What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas when it airs on “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” the forensic cop series. Instead, “CSI” goes nationwide to an average of 26 million U.S. viewers a week, plus millions more around the world.
The most popular drama on television is also the kinkiest, giving viewers a full education not just in DNA sampling and bullet trajectories but also in obscure sexual preferences. These offbeat fetishes are normally associated with Howard Stern and Jerry Springer rather than a broad-appeal network show popular among red-state grandmothers. (It’s the No. 1 show among people 55 and older.)
Last week, for example, the dead naked guy in the driveway turned out to have been a man who got sexual pleasure by pretending to be a baby (with a woman who coddles and/or disciplines him).
“We know sometimes we push the envelope,” said Corinne Marrinan, associate producer of “CSI” and co-author of the book “CSI Companion.”
“We always try to deal with those things in a tasteful manner rather than a gratuitous, shocking way,” she added. “That’s the fine line we always walk.”
“CSI” is often up to such risque business. An episode in November, set partly in gay bars and pivoting on the genital mutilation of a transsexual, was the highest rated episode of any series on TV for that sweeps month, with 32 million viewers. (“CSI” star William Petersen said he thought that episode might have gone too far.)
A couple of weeks before that, a show about a guy raping and killing college coeds managed to work in S&M comic books and a blow-up sex doll. Looking for a stern, leather-clad dominatrix? Lady Heather has whipped up passions in two episodes. The Parents Television Council labels “CSI” one of the 10 worst shows on TV for its content. But the CBS hit seems to generate almost no other controversy. The Federal Communications Commission says it averages about 10 complaints per month, out of 26 million viewers a week.
Lisa Schmeiser, a “recapper” on the popular Television Without Pity Web site, has a theory about the absence of backlash.
” ‘CSI’ is a fundamentally conservative show,” she said. “Every time they take a trip into a wacky subculture, the message is that everybody gets punished for wanting to have sex. The idea that you’re free to let your freak flag fly is smacked down repeatedly.”
Associate producer Marrinan disagreed. “Instead of glorifying this [fetish] or saying it’s right or wrong, we say it’s there and let’s deal with it. It’s taking a lot of things out of the shadows.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
