How CBS's CSI franchise nurtures American gun culture

Canada's top TV columnist explains how U.S. television programs -- especially CSI -- feed on and promote irrational fear, and links this to how America's reactionary gun culture prevails.

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The U.S. TV success formula: Feed (and feed on) the fear
John Doyle, Toronto Globe and Mail

CBS didn’t get where it is today – the No. 1 U.S. network – by failing to give Americans what Americans want...

The original CSI show fetishizes murder and death, and is situated in a world where life is one long battle against serial killers, rapists and violent psychopaths. The other CSI shows have merely been about crime, fear, loathing, guns, bombs and nogoodniks getting nailed. They are all characterized by their lack of depth in relation to all those bad, crazy people. There is never much of an explanation for the starkly sadistic, bloodthirsty actions of the nogoodniks. Viewers are usually just told that they’re out there, the crazies. Only a thin line of cops, forensics experts, profilers and specially trained government agents stands between the public and the standing army of evil-doers.

These dramas tend to support reactionary views, obviously. Especially the need to be armed. There are criminals out there, dangerous, smooth-talking strangers who have to be stopped. Watch many CBS dramas, and if you’re living in some American state, you’ll be afraid to leave the house without being armed to the teeth.

And anyone who thought that these shows were declining in popularity, that they might now be seen as cultural artifacts of a receding social history, is wrong. CBS just keeps pumping out more of them.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/television/john-doyle/the-us-tv-success-formula-feed-and-feed-on-the-fear/article1908587/

and I doubt it's effect is relevant. I am in my 50's and was raised around guns. My pop was from WV and was taught to shoot as a child as were I and my sisters and brother. People who were raised like I have a healthy respect for what firearms can do but none of the irrational fear of them.

But really now.

CSI was originally a pretty cool show. It didn't fetishize murder and death, rather it celebrated science. That was, and continues to be, its calling card, getting the biggest, baddest scientific instruments out there in order to solve the crime.

I haven't watched for a few years now, it started to become too much of a soap opera. But I never thought that it celebrated guns, death or reactionary views.

When you think of it, a huge amount of American TV is about crime and punishment. The depicted criminals are most often one-dimensional monsters doing harm to innocent bystanders. Any anyone in prison is usually depicted as evil, violent sub-human villains who deserve horrific abuse.

Arguably, this not only feeds reactionary gun culture, it also keeps support high for America's horrid (but highly profitable) prison system.

gun glorification thing at all...I learned to shoot in Cub Scouts at age 10, and one of the main things I was taught was safety. I am still a shooter and enthusiast at 63, and still remember and practice and teach others the gun safety lessons I learned many years ago.
I like the CSI series, and I think it's above most other programs on TV, but I really don't see the fetishism of violence and death...if anything it is pretty realistic and graphic when it portrays dead humans...maybe the Canadian sensibilities are reacting to that...their TV shows are very tame in those areas, which is unrealistic to me.

mark

no pun intended, of course. ;)

In "24" Jack Bauer couldn't go 10 minutes without torturing someone.

In one of the latter seasons, an FBI agent tortured a BABY in order to get its mother to "talk"...

but I still looked. That show was like crack for me. :(

CSI is unwatchable crap

On Thanksgiving, my nephew, just going to college now, was watching "The Princess Bride". He said he loved the movie, memorized lines and stuff.

Peter Falk is the "narrator" of the story, and I started making jokes like he was Columbo telling a fairy tale.

He (and his younger sister) didn't know who the fuck Columbo was, even after years and years of reruns.

On another note, seeing a headline about Matt Lauer in line at the supermarket, I made a comment to the checkout girl how I didn't see how he would have TIME to get into any 'scandal'. S

She didn't know who Matt Lauer was, I told her he was the host of "The Today Show". The checkout girl looked at me like I had lobsters coming out of my ears.

There was an older woman in front, still bagging her groceries. I turned to her and told her I remembered when it was Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters on the Today Show. The old woman looked at me like I had taken a shit on the floor...

All 3 CSI's
Blue Bloods
Criminal Minds (and now it's spinoff)
Both NCIS shows

CBS is far from creative. They just give the folks what they want. I personally do not find anything entertaining about any of their shows (I work for a NBC station so I'm a little biased)

and have noticed that every time you glance at the TV in Prime Time, CBS has a corpse right there for your enjoyment.

It's pretty disgusting after a while...

But then they put on cheery Katie and she ramps up their moral cred. :crazy:

Three and a Half Men glorifies binge drinking and promiscuity, after all.

And NBC with its Law and Order franchise is not exactly innocent of uncreative cop drama boilerplate itself.

I should have said almost all of their dramas

I'll bet you have a commie flag pinned up on the wall of your garage.

...promotes the fantasy that the FBI's profiling unit is omnipotent and actually function able. It wasn't that long ago we were hearing that the FBI's computer abilities were dangerously dysfunction able.

All that murder, stabbings, suicide, blood blood blood!

What's a 16th century moral puritan to do with all this crap?

Investigative Reports, Dallas Swat, 48 Hours Mystery, The First 48, Forensic Files, etc that dramatize real incidents and real psychopaths would be more likely to cause folks to not want to leave their house, or believe that there is a psychopath on every corner.

Having said that, I think those shows probably do help foster the kind of fear that nurtures gun culture and promotes the brutal, counter-productive, but profitable U.S prison system.

that violent crime is real?

I suppose as long as they never turn on their computer or watch the news, or watch anything else ever.

Maybe.

I'm more concerned by their portrayal of the legal system. Real people go in to juries expecting mountains of forensic evidence and some damning and dramatic revelation halfway through a case that absolutely proves the guilt or innocence of the accused.

That's not a good thing for them to expect going in. Will tend to skew their perception of actual evidence and court proceedings.

Jury: "Why ain't you got no DNA evidence proving the accused wasn't at the scene like on TV?"
Defense lawyer: "Well DNA evidence doesn't really work that way and this is a tax evasion case"
Jury: "That means he's guilty! Also I've been here more than an hour, I don't think court cases are supposed to last this long"

This show is really dangerous.
They routinely violate the rights of everyone who wanders into the frame.
No warrants, no miranda, DNA swabs of the whole neighborhood, accuse 10 people of murder before getting it right, and arrest people without a charge.
It's a nightmare.

And their corny anti-drug messages are totally misinformed.

that's enough reason for me to never watch it.

I can't stand to watch him, either.

like Cold Case when it was on. Wasn't usually overly violent & they really did some excellent shows on periods of history like the Civil Rights movement in 50's & 60's. Women's rights & back alley abortions when abortion was illegal, 60's anti-war protests, etc.

And I confess to watching Criminal Minds - which is really, really a sick show with all the serial killers. But it has a good cast. Liked it better when Mandy Patakin was on.

But glorifying guns .... please. Guns have been glorified on TV since the 50's. All the Westerns, the Untouchables, the crime shows of the 60's and 70's. I swear Miami Vice glorified the Tec-9 and MAC-10 and tactical shotguns.

Also like the new Hawaii Five-O, again good cast but weak, escapist plots. At least in that one the gun handling is more realistic than most shows.

I have some pet peeves about how Hollywood actors/actresses handle firearms & the sound effects.