged wife in Los Angeles over Christmas. His wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), is at a office party held at her workplace, the Nakatomi Corportation building. He surprises her at the party only to be shortly interrupted by a terrorist takeover. The terrorists in question are German and led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). The entirety of the remaining minutes are spent watching Willis attempt to save the hostages from the terrorists and prevent the terrorists from taking the 600 million dollars in bonds they are attempting to steal.

Out of four, I would award this film with a strong three and a half stars. I chose to give this movie that high of a rating because I enjoyed the film’s overall alluring thrill, fast-paced action, and captivating special effects for the time period in which it was filmed. Although it is possible to say that the storyline is overused for viewers who are just now watching the film, for a movie produced in the 80s, I believe the film is very original in it’s storyline. Another great aspect about the film is that, for me personally, I do not watch action films that often. What makes Die Hard such an enjoyable movie to watch is that its action and violence is strategically interrupted with great comedic timing through the dialogue between Sergeant Al Powell (Reginald Veljohnson) and McClane.

In response to Roger Ebert’s review of Die Hard in which he claims that the movie could have become merely a “passable thriller” were it not for the supporting role of Deputy Chief Dwayne T. Robinson (Paul Gleason). Calling his role a “product of the Idiot Plot syndrome,” Ebert argues that this character ruins much of the latter half of the film. I would have to say that I do not agree with his view and critique of the movie. I do not believe that one character playing such a minor role in an overall great film should impact a movie review that largely. The character itself might have been frustrating but I believe it was a well-devised plot point on behalf of the producers in order to make McClane’s attempts to save the hostages more dramatic and difficult. The idea that thrillers need to be “well-oiled machines” in order to be succesfully written is incorrect because no operation works that smoothly. The Deputy Chief provides that frustration.

With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing Die Hard again and cannot wait to discuss everyone else’s opinion on the film in class!

Hugo Schwartz provides an interesting argument towards his stance on “white male privilege” and its impact on the location and scale of which white males commit acts of violence. To briefly summarize the article, written after the 2012 movie theater murders in Colorado, Schwartz begins his piece claiming white male mass murderers’ behavior is analyzed differently than those of color. Using the 2007 Virginia Tech killings as one of his examples, he states that after a man of color commits a mass murder, the public often looks for connections between race or religion of the murderer and his act. However, in the case of white males, they often overlook this aspect in favor of ruling the white male as “sick” or “evil.”

Regarding this claim, I would have to agree with the author. The Seung-Hui Cho case was ruled as not only a mental illness present in the culprit but also an underlying factor in his country’s (Korea) way of refusing to acknowledge mental disease. As a South Korean, I am fully aware of this cultural aspect, so this case and the reasoning behind Cho’s motive were particularly hard to hear.  With that said, many of the mass killings that have taken place in America have been committed by white males. Growing up, I never heard a cultural, religious, or even social class reasoning behind these murderers’ acts.

Schwartz then goes on to state why he believes white males commit these acts in such public venues. His reasoning seems to be that white male murderers from privileged families attack public places, such as movie theaters or college campuses, because they see these places as legitimately theirs. These thoughts form due to the fact that privileged white males expect to be welcomed and heard wherever they go.

In my opinion, I disagree with almost everything this article stands for. It seems that the author began with an idea and trails off, backing his thoughts up with no concrete evidence other than his personal opinion. His idea that the white, male, privileged mass murderers in American history committed these acts of violence towards strangers because they felt a sense of entitlement that less fortunate people do not is completely false. I would believe that they committed such acts towards strangers because their illness caused them to not only feel rage towards just a specific individual, significant other, or family member but at society as a whole.

The author repeatedly refers to himself as a “privileged white male” throughout the article, lumping himself into the same category with words such as “we” and sentences like “the certainty of belonging is at the core of our privilege.” This is relevant to me because he fails to mention how culture, social class, and race caused these killers to commit these acts of violence. He believes instead that this determines why they chose a specific location and scale…

Relating the article to Stuart Hall’s “The Whites of Their Eyes,” Schwartz’s piece contains overt and inferential racism. Overt racism in the sense that he openly mentions the difference between how mass murderers are analyzed based on race. Inferential racism occurs repeatedly throughout the rest of the article in his descriptions of “privileged white male,” a term he never describes yet continues to use, and other aspects as well.

The article, “Rodney King, Reginald Denny, and TV News: Cultural (Re-)Construction of Racism” by Jill Dianne Swenson refers to two main individuals, Stuart Hall and Jean Baudrillard and their theories of encoded racial messages and “hyperreal” news narratives, respectively.

The influence of TV news, according to Swenson, occurs from the ground up because there must first be consent, before consensus. TV news is a central site of power and resistance through which cultural domination occurs in a diffused and decentered manner.

Swenson contends that both Baudrillard’s and Hall’s theories, while containing fact, are alone insufficient and inadequate. For instance, she explains that Baudrillard’s concept that simulation upon simulations upon simulations as dissolving the order of power absurd. She argues that simulations in this particular case of Rodney and Denny, demonstrate how they reinforce dominant power strutures.

The author provides an in-depth analysis on the beating of Rodney King.  She attempts to analyze the encoding of the video in the context of dominant, negotiated, or oppositional that we learned from Hall. Shot by George Holliday, she contends that his video encoded a variety of conventions common in popular visual media such as gaze, angle, lighting and color. She then provides a like-wise summarization of the Reginald Denny video, but a different analysis regarding the encoding present.

In her conclusive pages, Jill Swenson presents the metaphoric and metonymic functions of the two vides. Metonyms, as described in the article, are visual images served as a substitution for something that is associated with or suggested by a particular image. The two videos are both metaphors and metonyms of racism. Metaphorically, the King video transfers the idea of racism to the images of police violence. Metonymically, it contends that one incident substitutes for all other forms of racial discrimination, ignoring the less spectacular and mundane instances of everyday racist occurrences.

Summary of Episode:

It begins with an opening on neighborhood kids gambling with dice as a couple in an expensive car drive up. The couple walk into the building, a gunshot sounds, and a man in a hoodie and ski mask runs away. The man, Kelvin Moore, is killed and his wife Elaine cries while one of the neighborhood kids from outside calls 911.

The Crime Scene Investigation team arrives and provides us with background information on the couple. Kelvin Moore had grown up in the neighborhood, earned success as an accountant, and moved away; however, he was described throughout the neighborhood as a “saint.” The couple was visiting Elaine’s sister for her daughter’s birthday.

As one of the team members discovers Kelvin’s wallet along the street, Elaine describes the incident to another. In her words, the hooded/masked man entered, asked for their wallets and jewelry, and after hitting Elaine, was charged by Kelvin, who was shot during the struggle at close-range.

The team members visit Alicia and meet Clyde, a neighbor and close friend/brother to Alicia. When asked, Alicia states that no one else knew the couple was visiting today. In the lab, forensic evidence shows that Elaine’s story of Kelvin having been shot at close-range is false because there are no burn marks around Kelvin’s shirt. Also, fingerprints on Kelvin’s wallet end up matching a neighborhood teen. When confronted however, the teen admits to finding the wallet and says that he never looked inside. He states that he has no use for the money if it was Kelvin’s.

During this time, another member shares news that a small piece of paper he’d found at the site has the I.D. of an inmate written on it. The inmate in question, Willis, had missed his appointment with his parole officer during the time Kelvin was killed. As they break into his apartment, they find Elaine there. Elaine admits that Willis was her past boyfriend, and they were currently having an affair.  However, Willis admits that he would never lay a finger on Kelvin because he took care of Elaine while he was in prison and unable to.

When asked about why her eyewitness account does not match forensic evidence, Elaine says she doesn’t remember every detail and shuts off to any further questioning. The oil like substance on Kelvin’s hands that was found turns out to be Jet Fuel B, and the wrapping paper found on the street matches the paper on the gifts the couple took into the building, suggesting that the killer took one of the packages.

Looking for Elaine at Willis’s apartment, Willis shows them some broken pieces of a porcelain doll, matching the traces of porcelain found at the crime scene. When examined, the porcelain comes back with traces of cocaine. The narcotics department informs the team that there was a warrant for two kilos of cocaine from a flat directly across from Alicia’s, the Websters’s. When they go to confront both parties however, Clyde comes out and informs that the Websters are gone and Alicia had not returned since dropping her daughter off at the bus.

The symbol on the porcelain doll leads to Good Luck Ceramics where Alicia and Elaine are standing outside. Alicia is apprehended as she tries to run away and informs the police that the Websters have taken her daughter. They locate the building, shoot one of the Websters and arrest the other. It turns out that the Websters had banged on Alicia’s door and given her two kilos of cocaine to hold on to until after the raid. Scared, she dumped the cocaine in the toilet. Promising to pay them back with cocaine, she enlisted Elaine’s help. Kelvin had no idea any of this was going on, so when the hooded man came into the vestibule yelling at Elaine for the package, Kelvin pushed the guy to the ground and was shot. It is then revealed in Alicia’s apartment that the culprit is Clyde. Having heard the conversations through the thin walls of the apartment, he attacked the couple with the gloves that he used to wear to work before he was laid off, fueling jets with Jet Fuel B.

Throughout the episode, we see one of the team member’s girlfriend’s nervousness towards picking out a gift her for his niece’s birthday party. At the end of the episode, we see that she tells one of the team members that she is thankful that he let her into his life.

Summary of Article:

Largely focused on how police crime dramas shape moral authority about police and science and affect forensic realism, this article centered on the popular TV show, Crime Scene Investigation: C.S.I. Describing Television Crime Drama, the author states that they are morality plays that reflect social change, most noticeably, the change from lawyers defending innocents to police as heroes imposed by lawyers.

Continuing with its circulation of societal change and frameworks of understanding, it is mentioned in the article that crime genre circulates both cultural images of gender as well as shifting representations of race. Regarding gender, although women have become a more stable figure and force in the field of forensics and policing, there is still a very male dominant aspect present even in C.S.I. The show is said to represent race in an assimilationist style, in which an African American character exists in a white world and racial issues are rare in the plots. The idea of a police force as family is also strong in crime shows as well. This provides the audience with a sense of familiarity with the characters and provides the characters with more depth.

There is a great emphasis on violent crime as well as the pain of loss to a victim’s family. The show makes sure to create characters that audiences can sympathize and identify with, whether it be the victim or the investigators. The murderers on the other hand are portrayed in an unsympathetic light. They are usually murderers and rarely show remorse, some even going as far as to say it was the victim’s fault they were killed.

Scientifically, the show provides validity towards the forensic aspect of police work. In almost each episode, someone states that evidence is where the truth lies. Close-ups of microscopic evidence as well as descriptions of the equipment make science more accessible to the audience. Also, when an experiment reveals an important fact, visuals confirm the facts in the form of a flashback.

The legitimacy of C.S.I. is also strengthened through the facts that the investigators will state during the show regarding actual crime statistics. Therefore, the modern world is depicted as a scary world, where murder and crime can occur at anytime should an opportunity arise.

Agrees with article:

The article, CSI and moral authority: The police and science, has many points that are supported in the episode of CSI: NY that I viewed. Although only a minor sub-plot of the episode, the buying of gifts for one of the detective’s niece’s birthday was a similarity with the article in that it shows the personal lives of the police, making them seem more like us and relatable. Also, when Elaine’s story did not match the forensic evidence, it was automatically apparent that she was lying. This coincides with the author’s notion that there is a major “the truth lies in the evidence” aspect of crime genre. This definitely makes the understanding of the show and of what is right and wrong. Another aspect that shows like CSI will do.

Clyde, the murderer, like many others, was not portrayed in a sympathetic light nor did he elicit any remorse for his actions, much like other CSI episodes are prone to. However, the emphasis on violent crime was present as well as a pain of loss to the community that Kelvin was a part of and had supported.

There were also instances where the investigators admitted to needing “more evidence” in order for their story or theory to hold up in court. Because of the forensic evidence we’re presented in that portrays them as right, this puts the heroes VS lawyers aspect that the authors were discussing in their article.