Love them or hate them, heroes or villains; there is no doubt that lawyers make good entertainment. The offerings of current television shows such as The Good Wife, Suits and Law and Order are evidence that legal dramas continue to be a favorite subject for pop culture media. While one can easily find hundreds of titles when searching for entertainment in the legal genre, the characterization of fictional lawyers varies widely from average decent citizens to crusading heroes on the positive side, and from mediocre drudges to corrupt, amoral villains on the negative side. The popularity of the legal drama and the potential impact has led to concern and scrutiny by the legal profession over the last few decades. One study conducted among first year law students found the prevalence of lawyers in pop culture to be so pervasive it had a significant influence on the student’s opinions of the law and lawyers (Asimow et al. 427-428). Although the study shows that for the most part this has been a positive influence, Law Professor Michael Asimow expresses concern that along with a host of other issues, a trend toward negative portrayals of lawyers could be drawing a different type of student into law careers than the positive role models that Hollywood used to promote in the “golden” days (16). Asimow also notes that most people do not have personal experience with lawyers and the legal system so their knowledge is gleaned from popular culture (7). When pop culture promotes lawyers as heroes there can be positive impact just as making them villains can have negative impact. Furthermore, unrealistic scenarios such as dramatic courtroom confessions and emphasis on forensic science can create unrealistic expectations of the viewing ...
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Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
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Plea bargains are highly prevalent in the popular television series Law and Order. If a random episode is chosen, there is a high chance that lawyers in the show have offered a plea bargain. While many people would believe that media skews the public’s understanding of how often plea bargains occur, however, this is actually an appropriate representation. According to Heumann, approximately 10% of criminal cases actually continue on to trial (Heumann, 1975). Similarly, as stated by Menkel-Meadow, plea bargains are the reason why there may be congestion in the courts, but a low number of criminals are actually jailed (Menkel-Meadow, 2005).
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In Dan McCall’s essay, “From the Reliable Narrator,” McCall stresses that the lawyer/narrator should be viewed as a reliable and trustworthy source. His perspective on the lawyer a “distinct minority”, as he feels very few view the lawyer in that way. Many critics see the lawyer as the opposite of McCall, and inforce that the lawyer is unreliable and blameworthy. That he is a representation of ‘consumer capitalism” and the he ‘is simply incapable of recognizing-the political and economic forces that have made him what he is” (McCall, 272). McCall uses other critic’s perspectives in order to reflect light on his own. He explains that the lawyer is someone he trusts, when he first read it at the age of eighteen and even now, because the lawyer
Johnny’s experience as an attorney falls far short of being the legal crusader that he envisioned for himself. Rather, it is quite short-lived . His legal career ends abruptly when his unpreparedness for an easy trial against a wealthy white woman causes him to lose the case for his client. Upon his hu...
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