The Dynamic Duo- Solving crime...but not cops

Since we are talking about cop films this week I decided I would switch up my dark, drama theme that I have been going with and talk about one of my favorite shows of all time- Psych.

Psych is a comedy crime fighting show centered around two best friends, Shawn and Gus, who are not actually cops but run their own detective/investigative business while working for the Santa Barbara Police Department at the same time. Shawn's dad, Henry, raised him to pay attention to the details of crime scenes and essential taught him through various staged scenarios as a child how to be a good detective. Though Shawn didn't have the motivation or work ethic to actually become a cop, he was able to sneak his way into the force by solving crimes the cops couldn't by saying that he was a psychic. So he starts making his living by faking his psychic abilities while his partner Gus, a pharmaceutical rep, plays along and solved crimes with him.

What I like about this show is that it goes against some of the cop film stereotypes, which in a large part works with the comedy aspect. Usually the main guy tends to be the logical, sensible leader of the group who gets the job done, but in Psych, Gus is the logical one who keeps Shawn on track and holds the steady job rather than banking on the department to find them cases every week. Although, Gus is easily persuaded by Shawn to join insane cases or do crazy things even when Gus initially refuses or knows that it will come to no good.

This also sets up the white guy-black guy partnership that is becoming more and more common in cop films and shows. There is an interesting dynamic that works between these two life-long friends, which makes any racial jokes from both sides funny and acceptable. It also adds more to the crazy, thoughtless white guy character working with the intelligent, logical black guy character- Gus keeps Shawn grounded in terms of logic, but also Gus is able to follow through with all of Shawn shenanigans because he gives Gus his fun side.

Then there is also the male-female partnership between Juliette and Carlton. Where Carlton is the rough, no-nonsense detective who gets annoyed at every little thing Shawn does, Juliette is the calmer, more down-to-earth detective who works with Shawn and realizes how much help he is to the force.

More commonly seen in cop films and TV shows, Shawn and Gus go about solving crimes in very unconventional ways. They break into peoples houses without warrants, they pretend to be people they are not to get information (although Shawn usually introduces himself by his actual name while Gus gets a ludicrous, crazy made-up name), and then they are obviously lying to the cops and to their clients about the psychic nature making them average citizens who really shouldn't be out there solving crimes and catching criminals. We see this a lot in crime films and shows. The cop or cops take a not so legal route in order to get the information they need to catch the bad guy, and in the end it all works out since the bad guy is behind bars, so we don't see the repercussions of handling a crime outside of the codes of criminal justice.

In this way, the media portrays the criminal justice system as something that can be flexible as long as the good guys defeat the bad guys, which is not the case in the real world. A show like Psych glorifies this not strictly legal form of setting the world right and it does so in a comedic manner, which makes the viewer feel more inclined to this idea of the criminal justice system even more.

Despite its obvious flaws, Psych is a cleverly written show and has fantastic plot lines in each episode- honestly some of the stuff they come up with is way out of the box and of course, super funny. That's the other thing you have to remember about cop comedies- it will never follow the rules otherwise it wouldn't be funny.

Plus, (spoiler alert) you gotta love the on-screen relationship with Shawn (James Roday) and Juliette (Maggie Lawson) coming together. One of the funny parts of the show is knowing that Roday and Lawson are together in real life but he still has to chase her in the show while she constantly rejects him (until later seasons of course).

Destined to Kill

After reading Rafter's thoughts on what makes bad people bad, I was intrigued by the idea that some criminals are psychologically conditioned to commit crimes by something that has influenced them and altered their mental perception. 

Dexter is one of those famous serial killer shows where the viewer can actually cheer on the serial killer without feeling twisted or evil for doing so. In later episodes and seasons we discover that Dexter went through a terrible trauma that caused him to be the way he is. Dexter doesn't have emotions- well so we are told, but I have seen him get angry and I can't that as an emotion. Dexter also has this constant desire to kill people and he has a great fascination with blood, which is why he is a forensic blood splatter specialist for a Miami police department. Dexter's MO is to kill criminals who have murdered people and will most likely continue to murder people in which Dexter justifies his killings as saving more innocent lives. In a future episode he is labeled the "Bay Harbor Butcher," and some people like him because he takes murderers off the street, but others hate him because he is still serial killer set loose in Miami. 

However in this particular episode of Season 1, Dexter's true identity is still unknown to everyone and the police are tracking down the dangerous "Ice Truck Killer." However, Dexter also has his own little investigations going on in order to satisfy his murderous urges. He follows around this young teenage kid who was released from jail after serving time for slashing a guy death. Dexter believes he will strike again and actually prevents another innocent killing from happening, but when he pulls the kid in to perform his own murder, Dexter finds out that the kid is much like himself- he can feel nothing. Then we discover that the man the kid murdered had raped him, and in Dexter's eyes this act was understandable and somewhat similar to the workings that Dexter is doing himself. Then he tells the kid not to kill anyone who doesn't deserve it. 

I liked this episode because it made this connection between Dexter and the kid (I can't remember his name) showing Dexter that though (in his mind) his killings are more justified, there are others out there who feel (or rather don't feel) the same way he does due to a traumatic event in their life. 

The criminality of these two characters does not come from their environment and they weren't born with this evil, but their brains are psychologically altered because of these events. Spoiler alert for those who haven't seen the show yet, but Dexter, along with his older brother Brian who happens to be the Ice Truck Killer, witnessed the gory mutilation of his mother and sat in a two inch thick pool of her blood for several days before they were found by the police (specifically Harry who becomes Dexter's foster/adopted father). In order for Dexter to cope with this situation, his young three or four-year-old brain tuned out everything that happened and shut off his emotions to protect himself from the horror. Later this effected his psychological thinking into a passionate desire to kill and be fascinated by blood. 

Dexter didn't choose to be a criminal. The trauma from his childhood altered him psychologically to be a criminal. However, in the real world that is something that is difficult to get a grasp of. Though, Dexter releases these urges on bad people, it doesn't change the fact that he is still a serial killer, right? It is an interesting concept to think about, and that is one of the reasons why the criminal justice system hold this psychological state of criminals into account. 

When considering the mental state of the kid who killed the man who raped him, the viewer has this idea that the murder is justified, but it doesn't change the fact that there was a murder. Yet the fact an experience like that would clearly mentally effect a young kid allows us to understand that such a traumatic moment in his life would cause his mind to protect himself from the pain. 

This is such a difficult subject when it comes to criminal justice because generally the cultural idea is that all criminals deserve to be put away so they can't hurt anyone else. And though this is just a television show, I think that this idea of psychologically altered conditions instigating crime is relevant and can't be ignored. Dexter didn't choose to be a criminal, it was just something that he couldn't control due to his brain function after a traumatic event in his life. 

Crime through Frontline

Last week our class talked about "infotainment" and we watched an episode of Dateline as an example of infotainment. This got me to thinking about other kinds of infotainment I watch that include crime in the media. The first thing that popped into my head was the Frontline documentary style of news entertainment. Though many of the Frontline shows that I have watched revolve around wars and natural disasters or revolutions in other countries, I watched an interesting one called "Rape in the Fields" about immigrant women who work in the fields to support their family and are raped.

Frontline documentaries are in-depth reported stories that usually focus on hot topic issues at hand or serious problems that happen around the world and in America. Many times what they are reporting on is even dangerous. I watched a Frontline show about the fighting in Palestine and Israel and the filmer was literally in the room with suicide bombers preparing to go out into the plaza.

In this particular Frontline documentary, primarily Hispanic female immigrants who are farm workers speak out about the sexual harassment and abuse that occurred out in the fields or around the farm and how they couldn't do anything about it because they were illegal. If the women refuse to give into the farmer they will be out of a job next season and their families will starve because the men cannot receive work.

There are a lot of shots where we see the women staring off into the horizon with their faced covered so you can only see their eyes and a lot of dialogue boxes since most of them do not speak English. This really emphasizes that they are victims and especially that they are victims that cannot escape- I believe that is part of the constant repetition of screen shots with the women wearing these cloths and concealing themselves. They also focus a lot on this cross necklace that hangs from a woman's rear-view mirror projecting her innocence.

I was trying to make sense of all the beautiful establishing shots of the fields and the sun setting over the horizon of these gorgeous fields with flowers, wheat, grape vines- and it didn't seem like these shots fit very well with this crime they were highlighting. The only thing I could think of was that they wanted to show the viewer how peaceful this place seemed to be, but that it was hiding the crime that happened daily. There were also shots of blurry lights at night and other establishing shots of location and crops.

The in-depth investigation with multiple interviews and being able to see the victims and even some suspects I think is was really makes this form of news entertaining for the viewer. We have a more personal connection to the crime when we can put a face to it and with the establishing shots and filmed interviews it makes it that much more entertaining to watch than if it were simply a news segment.

Personally, I love documentaries because you are receiving information in a more entertaining fashion, and crime documentaries resonate with the American culture because we like nudge our way into the nitty gritty of what people go through to commit crime or what victims who have been incriminated against feel about the crime. It is almost like how when we see a car accident we slow down because we just have to know if anyone got hurt or who was the nimrod that cause the accident to happen. We are obsessed with nosing into other peoples lives, and what better way to do that than to see/hear first hand interviews and get a picture of where it happened.

The DA did it?

When you think of identity theft you usually don't consider that person to be your identical twin sister. In The Lying Game, Emma Bennett, who grew up jumping around through different foster homes, discovers she has an identical twin sister named Sutton Mercer who lives in Arizona with her wealthy family. Sutton decides to go to California in search for their birth mother, and Emma poses as Sutton while she is gone. When Sutton returns a series of events happen that put she and Emma's lives in danger and they are threatened that they will be killed if they switch back. One night Sutton and Emma's boyfriend, Ethan, confront a fellow student, Derek, who admits he was ordered to drown Sutton. The next day Derek is found dead and Ethan is falsely accused for the murder.

I have always thought the concept of being falsely accused of murder was something that works it self out in the end- that somehow the truth will always come out. Unfortunately this is not the case in reality and innocent people can be found guilty for others' crimes. However, I believe my understanding of this truth-will-prevail idea comes from how the issue is dealt with and portrayed in the media. Of course, Ethan seems even more guilty because he has a juvy record and he books it out of town when he thinks the police blame him.

The truly interesting part about his episode and the surrounding episodes is the corruption and schemes of the District Attorney, Alec- Sutton's godfather. Obviously in this case Alec is man of authority and holds a lot of power, but he pulls off plenty of shady stunts that make the viewer despise him especially since he is suppose to be a man of integrity, honestly, and an upholder to the law. This concept of people wanting to watch problems and corruption in the criminal justice is one that Rafter mentions in the text book. Americans find it entertaining to watch characters who should have good moral integrity participate in acts of crime because it goes against the grain of what the criminal justice system should be.

Before Ethan's court date, his brother Dan, who is a cop, thinks that Ethan doesn't have a chance of winning the case because the state appointed attorney doesn't believe Ethan isn't guilty and will just try to find other motives that will give him less jail time rather than fight for his innocence. This connects to the inequality and problems that lie within the criminal justice system even in the real-world.

Back to the good ol' DA, Alec knows more information about Derek's death, but he holds it back because he has secrets that can't be exposed due to their criminal nature. I honestly believe that a real DA would give up those secrets in order to protect the innocent even if it costs him his job. So, though this does make the point of problems within the criminal justice system, this show takes it to the extreme.

The issue of bribery is also an interesting one to discuss since this is seen frequently in crime films/shows. Somehow the bribery thing always seems to work and the criminal justice system becomes even  more flawed, but from my understanding that is not so easy to do in the real world.

In the end, Ethan is able to get a top-notch lawyer and they can't find enough evidence against him to have a trial. Sutton, Emma, Ethan and Thayer (Alec's step-son) are sent a picture of Alec winding up to hit Derek with a tire iron so he gets arrested and most of his shady secrets come out to prove his innocence from the actual murder, but he still has plenty more he's kept to himself.

So there are plenty of crime related events going on in this show simultaneously, but they all add to the drama and the scandals we crime media lovers can't get enough of.