Criminal Minds in Criminal Minds

Laura Twomey

The CBS television series Criminal Minds depicts an array of criminals in their twelve seasons. The show is about an FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit (the BAU) that is consistently requested all over the country to help local crime fighters catch and stop prominent killers from terrorizing their towns. Most episodes have a different killer in a different city, although some episodes follow the same killer over a period of time. One of these killers, known as “The Reaper,” has a series of episodes following his actions until it his time on Criminal Minds culminates violently in the season after his introduction to the show. Other killers, like Danny in “A Shade of Gray,” show up in only one episode and are put out of the agents’ minds thereafter. These differences in the lengths of killers’ time on Criminal Minds supplements the differences in the kinds of killers they are. The show’s representation of murderers includes a wide variety of killers. It successfully displaying the diversity of killers that there is in real life.

In the episode “Omnivore,” there is a killer called “The Reaper” who targets people in Boston. He is an important criminal because ten years before, one of the agents in the BAU, Agent Hotchner, had tried to catch him. The Reaper, however, had stopped killing and gone into hiding before Hotchner and his people could catch him. The Reaper had made a deal with one of the policemen, Shaunessey, that he would stop hunting people if the law enforcers stopped hunting him. The contract expired when one of them died, and in the episode “Omnivore,” Shaunessey is able to tell Hotchner about their deal before he passes away.

The Reaper is very organized and patient, using the ten years left of Shaunessy’s life to lay low and plan his future attacks. In the present day, Shaunessey dies, so The Reaper starts killing again. Hotchner is determined to catch The Reaper this time. To help the hunt, the BAU contact the only surviving victim of The Reaper, George Foyet. He was stabbed many times by The Reaper, but was saved by the paramedics.

The big twist in this episode is that George Foyet is actually The Reaper. He made himself seem like one of his own victims by stabbing himself, so that he would not be caught, and so that he could be involved in the thick of his own investigation. 

Foyet is a very smart and manipulative killer. After he harmed himself to seem like a victim, he went underground for ten year, “hiding” from himself. He knew how to erase all of his online information, not only hiding from the FBI agents, but also supporting his ruse that he was hiding from The Reaper. The tech analyst with the BAU could not find any online paper trail for him, proving that Foyet is tech savvy and intelligent. He also craves power. He leaves clues for the agents at every crime scene; he takes something from his victim from one crime and leaves it at the next. He has a system and it is his way of holding power of the agents trying to find him. His other way of gaining power was when he made the deal with Shaunessy to stop killing people for the rest of Shaunessy’s life. He was able to get the FBI to stop looking for him, a power move that any killer would be proud to play. 

He is also a narcissist. One of his goals in life is to be famous for his crimes. In this episode, the killer is a narcissistic, power hungry, 40 year old man with high intelligence and extreme patience. He knows what he is doing and plans all of his kills, often using detailed ruses.


In the episode “A Shade of Gray,” the killer is a contrast to George Foyet. He is an eleven year old boy named Danny who kills his little brother when he breaks his model plane. Unlike Foyet, he only kills one person as spur of the moment reaction. His kill is not planned, and he does not purposefully, mentally choose to murder his brother. What makes him a dangerous person, though, is not only the fact that he violently kills his brother at the age of eleven in a fit of rage, but also his response to the situation. He only seems to feel bad about his actions when he realizes that they may have gotten him in trouble. At the end of the episode, Agent Prentiss reveals that Danny is a sociopath. He has no ability to feel remorse.

These two episodes of Criminal Minds show a drop of the wide diversity of criminals that the show portrays. The show’s representation of killers accurately shows the wide variety of criminals in the real world. Every person has a different reason for what they do and a different combination of mental qualities that encourage them to engage in terrible, violent behavior. Criminal Minds successfully portrays this wide diversity of criminal minds.

A New Feminist Era

By: Alexis Carreno

Imagine Dragon released their single “Radioactive” back in 2012, however when the music video came out later that year it was different than what most people associated the lyrics of the song with. It is not to say it was a bad video; it just takes a little more thought to deconstruct the symbols and understand the message of a new era with a feministic perspective.

The video start with a woman carrying a covered cage and entering a creepy isolated building. In this building, men conduct fights between stuff animals however, one seems to dominate every round and destroys all the other teddy bears. Here semiotics is used to demonstrate the current era. The dominant stuff animal has similar characteristics to a gorilla which is symbol for dominance and masculinity. On the other hand, the stuff animals he is destroying are the cute and fluffy. The teddy bears have a female connotation because as Denise’s article mentions teddy bears can be a representation of a woman’s personality. Therefore, these scenes represent the age where male dominated females, the patriarchal era. The gorilla stuff animal destroying the other small animal is not showing physical abuse, it’s more of an analogy to show that women are beneath men.

An article by Linda Napikoski, describes this era as men holding all the positions for instance being the leader of the family and being the boss at work making great money. This concept of men being bosses and having money is demonstrated in the environment of the arena. While the stuff animals are fighting, the people who surround the arena are all men with money in the hands. Furthermore, the one who oversees the fights and the controller of the dominating stuff animal is a man who sits on chair like it a throne. This further establish the current male dominance era because women were not given any high positions of authority and thus had to depend on their male spouse for big money.

The masculinity era comes to an end when the woman who entered the building pulls the blanket off the cage and a reveals a pink stuff teddy bear. Pink is associated with feminine characteristics such as loving and caring and thus this teddy bear symbolizes the power of women. The teddy bears end up knocking out the gorilla in one powerful punch shocking the male audience. Two men try to grasp the bear however it vaporizes them resulting in all the other men to drop the money and leave the area. The new era has now begun. This new era is the current era in the world where, women have been given more rights and are seen more as equal to men. They are able to work in a high position job with a great salary. Female no longer need to feel dependent of men because not they are able to live life as an independent woman.

Besides the interpretation through the stuff animals there is another way the music video demonstrates the theme of a feminist new era. The actual band members are shown in the video however, they are trapped in the basement beneath the arena. The man in charge of the place has the key to get the band members out but will only hand over the key when beaten. So again, demonstrating the important role that women play, here come the lady with the pink stuff animal to not only beat the one in charge but to save the band members who are all male. The men who had the guy is sent to the basement where all the destroyed stuff animals are which can be interpret that males are no longer are above the females, in fact it can be said that they need females. The band member would have been stuck there forever if it was not for the lady coming to the rescue. Furthermore, when the members are freed they automatically get out of the basement and the last member turns back and looks the women. She is show like a mysterious savior or super hero with the light shining from the background which bring this strong connation to girl power.

 According to the behind the scenes of the music video, the band member wanted to tell their message but in a way the viewers would never expect. The music video accomplishes that and at first their message is not as clear but once you see it a second time it became obvious that the message is about revolution or a new era. However, taking it to a higher level, the semiotics and feminism features can be depicted as the rise of a new era for women.

Pepsi Commercial

In a recent Pepsi advertisement, Kendall Jenner joins a peace protest in the middle of a photoshoot she is doing. She makes her way to the front of the protest where the protesters and a line of police officers stand face-to-face. With a Pepsi in hand, Kendall Jenner walks up to one the police officers and hands it to him. The officer proceeds to drink the Pepsi and smile as the protesters cheer him on and begin high-fiving and hugging on another

            This commercial almost seems like it is a parody of what a Black Live Matter protest is meant to be like. This advertisement to me is a bunch of random people who had no intention of being a part of the protest becoming curious about what was going on and just joined in. There seems to be a lot of dancing, music, and smiling for this to be a protest. This advertisement is a mockery of representation of a Black Lives Matter protest due to unrealistic depictions and ethnic diversities.

            A real Black Lives Matter protests are usually over a community’s outrage of police brutality. Just as there was in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson. I can assure you there is dancing, cheerful music or smiling going on during these protest. People are protesting because they are angry and want to stop seeing members of the black community being shot for unjust reasoning with most police officers not receiving the punishment they deserve.

            The main moment of this commercial is when Kendall Jenner approaches the officer and hand him the Pepsi, but this not what would have happen had that been a young black woman during a Black Lives Matter protest. I know this because this moment was failed rendition of Ieshia Evens icon photo of her standing alone in front of a line of police officers wearing riot gear. Two officers rushed out to detain her as she peaceful stood there. There was no smiling or any signs of happiness from either side. However, in this advertisement all of these unrealistic depictions of happiness, fun, and peace are false.

If Pepsi really wanted to try to reenact a Black Lives Matter protest, they could have at least had more black people in the advertisement. The lack of ethnic diversity is appalling to say the least. I know there are other protests going on in the United States besides Black Lives Matter, but seeing as how Kendall Jenner and Pepsi ripped of an icon moment of the movement; it would be nice to see more than two black people dancing in the advertisement. This advertisement represents nothing of the Black Lives Matter movement and is why it was so heavily criticized. Within a few days, Pepsi posting this advertisement it was taken down; they got the message that many people were not happy about it and though it was in poor taste. It was even spoofed by Saturday Night Live (SNL) for being so bad, as if the original commercial was not bad enough. The SNL skit portrays the director on the phone getting negative feedback about the commercial he was about to film where Kendall Jenner is the person who bring peace to between the police and protesters. It was even so bad that even Bernice King, Martin Luther King’s youngest daughter, tweeted “If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi.”
This advertisement was a completely inaccurate portrayal of what Americans who are protesting go through to get their message and purpose across. However, if all it takes is Kendall Jenner handing out Pepsi to bring world peace then I am sure Pepsi will re-air this advertisement, but until then I would say they need to go back to the drawing board. The misconstrued conception of what goes into a protest enraged many with this advertisement. It did not capture the true representation of emotions go into having to fight for justice, peace, and equality.
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It Ain't Me

Imagine taking a casual ride on a motor cycle with your loved one and the next thing you know, you crash and your loved one must be rushed to the hospital. This horrific scene occurs in Kygo’s new song featuring Selena Gomez called “It Ain’t Me”.
           A couple starts out on a late-night motorcycle ride and quickly crashes after swerving out of the way of another car. The female character is able to get up and walk away from the accident but the male character ends up in a come in the hospital. The girl spends most of her time after the accident by her boyfriend’s side, but she soon loses hope. She dances around the hospital room and realizes he is not coming back. At the end of the video, however, the male character wakes up from the coma and realizes his girlfriend is gone.
           The most interesting part of this video was all the symbols the director decided to use. The semiotics of this video add a deeper and more meaningful message to the song. One of the first examples shown is the red jumpsuit and helmet the female character wears before and during the motorcycle crash. The color red can represent many different things, but in this video, it represents love. In the beginning, the female’s love for her boyfriend was strong, but as the video progresses, she strays from wearing red clothing showing that her love for him is fading.
           Another interesting aspect of this video is that the setting goes back and forth between the hospital room and the male’s unconscious thoughts and images. In terms of symbolism, this represents the chaotic and unpredictable nature of the couple’s time spent in the hospital. The scene where, in his subconscious mind, the female pulls a butterfly out of her mouth brings up a sense of change or metamorphosing that is to come.
           The change that is being foreshadowed appears in the end of the video when the male character wakes up, but his girlfriend is not there. A butterfly lands on his head, showing that his girlfriend is gone and how his life has changed. Whether he wanted it or not, his life changed right before his eyes. The director did an excellent job of portraying this with the method of filming.
           Elements of mise en scene are very prevalent in this video. The shot will go from a close up shot on the male’s face to a long shot of the whole room or to his subconscious thoughts. The quick changes between shots adds to the feeling of chaos. The angle of the shots also vary. One moment the camera will have a bird’s eye view of the male’s face, and the next scene will be a wide angle of the hospital room with a focus on the girl.
           Overall, this video creates a strong message that life can change before your eyes. The methods the director used are very effective, however the lyrics could match up better with the theme of the video. The song is more about a girl who is tired of always taking care of someone who, we assume, drinks too much. The video is more about a tragic accident and the girl is looking after her boyfriend, but stops after losing hope of him coming out of a coma. Other than that, the video and message are very well made and very effective.
            The way this video is created and edited makes it unlike most other videos in a good way. Using this story line for this song is unexpected but it leaves a lasting memory on the viewer and even advocates for safer driving.

A Modern Day Romeo and Juliet

Taylor Swift’s music video, “LoveStory” displays a parallel to William Shakespeare’s tragic play “Romeo and Juliet” through the use of intertextuality. Swift starts out in the video daydreaming about a boy across her high school campus. Her daydream takes her back to Britain in the 1500’s, roaming around castles while wearing a ball gown and high heels. Swift goes from dancing in a ballroom to leaning over the side of a balcony singing to her potential Romeo and eventually dancing with her love interest.

Intertextuality is defined by a certain text referring or borrowing content from another text. It can be further defined in two different ways, implicitly and explicitly. Implicit intertextuality is when the reference is subtle and not directly made. Explicit intertextuality is when there is an outright reference to another text. “Love Story” uses explicit intertextuality by comparing Taylor Swift and her love interest to Romeo and Juliet.

An example of explicit intertextuality is when swift sings, “Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone”. This is a direct reference because she used Romeo’s actual name. This is significant because she is making a direct comparison between her love interest and Romeo, which is seen as a storytelling device. By doing this, the characters were further developed into specific roles. This reference made it obvious that they were modeled off of Romeo and Juliet, which instantly romanticized them and made them out to have this beautiful “love story”.

Another example of explicit intertextuality is when she sings, she sings, “and my daddy said stay away from Juliet”. Romeo and Juliet came from feuding families, so Swift is once again comparing her life to the lives of Romeo and Juliet by stating that her family does not get along with the family of her love interest. This allows the characters to be relatable to the audience and also allow them to be able to relate to them through the cultural reference frame.

An example of implicit intertextuality is when Swift is leaning over the balcony signing to her guy. By waiting around on the balcony suggests that she is a damsel in distress waiting around for her Romeo to come and save her from her unreasonable family. This refers to the famous scene where Juliet is standing over a balcony looking down to Romeo while they confessed their love for each other. Though it is not outwardly vocalized that that is what they are refereeing to, it is implied that she is attempting to imitate the famous balcony scene in the actual play of Romeo and Juliet, which is what makes it implicit.

Intertextuality can be used as a storytelling device to make advances in the plot line and to build character development. By making the characters more relatable it is easier to get emotionally invested in the song and the story line of the music video in general.

In conclusion, the music video “Love story” has several references to the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet through the use of intertextuality. By using content from the tragic play, Taylor Swift’s love life was implicitly and explicitly compared to the lives of Romeo and Juliet.  This allowed for the characters to become more than just a basic couple because they were compared to one of the greatest love stories of all time.

Millie Dresselhaus, the new Kim K

In General Electric`s commercial ad “What If Millie Dresselhaus, Female Scientist, Was Treated Like a Celebrity,” it shows how different the world could be if we, as a society, put influential and important people in the limelight rather than singers, actors, and reality TV stars. It is focused around Millie Dresselhaus, the first female Institute Professor or “distinguished professor” at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It portrays scenes of kids receiving a Millie Dresselhaus doll, dressing up as Mille for Halloween, having a Millie emoji, and even Millie becoming a popular baby name in the hospital.

The caption GE provided with the video was “At GE, we’re not just imagining a world where brilliant women are the stars- we’re helping create it.” General Electric has a goal of employing 20,000 women in technical roles by 2020. In addition, they want the starting positions in GE to be 50% male and 50% female. They end the video with a hashtag #BalanceTheEquation. This hashtag serves as a call to action. Its purpose is to start and spread the conversation about closing the gender gap in the technical industry. They want to provide a role model for young girls, to show them that jobs in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) are not just for men. And who better portray this then the first woman to win the National Medal of Science in Engineering.

While showing this alternate reality, it provokes images that we can relate to today, just with different faces. Because in our current reality, kids beg for toys of Taylor Swift, dress up as the Kardashians, use “Kim K” emojis, and name their babies Katniss. So this ad is not simply about feminism and female empowerment but about redirecting pop culture. Rather than surrounding people with images and news about celebrities, surround people (especially young girls) with images and news about women who show just how much one girl can achieve. We never see female doctors, scientists, and engineers featured all over the media. Showing these images would be a great way to empower girls and show them what is possible.

In making this ad, GE wants to not only encourage thischange but also show how they plan on contributing to it. Even if what they are doing is money driven, it will positively impact a generation of young girls who will have role models that look like them. But it isn’t entirely centered on making role models for young girls, it suggests a change in the rhetoric of current pop culture. In the ad, paparazzi follows Millie around, boys run up and ask to take a photo with her, and her lectures are full of people. As a society, we need to stop idealizing celebrities and instead start paying attention to those who are truly changing and evolving the world we live in. These are the people our future depends on and very rarely do they receive acknowledgment outside of the scientific community.

It is time to change what we as a society value. When pop culture acknowledges the contribution of female scientists, they will begin to receive the respect they deserve. And young girls will see these scientists and want to grow up to be like them. People will begin to realize that beauty and athletic ability should not outshine life-changing scientific achievement. Because these scientists are the ones who are truly impacting the world and the lives of its citizens.

This ad was run during the 2017 Oscar awards, thus reaching a large audience. As advertisement, I think it is successful because it is very thought provoking. The alternate way it shows is not so far off from the world we live in now. The only thing that changes is the person we revere.

Breezeblocks: Not so Breezy

As Alt-J never appears in the music video of their song, "Breezeblocks," the audience is left to watch is a truly engaging and emotional short film. The video itself depicts a series of violent events resulting in a murder. The film's characters consist of a female who is being held captive, a male who is wed to the captive woman, and another female who is presented in the end as the married woman's captor.

The most intriguing aspect of this music video is that the storyline is presented in reverse. This way of video formatting entices the audience and leaves them questioning what the true storyline is at every turn.

The first scene of this music video takes place in an apartment bathroom with a full tub of water. The first main character in the storyline (female) is shown dead submerged in the tub, held down by a cinderblock or in european terms, a 'breekeblock' (hinting to the song title). In the next shot, there is a close up of another main character (male) sitting in a fetal position, with his head resting in the cups of his hands. His body language suggests extreme stress or sadness, and quite possibly regret. Additionally, in this shot we can see a gold-band ring on his left hand ring finger suggesting that he is married. In another shot returning to the submerged female, there is no apparent ring, further suggesting that this deceased female is not his wife. The third shot in this bathroom scene shows these two main characters having a physical fight, resulting in the male smashing in the female's head with a cinderblock.

The second scene takes place in the hallway of the same apartment. Here, the two main characters are fighting each other and the female is seen struggling and desperately running away from the male.

Scene three shows the main female character looking terrified as she and the male character fight over a cinderblock followed by the female aggressively throwing a glass wine bottle from the counter at the male character. The battle between characters moves through different acts of violence including brutally rolling over the kitchen counter and slamming into bookcases.

The fourth scene introduces a third character (female) who seems to be locked in a wardrobe with a piece of duct tape covering her mouth which the male character takes off as she begins to scream while looking terrified past him towards the front door. A close up shot of the third character shows her attempting to frantically cut herself out of her rope-bound hands with a knife. In this shot we see that she is wearing a matching wedding band to the male character, suggesting that she is his wife. In the following shot, we see a glimpse of the primary female character entering the apartment, looking down upon the male character and his wife suggesting that she does not approve of the situation. This is a key part of the video where we as viewers can assume that the male character is not the bad guy, but rather trying to save his wife from her female captor.

The fifth scene shows the male character coming in through the door, and leaving it open behind him. This suggests that he is in a hurry, which is emphasized by him dropping his jacket to the floor to open up the wardrobe. 

Throughout the video, the camera focuses on a number of items in the apartment in slow motion to break away from the action and yet again leave the viewer actively asking questions. 

Overall, the graveness of the succession of violent events can be foreseen at the very first because of the dark hue of the camera shots. Every scene is very dark and severely lacking in color which is an excellent signifier that whatever is happening in the video is dark - both metaphorically and otherwise.