Among the genre’s more stable features is the emphasis on violent crime. Our coding
reveals that 72 percent of the crimes depicted during CSI’s fi rst season were violent crimes;
64 percent of the crimes involved murder. Although these are the type of crimes that
would involve forensic investigations, the focus on murder is a crime genre staple. Murder
was prominent in CSI’s current season and in the two spin-off series. Murder serves as an
emotional hook in the crime genre: it entails the loss of a life, which in itself is important,
and it symbolizes a threat to the social order (see Wilson, 2000).
CSI employs other emotional hooks as well. These include the pain of loss to a victim’s
family. In Episode 111, Catherine cries because, as a mother, she shares the grief of another
mother who must identify her dead son. This episode demonstrates a frequent pattern in
the fi rst season: emotional hooks are constructed around personal involvement narratives.
Catherine has an emotional connection on cases that involve parents or victimized children.
The spin-offs also employ this technique. CSI:Miami’s lead character, Horatio, befriends a
boy whose dad murdered his mother; Horatio suffered a similar fate as a boy (Episode 205).
These narrative devices circulate cultural meanings that are common to the crime genre, for
example, crime as a threat to ourselves, to our families, and to fundamental moral values
(Rapping, 2003). But, they also create characters with whom the audience can identify.
CSI also circulates images of gender. These images refl ect cultural changes but they also
perpetuate the notion of the investigators as ‘the good guys’ and of the police as a moral
authority. During CSI’s fi rst season, Gil Grissom is depicted as a father fi gure who heads
the unit. He demonstrates a vast amount of forensic knowledge and offers sage advice
to his younger subordinates. William Peterson who plays Gil was the series’ best known
actor during that fi rst season. This cemented his status as the lead character, and also
reinforced the gendered images: he is a man and he is the boss (see Cavender, 1999). The
spin-offs also have well-known male actors in lead roles: David Caruso (formerly of NYPD:
Blue) in CSI:Miami and Gary Sinese in CSI:NY. These men display a techno-masculinity (see
Messerschmidt, 1993) that both updates the portrayal of masculinity and reaffi rms the
notion of men as heroes (Rafter, 2006).
As women have increased their presence in the criminal justice workplace, they appear
more frequently in crime dramas like CSI. CSI’s female characters have essentially the same
duties and abilities as their male counterparts. This depiction persists across the episodes
in our analysis. A female investigator adeptly uses a jack hammer to open a chimney
where a body is hidden, demonstrates agility while working on a roof, and is shown to be
competent in the lab (Episode 204). In a series that foregrounds competency in science,
intelligence is as important as physical strength. Sometimes, however, these programs
reaffi rm extant stereotypes about women. A woman may supply the key element that solves
a crime, but does so with ‘special women’s insights’. An investigator who had been a victim
of domestic violence realizes that such abuse is important in a case, and she mobilizes a
secret network of female victims to discover key facts (CSI:Miami, Episode 205). CSI and its
spin-offs are not sexist