Crime Shows

Crime shows have always appealed to me. Before watching Lewis I watched Morse, and before watching Morse I watched The Wire. And Dexter. And CSI. And Baantjer.

In fact, I have memories of watching Baantjer when I was about 9 or 10, and sneaking downstairs to have my mum allow me to watch CSI when I was 11.
I have been a big enough fan ("obsessed") of CSI:Miami in the past to write fanfiction (on a public forum to which I will not link for reasons of embarrassment).

But I lied in one of my earlier posts. I wasn't done watching Lewis. I still am watching it - I pay less than 75p per episode to rent them on ITV Player for three months. I *was* however done watching all freely accessible Lewis episodes.
I'm also watching Baantjer - again, since I haven't seen it since I must've been 15 or so.
There is always a bit of adjusting when I watch a Baantjer episode, not just because I have to switch from English to Dutch, but also because 45 minutes seems extraordinarily short and rushed after you've just seen a complicated case taking 2 hours to be solved and because it's incredibly formulaic.

In that sense I like Lewis and Morse much better, not because it's more realistic - it's not - but at least because you need to keep track of things. And because it's set in Oxford, that does help something, for I am not the greatest fan of Amsterdam.

What I do like about Baantjer is that I'm dying to do an analysis of how it may reflect social attitudes in the Netherlands from the mid-90s to early-00s.
Take for instance Vera Prins, who in the novels is actually a man but a woman in the show, and whose female-ness is made important in the TV show. She is highly competent and intelligent, and often on the receiving end of Vledder's not-so-funny-or-innocent innuendo. In an episode in the first series, Buitendam appoints her as sexual harrassment officer at the station, and she remarks to Vledder that she'd like to write him up for it, which, according to her, should not be that difficult. Interestingly, somehow she doesn't report him for harrassing her, and when she gives another young female officer approached by Vledder a flyer, this officer replies that it's not harrassment.
If I remember correctly, Vledder and Prins actually date at one point or another.
What this seems to imply is not only that it's only weak women incapable of verbally defending themselves who experience the negative effects of sexual harrassment, but also that if a man sticks with it long enough, it will have a certain success rate. So although Prins defies explicit gender stereotyping by being a very competent detective, the general implicit attitude towards women is still old-fashioned.

Another interesting aspect is the relation between Vledder and chief detective De Cock (yes, you may laugh, but it is a normal Dutch surname), in which Vledder, eternal jeans-and-leather-jacket-clad womaniser, fulfills the role of Watson to middle class De Cock's Sherlock; when Vledder-Watson states something during the investigation that reflects supposed audience sentiments; e.g. when an underworld figure is shot, that the case will resolve itself, or when a neo-nazi is found murdered, that he must've deserved it (and thus the case is not worthy of too much effort); De Cock then usually follows by stating that every case deserves the same effort and attention. This is emphasised by the end-of-episode segments, where the team meets at De Cock's house, where his wife (in a traditional gender role) serves snacks and drinks and De Cock explains how he knew whodunnit and why, and then the team and Mrs De Cock reflect on it. Mrs De Cock then often offers some sort of emotional statement, to which De Cock replies, for instance, that a murder is still a murder, thus implying that regardless of whatever emotion people feel towards a certain event, law is supposed to trump all.

But, yeah, seeing are there are 123 episodes, making the time to watch all isn't too difficult but to analyse all is. But I will. At some point in the future.

A fun thing about studing Criminology is that you always have a good excuse to watch crime shows - "research".
Tomorrow in Forensic Science and Justice we will discuss the portrayal of Forensics - i.e. we will discuss that CSI is evil.

It's quite interesting how some of my past activities somehow always come back years later. Of course the CSI-effect is something to be worried about and I never expected NOT to discuss it, but what I find interesting is that I had to do an argumentative presentation on a topic in my 5th year in secondary school in Dutch class and I did so about the CSI-effect (and how I didn't believe in it). I forgot how I structured my arguments (or what they were) but I do remember that my delivery was far from flawless - but Mrs Hoff was still kind enough to give me a pass on it.

Criminology. It was inevitable.