Bad Science in CSI Miami: Visual Rhetoric Meets Iconography

Pictorial imagery catches us at unawares because, as intellectuals, we are trained to analyze texts and to treat drawings or photographs as trifling adjuncts. - Mishra

If computer simulations are documentary, they are subjunctive documentary. Their subjunctive nature lies not only in their flexibility in the imagining of events, but in their staging as well... - Wolf

Alright, kids, it's time to have a talk... a talk about fake detectives. Detectives of the following variety:

 You're mamas always taught you not to hurt other people, but they never thought to warn you about the dangerous siren-song of police work, did they? Actually, that probably has more to do with our generations increasing exposure to on-demand crime scene investigating that anything esle. We sell our children CSI kits as TOYS.

See, CSI is emblematic of a much larger problem: we, smart animals that we are, process information as it is given to us. And the visual rhetoric of CSI is entirely compelling. You can carry a gun, look like a model and put the bad guys away in a neat. 45-minute episode. But perhaps the most infuriating misconstruction of the franchise is the heavily visually-influences explanations of forensic science. In order to compress the show into its time slot and not overwhelm the readers, the franchise sacrifices authenticity for the Idiots Guide To _______. Obviously, not everyone who watches CSI feels the overwhelming assurance that they are ready to solve crime. But, like any other oversimplification of visual media to compress a complex idea, it introduces the allure of a vocation without acknowledging the work necessary to reach that point. Like selling products with an iconic brand, CSI has built an empire on the assurance that psuedo-science will sell (Big Bang Theory, anyone?). Audiences crave superficial reassurance, and with the compression of elegantly shot, useless machines, they barely need to pay attention to the dialogue to achieve it,