In his ‘Last Week Tonight’ show, John Oliver slammed the ‘Law & Order‘ franchise for selling a “complete fantasy” of law enforcement. We all know in our criminal justice system, there are two separate yet equally important groups: The police, who investigate the crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. However, Oliver is calling them out as “bull****”.
Previously, the host has cleverly distilled many complex problems in our society into simple language, the common people can understand. By doing so, he has created many changes which brought about the term, “The John Oliver Effect”. With that being said, let us now dive into know what the host has now debunked for us regarding one of the highest grossing TV shows, ‘Law & Order’.
Why Did John Oliver Slam ‘Law & Order’?
On ‘Last Week Tonight’ show, the host of the satirical-investigative-comedy-news, John Oliver fiercely criticized the ‘Law & Order’ franchise for selling an unrealistic portrait of U.S. law enforcement. According to the host, the series sells “a complete fantasy that too many people in this country are only too willing to buy.” He goes on to call it a “commercial” for a “defective product.”
“If a medical show was giving us inaccurate information, we would say it’s dangerous,” Oliver said. If ‘Grey’s Anatomy‘ put forth inaccurate details about vaccines, he argued, “we’d probably be having a conversation about it, [and] that’s essentially what Law & Order is doing.” “One study found ‘viewers of crime dramas are more likely to believe the police are successful at lowering crime, use force only when necessary, and that misconduct does not typically lead to false confessions,’” said Oliver. “Which would be great if it were true.”
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What Are All The Arguments Put Forth By Oliver?
John Oliver maintained that the show not only glorifies police and investigators but also justifies brutality as being a necessary function of the criminal justice system. He used clips from the show to illustrate his points. The host then singled out ‘Law & Order: SVU’, for putting forth the narrative that sexual assault cases are often solved. However, in reality it reflects a much darker truth. Oliver brought out the statistics that in cases of sexual assault, 975 out of 1000 perpetrators walks free.
He pointed out that rather than “depicting a flawed system riddled with structural racism,” the show portrays “exceptionally competent cops working within a largely fair framework that mostly convicts white people.” Oliver also pointed out that the show is essentially serving as a propaganda for the police and “makes a lot of choices that significantly distort the big picture of police.”
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