Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Crime Drama Factfile

What is a Crime Drama:
"The police procedural is a sub-genre of the mystery story which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on one single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several unrelated crimes in a single story. While traditional mysteries usually adhere to the convention of having the criminal's identity concealed until the climax, the so-called whodunit, in police procedurals, the perpetrator's identity is often known to the reader from the outset. Police procedurals depict a number of police-related topics such as forensics, autopsies, the gathering of evidence, the use of search warrants and interrogation." Wikipedia
  • two kinds: one-off crime drama
    long-running TV crime drama
  • each crime drama has it's own unique representational aspects
    -> these are not directly related to the crime
  • stereotypical characters:
    policemen and policewomen
    male are more dominant
    victims are often older people

Normally 5 key binaries:

  1. Crime/the police
  2. Criminals/the criminal justice system
  3. Lawyers vs. courts
  4. Social workers vs. the police
  5. Victims vs. the police

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