Law and Film: Where are the Mediators?

Michael Asimow and Shannon Mader have written the first text for a course in law and popular culture. In Law and Popular Culture: A Course Book they argue that ‘[m]ost people learn most of what they think they know about law and lawyers from consuming popular legal culture’ (7) and that ‘popular culture both constructs our perceptions of the law and changes the way that the players in the legal system behave’ (xxii [emphasis in original]). If we accept Asimow and Mader’s assertion about the power of popular culture, and I do, their achievement in creating this first text is to be commended.¹

The text embraces law, film, and television and is intended to be used as the reader for a course in law and popular culture. Each chapter is based on a particular film (a few are based on television programs) that students are to watch before coming to class. The authors use the films profiled in the book as cultural legal texts, a laudable approach because it treats films as texts as worthy of study as the cases and statutes normally studied in law classes. Asimow and Mader’s textual organization is also to be praised. They focus on one film per chapter, and each chapter provides both cinematic background on the film and legal background relevant to the law depicted in the movie. At the end of each chapter they pose review questions, and the result is clear, easy-to-follow, interesting reading.

Asimow and Mader’s course book is designed for both law students and other undergraduate university students. This intended dual audience makes the book less useful for law professors, however, as much of it is too simplistic for law students.² Most law students have completed undergraduate degrees (at a minimum) before beginning their legal studies, and most do not take courses on law and film or law and popular culture until they are in the second or third year of their degree programs. At this point in their legal education, they are ready for more in-depth, theoretical analysis than this text provides. Asimow and Mader argue, however, that providing extensive treatment of theoretical materials would have made their book ‘much longer and probably much less useful for most of its readers’ (6). Instead, they encourage professors to infuse classes with theory by adding supplementary reading materials, which would be necessary in order to make the course sufficiently rigorous for law school standards. Their assertion that their book ‘can be taught by anyone who enjoys popular culture and is interested in law’ (xxiii) simply does not inspire confidence as to its depth when used without supplementary theoretical readings.

Although Asimow and Mader provide little theoretical information, they do assist the student cinematically; where their text shines is in its emphasis on filmic techniques.³ Unlike most law and film scholars, these authors do an excellent job of supporting their discussion with insightful cinematic commentary and film theory.⁴ They connect cinematic techniques to legal films to flesh out their arguments about the American criminal and civil justice systems. This is exceptional, and must come as a result of Mader’s co-authorship, given that he is not only a lawyer but also has a doctorate in film studies.

There are, however, at least two areas in which the book could be improved. In their next edition, the authors should reconsider some of their analyses in light of feminist theory and conflict resolution theory. Their text would benefit from a more well-rounded picture of law, and this picture must include women and mediators.

Asimow and Mader correctly note that films about female lawyers are often concerned less with their work than with how they might find a man and become fulfilled (188). While recognizing that women lawyers in film are portrayed more negatively than male lawyers, are more often lacking in ethics and professionalism, and have fewer opportunities to emerge as heroes,⁵ they unfortunately perpetuate these portrayals in their book. For example, the first film Asimow and Mader analyse is Anatomy of a...