All-American TV Crime Drama ─ Feminism and Identity Politics in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Why has Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) achieved popularity beyond any other American police procedural television series? How does its unique focus on sex crimes reflect currents in popular culture and feminist critique, and recast traditional crime narratives? This book is the first ever dedicated study of SVU and its treatment of sexual violence, gender and criminality. Through detailed textual and visual analyses of episodes, All-American TV Crime Drama reveals how elements of misogynist feminism and cultural revanchism manifest themselves in SVU, and shows how its use of forensic science offers new fables of objectivity. With chapters devoted to justice, racial and gender dynamics, and the show’s spectatorship, this study is essential reading for students of media, criminality and the phenomenon of sexual violence.

Lisa Cuklanz is Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at Boston College. She has been a Fulbright Scholar, Director of Women’s Studies at Boston College, and co-chaired the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies. She has published extensively on representations of rape in American television and news media, including the monograph Rape on Prime Time: Television, Masculinity, and Sexual Violence (2000).