A female audience can take pleasure in the fact that CSI subverts most dominant ideologies that the police forces are full of males, and any females would usually seem quite “tomboy-ish”. CSI has a hugely glamorous appearance and so all of the females are “beautiful”and “perfect”. So females can take some pleasure in the fact that not only are females in the series but there is an equal male to female ratio in the major cast. The representation of women in CSI is what would probably be considered as a subversion to the dominant ideology because in CSI the women are strong characters, they wield guns and solve crimes. Although there are such programmes as the bill where for years there have been very strong characters in a female role.
CSI is a huge Hollywood produced series, one of the most watched in America. Hollywood produced films and series, are overly glamorous in appearance of cast and overall effect. The audience quite often will take a pleasure in relating with the characters, and so perfect and beautiful people are very nice to relate to because it makes you feel far better.
As to the glamorous appearance of CSI, it is shown to the audience in different ways, the characters all have perfectly white teeth, that are utterly straight. They are all very in shape and are great at their job. None of them under achieve in the workplace. They also always solve the case that they are working on. A film such as Spider man does the same thing, but in a different way, after a younger audience watches Spider man they all pretend to be him, because he has super powers. In the same way the audience of CSI will aile to be like the characters in CSI, because they are perfect and have no problems in their life.
CSI, like other series such as lost follows a format that is very familiar to the audience. It follows a format that initially sets up the story, or possibly recaps on an ongoing story. Then a twist in the story is established, and then you are quite often left with a resolution or at the complete other end of the scale you are left with a story on a complete cliffhanger. Lost uses this very technique, to establish a twist and end on a cliffhanger. This brings the audience into each episode craving to know what happens next, the so called “to be contined...”.
Lost is a very famous series and is famous for its cliffhangers, which draw the audience in, because once an audience has seen the cliffhanger it is very hard for them to stop watching and change channel. CSI although doesn't really continue throughout the series with cliffhangers, i does you twists in events within the story, almost like little cliffhangers throughout. Twists in the story, create an exciting enigma for the audience, the usual enigma at the beginning of CSI is the obvious; “who killed the victim” type question. But as each episode progresses it starts to unravel a mishmash of events (most of which are quite unlikely) that really get the audience thinking about who caused the murder and how it was caused, there is none of this Scooby Do type nature e.g. “it was the janitor all along”.
As for enigmas as mentioned above, they in themselves bring the audience into watching CSI, they make the audience ask questions usually that are set by the director at the beginning of a text, but are set throughout CSI, like many detective series. The audience will usually receive a pleasure from the questions that they want answered get answered. So for instance; CSI Las Vegas will always begin with a dead body that is found by a civilian or a body that has alrady been found and is set on the crime scene. There is no explanation of how the person died or how they got where they were. Instant questions are queried, “How did they die?”, “How did they end up there dead?”.
This brings me to CSIs very unlikely and improbable story lines, the deaths in each episode are usually quite far fetched, such as a bullet killing a victim, but it was made of ice, so there was no bullet that could be found, anyone can conclude that in reality the bullet would have melted from the heat in the gun barrel. This sense of fantasy ideas, offers the audience almost a type of escapism which allows the to leave the real world behind and pretend that crazy murders like this happen everyday in Las Vegas, and that you could be this super intelligent CSI who somehow always comes to the right conclusion. The same is true with the fact that the CSIs interrogate the victims and suspects. In reality, that would be the detectives job and so the audience can again perhaps believe they could solve the murders and do the whole “good cop bad cop act”.
The representation of the CSI department in this program is very respected and very efficient, they never get a crime case wrong, and they always catch the criminal. An audience watching this would gain a great sense of security from it. Dominant ideology to the American and more and more so now to the British public of the police force, is laziness the classic image of a fat policeman eating a doughnut comes straight to mind. With CSI though, they are seen as the complete opposite, and this is enhanced, by the gory and over the top murders in the show. The audience feels safer and more contempt with the police force which i'm sure is classed as an audience pleasure.
Although as previously mentioned there is a fantasy side to CSI with the over the top murders and the fact the CSI always catch the bad guy. There is a distinct side of realism, hard hitting issues and distressing murders. A episode in series 2 deals with the murder of a 1 month old baby that has be smothered by it's parents. CSI has always taken the approach that they don't just talk about the victims of the murder, they are shown. So there was a dead 1 month old baby in the episode. Other proof of this kind of realism would be the characters themselves, you follow their emotions and troubles throughout the series, like Gill Grissom (head of CSI) is followed through the series as he gradually starts to lose his hearing, or Catherine Willows (CSI) as she goes through a divorce and has to take care of her daughter alone whilst working crazy work shifts. You also get you watch some of the CSIs personal feelings about the case they are working on. This kind of thing really grounds the audience back down to earth when they have looked past the glamorous appearance and the fantasy type happenings.
CSI uses a very unique and interesting point of view when looking at the dead bodies on the autopsy table, a lot of the time it will be a gun shot wound or a stab wound. The creators of CSI have very cleverly used a part camera and part CGI shot that they will use throughout the series, which is the camera flying into the would as if you were the original weapon that entered it. So you can see exactly how the wound was inflicted. This has never really been done in this way for any programs and is a really nice touch from a audiences point of view. Again as before when i mentioned the computer game style of CSI, the shots where the camera enters the bodies and follows through the cuts to show the extent of the womb, look very much like a computer game shot.
The props in CSI are all very official looking, like the machines and the fingerprint dusting kits, the metal suitcases and the UV lights. These are especially pleasing to a male audience, the reason for this is because they resemble gadgets like you would see in films such as James Bond, the pleasure comes from one of two things. Wanting the gadgets the audience are pleased by it because they really want to use the gadgets in CSI because of how fun it looks. The other reason would be wanting to use them for their use, in CSI using the gadgets helps the crime to be solved, and the audience wants to solve crimes and use their “skills” to “save the day”.
In conclusion i can very clearly identify that CSI offers many types of pleasures to an audience, a very fantasy driven out of this world exciting feeling, but also has a contrasting view, a view in which the audience can identify with the CSI because they see their private moments. The pleasure they receive from the perfect and glamorous life that the CSIs have that they themselves wished they had also is a big contributing factor of CSIs pleasures. The audience gets a final pleasure also in the gadgets that they use in CSI, that look fun to use and could help to save the day. So what pleasures does CSI bring to it's audience? Many is the answer, through a combination of gadgets, perfection of the characters, fantasy of the show and the private moments of the CSI.
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Luke Yates
