RonPrice
Mr. RonPrice
LAW AND ORDER
By late evening, say 8:30 p.m. after, I’ve had a day of reading, writing, research, what I sometimes refer to as independent scholarship, as well as whatever social activity and domestic work has to be attended to--one of the programs I’ve been watching on TV, off-and-on in these first years of my retirement from FT, PT and casual and volunteer work, is Law & Order(L&O). It is the longest running drama on television, some two decades now, and has consistently included religious themes and issues in its storylines. There has been, as far as I know, virtually no research into the portrayal of religion in the program. This prose-poem will examine: (i) how religion and religious concerns are dealt with in this drama, this who-dun-it series and (ii) some of my own views on religion.
The show was piloted in 1989, the year I started teaching at Thornlie College of Technical and Further Education in Perth Western Australia. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a spin-off of L&O, starring Mariska Hargitay premiered on 20 September 1999 the very week I moved to a town by the ocean in Tasmania for a sea-change and an early retirement after 30 years as a teacher. This series is still going strong.
I will try to assess the implications of the views of religion and religious practices in L&O and its spin-offs. I will argue that this drama’s views of religion represent a common view of religion in the USA in particular and in the West in general, that is: religious devotion is tolerable as long as: (a) it is of a socially acceptable variety, (b) it is not taken to irrational extremes; and (c) it does not harm other persons. It is a view I hold as a Bahá'í, although I have often felt somewhat as a strange outsider since the Bahá'í Faith is the newest of the world’s religions on the planet and I take my religion seriously, indeed, it is a way of life for me. -Ron Price with thanks to Dan W. Clanton, Jr., “These Are Their Stories: Views of Religion in Law and Order, The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Volume 4, Summer, 2003.
Each episode adheres to a standard format:
the routine is as predictable as the sun rising
in the morning-one can shut one’s brain right
off and go into visual-auditory-sensory mode.
The mechanisms of the criminal justice system
are given by good old exec-producer Dick Wolf.
No character arcs, nothing complex and personal
in relationships, no family woven-in to get in the
way of storytelling. Storytelling, tales and issues
ripped from the headlines and thus the narratives
of the show represent the events and concerns of
a large segment of America from the 1990s & the
2000s--into these years of this new 3rd millennium.
There is no essence, no real substance to religion
in this series; religion is just one among many of
the factors in human behavior sometimes productive
for the protagonists and destructive for perpetrators.
The total lack of any character development as well
as formal boundaries of the cop and lawyer genre
inhibits any in-depth substantive investigation into
religion. The show is bound to a simple functionalism
in life and a view of religion as pragmatism in reality
and life functioning as a myth that builds confidence
in our present social system—turning any horrendous
crimes of passion into intellectual puzzles giving any
reassurance that in spite of threats to social order we
need not lose our rational equilibrium as the Western-
American criminal justice system, a workable moral
guide punishes evil and provides security for the
good and law-abiding citizens that we viewers are.
L&O advocates that people should accept personal
responsibility for their actions, no matter what their
upbringing, motivations, or situation......Within this
more general call for personal responsibility, it only
makes sense to portray religious believers as a........
specifically culpable group for their actions, even if it
is their religious tradition that prescribes their behavior,
their action, or motivation in question.........People may
believe what they will, but when their belief turns into
illegal action, they are responsible for that action, not
their spiritual leader, not their congregation or tradition.
L&O is tied to pragmatic, economic, and ethical
concerns. L&O is, in my view, one of the most
intriguing, routinized and comfortable views that
is found of religion on television in these hectic
days of international tensions & social complexity.
For me is is a marvellous sedative after a busy day
and it helps get me ready for a good sleep at night
knowing that the world is in the hands of Dick Wolf
and the gang and especially the very pretty Mariska
Magdolina Hargitay who speaks Hungarian, French,
Spanish, Italian & English and makes over a quarter
of a million dollars for every episode she helps make.
Ron Price
5 April 2010
By late evening, say 8:30 p.m. after, I’ve had a day of reading, writing, research, what I sometimes refer to as independent scholarship, as well as whatever social activity and domestic work has to be attended to--one of the programs I’ve been watching on TV, off-and-on in these first years of my retirement from FT, PT and casual and volunteer work, is Law & Order(L&O). It is the longest running drama on television, some two decades now, and has consistently included religious themes and issues in its storylines. There has been, as far as I know, virtually no research into the portrayal of religion in the program. This prose-poem will examine: (i) how religion and religious concerns are dealt with in this drama, this who-dun-it series and (ii) some of my own views on religion.
The show was piloted in 1989, the year I started teaching at Thornlie College of Technical and Further Education in Perth Western Australia. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a spin-off of L&O, starring Mariska Hargitay premiered on 20 September 1999 the very week I moved to a town by the ocean in Tasmania for a sea-change and an early retirement after 30 years as a teacher. This series is still going strong.
I will try to assess the implications of the views of religion and religious practices in L&O and its spin-offs. I will argue that this drama’s views of religion represent a common view of religion in the USA in particular and in the West in general, that is: religious devotion is tolerable as long as: (a) it is of a socially acceptable variety, (b) it is not taken to irrational extremes; and (c) it does not harm other persons. It is a view I hold as a Bahá'í, although I have often felt somewhat as a strange outsider since the Bahá'í Faith is the newest of the world’s religions on the planet and I take my religion seriously, indeed, it is a way of life for me. -Ron Price with thanks to Dan W. Clanton, Jr., “These Are Their Stories: Views of Religion in Law and Order, The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Volume 4, Summer, 2003.
Each episode adheres to a standard format:
the routine is as predictable as the sun rising
in the morning-one can shut one’s brain right
off and go into visual-auditory-sensory mode.
The mechanisms of the criminal justice system
are given by good old exec-producer Dick Wolf.
No character arcs, nothing complex and personal
in relationships, no family woven-in to get in the
way of storytelling. Storytelling, tales and issues
ripped from the headlines and thus the narratives
of the show represent the events and concerns of
a large segment of America from the 1990s & the
2000s--into these years of this new 3rd millennium.
There is no essence, no real substance to religion
in this series; religion is just one among many of
the factors in human behavior sometimes productive
for the protagonists and destructive for perpetrators.
The total lack of any character development as well
as formal boundaries of the cop and lawyer genre
inhibits any in-depth substantive investigation into
religion. The show is bound to a simple functionalism
in life and a view of religion as pragmatism in reality
and life functioning as a myth that builds confidence
in our present social system—turning any horrendous
crimes of passion into intellectual puzzles giving any
reassurance that in spite of threats to social order we
need not lose our rational equilibrium as the Western-
American criminal justice system, a workable moral
guide punishes evil and provides security for the
good and law-abiding citizens that we viewers are.
L&O advocates that people should accept personal
responsibility for their actions, no matter what their
upbringing, motivations, or situation......Within this
more general call for personal responsibility, it only
makes sense to portray religious believers as a........
specifically culpable group for their actions, even if it
is their religious tradition that prescribes their behavior,
their action, or motivation in question.........People may
believe what they will, but when their belief turns into
illegal action, they are responsible for that action, not
their spiritual leader, not their congregation or tradition.
L&O is tied to pragmatic, economic, and ethical
concerns. L&O is, in my view, one of the most
intriguing, routinized and comfortable views that
is found of religion on television in these hectic
days of international tensions & social complexity.
For me is is a marvellous sedative after a busy day
and it helps get me ready for a good sleep at night
knowing that the world is in the hands of Dick Wolf
and the gang and especially the very pretty Mariska
Magdolina Hargitay who speaks Hungarian, French,
Spanish, Italian & English and makes over a quarter
of a million dollars for every episode she helps make.
Ron Price
5 April 2010
