Law and Popular Culture

Table Of Contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• About the author(s)/editor(s)
• About the book
• Praise for Law and Popular Culture
• Praise for the First Edition of Law and Popular Culture
• This eBook can be cited
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Part I : Law, Lawyers, and The Legal System
• 1. Introduction to Law and Popular Culture
• 1.01 What this book is about
• 1.02 Definitions of “popular culture” and “popular legal culture”
• 1.02.1 The double meaning of “popular culture” and “popular legal culture”
• 1.02.2 Popular culture and high culture
• 1.03 Why a course in law and popular culture?
• 1.04 The relationship between popular culture and the law
• 1.04.1 Popular culture as reflection
• 1.04.2. Media effects
• 1.04.3 The cultural study of law
• 1.05 The (many) meanings of cultural texts
• 1.05.1 The feedback loop between law and popular culture— Miranda and Dragnet
• 1.05.2 The process of meaning-making—signifier and signified
• 1.05.3 Justitia’s blindfold
• 1.05.4 How do films and TV shows produce contested meanings?
• 1.05.5 Viewer-response theory
• 1.06 Filmmaking and reality
• 1.06.1 Micro and macro reality
• 1.06.2 Making legal films and TV shows seem “real”
• 1.06.4 Filmmaking today
• 1.06.5 Intertextuality
• Notes
• 2. The Adversary System and the Trial Genre: Assigned Film: Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
• 2.01 Anatomy of a Murder—The film and the book
• 2.02 The trial genre
• 2.03 Anatomy and the Production Code
• 2.03.1 Hays, Breen, and the Production Code
• 2.03.2 The decline and fall of the Production Code
• 2.03.3 Anatomy of a Murder and the Production Code
• 2.04 Justice, the adversary system, and Anatomy of a Murder
• 2.04.1 Law and justice
• 2.04.2 The adversary system
• 2.04.3 The inquisitorial system
• 2.05 Legal ethics in Anatomy of a Murder
• 2.06 Defenses to homicide in Anatomy of a Murder
• 2.06.1 The unwritten law
• 2.06.2 Insanity
• 2.06.3 Manslaughter
• 2.07 Film theory and cinematic technique in Anatomy of a Murder
• 2.07.1 Editing
• 2.07.2 Editing—Preminger’s long takes and deep focus
• 2.07.3 Distance and objectivity
• 2.07.4 Music
• 2.08 Review questions
• Notes
• 3. Lawyers as Heroes: Assigned Film: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
• 3.01 To Kill a Mockingbird—The book and the film
• 3.02 Harper Lee and the Scottsboro boys
• 3.02.1 Messages from the author and filmmaker
• 3.02.2 The Scottsboro boys
• 3.03 Lawyers as heroes
• 3.03.1 The revisionist view of Atticus Finch
• 3.03.2 Heroic intertextuality—Young Mr. Lincoln and Mockingbird
• 3.04 Tom Robinson was clearly innocent, right?
• 3.05 The trial strategy of Atticus Finch
• 3.06 Atticus Finch and Boo Radley
• 3.07 Filmic analysis of Mockingbird
• 3.07.1 Robert Mulligan
• 3.07.2 Memories of childhood
• 3.07.3 Between two worlds—Childhood and law
• 3.08 Melodrama and Mockingbird
• 3.08.1 The melodramatic mode in American movies
• 3.08.2 Melodrama in films with racial themes
• 3.09 Review questions
• Notes
• 4. Lawyers as Villains: Assigned Film: The Verdict (1982)
• 4.01 The Verdict—Book and film
• 4.01.1 David Mamet and Sidney Lumet
• 4.01.2 Paul Newman
• 4.02 Public opinion of lawyers
• 4.03 Bad lawyers in the movies
• 4.04 The relationship between works of pop culture and public attitudes—The cultivation effect
• 4.04.1 Popular culture as follower of public opinion
• 4.04.2 Popular culture as leader of public opinion
• 4.04.3 The cultivation effect
• 4.04.4 Studies of the cultivation effect
• 4.04.5 Lawyers on television versus lawyers in the movies
• 4.04.6 Viewer response theory
• 4.05 Ethical problems in The Verdict
• 4.05.1 Witness coaching
• 4.05.2 Ambulance chasing
• 4.05.3 The settlement offer
• 4.06 Legal errors in The Verdict
• 4.07 Redemption of lawyers
• 4.08 The two hemispheres of law practice
• 4.08.1 Distinguishing the hemispheres
• 4.08.2 Ethical issues in the two hemispheres
• 4.08.3 Contingent fees and hourly billing
• 4.09 Storytelling in The Verdict
• 4.09.1 Narrative and narration
• 4.09.2 The classical Hollywood style
• 4.09.3 Variables in narration—Subjectivity and restricted narratives
• 4.09.4 Narrative about narrative
• 4.10 Visual design in The Verdict
• 4.10.1. Interiors in The Verdict
• 4.10.2 The use of the color red
• 4.11 Review questions
• Notes
• 5. The Life of Lawyers: Assigned Film: Counsellor at Law (1933)
• 5.01 Elmer Rice and William Wyler
• 5.01.1 Elmer Rice
• 5.01.2 William Wyler
• 5.02 Lawyer movies of the early 1930s
• 5.03 The life of lawyers
• 5.03.1 A lawyer’s day
• 5.03.2 Lawyers and money
• 5.03.3 Simon & Tedesco
• 5.04 The character of George Simon
• 5.04.1 Simon as a lawyer
• 5.04.2 Simon as a human being
• 5.05 Religion, ethnicity, and class in Counsellor at Law
• 5.05.1 Religion and ethnicity
• 5.05.2 The Depression
• 5.05.3 Class
• 5.06 Jewish lawyers in popular culture
• 5.07 Ethical issues in Counsellor at Law
• 5.07.1 The stock tip
• 5.07.2 The Richter fee
• 5.07.3 Perjury in the Breitstein case
• 5.08 Composition in Counsellor at Law
• 5.09 Review questions
• Notes
• 6. Legal Education: Assigned Film: The Paper Chase (1973)
• 6.01 U.S. legal education
• 6.01.1 U.S. law school is graduate school
• 6.01.2 Harvard Law School
• 6.01.3 The Paper Chase and 1L—The movies and the books
• 6.01.4 The Paper Chase—See it before you go to law school?
• 6.02 The Socratic method
• 6.02.1 In defense of the Socratic method
• 6.02.2 Origins of the Socratic method—And its future
• 6.02.3 Calling on students
• 6.02.4 Kingsfieldism
• 6.02.5 Teaching professional skills
• 6.03 Gender and legal education
• 6.03.1 Guinier’s critique
• 6.03.2 Is there a gender gap?
• 6.03.3 Difference versus equality feminism
• 6.04 The economics of legal education
• 6.04.1 The cost of legal education—and of student loans
• 6.04.2 Law schools in competition
• 6.05 Sound design and composition in The Paper Chase
• 6.05.1 The functions of sound
• 6.05.2 Sound editing
• 6.05.3 Composition
• 6.06 Review questions
• Notes
• 7. Law on Television: Assigned Material: Boston Legal, Season 1, disk 1 (episodes 1–4)
• 7.01 Television—Business and culture
• 7.01.1 Commercials
• 7.02 Lawyers on television
• 7.02.1 Perry Mason
• 7.02.2 The Defenders
• 7.02.3 L.A. Law
• 7.02.4 After L.A. Law
• 7.02.5 Boston Legal and its ancestors
• 7.02.6 Female attorneys on Boston Legal
• 7.03 Narration on television
• 7.03.1 Series and serials
• 7.03.2 Commercial interruptions
• 7.03.3 Conditions of consumption
• 7.04 Bad lawyers on television
• 7.05 Sexual harassment
• 7.06 Ethical issues on Boston Legal
• 7.06.1 Conflict of interest
• 7.06.2 Competence
• 7.06.3 Truth telling
• 7.06.4 Obstruction of justice and witness tampering
• 7.07 When the lawyer is certain the client is guilty
• 7.07.1 Legal ethics and the guilty client
• 7.07.2 Telling false stories in narrative
• 7.07.3 The guilty client in pop culture
• 7.07.4 Defending the guilty
• 7.08 Dual plot structure on Boston Legal
• 7.09 Review questions
• Notes
• Part II : Criminal Justice
• 8. The Criminal Justice System: Assigned Television Show: Law & Order (Season 5, episodes 1–4)
• 8.01 The U.S. criminal justice process
• 8.01.1 Goals of the criminal process
• 8.01.2 Investigation and searches
• 8.01.3 The first appearance and the process of questioning a suspect
• 8.01.4 Preliminary hearing or grand jury
• 8.01.5 The criminal trial
• 8.02 Law & Order—the television show
• 8.02.1 Dick Wolf
• 8.02.2 The puzzling success of Law & Order
• 8.02.3 The politics of Law & Order
• 8.02.4 Ben Stone and Jack McCoy
• 8.02.5 Adam Schiff: The Voice of Moral Realism
• 8.03 Criminal law on Law & Order
• 8.03.1 Degrees of homicide
• 8.03.2 Self-defense and the battered woman syndrome
• 8.04 Prosecutorial discretion
• 8.05 The indeterminacy of past facts
• 8.06 Prosecutors and defense lawyers on Law & Order
• 8.06.1 Crime control on Law & Order
• 8.06.2 Prosecutors in popular culture
• 8.06.3 Criminal defense lawyers
• 8.06.4 Defending the guilty
• 8.07 Realism on Law & Order
• 8.07.1 The ordinary filmgoer’s conception of realism
• 8.07.2 How the spectator arrives at a conception of the real world
• 8.07.3 What seems realistic—Some generalizations
• 8.08 Narrative structure on Law & Order
• 8.09 Review questions
• Notes
• 9. The Jury: Assigned Film: 12 Angry Men (1957)
• 9.01 12 Angry Men—Prequel and sequel
• 9.02 Fonda’s “star” image and intertextuality in legal films
• 9.03 The jury in the trial film genre
• 9.04 Constitutional role of the American jury
• 9.05 Conflicting visions of the jury—The brighter vision
• 9.06 Conflicting visions of the jury—The darker version
• 9.06.1 Rationality of jury verdicts
• 9.06.2 Efficiency of the jury system
• 9.06.3 Juries worldwide
• 9.07 Empirical research on juries
• 9.08 Jury passivity
• 9.09 Race and gender discrimination in jury pools
• 9.09.1 Historic discrimination in selection of jury pools
• 9.09.2 The Batson rule
• 9.09.3 Jury consultants
• 9.10 Seeing the witnesses, finding the facts
• 9.11 Jury nullification
• 9.12 Direction and cinematography in 12 Angry Men
• 9.12.1 Camera placement and movement
• 9.12.2 Focus on one character while another speaks
• 9.12.3 Closeups and editing
• 9.13 Review questions
• Notes
• 10. Military Justice: Assigned Film: A Few Good Men (1992)
• 10.01 The film and the play
• 10.02 The military justice system
• 10.02.1 The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
• 10.02.2 Command influence
• 10.02.3 Why is there a separate military justice system?
• 10.02.4 Accusing superior officers of crime
• 10.03 Military justice in popular culture
• 10.04 The following-orders defense
• 10.04.1 The law of following orders
• 10.04.2 Following orders in A Few Good Men
• 10.04.3 Abu Ghraib and the war on terror
• 10.04.4 The Milgram experiments
• 10.05 Daniel Kaffee
• 10.06 Female lawyers in the movies
• 10.06.1 Female lawyers—Yesterday and today
• 10.06.2 Favorable portrayals of women lawyers in the movies
• 10.06.3 Female lawyers in film—Rita Harrison
• 10.06.4 Negative treatment of women lawyers in contemporary film
• 10.06.5 Difference versus equality feminism
• 10.06.6 Female lawyers on television
• 10.06.7 Understanding the negative treatment of female lawyers in the movies
• 10.07 Cinematic technique in A Few Good Men
• 10.07.1 Sound editing
• 10.07.2 Rack focus in A Few Good Men
• 10.07.3 Lighting
• 10.08 Review questions
• Notes
• 11. The Death Penalty: Assigned Film: Dead Man Walking (1996)
• 11.01 The book and the movie
• 11.02 Death penalty movies
• 11.02.1 Political stance of death penalty movies
• 11.02.2 Redemption of the condemned
• 11.02.3 Transformation of the intermediary
• 11.03 Pictures at an execution
• 11.04 The voice of the victims
• 11.05 Purposes of the death penalty
• 11.05.1 Deterrence
• 11.05.2 Studies of deterrence
• 11.05.3 Incapacitation
• 11.05.4 Moral opposition to the death penalty and retribution
• 11.06 Judicial flip-flops on the death penalty
• 11.07 The death penalty in the United States—Law and practice
• 11.07.1 The risk that an innocent person will be put to death
• 11.07.2 Clemency
• 11.07.3 Racial disparities
• 11.07.4 Class discrimination
• 11.07.5 Quality of legal defense
• 11.07.6 Delays
• 11.07.7 Error rates
• 11.07.8 Costs and strains on the criminal justice system
• 11.08 The death penalty outside the U.S.
• 11.09 Filmic analysis of Dead Man Walking
• 11.09.1 Camera placement in Dead Man Walking
• 11.09.2 Collision montage in Dead Man Walking
• 11.10 Review questions
• Notes
• Part III: Civil Justice
• 12. The Civil Justice System: Assigned Film: A Civil Action (1998)
• 12.01 The civil justice process
• 12.01.1 Civil cases
• 12.01.2 Lawyers in civil cases
• 12.01.3 Pleadings in civil cases
• 12.01.4 Discovery
• 12.01.5 Managerial judges
• 12.01.6 Jury trial
• 12.01.7 Witnesses and evidence
• 12.01.8 Trial procedure
• 12.01.9 After the trial
• 12.02 The book and the movie—the real case against Beatrice and Grace
• 12.02.1 The docudrama form
• 12.02.2 The importance of films based on actual events
• 12.02.3 Adapting a book into a film
• 12.02.4 The lawyers
• 12.02.5 What really happened?
• 12.02.6 The counter-attack
• 12.03 Litigation problems in toxic tort cases
• 12.03.1 Complexity of toxic tort cases
• 12.03.2 Alternative ways to compensate victims of toxic torts
• 12.04 Litigation financing
• 12.05 Judges
• 12.05.1 Judges in popular culture
• 12.05.2 Judge Skinner
• 12.05.3 The rule of law
• 12.05.4 Political appointment and elections
• 12.05.5 Federal judges
• 12.06 Settlement negotiations
• 12.06.1 Schlichtmann’s negotiations in the Woburn case
• 12.06.2 Negotiation theory
• 12.07 Big business in the movies
• 12.08 Framing in A Civil Action
• 12.09 Review questions
• Notes
• 13. Civil Rights: Assigned Film: Philadelphia (1993)
• 13.01 Philadelphia—The cases and the film
• 13.01.1 The real-life inspiration of Philadelphia
• 13.01.2 Philadelphia—the film
• 13.02 Clients and lawyers—access to justice
• 13.03 LGBT lawyers in the movies
• 13.03.1 LGBT lawyers
• 13.03.2 The representation of LGBT characters in film
• 13.03.3 Queer Theory
• 13.04 Black lawyers in the movies
• 13.04.1 African Americans and the legal profession
• 13.04.2 Black lawyers in the movies and television
• 13.04.3 Blacks in the movies and television—1930 to 1970
• 13.05 Law firms
• 13.05.1 Philadelphia and the hemispheres of law practice
• 13.05.2 Economics of biglaw
• 13.05.3 Why big law got so big
• 13.05.4 Two models of law practice: Professionalism and business
• 13.05.5 Billable hours
• 13.05.6 Quality of work life
• 13.06 Law firms in the movies
• 13.07 Employment law and civil rights
• 13.07.1 At-will employment
• 13.07.2 Exceptions to the at-will rule—Good cause discharge
• 13.07.3 Public policy and at-will employment
• 13.07.4 Civil rights protection
• 13.07.5 Disability discrimination
• 13.07.6 Race and sex discrimination
• 13.08 Strange doings in Philadelphia
• 13.09 Filmmaking in Philadelphia
• 13.09.1 Framing and Composition
• 13.09.2 Lighting
• 13.09.3 Montage
• 13.10 Review questions
• Notes
• 14. Family Law: Assigned Film: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
• 14.01 The book and the film
• 14.02 The cultural context of Kramer vs. Kramer
• 14.02.1 Divorce
• 14.02.2 The backlash against feminism
• 14.02.3 The “sensitive male movement”
• 14.03 From the Hays Code to Kramer vs. Kramer
• 14.03.1 Divorce under the Hays Code
• 14.03.2 From the Hays Code to Kramer vs. Kramer
• 14.04 Ingredients of a classic divorce movie
• 14.05 Fault and no-fault divorce
• 14.05.1 Fault divorce
• 14.05.2 No-fault divorce
• 14.06 The law of child custody
• 14.06.1 The tender years presumption
• 14.06.2 The best interests of the child
• 14.06.3 Child custody in the movies
• 14.07 The family law process
• 14.08 Lawyer-client relationships in family law
• 14.09 Cinematic technique in Kramer vs. Kramer
• 14.10 Robert Benton
• 14.11 Review questions
• Notes
• References
• Stage Plays
• Movies
• Television Shows and Series
• Court Cases
• Index