Retribution and the Death Penalty

Symposium theme — Evolving Standards of Decency in 2003: Is the Death Penalty on Life Support

Law, Justice, and All that Jazz: An Analysis of Law\u27s Reach into Musical Theater

Narratives or stories are present in many facets of life. Narratives especially are seen in the media, fiction and nonfiction alike. These stories, seen in media, fiction, and nonfiction alike, have an immense impact on their audience. This influence displays the importance of continued research into media’s narratives, especially legal narratives. Much of past research looked at the social construction of these stories and its framing. Framing refers to how a subject is discussed in the media. While there is much research on media, framing, and legal narratives, very few researchers have examined live entertainment, including musical theater. My study explores the legal narratives within musicals. I completed a qualitative media analysis of seven Broadway shows and six Off-Broadway shows. My research questions include the following: Are there legal narratives in musical theater? What are those narratives? How do they compare on and Off-Broadway? Lastly, how have they changed over time? My analysis led to the emergence of three primary themes: deviancy, inequality, and institutionalized justice. In addition, there were also strong differences between the two venues. Specifically, Broadway shows largely criticize and discuss societal structures as they impact individuals. Conversely, Off-Broadway focuses on individual stories and tends to ignore societal structures. Some themes were also observed as changing over time. These changes either discussed important themes, new emergent themes, or changes in language over the decades. These findings are further complicated by hegemonic and counter hegemonic narratives. I discuss implications, limitations, and future research opportunities

The bitter taste of payback: the pathologising effect of TV revengendas

The thirst for vengeance is a timeless subject in popular entertainment. One need only think of Old Testament scripture; Shakespeare\u27s Hamlet; Quentin Tarantino\u27s Kill Bill or the TV series Revenge, and we immediately conjure up images of a protagonist striving to seek justice to avenge a heinous wrong committed against them. These texts, and others like it, speak to that which is ingrained in our human spirit about not only holding others responsible for their actions, but also about retaliation as payback. This article seeks to problematise the way the popular revenge narrative effectively constructs the vendetta as a guilty pleasure through which the audience can vicariously gain satisfaction, while at the same time perpetuates law\u27s rhetoric that personal desires for vengeance are to be repressed and denied. In particular, the article will demonstrate the way such popular revenge narratives contribute to the pathologising of human desire for payback

Egoistic and Nonegoistic Motives in Social Dilemmas

Many of the world\u27s problems (e.g., overpopulation, pollution, and the depletion of nonrenewable resources) may be characterized as social dilemmas. The solutions to social dilemmas, then, are very important. In this article, we argue: (a) that social psychologists have approached the problem of social dilemmas with an egoistic bias, (b) that this bias limits the number and types of solutions to dilemmas that psychologists investigate, (c) that egoistically based solutions to social dilemmas are not adequate in many real-world dilemmas, and (d) that viable solutions to these dilemmas may be found in nonegoistic motives