After reading “Death Wore Black Chiffon,” an article that adresses crime dramas - in particular, CSI - with feminism in mind, I felt compelled to write a response addressing one of my favorite shows (and one that is mentioned in this article) - Criminal Minds. The article was published in 2009, right around when Criminal Minds was airing about its third or fourth seasons. Needless to say, the show has made some strides since then, in terms of the representation of LGBT+ characters.
One of the biggest statements this article makes is the representation of LGBT+ people on CSI. “Since CSI almost always investigates homicides, this means that any time the show portrays members whose lifestyles lie outside the social “norm,” these people must always be considered as capable of killing,” Carlen Lavigne states in the article. This is a dangerous connotation for people outside the “status quo,” and one that further separates them from people who are the “status quo.” Even the episodes that are sympathetic to LGBT+ people aren’t exactly normalizing it.
These statements bring to mind one episode of Criminal Minds - Season 8, Episode 15: "Broken" (2013). In the episode, a gay man is suffering severe mental issues from a conversion camp that are causing him to kill men and women in an act of cleansing himself due to pent up guilt. Ultimately, the team does find this man and gets him help. The episode doesn’t end there, however - the team goes to shut down the conversion therapy camp that this man suffered through. The end of the episode lingers on the evils of the conversion therapy camp, and ultimately, it is the camp that is painted as the true villain of the episode.
Though powerful and heart wrenching, this scene doesn’t exactly normalize LGBT+ people in the way they should be. There is one clip, though. I can’t remember which episode this one is from (it was from around this episode, I believe - maybe even in the same episode), and this small little part shows two team members approaching a gay couple walking their dog in the park. These men are not suspects, are not murderers, are not victims - they simply happened to be in the area and may have seen something, so David Rossi (I believe) needed to ask them a question. This scene is important because it shows a gay couple in a normal way. More scenes like that could do a lot of good for how much harm displaying LGBT+ characters as killers and murder suspects does, showing small tidbits like the two men walking their dog can do a lot of neutralizing good to balance things out and show LGBT+ people in a different light. The same can be said for other crime dramas, too, such as CSI.
Additionally, anyone who watches Criminal Minds on a regular basis knows how notorious the show is for massive cast changes. Would it be too much to ask that Criminal Minds introduce an LGBT+ in the team in their next big shift? That would certainly be a step in the right direction.
(Please note that I have not seen any of Season 12 yet...)
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