Two Versions of the Victim: Uncovering Contradictions in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Through Textual Analysis

The article investigates the role of the victim in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. It argues that the genre of forensic science drama to which the series belongs gives greater emphasis on the victim than the perpetrator in the investigation of and in its narratives about crime. However, this does not mean that the victim is more empowered to tell his or her story of what happened. Rather, the investigators appear as the powerful agents who can "read" the body of victims and uncover the truth. Focusing on the male victims of the first four seasons of the original series, the article highlights how most of the time victims are presented as powerless -- as silent, passive and penetrate-able -- even though the series continues to draw attention to the idea that the holder of the truth is the victim. This polysemic construction which occurs on two different levels of the text allows for the text to be read as conservative, as underlining the power of the investigators to solve the problem of crime rather than a text that is essentially about victims.