Law, Order & Entertainment
For this essay I have chosen to analyze a popular and time tested television show, Law and Order. I chose Law and Order for several reasons, the most obvious of which was that assumedly it would be a breeding ground for soft toned racial discrepancies. Also, I saw a show revolving around conflict a more entertaining choice for analysis, as it would provide for a hopeful plethora of material to critique. In theory I hoped Law and Order would be a suitable source for an argument that television and entertainment, like the rest of us, expresses extreme racial disparities and must be changed.
Law and Order originally aired in 2002 on NBC. This particular episode aired on TNT. Law and Order has been on the air since 1989, seventeen years. Law and Order is a detective show where we audience follows the discovery of a crime all the way through to the conviction of the offender. The characters in Law and Order are lower-middle, to middle-middle class. The characters played were New York City officers, attorneys, FBI agents and federal judges, as well as criminals. The characters do not appear to live outside their fictional means, however they also never mention financial struggles, which are a part of everyday life. They dress and act modestly, the characters who were attorneys, and worked as judges, etc. were dressed more formally, but again not outrageously so. I do not believe those characters to be living outside the characters their fictional means either. While there were no clues or specific evidence as to which social class each member belongs to, according to www.nypd2.org, the starting salary for a New York City police officer is $32,700, after 5 years that salary will cap out at $59,588. Neither is exceptional. Upon researching, the black detective lives in an apartment, the cheapest and smallest apartment listed for New York, New York was $ 2425 a month. $59,588 comes to roughly $ 2,000 dollars every two weeks. With out any other payments that rent takes up 1
Law and Order originally aired in 2002 on NBC. This particular episode aired on TNT. Law and Order has been on the air since 1989, seventeen years. Law and Order is a detective show where we audience follows the discovery of a crime all the way through to the conviction of the offender. The characters in Law and Order are lower-middle, to middle-middle class. The characters played were New York City officers, attorneys, FBI agents and federal judges, as well as criminals. The characters do not appear to live outside their fictional means, however they also never mention financial struggles, which are a part of everyday life. They dress and act modestly, the characters who were attorneys, and worked as judges, etc. were dressed more formally, but again not outrageously so. I do not believe those characters to be living outside the characters their fictional means either. While there were no clues or specific evidence as to which social class each member belongs to, according to www.nypd2.org, the starting salary for a New York City police officer is $32,700, after 5 years that salary will cap out at $59,588. Neither is exceptional. Upon researching, the black detective lives in an apartment, the cheapest and smallest apartment listed for New York, New York was $ 2425 a month. $59,588 comes to roughly $ 2,000 dollars every two weeks. With out any other payments that rent takes up 1
Bibliography: Croteau, David R., and William Hoynes. Media and Society: Industries, Images and Audiences. 3rd ed. California: Sage Publications, 2003.