Law & Order recently experimented with true crime, but the franchise hasn’t given up on their usual practice of taking real news stories and turning them into fictionalized, police procedural entertainment. If anything, it’s almost surprising that it took this long for Law & Order: SVU to announce that an episode addressing the Harvey Weinstein scandal is headed to a TV near you in 2018.
Since you’re probably weary enough of the real-life accusations of predatory behavior against prominent producers, directors, and actors over the past couple of months, SVU is introducing a twist—the episode won’t be about harassment in the entertainment industry. (Dun dun!) Executive producer Michael Chernuchin told Entertainment Weekly that the writers decided instead to explore the “boys club” of airline pilots: “It’s a real important episode about the rape culture in an industry, and we wanted to try stretch the law to criminalize that sort of environment.”
Most of what Weinstein is accused of doing is already illegal, with no stretching of the law necessary, so maybe the episode will focus on some of the grayer areas of sexual harassment? Between that premise and the focus on an industry that has nothing to do with Weinstein, Chernuchin’s claim that “we are hitting Harvey Weinstein head-on” sounds like a more exciting way to say “we are making an episode about rape culture,” which is kind of what SVU is all about anyway.
