The Shawshank Redemption Movie

This movie was a great movie to show corruption in the prison system. It also shows that the justice system can send an innocent man to prison for something he didn't do.  The warden, the security guards, and even the inmates all do illegal acts in Shawshank State Prison. You see inmates getting murder, you see inmates getting rapped, dealing drugs. This is what films portray to us how life is in prison for people. Not all movies have happy ending, but this one does. Andy gets away and he gets revenge on all the people who treated him badly.

Paul Mason "The Screen Machine" and Rafter Ch.6

In the article there has been little work on the effect of media representations of prison on public attitudes. The media coverage on prisons has contributed to the public's misinformation about prisons. This kind of misrepresentation on prisons don't only effect the public's information about them but also the the prisons practitioners.  People who get hired for to work for prisons go in there thinking they know how it will be and find out it is nothing like they were informed through films and news media. Most people get their information about prisons from movies, which most of the time are misrepresented. Also, if you think about it, you never see prison media in newspapers or on news channels. It's really hard to get information from the guards or anyone who works there.  Nelli's mentions in his article that there are no more than 12 different plots in all prison films that have been made, like escape, riots, inmate and officer violence, wrongful convictions, and etc. Since the 1940's prion films have declined and I bet it's because they are all the same and have the same plot line. No one likes watching the same stuff over and over, like they all tell you when you can eat, sleep, play and make phone calls. One thing prion films are good for are to make the audience think twice before committing a crime. I know I wouldn't want to be isolated from the world ever.

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 We find our self watching prison films because we like seeing justice served and we like to see it work properly, which isn't always the case.  When it comes to news media corrections and incarceration receives very little attention because they think it's not  newsworthy enough, which isn't true. I think the corrections and news media have failed to communicate with each other properly. We believe people who are in prison are being dehumanized but seeing movies that show them making friendships make us look at them more like humans like they are and not like animals locked in cages to be laughed at and watched. We hope that the system is working to rehabilitate them so when they are released in the real world they will  do what is right and set a new paths in their life. But we know most of the time this doesn't work. When locked in prison for so long inmates don't think they can make it in the real world so they commit more crime because that's all they know how to do and believe in. We watch these films because we want to see friendships building, we don't want to see them suffering alone, and to remind us that there are still good people in prisons.
 

Movie: Presumed Innocent

I really enjoyed this movie and I loved the twist at the end of the movie.  I liked how this movie kept me tuned in the whole time. The movie was about a prosecutor who was charged with the murder of his female colleague and mistress. This movie showed how the prosecutors lawyer was a corrupt one by black mailing the judge and bring up a file to scare the other lawyers and judge.  This movie always showed how the detective is corrupt by stealing the glass because that's all they needed to convict him.  Just shows up how ever level of the Justice System is corrupt and how it is influenced by politics.
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Outside Source

During this week I stopped to watch a couple of minutes of Judge Judy. The show was basically about a lady who was suing her ex husband for giving away the wedding ring he gave her to his new wife.  It was pretty funny and watching Judy get so mad and tell people to shut up is funny, I guess this is why this would be infotainment media.  At the end the lady won her case and was told to give his ex wife the ring back or pay her the amount it was worth. I guess it belonged to her because it was given to her and was no longer his to take.

"Film Lawyers: Above anf Beyond the Law" and Rafter Ch. 5

I really enjoyed the article.  They mention that law films are chosen as a site for film because of the dramaturgical aspects of the law and legal process and the subtext of the law being a useful cloak under which many other themes can be played.  I also learned that the most covered theme played out in many law films is the portrayal of lawyers in these types of films.  Also, lawyers take on cases that they aren't going to win but then win anyways.  There is always some kind of miscarriage of justice and they show that not all lawyers are ethical. We find that we like seeing lawyers do unethical things because sometimes they are morally correct, for example in the book To Kill a Mocking Bird . 

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In the reading it mentions that most all courtroom films include a justice figure, a hero who tries to move man-made law ever closer to the ideal until it matches the justice template. Most trial films shown on tv are fictitious. Like in the Greenfield and Osborn reading there is always a bad lawyer or good lawyer trying bend the rules in some way.  This is were is makes is more dramatic for the audience. We want to see the people who do bad things, get punished in someways. Law films don't always involve lawyers and court rooms, like CSI for example, you never see them in a court room. When you watch a lot of law films, they always have people on trial for the worse things ever like, rape or murder.  We never see law films where someone is being put on trial for speeding or stealing someones car.  There are 3 historical evolution in courtroom films: The Law Noirs 1930s-1950s where we have detectives and experimentation a decade where they searched for ways of depicting legal struggles. The Heroic Tradition from 1950s-2060s where they had less character flaws. Depletion of the Genre, where we are less invested in the heroism films and less trial films.

Out Side News Media-Unforgettable episode #2

The show is about a young lady named Carrie Wells who is a detective for the NY police station.  She has a rare condition that enables her to remember just about everything.  She pretty much has a photographic memory to where she can remember everything at a crime scene and in daily living.  This episode was about how a young boy saw his parents get murder and has a hard time talking about it.  The show has an emotional hook to where Carrie comforts the little boy and plays video games with him so he will end up feeling safe around her. The show also has a twist at the end where they thought  they had the killer, the kids uncle but then finds out it was the doctor who was a close friend to the family.  The boy saw the doctors plane on TV and freaked out and that's when they knew it wasn't his uncle. She is seen as the hero in the story line. The show portrays that the police would never solve any cases without her and her special ability. 

CSI episode and CSI and Moral Authority: The Police and science

The CSI episode was a very interesting show. I don't normally watch CSI because there are just too many of them and it would take me years to catch up.  The show was very dramatic which  I liked also, at the same time it was very weird with the whole octopus involvement.  I also liked how there was a turning point at the end which makes the audience more on their toes because they don't know what to expect next.   In CSI shows they always seem to have top of the line technology and always neat/clean to where there is no way they could lose evidence nor ever be wrong.  They also act like they have no budget to where they could always afford to work on 2 cases at once with no limitations. My least favorite part in the show was when they were disecting the dead body up close trying to gross out viewers like me.

The article talked about how CSI shows have emotional hooks, trying to draw us in and make us have feelings towards whatever is happening. Like in the CSI show we watched in class, an emotional hook would be when the guy was playing with the invisible ball to comfort the little boy and make him more abundance to telling what he saw at the train station. They also mentions that CSI science is always right and we need to trust in it. Also CSI tries to deliver that science is very complicated by the guys wearing white coats and them using words we have heard before. The shows also try to represent that work is a very happy place and you always want to be there because it is so spotless and organized. Overall CSI is so unrealistic with their science never being wrong and they don't need the police involvement to solve any case because they are all smart and can always recreate any crime scene easily. CSI projects the image that all cases are solvable by highly technical science but really so many problems are intractable.