Link for the Day.
Jun. 8th, 2011 07:12 pm"Law & Order: SVU" Stars Have Sense of Humor, Love Webcomic
Law and Order is one of those deeply problematic shows that I freely admit that I absolutely love, especially SVU, which manages to be both the most problematic and the most progressive incarnation of the franchise, depending on who's writing which episode. The bad episodes are spectacularly bad, especially when it comes to sexism, racism, and transphobia. But the good episodes, when they are good, are some of the best damn things on television right now. Season 11's "Witness" took a chainsaw to a plethora of gross assumptions that underly rape culture and anti-immigrant sentiment and systematically hacked them to bits. And even in the bad episodes at least we have the most engaging cast of characters in any Law and Order franchise to get us through - seriously, SO MUCH LOVE for Stabler, Benson, Fin, Munch*, Huang, Warner, Cabot, and Novak.
And like everybody else who watches the show, I have no idea what the next season is going to be like without Detective Stabler. I love the way that he often played the role of the white, conservative, privileged straight man who frequently has his worldview and his priveleged assumptions deeply shaken when he has to come face-to-face with the misogyny and racism that shapes his culture. I think it was important to have a character like that in a show like SVU, since I imagine that he was the character that most of the show's target audience could most strongly identify with, and his cognitive dissonance could become the audience's cognitive dissonance. Which in the end, is a good thing.
It is obligatory for me to end this post with a epic brofist for Law and Order: LA and the requisite "WHHHHHHY WAS THIS SHOW CANCELLED?!" whining. Because, seriously? Alfred Molina, Terrence Howard, Rachel Ticotin, Alana de la Garza, and Skeet Ulrich together in one TV series? How exactly did this show manage to tank itself?
Don't answer that.
*For anybody reading this who doesn't watch Law and Order, John Munch is the awesome character who has made crossover appearances in Homicide, The Beat, The X-Files, Arrested Development, Luther, Sesame Street (yes, really!) and The Wire. Which means either John Munch has superpowers that allow him to cross universes OR it is an indisputable fact that The X-Files and Arrested Development happened in the same universe and this is why modern television is glorious.
Law and Order is one of those deeply problematic shows that I freely admit that I absolutely love, especially SVU, which manages to be both the most problematic and the most progressive incarnation of the franchise, depending on who's writing which episode. The bad episodes are spectacularly bad, especially when it comes to sexism, racism, and transphobia. But the good episodes, when they are good, are some of the best damn things on television right now. Season 11's "Witness" took a chainsaw to a plethora of gross assumptions that underly rape culture and anti-immigrant sentiment and systematically hacked them to bits. And even in the bad episodes at least we have the most engaging cast of characters in any Law and Order franchise to get us through - seriously, SO MUCH LOVE for Stabler, Benson, Fin, Munch*, Huang, Warner, Cabot, and Novak.
And like everybody else who watches the show, I have no idea what the next season is going to be like without Detective Stabler. I love the way that he often played the role of the white, conservative, privileged straight man who frequently has his worldview and his priveleged assumptions deeply shaken when he has to come face-to-face with the misogyny and racism that shapes his culture. I think it was important to have a character like that in a show like SVU, since I imagine that he was the character that most of the show's target audience could most strongly identify with, and his cognitive dissonance could become the audience's cognitive dissonance. Which in the end, is a good thing.
It is obligatory for me to end this post with a epic brofist for Law and Order: LA and the requisite "WHHHHHHY WAS THIS SHOW CANCELLED?!" whining. Because, seriously? Alfred Molina, Terrence Howard, Rachel Ticotin, Alana de la Garza, and Skeet Ulrich together in one TV series? How exactly did this show manage to tank itself?
Don't answer that.
*For anybody reading this who doesn't watch Law and Order, John Munch is the awesome character who has made crossover appearances in Homicide, The Beat, The X-Files, Arrested Development, Luther, Sesame Street (yes, really!) and The Wire. Which means either John Munch has superpowers that allow him to cross universes OR it is an indisputable fact that The X-Files and Arrested Development happened in the same universe and this is why modern television is glorious.
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