Law & Order wank

Feb 23, 2009 23:38

I posted this to my journal, and popelizbet asked me to post it here. It's a wanky "letter" to L&O: Special Victims' Unit, and I may or may not actually be turning it into a letter fit for public consumption and sending it to them.

Eeek! Transpeople are scary! )

murder victims, transphobia, media, do something about this please, action item get to it, hateful mess, generally meaningless gestures, that made me puke a little in my mouth y, what the fuck is this shit right here, violence against women, transfolk are people dammit

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meleth February 24 2009, 04:56:22 UTC
I saw two killer transwoman episodes in about 3 days, and it bothered the hell out of me. The transwoman episodes combine their contempt for male rape victims with their sensationalized treatment of female ones, and the result is just horrifying.

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lazerbug February 24 2009, 05:03:14 UTC
This isn't surprising. I've had to stop watching L&O (especially SVU) because of these downright sickening attitudes that never, ever get called into question. I wrote a series of blog posts about misogyny in Law & Order: Original Flavor reruns last summer (#1, #2, and #3), and that was the last time I watched the show or any of its offshoots. It's just too depressing to see where so many of our society's fucked up stereotypes about women and the female-bodied are created and reinforced. If there weren't 17 dozen versions of L&O all in their 80 billionth season, I wonder whether patriarchy would be a little worse for the wear. There'd probably be something else just as bad or worse to pop up in its place -- we love us some misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia in our entertainment, mmhmm! -- but dreaming makes me happy.

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meleth February 24 2009, 05:04:38 UTC
I'm going to give it up for Lent, in hopes that that will be easier than quitting cold turkey.

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lazerbug February 24 2009, 05:04:40 UTC
Aw, poor HTML skillz attack again. If I could, I would fix the tags there, but it works inelegantly, so I'll leave it.

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eatenbykraken February 24 2009, 05:40:49 UTC
I don't watch original L&O anywhere near regularly, so I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the misogyny's gotten better as the show's gone on. I can't watch anything from the Chris Noth era or before without wanting to break shit, but I've found Serena-Sutherland-era episodes remarkably forceful in their condemnation of violence against women. It's still not great by any stretch of the imagination, but newer episodes don't usually offend me.

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rocza February 24 2009, 05:47:33 UTC
I very casually know the executive producer/showrunner for the show (very casually, and I suspect that bridge is probably burned, so I can't help in getting him the letter). What I can tell you is that he is an MD, and an academic, and does take fan letters seriously - so long as they're written seriously/politely/professionally/etc. Perhaps unfortunately, he has the typical academics take on receiving things less... ivory tower might not be the right word, but you get the idea.

Since all of the L&O's take their ideas from the media, if you can include real life crimes involving transfolk without the negative aspects of criminals and the things you're opposing, it would probably help in a sort of "see, I know your M.O., and you can work within it while still being respectful!"

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meleth February 24 2009, 06:02:28 UTC
Ooh, academia I can do.

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reasdream February 25 2009, 02:44:41 UTC
IF you want a proof-reader, do let me know. Between my own time in academic (in the US and UK) and being the daughter of an English prof who goes Acadaemic when Angry, I'd love to have a hand in this...

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popelizbet February 24 2009, 16:41:50 UTC
That's super good to know, actually, because I'm a lot more likely to write a letter of my own, knowing that.

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popelizbet February 24 2009, 16:45:47 UTC
You're welcome to keep glancing, and commenting, for sure. :D

And if you'd link or repost that article when you're done, if that's acceptable given the terms of the assignment for the magazine, I'd very much appreciate it...

Law & Order is part of my childhood - that was me and my dad's show that we always watched together - but as I've gotten older I've realized just how fucked up it is on so many subjects. I've used it, and C.S.I. as well, to illustrate to non-activist friends how much TV loves to fetishize and sexualize violent death and rape, with limited but encouraging success, but it's to the point that I no longer seek it out even on the rare occasion that I'm near cable television. :(

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snarlingbadger February 24 2009, 17:25:44 UTC
My dad watches that show all the time, and when I still lived at home, I'd watch it with him.

In retrospect, I find it odd that he was fine with watching L&O in all its incarnations, but refused to watch Animal Planet's Animal Cops, because it was too depressing (according to him). At least w/ AC, you'd get happy endings sometimes, and they were true stories.

/end OT comment

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popelizbet February 24 2009, 17:36:07 UTC
My dad is a lawyer. We liked to snark the more implausible bits as I got older and knew enough to do that. :D

I think people have a pretty clear mental line between "reality tv" like AC and "ripped from the headlines drama" like L&O: it's a lot easier to pretend the latter isn't real even when it's based on real life.

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the_automatik February 25 2009, 02:19:36 UTC
You know, I was getting all "oh, not another crazy trans murderer plot" but that little kid who played Hailey was so good that I kinda forgot about all that. Then I was getting so weepy when Miss Blaine revealed that she was the killer I didn't even realize that it was another "crazy trans murderer plot." Sigh. I got way more good out of that episode than bad, but that's likely because my cry-buttons get pushed immediately whenever a trans person is involved.

I agree about the pornographic nature of some of the SVU episodes, particularly the "Olivia in distress" ones which seem to have faded a bit over the past few weeks. I tend to tune out the offensive shit and focus on the parts that they do actually get right. That's likely not the best attitude to have, but the "real" "news" "media" doesn't seem to be a whole lot better, either, in my opinion.

I guess I'll take what I can get for now.

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meleth February 25 2009, 04:38:56 UTC
I agree that both Hailey and Ms. Blaine were really good, and that it's still a positive portrayal, but damn, all their transpeople are so angry and violent all the time. Which is a fair reaction to the way they're treated by society, but it builds up into an icky pattern.

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