Week 6 Blog

This week's topics are on a subject that is not my area of expertise, CSI crime-drama.  From the reading and in the discussion I felt as though I was missing out on something the majority of the class knew all about. However also from the reading and discussion and the episode we watched in class ( maybe my first or second ever watched) I do feel like I did get the "gist" of it.  As I saw in the episode, discussed in class, and in the reading by Cavender and Deutsch, the show CSI employs many themes of older shows and crime-stories as well as employing their own new style which is in part why it has been so successful.  Like any show with the makings of a good story there is a protagonist, conflict...etc.  The reading discussed one of these key story elements giving it the term: emotional hooks. This is not a new strategy, another word for it is Pathos or appealing to the viewers emotions, getting them emotionally involved in the story. This was clear in parts of the episode that broke down stereotypes of cold, hard cops and having them more like nice, relateable humans. There were traces of new elements employed in the episode I watched as mentioned in the reading.  The show brings about a new kind of masculinity that is not based on traditional views but more of a new age "technical" masculinity that's not badass like Dirty Harry but still cool because they are good at what they do and competent and they "catch the badguy." The main discussion in the reading is really all about the relationship between policing and science, the two main components of CSI.  CSI is television, entertainment, but it is not quite treated as such by the viewer.  CSI presents these cases and scientific solutions in such a convincing manner to the average American who doesn't know jack about either science, forensics, or policing, that they come under the false notion that they actually know whats going on and how things are done. CSI presents this world in a convincing yet inaccurate manner and it has affected a lot of people and their view on the justice system, courts, and forensics, some of whom serve as jurors and are under false pretenses that everything can be solved by science, the crime scene investigators, they think that blood or DNA is on everything and will lead to the criminal...