Law & Order SVU: Ripped From The Headlines

Law & Order SVU: Ripped from the Headlines

Three hundred twenty-eight episodes, and fourteen years later, Law and Order SVU has managed to stay on top. The television show is based on detectives investing crimes involving violent and sexual acts against a wide range of victims.   Over three hundred episodes all based around crimes involving special victims sounds like a lot of story lines to make up. But it’s a good thing thankfully for SVU they’ve developed a formula to keep their viewers around for years to come.

Law and Order SVU has picked a particular structure that appeals to a massive audience to keep their hype up. By that I mean they take popular headlines in the news and turn them into “fictional” episodes. SVU makes a disclaimer before the show that says, “The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event”. But the reality is a lot of their stories come from topics that have literally been “ripped from the headlines”. In an attempt to appeal to viewers SVU writers have taken stories that they already know appeal to viewers and incorporated them into the show. If there’s a crime people are buzzing about, you can bet you’ll be seeing a very similar situation taking place on an SVU episode within a few weeks. The show has been around for a while and their attempt to be socially relevant seems like a working formula.

In the most current season SVU writers decided to take two of the biggest headlines of the year and combine them. The Paula Deen scandal and the trial of George Zimmerman were put together in an episode entitled “American Tragedy”. In the episode Jolene Castille shoots and kills a hooded African American man named Mehcad Carter; and claims she did it in self-defense. Mehcad however was unarmed and it turned out he was only approaching Jolene because he was a fan of her cooking show. At the end of the trial it’s revealed that Paula Deen was found not guilty, sound familiar? It seemed her case lacked similar things George Zimmerman’s did and she was released. The George Zimmerman case caused a lot of upset in our society and was a popular topic of discussion for months. SVU followed a similar story line to attract viewers to a topic that they knew people were interested in. The similarities between the television story line and real stories are so similar it seems SVU writers weren’t even attempting to make it unnoticeable. The episode ends with a shot of Mehcad’s parents crying, and the SVU team standing on the steps of the court solemnly. This shot was an attempt to comment about the fact that most of society was not happy with the results of the George Zimmerman trial.

Law and Order SVU is also extremely self-aware and points out the effects media has on a lot of their cases. Many real crimes have been said to be influenced by the media. SVU addresses this in many episodes by creating a crime that was stimulated by the media. In the episode “Unorthodox” one defense attorney argues the case for her client. “The sex and violence glorified on TV has no consequences, so J.T. didn’t think there were any in real life.” (Collins pg. 94, 2009). A lot of cases have been made famous because of their claim that the media made the perpetrator commit the crime. Video games can be an intense source of violence that might desensitize children to it and make it seem more acceptable. Whether or not this can be argued to be the cause of a crime, SVU defense attorney’s often argue the case. In this way SVU is taking a real life situation and trying to educate people on it. By showing the negative effects the media has and what crimes it causes people to commit it’s advocating for people to be more watchful of this and to prevent things like this from continuously happening.

“Regardless of fleeting disclaimers before or following some episodes warning of the fictional nature of the story, its characters and events, SVU relies heavily on crimes depicted in the news to draw audiences for all of its storylines” (Blue pg. 2, 2008). From the pregnancy pact to the trial of Casey Anthony, real life news stories have been getting exploited for years on Law and Order SVU. Blurring the lines between fiction and non-fiction is how SVU enthralls its viewers. They’ve maintained their popularity so far by connecting to popular events. This strategy has gotten them this far, and I’ll be interested to see what inspires their next show.

Works Cited

Blue, Morgan. "Accidental Deaths: The Violence of Representing Childhood in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." Red Feather Journal (2008): n. pag. Web

Collins, Marti C. "Ripped from the Headlines." Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies (2009): 88-100. Web.