I have done reviews of many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and published some more general thoughts about it here. In that post I offer a smaller number of general thoughts about the original Law and Order show (the one that went from 1990-2010). Although I do not like L&O as much as I like the SVU version, I do like it. There’s some liberal or even progressive stuff here and there and they’re good detective stories, and they’re homicide detectives- if they were narcotics, I’d probably be a lot less fond of the show.
Although I’m not sure I have done and will do this consistently, with the original Law and Order show I will make a note and maybe offer some comments when the issues that are at the core of Law and Order: SVU appear on this show.
"Subterranean Homeboy Blues” Season 1. Wikipedia summary is here.
I am not sure I should be reviewing this episode since it’s not real clear exactly where the main characters and the writers are politically. But there is some anti-racism involved and some feminism involved (unfortunately, they’re sort of at odds with each other, but it’s still an okay episode politically (the white woman who killed a black man on the subway was either a feminist warrior who had earlier been attacked by a man, or she’s a racist who shot the man partly because he was black)).
“The Reaper’s Helper” Season 1. Wikipedia summary is here.
I’m not sure I want to review this one, but it does involve the gay population and AIDS. Is it about homophobia and/or AIDS-phopbia? Not really. It’s about a gay man who euthanizes gay men with AIDS, AT THEIR REQUEST (the jury says the guy is only guilty of promoting a suicide attempt). One of the two detectives seems a little homophobic and the other seems a little better than that. The prosecutors have mixed feelings about prosecuting the killer and at the end the senior of the two ADAs sabotages their effort at prosecution and the killer is acquitted of 4/5 of the charges. It’s pretty complicated, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of HIV+ people would like it (it was made in 1990, when there were few effective drugs for AIDS and people with it faced a short life and a horrible death). I think it’s good that the killer wasn’t convicted of anything serious.
“Everybody’s Favorite Bagman” Season 1. Wikipedia summary is here.
A small part of this is about a successful effort to bring down a corrupt senior officer in the NYPD.
“Poison Ivy” Season 1. Wikipedia summary is here.
They go after a white cop who killed an unarmed Black man and planted a gun in his hand.
“Indifference” Season 1. Wikipedia summary is here.
Although I’m not sure I have done and will do this consistently, with the original Law and Order show I will make a note and maybe offer some comments when the issues that are at the core of Law and Order: SVU appear on this show. With that in mind, in this episodes there is a fair amount of stuff about not just domestic violence and child sexual abuse, but EXTRAORDINARY domestic violence and child sexual abuse.
At the beginning of this episode a Puerto Rican elementary school teacher calls the police when she strongly suspects that a child is being abused at home. When the detectives show up, the white principal says at first that the teacher is “trigger happy,” and then later says that she is “prone to excitability” (that time he says it’s a “cultural thing”). The principal says the teacher should have followed the school district's process for suspicions of child abuse and then explains it. One of the detectives responds by saying: “When someone, anyone- even a high-strung Puerto Rican lady, COMPRENDE? -thinks a child is being beaten, that person is supposed to report it to the authorities.” To a large degree I think it’s an anti-racist statement by both the character and the writers who wrote the episode.
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