Post by nhmystix on Feb 8, 2006 10:18:55 GMT -6
www.usatoday.com/life/television/ne...-csi-kink_x.htm
Why not 'CSI: Kink'?
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES —On CSI, the way people live can be as bizarre as the way they die.
Thursday's episode (CBS, 9 p.m. ET/PT) features a one-eyed pirate, Nazi-like human experimentation and a whip-wielding dominatrix. And, of course, murders.
As TV's most-watched scripted show, averaging 26 million viewers a week, CSI has maintained its broad fan base even as its Las Vegas crime-scene sleuths delve into the worlds of full-grown men who favor diapers; people aroused by obese sex partners, aka "chubby chasers"; and "plushies and furries," a fetish group for whom fun fur has nothing to do with fall fashions.
Many CSI viewers either enjoy or don't mind taking the one-hour trips to forbidden worlds, viewed from the safety of the living room couch. Some could do without the taboo topics but still like to watch Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and his team use science to solve crimes. Others no longer watch because of the content; the Parents Television Council has named CSI one of the worst shows for families.
"It's a matter of individual taste," says Miriam Smith, who teaches broadcast communications arts at San Francisco State University.
This week's offering, "Pirates of the Third Reich" (a tribute to CSI and Pirates of the Caribbean producer Jerry Bruckheimer), likely offers something to reinforce all opinions. It descends into the world of a serial-killing Nazi experimenter, one of whose victims is the estranged daughter of dominatrix Lady Heather (The O.C.'s Melinda Clarke).
The sixth-season series walks on the kinky side more frequently than its spinoffs in Miami and New York. "It goes back to Vegas, where the show is set. In Vegas, anything goes," executive producer Carol Mendelsohn says. And Thursday's show "is one of our more out-there episodes."
"Pirates" is significant for two other reasons. It marks the return of Lady Heather, whose hold on Grissom has made her a fan favorite. And it was written by Jerry Stahl, an author and former heroin addict who wrote a book about his habit (Permanent Midnight).
Stahl has served as tour guide for the show's kinkiest trips into the netherworld of infantilism, underground sex-reassignment surgery, self-loathing models and sado-masochism. He introduced Heather and her fetish business in CSI's second season.
"He's completely perverse," says Petersen, laughing. The star helped recruit Stahl for the show, saying people are fascinated by unknown, darker realms. "There's no place Jerry won't go. There's nothing Jerry won't look at."
Stahl, who declined through a studio spokesman to be interviewed, is nothing if not a lightning rod. His episodes last season, the transsexual-related "Ch-Ch-Changes" and the infant-fetishizing "King Baby," were respectively CSI's most-watched ever, at 31.5 million viewers, and tied for second for the season, with 30.7 million.
But some viewers didn't like them. "King Baby," which dealt with breastfeeding, enemas and excrement, drew protests from the Parents Television Council, whose members filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission. According to the PTC, no FCC response has been received.
CSI "tends to delve into areas of kinky sexual fetishes," says the PTC's Melissa Caldwell. "They go into a depth of detail that I think is unnecessary for a show about forensic investigations."
'Darker and edgier'
In 2003's "Fur and Loathing," broadcast the day before Halloween, Stahl took CSI to a convention of plushies and furries, people with an affinity for stuffed animals and furry costumes. The episode related a group sexual endeavor known as a "fur-pile."
"He introduces Americans to worlds that they wouldn't normally see," says CSI supervising producer Richard Lewis, who directed Thursday's episode. "It's always a little darker and edgier when Jerry writes."
CSI visits such dark places to entertain viewers, Mendelsohn says, and many like the vicarious thrill. "We try to think, 'What would our fans like to see? What would be a thrill ride?' Our job is to make them want to come back next week, to create a great hour. That's the guidepost to everything we do."
The taboo topics also expand the range of potential plotlines, an important consideration for a show that must produce more than 20 episodes a season. And competition from cable, with its looser content restrictions, pressures broadcasters to present edgier content, San Francisco State's Smith says.
By audience measures, CSI has more than achieved its goal; it trails only American Idol.
But CSI ranks fifth — one spot ahead of ABC's Desperate Housewives - on the PTC's latest list of the shows it deems most inappropriate for family viewing. That high placement is a combination of subject matter and the large audience, which means more youths are exposed to the shows, Caldwell says.
Some viewers confirm they like the occasional peek into unusual lives. "I watch CSI every week and haven't had any problem with the envelope-pushing subject matter. Though I found some of the stuff slightly weird, to say the least, I also find it fascinating to see other perspectives on life and how the CSI crew are able to solve the crimes," says Sam Vowell of Lennon, Mich.
However, Jane Lansing, of Minneapolis, has given up on the series. "I was a CSI-aholic when it first came on ... and this year I stopped (watching) the original because the story lines are reaching too far," she says.
While acknowledging that CSI episodes such as Stahl's can enter bizarre worlds, CBS is satisfied with its "time-honored system of self-policing" to make certain programs are appropriate for viewers and advertisers, network spokesman Chris Ender says.
By now, viewers generally know what to expect from CSI, too, he says. Content-rating labels and advisories also alert viewers.
But even CSI's producers say they have their concerns with content and sometimes pull back. "The key to this episode is restraint," Lewis says during a shooting break. And, in the post-Janet Jackson era, scenes that were once OK are now off-limits, Mendelsohn says, acknowledging that the show is concerned about being a target for watchdog groups such as PTC.
The wide range of reactions shouldn't be surprising, says S. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a non-profit, non-partisan, media-monitoring group. A shocking scene that one viewer finds enticing, another may find appalling. A show such as CSI will try to strike a balance, "trying to figure out how to keep the shock value without it costing them money" from lost advertising or government sanctions.
Nothing 'gratuitous'
For Petersen, who is also a CSI producer, any kinky subject matter has to make sense for the story. "I just don't want it to be gratuitous."
As far as fans are concerned, there's nothing gratuitous about Lady Heather, introduced by Stahl in 2001's "Slaves of Las Vegas." She took Grissom, Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) and viewers into the world of sado-masochism, complete with whips, chains, leather and latex body suits, but also introduced a complex character.
Lady Heather interested Clarke because of her contrasts: She was the successful operator of an upscale fetish club and the mother of a daughter attending Harvard, a woman who could give a man a whipping or, as in Grissom's case, serve him tea. "She was a multidimensional person who hadn't been seen, a dominatrix who was much more evolved — enigmatic and empowered," Clarke says.
What has made the character a favorite of viewers, despite having appeared in only two previous episodes, is her ability to read the usually opaque Grissom. She's his equal and a strong foil.
"Their chemistry is electric. (It) reveals aspects of the Grissom character that we don't get to see with anyone else he interacts with. Tolerance. Depth. Humanity. He feels," says fan Tammy Hoganson of New Prague, Minn., who says she enjoys when CSI delves into "less-than-vanilla subject matter."
Grissom, ever the student, is curious about Heather's field of work, just as he was fascinated, not put off, by the plushies and furries convention. Grissom and Heather, Petersen says during a break between scenes with Clarke, are "both anthropologists. He's fascinated by her science, (a look at) the sexual psyche of human beings."
There's also a sexual tension between the characters (one that may have been acted upon, depending on how scenes are interpreted from Lady Heather's second visit).
Their delicate balance will shift in Thursday's episode, which Mendelsohn says may seem disturbing not for its sexual content but for the horrible experiments of a brilliant scientist she describes as "a Grissom gone wrong."
And Lady Heather, a woman who depends on her steely control, will lose it as a victimized mother.
The power roles will shift in the desert, Mendelsohn says. Grissom will have "to save her from herself."
Why not 'CSI: Kink'?
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES —On CSI, the way people live can be as bizarre as the way they die.
Thursday's episode (CBS, 9 p.m. ET/PT) features a one-eyed pirate, Nazi-like human experimentation and a whip-wielding dominatrix. And, of course, murders.
As TV's most-watched scripted show, averaging 26 million viewers a week, CSI has maintained its broad fan base even as its Las Vegas crime-scene sleuths delve into the worlds of full-grown men who favor diapers; people aroused by obese sex partners, aka "chubby chasers"; and "plushies and furries," a fetish group for whom fun fur has nothing to do with fall fashions.
Many CSI viewers either enjoy or don't mind taking the one-hour trips to forbidden worlds, viewed from the safety of the living room couch. Some could do without the taboo topics but still like to watch Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and his team use science to solve crimes. Others no longer watch because of the content; the Parents Television Council has named CSI one of the worst shows for families.
"It's a matter of individual taste," says Miriam Smith, who teaches broadcast communications arts at San Francisco State University.
This week's offering, "Pirates of the Third Reich" (a tribute to CSI and Pirates of the Caribbean producer Jerry Bruckheimer), likely offers something to reinforce all opinions. It descends into the world of a serial-killing Nazi experimenter, one of whose victims is the estranged daughter of dominatrix Lady Heather (The O.C.'s Melinda Clarke).
The sixth-season series walks on the kinky side more frequently than its spinoffs in Miami and New York. "It goes back to Vegas, where the show is set. In Vegas, anything goes," executive producer Carol Mendelsohn says. And Thursday's show "is one of our more out-there episodes."
"Pirates" is significant for two other reasons. It marks the return of Lady Heather, whose hold on Grissom has made her a fan favorite. And it was written by Jerry Stahl, an author and former heroin addict who wrote a book about his habit (Permanent Midnight).
Stahl has served as tour guide for the show's kinkiest trips into the netherworld of infantilism, underground sex-reassignment surgery, self-loathing models and sado-masochism. He introduced Heather and her fetish business in CSI's second season.
"He's completely perverse," says Petersen, laughing. The star helped recruit Stahl for the show, saying people are fascinated by unknown, darker realms. "There's no place Jerry won't go. There's nothing Jerry won't look at."
Stahl, who declined through a studio spokesman to be interviewed, is nothing if not a lightning rod. His episodes last season, the transsexual-related "Ch-Ch-Changes" and the infant-fetishizing "King Baby," were respectively CSI's most-watched ever, at 31.5 million viewers, and tied for second for the season, with 30.7 million.
But some viewers didn't like them. "King Baby," which dealt with breastfeeding, enemas and excrement, drew protests from the Parents Television Council, whose members filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission. According to the PTC, no FCC response has been received.
CSI "tends to delve into areas of kinky sexual fetishes," says the PTC's Melissa Caldwell. "They go into a depth of detail that I think is unnecessary for a show about forensic investigations."
'Darker and edgier'
In 2003's "Fur and Loathing," broadcast the day before Halloween, Stahl took CSI to a convention of plushies and furries, people with an affinity for stuffed animals and furry costumes. The episode related a group sexual endeavor known as a "fur-pile."
"He introduces Americans to worlds that they wouldn't normally see," says CSI supervising producer Richard Lewis, who directed Thursday's episode. "It's always a little darker and edgier when Jerry writes."
CSI visits such dark places to entertain viewers, Mendelsohn says, and many like the vicarious thrill. "We try to think, 'What would our fans like to see? What would be a thrill ride?' Our job is to make them want to come back next week, to create a great hour. That's the guidepost to everything we do."
The taboo topics also expand the range of potential plotlines, an important consideration for a show that must produce more than 20 episodes a season. And competition from cable, with its looser content restrictions, pressures broadcasters to present edgier content, San Francisco State's Smith says.
By audience measures, CSI has more than achieved its goal; it trails only American Idol.
But CSI ranks fifth — one spot ahead of ABC's Desperate Housewives - on the PTC's latest list of the shows it deems most inappropriate for family viewing. That high placement is a combination of subject matter and the large audience, which means more youths are exposed to the shows, Caldwell says.
Some viewers confirm they like the occasional peek into unusual lives. "I watch CSI every week and haven't had any problem with the envelope-pushing subject matter. Though I found some of the stuff slightly weird, to say the least, I also find it fascinating to see other perspectives on life and how the CSI crew are able to solve the crimes," says Sam Vowell of Lennon, Mich.
However, Jane Lansing, of Minneapolis, has given up on the series. "I was a CSI-aholic when it first came on ... and this year I stopped (watching) the original because the story lines are reaching too far," she says.
While acknowledging that CSI episodes such as Stahl's can enter bizarre worlds, CBS is satisfied with its "time-honored system of self-policing" to make certain programs are appropriate for viewers and advertisers, network spokesman Chris Ender says.
By now, viewers generally know what to expect from CSI, too, he says. Content-rating labels and advisories also alert viewers.
But even CSI's producers say they have their concerns with content and sometimes pull back. "The key to this episode is restraint," Lewis says during a shooting break. And, in the post-Janet Jackson era, scenes that were once OK are now off-limits, Mendelsohn says, acknowledging that the show is concerned about being a target for watchdog groups such as PTC.
The wide range of reactions shouldn't be surprising, says S. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a non-profit, non-partisan, media-monitoring group. A shocking scene that one viewer finds enticing, another may find appalling. A show such as CSI will try to strike a balance, "trying to figure out how to keep the shock value without it costing them money" from lost advertising or government sanctions.
Nothing 'gratuitous'
For Petersen, who is also a CSI producer, any kinky subject matter has to make sense for the story. "I just don't want it to be gratuitous."
As far as fans are concerned, there's nothing gratuitous about Lady Heather, introduced by Stahl in 2001's "Slaves of Las Vegas." She took Grissom, Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) and viewers into the world of sado-masochism, complete with whips, chains, leather and latex body suits, but also introduced a complex character.
Lady Heather interested Clarke because of her contrasts: She was the successful operator of an upscale fetish club and the mother of a daughter attending Harvard, a woman who could give a man a whipping or, as in Grissom's case, serve him tea. "She was a multidimensional person who hadn't been seen, a dominatrix who was much more evolved — enigmatic and empowered," Clarke says.
What has made the character a favorite of viewers, despite having appeared in only two previous episodes, is her ability to read the usually opaque Grissom. She's his equal and a strong foil.
"Their chemistry is electric. (It) reveals aspects of the Grissom character that we don't get to see with anyone else he interacts with. Tolerance. Depth. Humanity. He feels," says fan Tammy Hoganson of New Prague, Minn., who says she enjoys when CSI delves into "less-than-vanilla subject matter."
Grissom, ever the student, is curious about Heather's field of work, just as he was fascinated, not put off, by the plushies and furries convention. Grissom and Heather, Petersen says during a break between scenes with Clarke, are "both anthropologists. He's fascinated by her science, (a look at) the sexual psyche of human beings."
There's also a sexual tension between the characters (one that may have been acted upon, depending on how scenes are interpreted from Lady Heather's second visit).
Their delicate balance will shift in Thursday's episode, which Mendelsohn says may seem disturbing not for its sexual content but for the horrible experiments of a brilliant scientist she describes as "a Grissom gone wrong."
And Lady Heather, a woman who depends on her steely control, will lose it as a victimized mother.
The power roles will shift in the desert, Mendelsohn says. Grissom will have "to save her from herself."
