NBC, the Olympics, and the openly gay gold medal winning diver

One of yahoo's bloggers for their Fourth-Place Medal Olympics blog noted that the only openly gay athlete of these games won gold in diving (breaking up the impressive run that the Chinese had in diving). Not only is he openly gay, Maggie Hendricks notes:

He is hardly the first gay athlete to compete but he is one of the first to be out while competing

The big news (if you can call it that), since it's hardly a secret that this man is gay?



NBC didn't mention it. Maggie again:

NBC did not mention Mitcham's orientation, nor did they show his family and partner who were in the stands. NBC has made athletes' significant others a part of the coverage in the past, choosing to spotlight track athlete Sanya Richards' fiancee, a love triangle between French and Italian swimmers and Kerri Walsh's wedding ring debacle.

The military seems ready to allow gays to serve openly (I remember seeing at about 75% support from current troops for this but I don't have any stats; there was something on Ed Brayton's blog about this a few months ago), the ballot measure to overturn their state's supreme court ruling that legalized gay marriage seems likely to fail, several tv shows and movies have had openly gay characters (including NBC's Will and Grace -- and the network decides not to mention that this guy is gay.

Furthermore, sports is one area in which gays tend to be closeted (perhaps more so anywhere except among the republicans) -- recently an ex-NBA player came out. From his story it sounds like gays are unlikely to come out anytime soon in basketball or football (consider the homophobic songs of Allen Iverson from a few years ago as one reason why).

Mitcham tries not to make a big deal out of being gay and I have no problem with that. But not mentioning that he is gay and that his partner and family are there (he did win the gold medal, after all) makes a deal out of it. They certainly didn't have to dwell on it -- they could have panned over to his family, including his partner, use the word 'partner' or some other time when introducing him, and then not talked about it (I wonder how many people would even have noticed?).

I guess that puts an end to the "theory" that the media is (are?) actively endorsing homosexuality and encouraging people to be gay.
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Melodrama, mystical justice, and TV crime shows

Melodrama is often associated simply with women and soap operas with good reason. Soap opera are dominated by romantic relationships where emotions dominate and reason dissipates. However, melodrama is not limited to soap operas. Perhaps surprising to some, it dominates action movies as well -- thus putting Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwartzenegger on a par with daytime soaps, much to the chagrin of guys who watch action flicks in an attempt to show off their masculinity (or at least to retain their identity as guys).

Here I explore some ways in which crime TV shows are melodramatic, and observe some shifts in these programs.

In a book about hard-boiled crime fiction in the United States, Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism (Durham: Duke UP, 2000), the Wesleyan University professor Sean McCann notes of the classical detective story:

Traditionally, the classic detective story celebrated the victory of public knowledge and civic solidarity over the dangers of private desire. It registered that victory formally by bringing the arcane knowledge and peculiar abilities wielded by the detective to bear on the challenge to the social order represented by the villain, suggesting thereby that there was no specialized knowledge that could not prove socially useful just as there was no strife or dissension that could not be absorbed by a healthy civil society (4).

The elements of the classic detective story, especially in McCann's terms, are a detective who has access to arcane knowledge and/or special abilities, a criminal who represents "private desire," and a social order that is threatened by the latter. The latter in fact is the cause of the crime, an act that destabilizes the social order, or at least threatens to do so, especially if private desire can overcome public knowledge and civic solidarity. This way, the victory of the detective is the victory of the society that he (normally) or she represents.

The classic version of this on TV is Dragnet, a show where the cops always solved the crime and where the criminals were almost always punished -- and were publicly identified. The original run of the show was in the 1950's after a debut on radio in 1949. It ran for 276 episodes in the 1950s, before another run of 100 episodes from 1967 to 1970. Perhaps nothing says more of its formula than its success: nearly 400 episodes over about 14 years, in addition to two different rebirths from the 1990s on. The show avoided issues of racial segregation in the Los Angeles police department and other hot topics in exchange for the endorsement of the LAPD (see wikipedia's article on the show here). Part of its formula for success were its straight-forward portrayal of police detectives who solve the crime. The show changes the formula of the classic detective story by making the detective a police officer -- in classic stories or novels the detective is often unwilling to participate or has no need to do so. Sherlock Holmes gives the appearance of not needing to work, though novels about him present an ambiguous portrait of this. Regardless, Sherlock is a bohemian and works only when the fancy strikes him. Police officers, however, have assigned shifts and represent a blue color version of the will of society to contain private desire. Indeed, arcane knowledge becomes markedly less arcane in Dragnet and other detective shows, especially in their police show incarnation.

In addition, Dragnet inspired other shows, perhaps most notably Law & Order. The original Law & Order, despite running for 18 seasons (19 beginning in January), was in danger recently of being canceled and it has inspired its own spin-offs, one of which (Law & Order: SVU) is currently the most popular of the franchise. It is a straight-forward plot-driven procedural, with the first half of the show usually dedicated to police investigation and the second half to the trial and legal issues. The biggest differences between LO and Dragnet are the inclusion of the legal issues and the significant change in that the criminals are not always found guilty. In this way, the show presents ways in which the private desire of criminals may subvert the social order. But the show's formula and the issues presented perhaps helped it achieve its peak popularity in the 2001-2002 season -- one that began a couple weeks after 9/11.

The threat that criminals pose, especially as when they manage to find loopholes in the system, is especially clear on SVU where sex offenders regularly escape justice and are free to threaten other victims -- frequently kids. The perpetrator's escape certainly seems to justify the perception that more cops are needed, but perhaps more importantly scare viewers, predisposing them to staying in and watching more TV. SVU is also more clearly melodramatic: Mariska Hargitay's character often paints the issues in terms of the victims and their feelings. Of course, Stabler represents this in masculine form and Munch routinely addresses the issues in terms of what they mean for Americans, either positively (more leeway for police mean less privacy for individual Americans, while more protection for victims means more threats for Americans). The show features different side characters and has a format that is more open than that of the original show; these characters -- especially the psychologist Huang (especially given the issues that the show raises) -- and its open format, in addition to its stronger melodramatic component, probably explain why it attains higher ratings than the original, even if its ratings are falling.

The melodrama of course continues: police detectives work to maintain and control private desire of criminals who strive to subvert the public order and place individuals in danger. Their inability to solve all crimes only adds to the tension: while they are often successful, a viewer does not know if they are going to solve the case or not.

Monk, as discussed earlier, fits the profile of a classic detective story. Monk is either unwilling or unable to solve crimes because of his lack of interest (despite his need for income) or because his many phobias interfere. However, it is his perception, heightened by his OCD, or his arcane knowledge (or a combination of the two) that allow him to solve crimes. His success rate signals a return to the classical model, where arcane knowledge trumps private desire, despite the obstacles that the detective's own mind create in the form of the OCD and its accompanying phobias (present from the pilot, where the criminal escapes due to Monk's fear of heights).

The popularity of these shows -- over 1000 shows in just these mentioned -- show the model to be a formula that works. Viewers evidently are happy to see justice work, even when they hear of criminals getting off in real life. While I have not watched enough of the CSI franchise to comment on its formula, the shows certainly present a positive role for technology to play a positive role in solving crimes. With the promise that technology offers, not only will all criminals be caught, but no innocent person will be sent to prison (or condemned to death, or executed, for that matter).

The melodramatic aspect of justice emphasizes one final point: the formula that justice often follows is a rational one, divorced from the emotions. This is perhaps most clearly represented by Jack McCoy's character on the original Law & Order who seeks justice -- and punishes those who seek revenge. But his emotional attachment to cases, perhaps best evidenced in his courtroom persona, betrays a commitment to what revenge represents: an emotional attachment.

This emotional attachment, even when in the form of revenge, is not something that should be ignored but embraces, argues the late philosopher Robert Solomon. Revenge has a long history and is found in the Bible. Its positive contribution to the topic of justice? Attachment to the cause of justice. While Derrida argues that justice is impossible based on the impossibility of creating laws that apply to its implementation in a legal system (and as such in a given application of those laws), he does not that the act of creating a legal system is a mystical act, one of a foundation. The mystical foundation of justice, however, is not just about the establishment of a legal code. It is about the foundation of a society to which one feels attached. One does not want to be an American because it's a rational choice: it is one that has a highly charged emotional one -- one that explains the fervor of patriotic and nationalist sentiments, evidenced especially in recent times (i.e., after 9/11).

I "feel" (sorry for the pun) that this explanation is rather brief. I will try to update in the future as it is part of my research (not that I have readers at this point...)

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Friends, dysfunctional friends, and Thanksgiving

My favorite episode of Friends is "The One with the Boobies," an episode that has Stephen Fisher play Pheobe's psychiatrist boyfriend who annoys her friends by analyzing them. Based on a single joke by Chandler, he deduces that Chandler is an only child and that his parents divorced before he hit puberty, calling it a "textbook" case of such behavior. He suggests that Ross subconsciously knew that he was marrying a lesbian, either because of low self-esteem or because he was trying to compensate for the attention he received from his parents due to a sibling who was perceived to be a failure. His best work of analysis is with the show itself: when Phoebe wants to break up with him he condemns the friends, saying that it is typical behavior of a dysfunctional group of friends. "Love me, need me, define me" characterizes their relationship and he says that it is ridiculous that they drink coffee "from oversized coffee cups that may as well have nipples on them." In this, he accurately summarizes the show, one that was incredibly safe and, excuse the pun, friendly over its lengthy run.

Perhaps nothing was more Friends than its Thanksgiving specials. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks someone wrote an article that I saw on the web talking about the choice of food for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, as Chandler unwittingly notes on the show, isn't about one's favorite foods (he would rather eat macaroni and cheese than turkey). The foods for Thanksiving are not people's favorite -- but they are comfort foods (Chandler chooses a comfort food of his own, perhaps in an effor to find solace in a holiday that was traumatic in some way for him). The thesis of the article I read was that Thanksgiving is a holiday about comfort -- and Friends, a show that never challenged its viewers or even convention, provided just that over the years. The TV sets showing Friends may well have had nipples on them, but that's precisely what the show offerred. That's why the show ended the way it did (with Ross and Rachel together).
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Monk, the classic detective story, and OCD

In many ways, USA's TV series Monk is a version of the classic detective story: an unwilling detective solves crimes through his arcane knowledge. In this case (sorry about the pun), Monk is not quite unwilling (he is a former police officer) but is somewhat incapable due to his OCD. Of course, the OCD serves as his "arcane knowledge" as in many instances he is able to pick up on details that others overlooked. In other instances, it is his attention to detail (a benefit of the OCD, it seems) combined with arcane knowledge that allows him to see clue where others do not.

One example is the opening scene of the pilot. Monk notices the odor of cigarettes in the curtains (other detectives apparently did not; it should be noted that a smoker probably wouldn't be able to pick up on the odor, but not all of the officers are smokers, though none are identified one way or another). Captain Stottlemeyer suggests that the murder victim was the smoker (why couldn't it have been any other visitor to the apartment?), but Monk noticed that the woman was a Calvinist and would not have smoked (unless she wasn't very devout, but perhaps the evidence of her religion also suggested that she was devout enough for that to be the case). The ability of Monk to connect the cigarette smoke (unnoticed by the other officers) and the clue that showed her to be a Calvinist (arcane knowledge), together make for a clue (one that bore out, in the end).

As a classic detective story and a show geared toward a mainstream audience (despite being on cable TV), and not to mention the limited budget, the plotlines tend toward the conventional and feature happy endings. Serious topics are rarely discussed and the crimes, while being "bad" activities, are not the rapes, child moletations, or dark conspiracies like one finds on Law and Order SVU or even Law and Order Criminal Intent (or even the original Law and Order). Monk varies from these shows in that the guilty party is always punished (except for the ongoing case of Monk's wife). It is a self-enclosed melodrama with the sugary melodramatic moments of Mariska Hargitay on SVU or the soap opera, or even the action melodrama of Stallone and Schwarzenegger films. It provides for happy endings (except for the resolution of Trudy's death and Monk never gets better) and light viewing.

Perhaps the only serious issue (it doesn't address single parenthood, despite both of Monk's assistants being single mothers) the show presents is Monk's struggle with OCD. Of course, the show does not provide a real-life solution for the problem: medication. There was one episode when Monk did take medication but he didn't respond well to it. In real life, there are several meds available and one of them is sure to help, though not all patients will have all their issues solved by meds or therapy. I recall reading a note about this, I thought on wikipedia (it's not there anymore, if it ever was; maybe it was an earlier version that has been modified since then or it was somewhere else), where the show was questioned for not solving some of the predicaments Monk finds himself in as a result of his quirks. Nearly every episode has him asking for a wipe after shaking hands with someone; in an early episode after asking for one after (or, if he was out of wipes, refusing to) shaking hands with a black man, he is accused of racism. The commenter was suggesting that he could avoid the racism charge by pointing out that he has OCD and responds the same way with everyone, making it clear that he is not racist. However, it should be noted that not saying that someone is mentally ill is the correct way of dealing with people with psychological disorders. Much of Monk's behavior, while explained by his illness, is not acceptable, and it should be pointed out every time possible that it is not tolerable. It was better for Monk's adapation and improvement of his condition that people think he's a racist so that he might someday shake people's hands without needing a wipe. In this aspect, I appreciate the show and what it does with his condition. At times I tune out during instances of that (like the phone call to 911 when he complains about his foster son's dirty diaper), though I have the choice to tune it out. Someone with OCD has to live with it. Those who live with people with OCD have to live with it too.
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