A. The summary of article “CSI and moral authority: The police and science”:
This article discusses about how CSI asserts the police as a moral authority, how CSI portrays a sense of forensic realism and acclaims the veracity of science, how CSI conveys the cultural meaning.
This article starts with reality of police and science. The authors said police’s failures to process evidence that might have prevented the tragedy make police lost some of the moral authority and science sometimes seems to be contradictory. At this time, CSI appears. It offers the public surety and certainty. That is why CSI is so popular.
CSI has a lot of common with traditional crime TV show, but it is also different in many ways. Like traditional show, CSI usually focus on violent crime and the quest for justice. However, comparing with earlier show, CSI increases the appearance of woman and updates the portrayal of masculinity and also represents race in the assimilationist style. CSI also include more details about the police sub-culture and about personal lives of the police (the ‘police family’). And the tension between a protagonist and others is abandoned. What’s more, in CSI, occasionally criminals are sympathetic character.
CSI exhibits an iconography which is marked by the accouterment of science. It suggests science solves problems and reaffirm the veracity of science. It achieves this significant influence by using specialized equipment, scientific jargon, forensic databases and even conducting experiments or re-enactments of the crime. Besides, cinematographic effects are also applied to visually supplement the complicated forensic language, including flashback.
CSI’s combination of melodrama and realism converge with police themes to enhance the cultural meanings that CSI conveys. CSI show the crime is normal and opportunist and reinforces contemporary criminological theory. And CSI is also contextual with other programs.
Ironically, the legitimacy of policing and of science in CSI is controversial. Not all of CSI’s science is valid and CSI have produced a dilemma, the so-called ‘CSI Effect’
B. The summary of CSI episode:
This episode of CSI begins with the leading actor Mac and his team solve a bank robbery case. The criminal in this case is a old man who do not want to go to nusing hospital. And Mac encounters a pharmacy robbery in which mac shoots a criminal, but then be shot by a girl who looks like innocent. That shoot makes Mac lose a significant amount of blood and become unconscious. So, Mac is sent to the hospital for a surgery. While mac is in a surgery, his families, including his police family, are very worry about him. Joe is the first one to arrive at hospital. She cries a lot of times when she talks about mac. Christine prays for mac, Lindsey and other team members try everything they can to catch the criminals and etc. On the other hand, mac meets with his families in his mind during the surgery. He talks with them one by one. The topics are about life, love and death. Finally, mac recovers after the surgery and is back to the team after six months.
C. How the episode support article:
I feel this episode supports the article perfectly. In this episode, we can see the appearance of female characters, such as Lindsay and Joe. And both of these female characters have a big influence in the process of solving case. Besides we can also see the appearance of black character. These is no sexist in the show. This episode extremely stress personal lives of the police via the viewpoint of mac, espically his life with his police family. While mac is dying, he talks with his team members about life and love. For example, in the conversation between mac and Joe, “what are you gonna miss most” “the people， the team……your friendship and your post notes” “you cannot leave, I cannot do this without you…… I need you to hold on mac”. Article acclaims “occasionally criminals are sympathetic character …… more often however, CSI’s villains are unsympathetic characters who lack moral values”. The first criminal in the show is sympathetic character while the second one is totally lack of moral value.
CSI exhibits science solves problems and reaffirm the veracity of science by using specialized equipment, scientific jargon, forensic databases and even conducting experiments or re-enactments of the crime. In this episode, we can easily identify that CSI use specialized equipment, scientific jargon and forensic databases. For example, when CSI are trying to catch the female criminal by fingerprint that they got from the desk of pharmacy, they refer to the forensic databases. Another example, CSI uses some specialized equipment to collect and record the fingerprint. The flashback is using in many part of this episode, such as the flashback of conversation between mac and his wife at the end.
After watching this episode of CSI, I try to connect it with the theories that raise from the article. This episode did make me believe the crime is normal and did increase my fear towards crime. I don’t know why. But I just feel maybe I will be skilled by gun some day. And this episode makes me believe the existence of police family. They care about each other, love each other. Maybe this is how CSI reflects and shapes our ideology and culture.