VALUABLE LESSONS - Nicholls + Vickers

Valuable Lessons 46
whole separate case... and it’s close to miraculous, considering how much
money it’s made Fox, and how much the other networks like money too, that
it hasn’t been more widely imitated in half-hour comedy. Their secret: no
network notes. Ever. Do you know what Fox did to help the show in its
first two years? Nothing. They hated it.)
In other words, they think having the woman fix the tire is so
obviously unlikely that to show it will provoke laughter. They are saying,
“We all know women are incompetent at this, let’s turn things on their head
in this one instance for a big wacky guffaw!”
Except, over the years, that one instance has become every instance,
and the comedy has worn off like the outside of a Tic Tac.
A friend in Berlin emailed me one day to ask, “Why are all the judges
in American shows black women?” I told him they aren’t, but I could see
what he meant. It kills two birds with one casting decision to make the
symbol of probity and wisdom a black female. Two subjugated groups in
one; she doesn’t have many lines and she barely has to be able to act.
When I studied journalism, besides my regular classes I had a weekly
quota of three news stories. If I fell behind, which was weekly, I used to go
to Toronto’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, or to Coroner’s Court,
a Deportation Hearing, or to the regular Criminal Courts building, and watch
a trial. My only familiarity with trials, criminals, lawyers and judges had
been through television and the movies. When you think about it, by the
time you’re old enough to serve on a jury you’ve watched – what? – a
thousand hours of drama set in courtrooms? A Civil Action alone felt like
ten hours. And another 3,000 hours watching police officers, perps, arrests
and bookings, interrogations, confessions. Unless you’re a former child star
the chances are that’s been your sole exposure to the criminal justice system.
All of what you think of as your instincts about how guilty people look and
behave, about the persuasiveness of the innocent and the veracity of experts
and witnesses, has come from stories concocted and edited to fit the
programming and story requirements of Hollywood: the telegraphing of
clues to provide suspense; the close-up of the accused to emphasize his or
her culpability or righteousness, the elimination of redundancy, conflicting
evidence and overcomplication in order to streamline stories.
But when I got into those courtrooms with real defendants, in nearly
every case I had absolutely no idea what was going on. The prosecuting
attorney would speak and I’d think, hang the guy. But when the defense
attorney rose I could always see his client was innocent – at least until the
prosecutor stood again. Real trials demand a simultaneous participation and
suspension of judgment that no TV show or movie demands of its