The Social Issue Courtroom Drama as an Expression of American Popular Culture
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00180 |
| Author | Matthias Kuzina |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 28, NUMBER 1, MARCH 2001
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 79–96
The Social Issue Courtroom Drama as an Expression of
American Popular Culture
Matthias Kuzina*
Drawing on recent works of commercial Hollywood cinema and topical
made-for-television movies, this paper explores the cultural
implications of two distinct varieties of the American courtroom
picture: the problem film in the guise of a legal drama and the trial
movie which may take the form of a social issue film. Both types merge
into a category that overtly abounds with liberal stances and
humanitarian attitudes, films that portray actual or – only rarely –
fictional excesses of rigid conservative orthodoxy, movies that have also
succeeded in capturing the interest of the public on both sides of the
Atlantic. Further, the aesthetics of the documentary tradition related to
this generic strain is examined in such a way as to cast light on the
quality of critical reflection and certain ideological inferences thereof.
INTRODUCTION
Up to now the courtroom drama has been considered one of the most popular
American film genres, and the social issue variant seems to be held in high
repute by many critics and viewers.
1
The courtroom genre can – tentatively –
be subivided into ten basic groupings, which are interrelated: courtroom
‘whodunits’, legal thrillers, historical courtroom dramas, true crime
courtroom dramas, lawyer films, courtroom satires and courtroom comedies,
court-martial films, social issue courtroom dramas, hybrid courtroom
dramas, and jury room dramas. There are special forms such as dramatized
79
ßBlackwell Publishers Ltd 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*c/o Law Faculty, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Geba
¨ude GC 8/135, D-44780
Bochum, Germany
1 The following is partly adapted from my doctoral dissertation Der amerikanische
Gerichtsfilm: Justiz, Ideologie, Dramatik (2000), which is an interdisciplinary study
concerning the American courtroom drama (film and television) of the last five
decades: 77 movies are categorized (the index of titles encompasses both feature
length films and selected TV series); particular attention is paid to the evolution of the
courtroom genre in terms of the social reality depicted and the legal culture referred to.
documentaries, courtroom films that address issues of political justice,
various types of non-fiction feature films, and movies that are peripheral to
this genre.
2
As for the average tele-feature and theatrical film about legal
procedures as narrative-based cultural practices,
3
the dramatic action often
manifests itself as an eclectic amalgam of courtroom scenes and marginal
events taking place in other social spaces.
4
Michael Crichton’s female
lawyer film Physical Evidence (1988), which incidentally shows no social
issue motifs whatsoever, is a case in point. Legal dramas follow particular
conventions that are more or less specific to American culture; they are
prone to the perpetuation of stereotypes, whether the centre of interest be the
miraculous comeback of a burnt-out lawyer, the abuse of the legal system to
secure the acquittal of a guilty client, a prosecutor’s fight for justice, or the
unexpected, emotional confession of a conscience-stricken person on the
witness stand.
5
The dialectical approach to judicial questions and the
theatricality inherent in the gradual resolution of the conflict can be regarded
as minimum requirements for the classification of legal narratives, besides
the locale of the courtroom.
6
Unless the particularities of the adversary
80
2 For an overview on law films outside the courtroom, see S. Greenfield and G. Osborn,
‘Film, law, and the delivery of justice: The case of Judge Dredd and the disappearing
courtroom’ (1999) 6(2) J. of Crim. Justice and Popular Culture 35. In his study Law
in Film: Resonance and Representation (1999), D.A. Black also adopts a very broad
perspective and considers the reflexivity of films about law, which he designates as
‘stories about the process of storytelling, or narratives about narrative’ (p. 55).
3 That is to say, ‘a series of ritually constructed, conventionally verisimilar narratives’
(Black, id., p. 58).
4 Many crime films and thrillers include a courtroom sequence as a subsidiary narrative
element.
5 The formulaic plot patterns are easily identifiable. Bennett and Feldman specify the
well-known, reassuring Perry Mason story type:
in which the great lawyer agrees to take a hopeless case and build a defense against
all odds. The evidence against the client is so damaging that even the lawyer
suffers doubts about his faith in the client’s earnest claims of innocence. We suffer
through the maze of dead ends before the trial. The prosecution case is ironclad.
The trial only makes things worse. Each witness contributes to the inescapable
conclusion that the defendant must have committed the crime. Then something
occurs to the lawyer – perhaps as a result of something a witness said, or a remark
the client made, or a change of heart on the part of a conspiratorial witness, or a
stroke of genius on the lawyer’s part. A new interpretation for the facts begins to
emerge. Indeed, a new ‘story’ takes shape. A key witness is recalled. The new
version of the crime is unfolded through a brilliant line of questioning. The witness
is trapped. The web of circumstances is unraveled. Justice is done. Reality and
Justice become reconciled.
W.L. Bennett and M.S. Feldman, Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom: Justice
and Judgment in American Culture (1981) 35.
6 Compare N. Rafter’s definition of the genre in Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and
Society (2000) 93. Black points out that the ‘courtroom setting might serve as a
narrative hub from which various flashbacks and stories emerge, even if the
courtroom itself does not remain on-screen for more than few minutes’ (op. cit., n. 2,
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