My grandmother and I used to watch a lot of television, that’s about all you can do when there’s decades between folks and one is suffering from lupus and dementia. And in all of the shows we watched, we watched a ton of crime television. And while you have heard me talk about Criminal Minds twice, I have yet to discuss my complicated relationship with another show my grandmother and I loved: Law and Order: SVU.
For those of you that do not know Law and Order: SVU is a show that started in the 1990s centering around the Special Victims Unit of the New York Police Department. By special victims, they mean mostly sex crimes but also children and at risk individuals. This fictional, serialized show has been on the show for years now and mostly centers around the detectives of the SVU and their ADAs and sometimes their families even though that’s usually boring. We’ve seen at least 5 ADAs on the show, several detectives (but you can pry Chris Meloni from my cold dead hands as best partner for Benson) and now has the unique position of being a very female run show as series regular Mariska Hargitay (Olivia Benson) is now the lead actress and a head writer.
As a show, Law and Order: SVU is a fantastic time capsule. Early episodes talk about the murder of trans women in far less than kind words and discuss homosexuality as part mental illness and part alternative lifestyle. Episode topics range from concerns about racism, terrorists, the shootings of unarmed black men and even topical issues like incels and Gamergate and oh, celebrities are racist now. The mileage on how some of these episodes has aged varies, it’s almost painful to go back and watch episodes where the death of a trans woman is just a thing to mostly laugh about but then it’s triumphant to have a gay bashing case solved and done with dignity.
What has also expanded is Mariska Hargitay’s role going from second fiddle to Christopher Meloni to running the whole damn show. She’s now department head and seeing her go from just Detective Benson to Sargent to Lieutenant is for some, inspirational and powerful. For me, if you’ve read my blog, know that I have mixed feelings about Benson’s characterization. To suffice to say, I dislike the idea that for a woman to be strong she must be brutalized and she must constantly sacrifice her personal happiness for her job. Benson is perpetually at risk of losing her son, she can’t maintain a relationship, she is assaulted while undercover and clearly has PTSD: let the woman rest. Her pain is a driving plot point as a biological woman who has seen some shit, it would be nice just to have a lady in power not be the Joan d’Arc of misery for her entire series.
So what’s the appeal? Why do we still watch Law and Order: SVU? Most crime shows would have ended by now but no, we are still concerned about this group of mostly flawed people doing some crime solving. To be honest, it’s great to imagine a world where women are believed when they are victims of crimes and the bad guys get got and trauma is a collective and people are mostly supportive. It’s a fictionalized New York where the cops listen, women are heard and justice is clear. Even in the episode where the stories are the most murky and the morals the most gray, for the most part, the illusion of change must be maintained and things are for the most part okay.
September 26th, Law and Order: SVU will start its 21st season. It’s record-breaking, history-making and vitally important as a part of the collective fabric that is our pop culture. For as long as there are crimes against women that go unpunished, children that face harm and social issues that are too taboo to talk about: we will need a show like SVU to make sense of the bedlam that is our day to day lives.
