A Different Light: Interpreting school shootings in a fictional media representation

When it comes to dealing with school shootings, it is a sensitive and tragic subject to portray through the media. However, the media goes through a lot of work in making a spectacle out of school shootings in examining the purpose and history behind the shooter(s) motives. 

There is not a lot, in terms of entertainment media, of examples that portray school shootings other than infotainment documentaries studying and analyzing the motives of shooters. However there is one New York Times Bestselling author who portrays an emotional fictional story centered around a school shooting and a trial that follows.

In Nineteen Minutes Jodi Picoult tells a story about a teenage high school boy named Peter who was bullied  and finally snaps after his former best friend Josie leaves him out of peer pressure to join the popular group of kids in school and now instigates much of the bullying toward Peter. Peter decides the best way to deal with the situation is to bring a firearm to school and Josie witnesses the horrific events that follow. Josie's mother, Alex, takes on trial of Peter's case in court as the judge though her daughter is a key witness for the prosecution. 

This story takes on an interesting issue surrounding school shootings where the reader is able to have an exclusive look inside the trial of the shooter and the bullying that caused Peter to react the way he did. We get an interesting insight not looking at the effects of bullying but rather the issue of peer pressure and becoming someone you are not in order to please others. 

I think though the story still tries to explain the purpose and motives around the shooting there is several extra elements that people wouldn't typically expect from media coverage of school shootings--fiction or not. For example, we get the insight of a judge ruling on the trial of the shooter as well as a mother whose daughter witnessed the event and had a hand in instigating the event. Aside from that, we also get a compelling look into the parents of the shooter trying to figure out what they could have done differently or signs they may have seen toward this effect happening. The emotional involvement that Picoult portrays through these two parents is just impeccably written and has you feeling such strange emotions that are seemingly foreign to the general reader. 

As in many of Picoult's books, the emotion that is transcribed into this heart-wrenching story containing such a difficult issue has readers actually sympathizing with the shooter at times, which is such a different and confusing message to portray. The media usually tries to get the public to focus on a certain focal point to understand the shooter(s) motive such as troubled home life, mental illness, school troubles--Picoult focuses on the effects of peer pressure in high school.

Picoult said she did intensive research on the Columbine shooting but she wanted less about the information behind the shooters and more about those who were impacted by the effect directly. She ended up getting a first hand account from a survivor of the Ricori shootings in MN. From the account of a young man whose friend had died in the shooting, Picoult felt a great connection as a parent and wanted to portray that through her story. 

I think the most interesting narrative in this story is the one between Alex and Josie and their strained mother/daughter relationship. It explores an interesting dynamic of Alex making a choice to fix the relationship with her daughter or judging fairly without being effected about the choices her daughter made. 

All in all, this is a fantastic story that plays with your emotions through such a trying ordeal and the sensitive subject of a school shooting and there is an interesting angle that Picoult takes on compared to that of media in general. 

An Epic Escape for Justice

There is no way we can talk about prison films without me ranting about one of my favorite movies of all time- The Shawshank Redemption. I mean, just the name of the film is awesome let alone the fantastic plot line, intriguing characters and amazing actors.

The Shawshank Redemption is a story that follows the prison sentence of Andy Dufrense, who was charged for the murder of his wife and her lover, though he was actually innocent. While in Shawshank, Andy becomes friends with Red, the prison con man "who knows how to get things." Andy is able to work his way up in the prison by using his banking/accounting skills to help out the prison guards and even the warden with their finances and taxes. 

This movie contains all of the typical stock characters of a prison film: the corrupt warden (Norton), the innocent heroic protagonist (Andy), the comrade (Red), the group of friends (Haywood, Brooks, etc.), the evil guard (Hadley), and the bad guy crew (The Sisters). 

The film also follows the stock plot of prison films. The story involves Dufrense's 20 years spent in Shawshank to lead up to the climax of his epic escape through a tunnel he has dug from him cell out to the sewer pipes. It's not good prison movie unless someone breaks out or a riot erupts. But this movie takes it to the next level in which Dufrense conceals his escape attempts for 19 years without ever getting caught, and at the same time he is able to work his way up in the ranks of the prison system. 

The stock theme of the film follows the rebellion against injustice as Dufrense escapes from the prison as a free man with money he took from the corrupt warden and therefore serving justice to those who persecuted him in his innocence. 

You gotta love Red--the guy who knows how to get things--because as an audience we like to see someone who can challenge authority, so when there there someone in the prison system who can break a few rules and get away with it we tend to cheer for them. I think the way they set up his character in the film was drawn out the best and utilized to bring home the theme of injustice and the ability to turn your life around (from a murderer to a respectable man).

I think in terms of how prison films are typically set up, this film does a spot on job of following the stock elements. The fantastic acting and the intriguing story line only add to that irresistible exclusive look into prison life, though it is in a historic sense and perhaps not quite in tuned with the complete reality of what happen(ed/s) in prisons. 

The Weather today consists of Courts and Lawyers

When talking about criminal law films and the way court systems are portrayed in the media, I always tend to dose off and think "ugh, court systems, yada, yada, yada lets get this over with." However, the dynamic of how court systems are portrayed in contemporary films is not so much centered on the trials themselves anymore, but they focus largely on the actions of the lawyers outside of the court. 

In The Rainmaker, Matt Damon's character, Rudy Baylor, just graduated from law school and takes his bar exam  while working at small firm that isn't doing so hot. He takes on a case of a couple whose insurance company is denying requests that will help pay for their son's operation which will save his life. Rudy learns of the schemes run by corporate insurance agencies to rip people out of their money, and he fights to take them down and serve justice to the couple whose son (spoiler alert) had died because he was denied the operation. 

Now, I may be a little biased because any movie or show Matt Damon is in I automatically think it is amazing, but this criminal law film based off the book of John Grisham does a good job of making the court system complex and passionate. Obviously the lawyers get away with somethings that they would not be able to get away with in the real world (like when they stage the contact of a jury member in order to play the defense attorney against himself by removing a member who could potentially go against the prosecuting case). 

In class we talked about the three modes of media trials: abuse of power, cases illustrating the sinfully rich, and cases involving a kind of evil stranger. The Rainmaker falls into the categories of abuse of power and illustrating the sinfully rich. The insurance company holds the power with ability to deny customers what they need, but they are also making tons of money off of people who are less fortunate. Insurance companies are a different kind of authority figure abusing trial than we would usually assume, but they are known form abusing the power they have from instances in the past.

This is the case in which Rudy works towards providing justice to this couple who loses their son because of the insurance company's schemes and cheating people of their money. He works to expose the insurance company of fraud and essentially allowing the couple's son to die. 

The biggest aspect of this movie is the battle between the young, inexperienced lawyer and the experience lawyer who has a reputation for winning many, if not all, of his cases. 

Leo Drummond, the defense attorney for the insurance company, is a lying scheming lawyer who goes through any means to make sure his client wins the case, whereas Rudy is concerned mostly with being honest and forthright in his cases. This launches the central conflict of ethical issues within the practice of law and the in the court systems in general. I feel like this type of representation does not reflect on the nature of the court systems and lawyers today, but the devious evil defense lawyer is a popular character type in these criminal law films. Never-the-less, there is an interesting conflict that is presented with the ethical issues that arise in the criminal justice system.

Another interesting aspect of the show is that an almost equally corrupt judge as Drummond is a lawyer who wants to call the trial off because he doesn't think Rudy can make a could case, gets replaced with a more sympathetic judge who is willing to let the trial commence. This example of corrupt judges botching the trial before it even commences is another one of the ethical problems that are being displayed in the court systems. 

In the end, Rudy wins the case, but the insurance company declared themselves bankrupt so they can't pay the fifty million dollars of punitive damages. This is still a great success for Rudy, but he decides rather than continuing in his career as a lawyer, we would teach law to students and focus on the ethical behavior of lawyers instead. 

So in the end the central conflict is the ethical principles of the court systems and how this is portrayed in the media. With the abundances of criminal law films and shows that portray these unethical court scenarios, one can conclude that people have a lack of trust in the court systems and the criminal justice system as a whole because lawyers and judges can behave unethically. However, I don't think this correlates with the way the court system actually works in our society- it is just how the media chooses to portray it because of the few large cases where the people felt there was injustice (perhaps the OJ Simpson case as an example). 

In any case, it is important to examine the ethics of the criminal justice system and the people who work within it. 

Dig up the Bones

As much as forensic science really intrigues me, I was never that into the whole CSI thing. But every once in a while I turn on the TV attached to the treadmill and watch an episode of Bones, another forensic crime fighting team.

This comedy crime drama features a forensic anthropologist, Dr. "Bones" Brennan, accompanied by Special Agent Booth who solve crime through identifying human remains that are too difficult to identify through FBI forensics. In the particular episode I watched, they find a mutilated body siting in a pool of its own blood inside a pod. They identify the body and begin doing an investigation.

Now, with Booth on their team, it makes a little more sense that they are doing extensive detective work, but the level of involvement in the investigation by the forensics team is still surprising to me. This aspect of the forensics crime fighters really stems from the CSI crime drama series.

In class, we talked about how people are drawn to these types of crime fighting shows because they see science has hard facts solving crime and restoring order to society. Just like this idea is expressed through CSI, so it is through Bones.

One of the most prevalent aspects of the show that reinforce science accurately solving crime, is the highly advanced technology. Not only does the team have screens in which they can navigate through all of their information, they are able to see things and investigate at a much more advanced level than forensic scientists would be able to do in reality. The gadgets and gizmos allow them to do things that make their investigation more credible, therefore the audience holds more belief in the science that solves the crime.

So people who watch shows like Bones do so because they can believe in something factual and proven that unmistakably locks up the perpetrator and restores order to society. And who can deny the credibility of the investigation with all that high-tech stuff?

Though the representation of forensic science is highly exaggerated in crime shows such as Bones with the detective-like manner the forensics team operates in and the technology which lets them do things they wouldn't have access to in reality , I think the show is giving the audience exactly what they want: a reason to believe in science to solve crimes.