Is Law & Order a rightwing show?
I've long thought that a lot of good entertainment art these days -- music, TV shows, movies -- is written from a fundamentally conservative viewpoint. This is in bright contrast to the amazingly poor quality (in my opinion) of conservative political commentary, at least in the States. Right wing intellectuals tend to embrace various types of hackery ("Did John Kerry exaggerate his valour in Vietnam?"), ad hominem digression ("or as Senator Kerry might say, Bonjour") and bad faith sophistry used to deflect substantive criticism ("John Kerry also thought there were WMD and he saw the same intelligence!") with appalling regularity, especially compared to their mainstream liberal counterparts. But this is much less true of conservative entertainment and even of conservative pop-cultural analysis (Matt Labash, anyone?).
That's a vague assertion, I know. But two of my very favourite movies of recent years (actually two of the only movies I've liked at all besides the Control Room which was brilliant for presenting a paean to democracy and humanity that was amazingly ideology-free) are the tough and perfectly-paced 8 Mile (more than an Eminem vehicle!) and the incredibly sweet and smart S&M-flick Secretary. Both were built on what have to be considered bedrock conservative constructs: post-racial individualism (exactly the sort of thing used to justify anti-affirmative-action Supreme Court judges) and the false promise of feminism and sexual liberation respectively.
But what really got me thinking about this topic again is my favourite TV show, Law & Order. I recently bought a TV off one of my old flatmates for the express purpose of watching the seemingly endless old Law & Order reruns (not the crappy new spin-offs) on Bravo every weeknight at eight. Tonight's episode, excellent as always, was about capital punishment in New York and specifically on whether the death penalty should be administered to an 18 year old who has pled guilty to a really nasty first degree murder. There was nothing demagogic or papered-over about the presentation of the issue. There were pro- and anti-death-penalty characters. The murderer's mother was presented as suitably distraught over his capital sentence, with plenty of impressionistic room given to how executing a young citizen destroys his family. The defence lawyer -- a Texan who sniffs provocatively at the idea of New York being more liberal and civilized than red states as it too indulges the public's desire for the ultimate revenge against criminals -- is a believable and sympathetic character. So is D.A. whose personal liberal opposition to capital punishment and personal revulsion at applying the juvenile cut-off law so strictly doesn't overcome her need to listen to her prosecutor and uphold the law of the state.
Still, McCoy favours liberal use of death penalty within the defined legal parameters, argues that case to the jury and wins. As engaging and unflinching as the plot constructs are, in the end, it's got to be taken as pro-death penalty editorial stance. The show also features frequent political skirmishes between the race-neutral, on-the-side-of-justice state prosecutors and New York's various ethnic special interest groups who spy descrimination around every corner and are constantly inciting their constituencies and endangering various well-meaning characters' political careers. Again, it's always done tastefully and well, but there's a distinct editorial position coming through again and again, and one William Buckley would probably be nodding along with. Maybe that's inevitable in a show whose stars always represent "the people against...". Maybe that's also why defence-attorney-based The Practice always seemed so lefty. Of course, The Practice blew chunks compared to Law & Order.
So does this make the classic Law & Order a creation of the right (beyond the simple question of Dick Wolf's politics)? If so, it begs the question of why the conservative viewpoint so consistently produces better, more open-minded art than it does political commentary?
That's a vague assertion, I know. But two of my very favourite movies of recent years (actually two of the only movies I've liked at all besides the Control Room which was brilliant for presenting a paean to democracy and humanity that was amazingly ideology-free) are the tough and perfectly-paced 8 Mile (more than an Eminem vehicle!) and the incredibly sweet and smart S&M-flick Secretary. Both were built on what have to be considered bedrock conservative constructs: post-racial individualism (exactly the sort of thing used to justify anti-affirmative-action Supreme Court judges) and the false promise of feminism and sexual liberation respectively.
But what really got me thinking about this topic again is my favourite TV show, Law & Order. I recently bought a TV off one of my old flatmates for the express purpose of watching the seemingly endless old Law & Order reruns (not the crappy new spin-offs) on Bravo every weeknight at eight. Tonight's episode, excellent as always, was about capital punishment in New York and specifically on whether the death penalty should be administered to an 18 year old who has pled guilty to a really nasty first degree murder. There was nothing demagogic or papered-over about the presentation of the issue. There were pro- and anti-death-penalty characters. The murderer's mother was presented as suitably distraught over his capital sentence, with plenty of impressionistic room given to how executing a young citizen destroys his family. The defence lawyer -- a Texan who sniffs provocatively at the idea of New York being more liberal and civilized than red states as it too indulges the public's desire for the ultimate revenge against criminals -- is a believable and sympathetic character. So is D.A. whose personal liberal opposition to capital punishment and personal revulsion at applying the juvenile cut-off law so strictly doesn't overcome her need to listen to her prosecutor and uphold the law of the state.
Still, McCoy favours liberal use of death penalty within the defined legal parameters, argues that case to the jury and wins. As engaging and unflinching as the plot constructs are, in the end, it's got to be taken as pro-death penalty editorial stance. The show also features frequent political skirmishes between the race-neutral, on-the-side-of-justice state prosecutors and New York's various ethnic special interest groups who spy descrimination around every corner and are constantly inciting their constituencies and endangering various well-meaning characters' political careers. Again, it's always done tastefully and well, but there's a distinct editorial position coming through again and again, and one William Buckley would probably be nodding along with. Maybe that's inevitable in a show whose stars always represent "the people against...". Maybe that's also why defence-attorney-based The Practice always seemed so lefty. Of course, The Practice blew chunks compared to Law & Order.
So does this make the classic Law & Order a creation of the right (beyond the simple question of Dick Wolf's politics)? If so, it begs the question of why the conservative viewpoint so consistently produces better, more open-minded art than it does political commentary?
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