Law and Order: SVU Reviews NN

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

“Debatable” Season 24. See this for a plot summary.
Racism/Homophobia

There are two minor items to mention.

1. A Black man (whose son is cleared of the crime SVU are investigating shortly after his Dad’s statement) says something brief but pretty powerful about how Blacks get treated by the police. He says: “give me one good reason why any black man should trust the cops.”
2. One of the detectives says a witness is a total homophobe, and although we already know that that detective is anti-homophobic, it’s good of the show to remind viewers how the people involved in making the show feel about homophobia.

“Truth Embargo” Season 25. See this for a plot summary.
Racism/Criminal Justice System

This is an interesting episode. Towards the end I thought I detected a significant political shift towards the center, but I think I was wrong.

First, the woman, Natalie, who gets raped is a white woman married to another white woman.

Natalie seems pretty uncomfortable with the whole process of helping the police find her attacker. Pretty early we know that the police suspect a black youth. When the charged individual is on trial Natalie testifies and after answering some questions about what happened,  she is asked to identify her attacker, with the defendant seated in the courtroom. She doesn’t answer and after several seconds there’s a recess in the trial. As we learn a few minutes later, she IS certain the defendant raped her and that kind of complicates one part of this that I found politically pleasing.

A few minutes before Natalie testifies Benson (the woman who is head of SVU) speaks briefly with Natalie’s wife, Brook. We learn from Brook that she and Natalie are “acutely“ aware of racist problems in the criminal justice system and worry that the defendant won’t get a fair trial (I could see how even though they were certain of his guilt, good White allies like them would still worry about that). During the recess Natalie tells Benson and the Assistant DA that when she was growing up she had an adopted brother who was Black. One day at a store when they were about 12yo she dared him to steal something. He got caught (apparently she was implicated by the police) and while she got to go home with a warning, her adopted brother spent the night in jail and got a criminal record, something which had a very negative effect on his life.

It emerges in all of this that the main thing which motivates Natalie’s failure to identify her rapist is her belief that once someone gets convicted, that can affect the rest of their life in many ways that are detrimental. There’s a brief discussion about rehabilitation. I am far from an expert on rehabilitation but I recently wrote that a lot of people in prison don’t need rehabilitation. Although in general it would be really nice if rehabilitation was an outcome of going to prison, I get the impression that it often or usually isn’t, and that having a record and experiencing the nightmare of prison must make it difficult to survive once released.

At one point, I thought this episode was going to be a hatchet job on progressives, suggesting that we believe that racial justice requires that all guilty people of color be acquitted and that there is something wrong with cooperating with the police when a white woman has been raped by a black man.

I have a little more to say about this episode’s place on the political spectrum, but first I want to say this. I imagine it’s difficult to be an anti-racist white person victimized by a crime committed by a person of color. More specifically I imagine that anti-racist tendencies in the feminist movement experience a lot of stress when a White woman accuses a Black man of rape.

My conclusion? There’s a fair amount of dialogue involving Benson agreeing (at least to some degree) with Natalie and Brook. Natalie not only identifies her rapist in court, she pushes back when the defense attorney suggests that she is lying about his client.

“Duty to Report” Season 25. See this for a plot summary.
Police Corruption

I am not sure I should be reviewing this one. There are two incidents where a VERY senior NYPD officer commits a very serious crime against a civilian and Benson (the head of SVU) enlists the Internal Affairs Bureau (which investigates corruption, etc. in the police) in her investigation of a crime that involves her superior’s daughter. Benson apparently gets along pretty well with at least one senior IAB officer- a Black woman who Benson was investigated by a few years earlier. At the end, that IAB leader and Benson agree that she will join SVU. Assuming it lasts at least the rest of this brief season, it’s significant in that it’s only the third time there’s been a woman of color in the squad (there was one in the first season, and then in season 24 there was a RECURRING character in the squad matching that description). 

In general it’s a pretty solid endorsement of IAB which I think is either probably a good thing or definitely a VERY good thing.

Benson does, while laughing, say that together they might even break some rules. At the risk of going too easy on them, I think it might either be an insignificant line that goes nowhere or maybe there are some rules they can break that are bad and that are not foci of IAB. In general I am very happy with this episode.

“Third Man Syndrome” Season 25. See this for a plot summary.
Homophobia

This is a very political episode, as I define that, but there’s nothing very special about it. It’s about a gay bashing that seemed like a possible sex crime (which is why SVU gets it). There’s some confusing dialogue about the gay bashers possibly also being anti-immigrant and I think the fact that one of them appears Latino doesn’t rule that out- weird stuff like that happens, at least in TV and movies and real life. The victim, who is straight but presumed gay by his attackers, is a visitor and future resident from Columbia. His cousin, who’s with him, is an undocumented resident- SVU doesn’t do anything in relation to that.

It’s overall a pretty good anti-homophobic episode.

Star Trek: SNW Reviews E

I am now starting to do “reviews” of episodes of the new Star Trek series “Strange New Worlds.” Unlike earlier ST review posts this time I’ll be doing, at least MOST of the time, one relatively long essay for a single episode that merits some significant commentary (I wouldn’t be surprised if out of a final total of 46 episodes I’ll do one or two posts that are very brief). I’ll be focusing almost exclusively on the political aspects of the episodes but will usually not comment on the pervasive multiculturalism and gender equality of ST.

“A Quality of Mercy” Episode Ten, Season One. See this for a plot summary.

This episode has four main political themes that I’ll briefly discuss.

First, it touches on the issue of genetic engineering, which I discussed here, in relation to the LEADERSHIP of StarFleet going after Pike’s second-in-command for being engineered.

War (General)

Second, the issue of war and paranoia and bigotry. Although it’s suggested that had Pike acted a little less like a StarFleet Captain and more like an officer of the US military, it would have prevented war, I don’t think that means the writers, producers, etc. are veering off to the right. The tendency in a Cold War-type context to say “we can’t trust them” (referring to the enemy) is well-illustrated and Pike’s response to that sort of thing is admirable. Especially when you consider that in the possible future he experiences, his attempt at peace-making probably would have gone somewhere if the Romulan ship’s second-in-command hadn’t violated a direct order from his peace-sympathizing superior. To a large degree you also can’t hold it against Pike that that Romulan ship, whose Captain had potential to promote peace, was destroyed as an example to others on the orders of the Romulan Praetor.

We also see some racist hostility towards Spock when it’s learned that Vulcans and Romulans look almost exactly the same. As it’s in the possible future, we probably won’t see it again (especially since that discovery takes place about 8 years later in The Original Series).

Anti-Muslim Bigotry

In the very last paragraph of a SNW review here I wrote about something that puzzlingly comes up in episode 10. In episode three Pike reads five names- people important to his future. One of them is, I THINK, a Muslim name (Google AI sort of confirmed that for me), but now, in episode 10, another name, taken from Pike’s knowledge of his future, is mentioned but wasn’t mentioned in Episode three. That name is, I am almost certain, a Muslim name- Maat Al-Salah. Even if it’s not a reference to a SECOND Islamic-named character prominent in Pike’s future and ST just decided to re-name that character, it is a second mention of a StarFleet cadet whose ancestors were almost certainly Muslims. Also, Maat’s father is a StarFleet officer.

Star Trek: SNW Reviews D

I am now starting to do “reviews” of episodes of the new Star Trek series “Strange New Worlds.” Unlike earlier ST review posts this time I’ll be doing, at least MOST of the time, one relatively long essay for a single episode that merits some significant commentary (I wouldn’t be surprised if out of a final total of 46 episodes I’ll do one or two posts that are very brief). I’ll be focusing almost exclusively on the political aspects of the episodes but will usually not comment on the pervasive multiculturalism and gender equality of ST.

“The Serene Squall” Episode Seven, Season One. See this for a plot summary.

There are three political themes to mention.

They/Them/Theirs (LGBTQ+)

Although it could possibly be construed as hostile to non-binary people because the character who makes some good statements about being yourself turns out to be the bad guy, it’s actually pro-LGBTQ+ because the prominent doctor she is impersonating IS non-binary and a good guy. This (the pro-LGBTQ+ statement made by the existence of a character who is a popular Federation doctor and is non-binary) gets a little sharper when there is some talk about how Spock, who is half human and half Vulcan, doesn’t need to choose between being Vulcan and being human:

ASPEN: Spock, you know, all species put things into boxes. It’s like you’re either this or you’re that and sometimes we act a certain way to fit people’s expectations, but that’s not necessarily who we are. And sometimes, like on the bridge just now, it can limit us.
SPOCK: You are proposing I better balance my human and Vulcan natures.
ASPEN: I’m saying maybe you’re neither.
SPOCK: That is nonsensical. If I am not human or Vulcan, what am I?
ASPEN: That’s not my question to answer.

First of all, I think this episode counts as pro-LGBTQ+ and I think that “Dr. Aspen’s” statements above are pretty well written.

I am going to use this as an opportunity to get a little long-winded and also a little personal. On one hand, I have been a fairly good or very good ally of what I call the LGB, since 11th grade. On the other hand, for some reason I have been kind of slow to see what I call the TQ+ as important. I go into a little more detail here when discussing the “Broken Rhymes” episode. This is the first time I have commented on the non-binary part of the population (I have watched every season of Discovery an average of three times (including the last three seasons that include a non-binary main character) but I have yet to do “reviews” of that show- something I’ll do in about a year).

First, if “Dr. Aspen” is talking about Spock identifying as equally human and Vulcan, that seems like a better idea than identifying 100% one way or the other. In The Original Series I believe that Spock identified mostly or overwhelmingly as Vulcan. If “Dr. Aspen” meant creating some kind of brand new identity I have tried to grasp what that would be and it has slipped through my fingers or has been as ethereal as smoke, dispersing into nothingness as I try to grasp it. There’s a good chance I am overthinking this and/or I need to get a firmer grip on the LGBTQ+ identities, so I think I will just move on very soon. The good news is that I think that in the process of typing this I DID improve my grasp of the LGBTQ+ identities.

A Clockwork Red??? (Rehabilitation of Convicts)

(Although I was a fan of “A Clockwork Orange” in 9th grade I don’t think I have watched it since then. Wikipedia’s explanation of the term “clockwork orange” doesn’t help, but it sounds like what some assortment of society and government leaders want people to be upon leaving prison, and I believe we need a progressive view of rehabilitation of convicts)

There’s a brief part of the episode that’s about criminal rehabilitation on Vulcan. It sounds pretty good. When I think of that issue in reality in America, I think it’s probably a really good thing, although it must have some short-comings. Although therapy and vocational opportunities and education and such in prison CAN help with some of what’s wrong in our society, I think that a huge majority of convicts wouldn’t be there if they weren’t poor and I would add a similar statement about an overlapping large minority of convicts who wouldn’t be there if they weren’t people of color. In the next three paragraphs I will offer an abridged explanation of exactly what I mean by that.

I simply assume that there are innocent people in prison- and I mean completely innocent- I will say something about the others soon. This belief is partly just a vague one based on being engaged with American liberalism and progressivism for roughly 35 years. It’s also influenced by a work of non-fiction (The Innocent Man) and at least two works of fiction (The Confession and The Guardians) by the author John Grisham. Although I don’t look for this, about once a year I stumble on to a story about someone being declared innocent years after their conviction- I assume that for every such case I hear about there’s probably something like 100 I don’t hear about. There was at least one statement by a main character in the TV show Law and Order: SVU about there being innocent people in prison. And then there’s the people who are sort of guilty but don’t deserve to be convicted - i.e. abused women who killed their abuser, 18yos who had sex with a 17yo in some of the nation’s states, the character Carl Lee Hailey in Grisham’s A Time To Kill, etc.

To a large degree the majority of inmates who wouldn’t be there if they weren’t poor don’t need rehabilitation. Many are completely innocent and would have been acquitted if they hadn’t been represented by an over-worked, under-resourced Public Defender. Many more wouldn’t have committed a crime if not for one or more poverty-related factors that drove their criminal behavior (i.e. they wouldn’t have stolen a loaf of bread for their family if they weren’t penniless, or they wouldn’t have gotten work selling marijuana if they had been able to afford college). In general, POVERTY, not bad morals or a lack of civic values, is why they committed a crime.

To a large degree the majority of those inmates who wouldn’t be there if they weren’t people of color don’t need rehabilitation. They’re there because a racist cop framed them, and a jury fell for it, or they’re guilty but it’s because the racist nature of this society alienated them from trying to work within the system, because the people criticizing crime were the same ones brutalizing their community economically, physically, institutionally, etc. What I’m talking about is well illustrated in the 1996 non-documentary film “Set It Off” starring Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith. One of the four Black women turns to crime partly because her racist bank employers fire her after a man from her neighborhood tries to rob the bank. Another of the four women turns to crime after her brother, an innocent and unarmed man, is killed by police. There is of course the aforementioned overlap between the population of non-white convicts and the population of poor convicts.

It’s likely that some or most of the convicts I write about above could benefit from therapy and/or vocational and/or educational opportunities while in prison. Ideally there may, in theory, be some way for that to be progressive- i.e. if convicts get therapy and/or college degrees in prison, is the education or therapy compatible with their experiences as (for example) working-class Black Americans? I also wonder how radical books collected by progressives and donated to prison libraries fare when they’re examined by whatever prison official looks at them. When I think about this stuff I worry that at this point, with increasing politicalization outside prisons because of George W. Bush and now Donald Trump, prisons are not creating opportunities for progressive values to be learned or explored or weaponized (depending on which prisoners we’re talking about).

Spartacus (Slavery)

Although it turns out to be a red herring deployed by the bad guy, at one point the crew of the Enterprise thinks that they’re going after slave traffickers. It would be a good story if there WAS an ST episode about going after such scum. About 3-6 years ago I watched the movie “The Birth of a Nation,” which is based on a true story of a major slave rebellion in the American South, and it is a really good movie. I also watched, about 6 years ago, the movie “Harriet” about the Underground Railroad, and I have it in my collection. ST has reminded us of the issue of slavery several times in it’s life, but an episode just about fighting slavery would be great- one story possibility would be a StarFleet crew helping maintain a sci-fi version of the Underground Railroad. About 33 years ago I read a The Next Generation novel called “Spartacus” about the Enterprise encountering a ship adrift with a bunch of android slaves.