Jordi Arias Case

Jordi Arias was accused of first-degree murder in the death of her former boyfriend. Prosecutors said that in the summer of 2008 after the couple had broken up, Arias stabbed her former boyfriend 27 times, slit his throat and shot him in the head as he showered. She pleaded not guilty to the crime and the jury was undecided over if she was a cold-blooded murderer or was a victim of domestic violence.

Both, ABC news and International Business Times, used the information of the case to display Arias as a victim of domestic violence. Whiteley states that women who commit violent crimes are often portrayed as people who have crossed the boundary of appropriate gender role expectations and did so of their own accord. Women who do so are demonized and they are at times depicted by the media in masculine terms, as it is the male who owns the rights to violence. Opposite to what Whiteley says, ABC news did a follow up story of the Arias case where Arias’ defense attorney revealed what the convicted killer is really like, stating that Arias was really very chatty and smiley, adjectives who tend to be related to feminine women.

On the other side, Arizona Central describes each of the steps that led to sentence Arias. On March 25, 2013 Arizona Central published an article explaining that a cross-examination expert diagnosed Arias with post-traumatic stress disorder. As Whiteley says, society’s explanation for a women committing a violence crime is “she kills because she is mad or mentally ill.” Arizona Central somehow seemed to support this idea.

According to the Huffington post she didn’t get away with death penalty because she was a woman, but because she was born white and the US justice system don’t give death penalties to white women. As Whiteley stated, the study of the media and the depiction of female offenders calls to their attention the bias towards white women and further details how this bias is situated within the media narratives.  If Arias would have been born black, it would have been a different story.

In my opinion, I believe society’s perception of women is wrong. Women, as men can also be cold-blooded murderers. They can stab, they can shoot, they can poison, just like men. What shocks me the most is that when a women commits a violent crime, the first thing that crosses our minds is “it was probably self defense” or “she was probably a victim of domestic violence”, instead of “this woman just killed someone”. If a man kills his partner, none of this thought come across our minds, the only thing we think is “this man just killed his wife”, and there is never room for “he was probably acting on self defense.  

METH

As Linnemann and Wall say in their article, projects like Faces of Meth reaffirm and obscure the boundaries of white privilege. A powerful form of fear-induced name-calling expressed by middle and upper class whites, ‘white trash’ objectifies and stigmatizes whites living in poverty and lacking proper decorum.

Faces of Meth doesn’t represent an objective reality of meth use. They select the most shocking images exaggerate meth’s effects with the implication that all users eventually will appear as the faces in the ads do. Also, as Linnemann and Wall say, it is highly unlikely that the people selected by FOM use meth exclusively, making it a questionable strategy at best to name these images the ‘faces of meth’ or the ‘face’ of any other drug for that matter. Finally, and perhaps most importantly the images are deeply racialized, each featuring what appears to be a white body.


In my opinion, Faces of Meth should refocus their campaign. First of all, not all meth addicts are white. And second, not all meth addicts are in the same condition as the ones pictured on the ads. As said before, Faces of Meth only puts together the worse cases, therefore constructing a false reality. Linnemann and Wall article helped me be aware of the stereotypes within the meth world, and how even if ads are meant to be a help against the use of meth, they can also cause false expectations about the consumers.

WEEDS

           

The satire dark comedy “Weeds”, directed by Brian Dannelly, premiered in 2005 when only nine states had passed the law legalizing medical marijuana use. At that time, according to A.V. CLUB, Americans who thought marijuana should remain illegal outnumbered those in support of legalization by a two-to-one margin. When “Weeds” ended its eight season in 2012, the number of states where medical marijuana use was legal was 18 and Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use. This essay will summarize the first season of the television show "Weeds", will explore the portrait of criminals in media nowadays, will explain the director’s perspective on crime, justice and society in the television show “Weeds” and will give some examples of the corruption.

            First of all, “Weeds”, deals with recently widowed Nancy. Nancy’s husband dies and she begins dealing marijuana to her rich neighbors and friends to support her upper middle class lifestyle. In Weeds’ first season, Nancy dives into the world of marijuana business, which proves to be an especially seedy industry. She’s got some beginner’s luck. Her business is already thriving in the pilot, “You Can’t Miss The Bear”. Later on she decides she wants to expand her business and starts baking and selling marijuana brownies. As her business is taking off she hires Sanjay to sell the weed in the Valley State College. Everything gets messy when Alejandro goes after her because she is selling in his territory. Nancy solves the problem having sex with him on top of his car. To finish season one, Nancy forms a group and starts growing weed as well, while dating Peter, who happens to be a DEA agent.

            As Surette says, in most of the cases the resulting portrait of criminals found in today’s media has almost no correspondence with official statistics of persons arrested for crimes. The media tends to construct and present a crime-and-justice world that is the opposite of the real world. The typical criminal portrayed in the media is mature, white, and of high social status. “Weeds” is a great example of the portrayal of criminals in media since the protagonist of the television show is a mature white upper-class woman who is illegally selling marijuana and therefore committing a crime. Criminals are men most of the times and female offenders are primarily shown linked to male offenders and as white, violent and deserving of punishment and driven by greed, revenge and love. One thing that is new is that Nancy isn’t linked to male offenders and she isn’t driven by revenge or greed. She has her own marijuana business because she wants to keep up with her lifestyle and she isn’t linked to a male offender, she gets the marijuana from another woman, which happens to be an African-American woman.

            As said before, some crimes like property crimes are underrepresented and violent crimes are overrepresented. Murder, robbery, kidnapping and aggravated assault made up 90 percent of all prime time television crimes, with murder accounting for nearly one-fourth, according to Surette. Director Brian Dannelly stepped out of the comfort zone and came up with a television show that isn’t just another crime related show with murder and violence, but a subtle show representing a facet of society that is actually there and we don’t want to see most of the times.

            Director Brian Dannelly represents society as full of lies, fake people and as “only the strong survives” type of society. Nancy lies to her sons and friends about her business, both women and men act fake towards each other and everybody is waiting for somebody to mess up so they can get profit out of it. Dannelly also perceive women as human beings with persuasion powers. Some women use their intellect; others use their feminine wiles. Men say women can always get what they want either if it is by being smart or by using their “secret feminine techniques”. Dannelly represented that part of our society by showing how Nancy makes her way into the risky business and gets all her clients by using her feminine wiles.

            The show also does a good job representing the “hegemonic masculinity”. Nancy posses no threat to the male dealers and that is the reason her business keeps being strong. Hegemonic masculinity happens nowadays all the time, women are considered passive for the world of drug dealing. Since women are seen as vulnerable, other male drug dealers often take advantage of them.

            The director represents the legal system as a joke. When Nancy tries to expand her business she goes to a lawyer to ask her some questions about the sentences she could be facing for growing and distributing weed. Although the lawyer doesn’t specifically say she knows Nancy is a drug dealer she suggests she knows and even then doesn’t do anything about it, but offer her services.

            Towards the end of the season Nancy starts dating Peter who turns out to be a DEA agent. During season one, Peter apparently doesn’t know about Nancy being a drug dealer but in season 2, he finds out, and what Nancy does is marry him as a part of a deal to legally protect herself from Peter testifying. It shows how the director tries to portray a DEA agent as a corrupt agent as a part of the structure of this kind of TV shows where there is always a corrupt agent that goes against the law.

            The director chose to portray this kind of crime as funny. As something humorous and comical where there is no punishment for the crime. In fact there are barely any scenes where Nancy is actually in trouble with the police due to her business. He also chose to make the show as something more complicated than someone just selling weed. Dannelly, wanted to offer a more elaborated and complicated discussion about this kind of crime and he does it by making Nancy a widowed mother of two who is just trying to survive.

            “Weeds” aired for eight seasons, had surprisingly high ratings and was really acclaimed by American society. As The Artifice says, there are shows that have the ability to grasp the attention of its audience right from the start, to get them hooked or simply addicted. “Weeds” had a really varied audience because at the end, it’s still a comedy. From teenagers relating to Nancy’s sons to parents relating to the struggles Nancy goes through, everybody can be the target audience. Not necessarily relating to the whole selling weed part but to the struggles all the characters go through.

             Once again both television shows deal with issues that the American society is facing nowadays: rebellious teenagers, teen drama, widows trying to keep a float their family, weed, cheating husbands and I could go on and on. Nowadays stories have a rigidly adhered-to structure and all beats fall in the same place. All characters do the things they are expected to do even if it involves committing a crime.

OITNB

          As Rafter says in the article, the prison film genre ranges from stories of jailbreaks and inmate reformation through melodramas about unjust convictions.

          Orange is the New Black affirms some of the existing stereotypes not only from prison but also from American society in general. Orange is the new black exposes stereotypes of all races for example by picturing a black woman fantasizing about fried chicken all the time, a Latina mother who is jailed with her daughter, who happens to sleep around with a white prison guard. An Asian woman who never talks, and a crazy Latina woman who hides a cellphone in the prison’s bathroom to take pictures of her lady parts and send them to her boyfriend.

         The TV shows tries to get rid of stereotypes but I don’t think they are very successful. By putting an upper-class white lesbian in jail, they try to break some of  American society stereotypes but at the end, the main character is still the white girl and although the director decided to put some white people playing the inmate roles, we all still know what groups of women fill America’s prisons, and it is definitely not upper class white women.

         Although I don’t think the show does a good job at breaking stereotypes, I do think that it shows some of the problems of American prisons and some of the injustices inmates have to deal with. Police corruption and police harassment, for instance, are exposed on the TV shows as well as unfair punishments to some of the inmates.

        As Rafter says, the major incident of a traditional prison film is usually a riot or escape, with much of the preceding footage devoted to the planning for the event. During the different seasons of Orange is the New Black we can see a couple of prisons escapes. One of them is a double escape that doesn’t end up so well. Rosa takes the jail van and drives away. Meanwhile, Vee finds a way out through the drain in the jail’s greenhouse and runs away too. Little she knew, Rosa runs her over with the van before she can make it far enough.

       To sum up, Orange is the New Black is a perfect example of prison films. Although they have changed and made some adjustments overtime, at the end, all of them fall into the same structure and same topics. 

CSI

          

            According to International Business Times, the "CSI Las Vegas" team investigated a case involving a murder in an alley. Along with the victim they also found another body and although it had real blood and hair in it, it wasn’t human. It turns out the stab wounds on the victim’s body matches the marks on the plastic body. The team concluded that the victim was wearing the plastic body with the human blood in it. It turned out to be that the victim was wearing the woman’s body made of rubber. Remnants of gold nail polish and a nail file that the forensic team finds in both the victim and the rubber woman lead to a suspect who confesses to the murder.

            We could say the “hero” of the episode is once again the forensic team. They find remnants of gold nail polish and a nail file and that is the piece that was missing leading to the murderer. As Cavender and Deutsch’s analysis say, During the program, the CSI team is depicted examining crime scenes, securing evidence, conducting lab experiments, interviewing witnesses and suspects, and, ultimately, using forensic science to solve crimes. According to Cavender and Deutsch, CSI focus on forensics makes the TV show unique, but the success of the show and its spin-offs also reflects the long-term popularity of the specific genre, which is crime genre. Forensic science blends with policing to promote the legitimacy of both spheres, according to Cavender and Deutsch. During the whole episode, the forensic unit is portrayed as a smooth-running organization, where all the characters work together as a team in eventually resolve the case. According to Cavender and Deutsch, it is really important the producers make sure they are constructing a sense of science that appears to be accurate and decisive to convince the audience of the show’s forensic realism.
            According to Cavender and Deutsch, two important institutions – policing and science – stand somewhat discredited today. As a result of continuing revelations about wrongful convictions or the FBI’s failure to process evidence that might have prevented the attacks on September 11, 2001 the police have lost some of the moral authority that is necessary for their legitimacy in a democratic society. And the certainty that science traditionally has been promised as a solution to problems caused by ignorance or disease is lacking today. Cavender and Deutsch suggest that in this situation where the moral authority of policing and science seems to be lacking, CSI offers surety and certainty, and that this, in part, is why the program is so successful.