nl198296@ohio.edu
I have never understood the fascination with the crime scene reenactments that have become rather prevalent in recent years, all the more bizarre given the outcry against the ABC News reenactment Deborah Potter mentions in her article, "Viewer Beware". While that case concerned a lack of transparency on the part of ABC, I think it also illustrates a lack of necessity in terms of these reenactments.
Now, I may be abnormal (every woman I have ever spoken to in a bar has said as much, and they can't all be wrong), but I have something called an imagination, and I am capable of visualizing a crime scene without the local television station hiring some actor pretend to get shot fifty times and then lay in the street at a crime scene mysteriously devoid of blood or any other bodily fluids that might have escaped.
I suppose part of the problem stems from why such tactics are being used. Potter suggests that fighting for ratings and keeping viewers tuned in to the news lies behind this problem, but how much can a shoddy reenactment really help? People who want to watch the news are going to watch anyway. People who think Larry the Cable Guy is the epitome of entertainment are only going to bother with the news if by chance one of their relatives is featured for being arrested in a methamphetamine lab explosion, likely accompanied by a reenactment of the lab being blown up real good (but I suppose you kids are too young to get that reference).
The visual aspect is certainly a key component of the news, but such phony remakes seem like a downgrade as opposed to an enhancement of the news. Would any less news content have been conveyed had ABC not shown a grainy image of an actor handing off documents to another actor posing as a spy? By adding such a fake element to the story, the journalists run the risk of making the entire story seem fictive, or as Potter suggests, leaves the audience wondering how many "half-truths" they have been subjected to.
Maybe people who make reenactments should pay heed to comedian Demetri Martin, who made a suggestion that would diminish the fictive element of a crime scene reenactment--commit a real crime during the filming and turn it into an enactment. Or maybe I'm the only one abnormal enough to laugh at that.
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| Demetri Martin - Stuff on Piano | ||||
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