Suits

Suits is an American drama television series created and written by Aaron Korsh. Suits is a legal drama about a fictional New York law firm. The show revolves around a Harvard-educated lawyer named Harvey Specter and his associate that never went to law school named Mike Ross. The show primarily focuses on Harvey and Mike solving cases while trying to maintain Mike's secret. The show ran for 9 seasons on USA Network from 2011 to 2019.

Ethical Concerns

Femininity in Mass Media

The media has had an issue with the representation of women in the past. Many shows in the past follow stereotypes of men and women. In TV dramas and sitcoms, women tend to be represented more as mothers, nurses, and secretaries while men tend to be represented by dominant roles that display aggression, strength, and action (Chandler). Suits does a great job at breaking this trend. Many of the characters have traits that do not fit these stereotypical roles. Some very good examples are of characters like Jessica Pearson, Louis Litt, and Rachel Zane. Jessica Pearson is the head of the law firm that Harvey and Mike work at. She is portrayed as an intelligent leader that understands much of the world around her. Louis Litt is a partner at the firm that produces the highest billables. He appreciates things like ballets, mudding, origami, and tennis. Rachel Zane is a paralegal of the firm. Throughout the series, she is shown to make it on her own without her parents’ success, be a part-time employee and student, and an excellent lawyer among her peers.

Racism and Media

Racism has been a major issue with the media since the beginning. Many early forms of entertainment media films portrayed African Americans as savages, ignorants, and potential rapists. White actors would also be painted black to play the roles of African Americans, insinuating that African Americans were not good enough to play their roles. This has had the effect of influencing peoples’ racial perceptions (Kulaszewicz). Suits cast many important supporting characters as African American, most notably Jessica Pearson and Robert Zane. These characters show multidimensional development through their struggles to become who they are today. They are both portrayed as strong respectable leaders of their law firms.

Ethics of Lawyering

Being a show about lawyers, the show touches over many ethical concepts in lawyering. In our legal system, everyone has the right to representation and it is their lawyer's job to represent them regardless of their personal opinion (Sharon). However, the ethics of this situation are debated. Is it ethical to represent someone who committed a crime with substantial evidence against them the same way as another with little evidence for a minor crime? The show does a great job trying not to place bias on viewers on what to do in these cases. For such a popular show, it is important to now impose beliefs on how ethics should be handled to viewers. Suits stay by agreed-upon fundamentals of integrity. The main characters never perjure themselves, falsify testimony, or do anything illegal in court. All of the outcomes of cases favor the party that was portrayed to be in the right.

References

Chandler, Daniel. “Television and Gender Roles” http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF33120/gendertv.html#E

Kulaszewicz, Kassia E.. (2015). Racism and the Media: A Textual Analysis. Retrieved from Sophia, the St. Catherine University repository website: https://sophia.stkate.edu/msw_papers/477

Sharon Dolovich, Ethical Lawyering and the Possiblity of Integrity, 70 Fordham L. Rev. 1629 (2002). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol70/iss5/8