Why SVU is Still My Jam

I was ten years old when Law & Order: SVU premiered. I’m pretty sure I didn’t watch it when it started for obvious reasons (good job, Mom!), but as I got older, it became a staple of my weekly television cadence. This was before DVR, so even though I didn’t have cable, tough choices still needed to be made from week-to-week if there was an unfortunate double booking.

I’d write the show name and time in pen (pen is serious business, non-negotiable) on my little printed out calendar template where I curated my weekly watch list. I am convinced, all these years later, that this is why I fastidiously keep a calendar for every hour of my working day, just to make sure nothing is missed. Who says watching television can’t breed good habits? I’ve talked in another article about growing up in a more rural area, and if you’ve experienced this, you know that television is a strangely important tether, especially before the rise of the internet.

With the exception of guest roles, Law & Order: SVU has never had an openly lesbian character, and as you can see in Toni McIntyre’s piece on problematic representation of LGBTQ+ individuals on the show, there’s still a long way left to go when it comes to supporting a more diverse group of people, especially where gender identity is concerned.

But for all of its faults, I want to talk about why SVU, now in its twentieth season, still works. I’ve spent twenty years of my life watching Olivia Benson’s ascent from Detective to Sergeant and finally, Lieutenant and in command of the whole of the SVU squad. Twenty years!

Olivia Benson is someone I aspire to be like. Spurred by conviction. Sometimes more emotional than her counterparts (male or female). Changing a system from within. There isn’t some rose-colored lens you can put on the situation to make her rise more chipper, more palatable. It’s a slow, sometimes frustrating, slog to a place she likely didn’t even know that she was reaching for, and in spite of the arguments about the lack of representation for other characters, I think it mirrors the real world pretty damn well.

In many cases, there’s no promotion if the person above you doesn’t retire. Her partner of twelve years left the squad, and she was forced to confront a slew of newbies while dealing with the loss of Stabler and her own burnout spurred by the change.

The point is that life doesn’t typically work out as planned, and sometimes, you need to reconsider your previous track to move forward in spite of the curve balls thrown at you. Benson probably wanted the nuclear family, given how tumultuous her own life was, but that didn’t work out either. And instead of being jaded or sacrificing a career that she found identity within, she found another way to have her family, providing love to a child in need and carving out her own sense of normalcy in the chaotic world.

In typical SVU fashion, we’re confronted with kidnappings and insane biological grandmothers and a whole host of other made-for-tv tropes, but if you set those things aside, which you know how to do if you keep coming back week after week, it’s a story about resilience and adaptability. It’s the story of the confluence of preparation and luck, and it shows that change doesn’t happen overnight.

In our hyper-paced world today, we want everything now. Food, now. Internet, now. The brass toilet paper holder I drunkenly ordered on Amazon, now. And while things can happen faster because of the ubiquity of the internet, it’s still a process. Changing minds takes time. Changing your own life can sometimes take far longer.

It’s easy to get dejected, especially when we spend too much of our lives looking at the carefully curated snippets that other people choose to share, like we’re watching a movie with all of the interesting parts instead of the slow grind of everything in between.

But to me, that’s life. That’s where the change happens, sometimes almost so imperceptible that you don’t even notice it at first. So while yeah, would I like a lesbian detective on SVU…obviously. But I appreciate as a woman the lesson the show has taught me about pushing forward, showing up, and ultimately, continuing to work for what I want even if things won’t always go my way.