





































Currently on its sixteenth season, there 
is no question that NBC’s Law & 

Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) has gained 
immense popularity in modern television. 
One of many spin-offs from the original 
“Mother Ship” Law & Order program, SVU 
focuses on crimes with “special victims,” 
which usually refer to those of sexual as-
sault, as the opening narration states:

In the criminal justice system, sexual-
ly-based offenses are considered especially 
heinous. In New York City, the dedicated 
detectives who investigate these vicious fel-
onies are members of an elite squad known 
as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories. 

It also depicts other crimes including cases with children, the elderly, and trafficking victims.
This show is not without its critics, however. Many in the academic community point to the 

sexually-charged content as both the reason for SVU’s success and also the site of its controver-
sy. Scholar of media culture and author Cynthia Chris states, “No amount of stolid narrative 
closure…could temper the graphic fear contained in” a particularly harrowing 2008 episode. 
“There was something sticky and toxic at work in the show,” Chris continues, “and I could not 
overlook it ever again” (62). Scholars like Chris find themselves questioning SVU’s graphic 
content, coming to the same conclusion: “we don’t really know why so many are drawn to these 
entertainments, nor to what effect. We don’t even have a firm grasp on the scope and received 
meanings of violence contained within popular entertainment products” (62). 

Many others focus on the implications this show has for questions of gender and race 
in the media. SVU hangs on a point of tension within the critical discourse thanks to the 
diversity—and lack thereof—in the cast, which has yet to receive much explicit attention. 
The show features many elements characteristic of the white savior trope, since only one 

Children in Chains: On the Productive 
 and Exploitative Tendencies of 
Representation in Law & Order:
Special Victims Unit

Kathryn Hampshire, Ball State University

Key Words:
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, revictim-
ization, white savior, child slavery, exploita-
tion, trafficking

Abstract:
This paper explores the depiction of child en-
slavement in the television show Law & Order: 
Special Victims Unit and how this portrayal is 
ambiguous as it both productively explores 
this issue and also exploits it for entertain-
ment purposes. The author focuses on the 
program’s use of revictimization, the white 
savior trope, and its voyeuristic tendencies.    

49

Digital Literature Review, vol. 2 (2015). © Ball State University. All Rights Reserved.
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce critical edition to dlr@bsu.edu. 



main detective, Odafin “Fin” Tutuola, is black. However, the gender factor disrupts the per-
vasiveness of this motif: this literary device usually leans heavily on strong white males, but 
SVU features a distinctly strong and empowering female presence in the character of Olivia 
Benson, the only detective to endure through all sixteen seasons and whose actress, Mariska 
Hargitay, is an influential victims’ rights advocate in real life. In this way, I propose that the 
show hangs in limbo between detrimentally buying into harmful media practices and pro-
ductively contributing to diversity discourse.

Working within the more prevalent lines of discussion, professors Lisa M. Cuklanz and Su-
jata Moorti argue in their article, “Television’s ‘New’ Feminism: Prime-Time Representations 
of Women and Victimization,” that, while SVU does indeed incorporate a productive feminist 
perspective regarding sexual assault, the show’s depiction of women themselves problemati-
cally demonstrates “an anxiety about feminine characteristics and the power women possess 
within the private sphere” (304). In this way, Cuklanz and Moorti argue in a fashion that is 
representative of the feminist discourse surrounding the show, using scholarship ripe with 
“seemingly contradictory” moves (303). Often, the same scholars praising SVU’s efforts are 
also those tearing them apart.

In this paper, I will be engaging in a similar pattern of discussion, here addressing SVU’s de-
piction of child slavery—a facet of the show that has yet to receive much attention. While this 
program does indeed bring several important critical themes to light regarding enslavement 
and trauma, SVU still has exploitative tendencies. Here, I will examine several specific episodes 
about child enslavement to demonstrate the productive and exploitative tendencies of the 
show, analyzing specifically the themes of revictimization, the white savior trope, and problem-
atic imagery, along with their implications for the show as a whole.

Innocence and Exploitation: Child Enslavement in SVU
Slavery is abhorrent on all levels, but when the victims are children, the facts become much 

more heart-breaking. In the words of Sally Stoecker, a Scholar-in-Residence at the Transnational 
Crime and Corruption Center of American University in Washington, DC, “It is a sad commen-
tary on the state of the global economy…that women and children are being traded as quickly 
as commodities…. This phenomenon can be called the ‘commodification of persons’” (13). In 
SVU, the storyline of several episodes includes depictions of child victims, often in the context of 
trafficking. While this practice could serve to dynamically bring about awareness regarding vari-
ous aspects of the trafficking discourse, the potential for the situation to turn exploitative creates a 
site of moral ambiguity which needs to be considered.

In their essay, “Does ‘Special’ Mean Young, White and Female? Deconstructing the Mean-
ing of ‘Special’ in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Central Washington University scholars 
Sarah Britto, Tycy Hughes, Kurt Saltzman, and Colin Stroh discuss the types of victims the show 
portrays and the implications of these choices: “Age, in both extremes, is used as a way to depict 
innocence,” and SVU certainly capitalizes on this (Britto et al. 43). The fact that many of SVU’s 
victims are children places a form of inherent emphasis on the subject matter of those episodes 
since “children represent both vulnerability and potential for the future and as such their images 
are attention grabbing and powerful, particularly when the issue is crime” (Britto et al. 42). In 
this analysis, I will be examining several episodes in which children in particular are the victims of 
slavery because of this emphasis.

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By using children as the object of these crimes, SVU draws special attention to the sub-
jects of these episodes and the messages they convey. Oftentimes, episodes contain scenes 
in which characters discuss the issues at hand in such a way that viewers can learn about 
real-life situations through the show’s treatment of them. In “Merchandise,” for example, 
a scene between detectives and an assistant US attorney informs the audience about the 
little-discussed issue of American children in various types of domestic slavery. According to 
the episode’s executive producer Neal Baer, “We hear about sex trafficking, which is horren-
dous, but we don’t hear as much about trafficking where kids are forced to work on farms 
and work for people in their homes” (qtd. in Keehn). In the episode, the characters discuss 
how foreign victims have access to aid, whereas domestic slaves “get nothing”; the assistant 
US attorney then describes several examples of children enslaved across the country. In this 
way, I propose that SVU constructively contributes to the much-needed efforts in the overall 
trafficking discourse “to expand the definition of trafficking to include purposes other than 
prostitution, such as forced labor, forced marriage, and slavery-like practices,” as Dr. Jyoti 
Sanghera, Section Chief of Human Rights and Economic and Social Issues at the United Na-
tions Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, says (10). This scene 
in “Merchandise” is exemplary of how the show fits in moments meant to inform viewers 
while simultaneously moving the storyline along.

In addition to these conversations, characters often portray the real effects that enslavement 
can have in such a way that viewers can become more informed about trauma. Continuing our 
analysis of “Merchandise,” the episode continues its efforts to engage in critical slavery dia-
logue when a child victim named Micah reveals the inherent non-linear nature of trauma in a 
way that can enlighten viewers into this aspect of a victim’s experience. 

Often, victims of extremely traumatic experiences face difficulties putting those experiences 
into a chronological, linear narrative that normal experiences generally allow. They instead re-
member and recount their trauma in nonlinear flashes of memories and feelings, which is evident 
in Micah’s interview with psychiatrist Dr. George Huang. Micah begins his story in the middle, 
describing the sounds, smells, and feelings of the cellar in which he was held. He then says, “Do 
something wrong, make a mistake, and we all get a beating” (“Merchandise”). The rest of the 
conversation follows this nonlinear pattern. Huang attempts to put Micah on a chronological path 
with leading questions, but Micah’s narrative continues to push back. This conversation demon-
strates how severe trauma like slavery is resistant to a linear narrative.

In addition to nonlinearity, SVU also reveals the traumatic implications these experiences can 
have on their victims, based on real-life experiences. In her analysis of real-life child trafficking 
victims, Daniela Nicolaescu notes, “The analysed subjects show us that…the forms of abuse 
which the child endured while being trafficked have disastrous consequences on the emotional 
balance and on the general behavior of the children,” including Stockholm syndrome, panic, 
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety (102, 95, 99). Often, victims on SVU deal 
with these same results from their traumatic experiences, such as Kristen in “Stranger,” a victim 
of prolonged sexual enslavement who suffers from PTSD and Stockholm syndrome. This episode 
even features a scene when the detectives discuss the implications of the latter, thus informing the 
audience about a commonly-misunderstood mental issue.

However, despite the various productive ways that the show is raising awareness about 
various slavery- and trauma-related issues, it is important to recognize the fact that it exists 

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within an entertainment medium. As Britto et al. explain, “children’s images…are often the 
basis of moral panics, suggesting when crime stories focus on children they have more sa-
lience among consumers” (42). They go on to speculate that this, perhaps, is the reason why 
SVU is the most popular of the Law & Order spin-off shows and to note that nearly “one-half 
of all the victims on SVU were under the age of 18, compared to NCVS [National Crime 
Victimization Survey] reports that suggest the actual figure is closer to one-quarter [of ] all 
victims” (46). This calls into question whether the program’s emphatic and disproportionate 
use of child victims is as innocent as it may at first appear. SVU could be using this particular 
demographic in order to draw attention to issues, but the reasons could also be exploitative. 
They could be attempting to attract and maintain the attention of more viewers or perhaps 
unknowingly, but nonetheless perversely, providing a voyeuristic opportunity for viewers to 
observe the torture and maltreatment of children. Even with the ways that SVU is contrib-
uting to a discourse about trafficking, it is important to consider whether the price is worth 
paying in exchange.

Although one might hope that the show’s goals are to bring the abovementioned issues 
about slavery and trauma to light, the fact still remains that channels like USA broadcast 
SVU among other shows like Necessary Roughness, Royal Pains, and Satisfaction. It would 
be a very difficult case to argue that these other programs have activist goals in mind when 
they are so clearly meant for entertainment, and it is disturbing to consider that SVU may be 
using child enslavement for the purpose of entertainment. What does it mean when these 
types of seemingly-productive discourse-raising themes are present in a show which keeps 
such company? The use and heavy reliance on the child victim character type and the fact 
that this show is clearly at least partially, if not entirely, intended for entertainment creates a 
site of ambiguity when considering whether as a whole SVU productively contributes to the 
trafficking discourse. 

When Will the Madness End?: An Examination of Revictimization 
On and Off Screen

Victims of these types of crimes often experience further victimization after the initial crime 
has taken place. From the police officers who first take their statements to the medical pro-
fessionals who attempt to care for their physical and mental needs, victims often seem to find 
themselves thinking that they would have been better off if they had simply remained silent. 
This process is known as revictimization, and it is prevalent in reality as well as in SVU. 

In an article for The Washington Post, special counsel on human rights Malika Saada Saar 
recounts the story of Tami, a 15-year-old victim of forced prostitution who, when she finally 
escaped, was arrested instead of protected, and she questions: “But should an abused child 
be incarcerated for the abuses perpetrated against her?”  Saar continues by arguing that “the 
people who rape these girls, the politely termed ‘johns,’ are rarely arrested for statutory rape, 
child endangerment or sexual assault of a minor.” Often, children forced into prostitution are 
treated like criminals when they are actually victims of a much graver offense; under-aged 
prostitutes, regardless of whether they are slaves or not, are victims of statutory rape and 
should be treated as such.

Often in SVU, revictimization is overtly prevalent, and thus the show productively raises 
awareness about it. Victims often express their displeasure with the way that they are treated 

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by the state, a sentiment grounded in reality. According to a study performed by Rebecca 
Campbell of Michigan State University, “43% to 52% of victims who had contact with the 
legal system rated their experience as unhelpful and/or hurtful” (704). The show makes it 
clear to viewers that, even though there is a chance for justice to be served, that chance often 
comes with a price.

Kristen exemplifies the cost a victim might face from pursuing justice in a particularly over-
whelming scene from “Stranger.” She suffers from PTSD as a result of her enslavement. Soon 
after she is released from the hospital, the detectives take her out to retrace her steps in order to 
find her abuser. Throughout, Kristen becomes increasingly overwhelmed and triggered by the 
loud sounds and the detectives’ pressuring questions. Even though the purpose of this process 
was to assist her in getting justice, the overall result was further victimization. This demon-
strates to viewers that even the most well-intentioned servants of the state may inadvertently 
cause further suffering for victims in the process of helping them get justice.

Within other episodes of SVU, the concept of revictimization becomes a site of contradiction. 
The show both raises awareness about this troublesome reality and also participates in it. One 
episode exemplary of this contradiction is “Merchandise,” which focuses on child enslavement 
and demonstrates “how these heinous crimes can be hidden in plain sight—and how victims of 
sex trafficking are often prosecuted as criminals” (Keehn). Detectives discover that Micah has a 
record for prostitution, despite the fact that he is only thirteen years old. Since Micah is para-
doxically a victim of sex trafficking being charged with prostitution, the show points to how the 
legal system is revictimizing him by criminalizing actions that he was forced to perform. Instead 
of arresting the pimps, “johns,” or traffickers, officers have arrested their victim.

This theme continues later in the episode, only in a different light because the characters and 
the show itself revictimize Micah. During a struggle to take the boy in, his shirt tears, revealing 
a back covered in lacerations—putting the boy’s injured body on display for the viewers. Even 
though Micah is a fictional character, the way this scene takes advantage of the set-up of the 
episode and the real-life implications of this type of treatment are extremely problematic. This 
moment of cinematography is exploitative on many levels: it exposes the body of a victim, it 
shocks some viewers into a state of pity (which is problematic in and of itself ) without the 
probability of productive action to take in response to this experience, and it capitalizes on 
other viewers’ desire to witness the results of torture. 

When Micah begins to repeatedly hurt himself, Fin then goes to restrain Micah for his own 
protection. Detective Eliot Stabler protests, “You saw his back—they made him a slave. Are you 
going to treat him like one now?” To this, Benson states, “Maybe it’s the only thing he’s used to.” 
Here, Benson argues that Micah has been treated like a slave for so long that he can no longer pro-
cess anything else, explaining his self-destructive behavior. However, regardless of what Micah is 
“used to,” they should not subject him to further victimization. By putting him in handcuffs, they 
are doing exactly what the show accused other officers of earlier: they are treating the victim like a 
criminal. Benson’s comment may have been true, but that does not justify further victimization of 
a child who has already been forced into labor and prostitution, repeatedly raped and sodomized, 
and arrested and charged with crimes out of his control.

Another source of secondary victimization is through the medical professionals with 
whom victims interact after an assault, specifically through the harrowing process of getting 
a rape kit. Campbell states that because “the survivor’s body is a crime scene,” an extremely 

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invasive and meticulous medical procedure is necessary to preserve evidence of the crime, 
a process which often leaves victims feeling as though they have been raped a second time 
(706). This aspect of revictimization is also addressed through SVU, but the way in which 
it is brought to light merits scrutiny. In “Stranger,” when a victim of sexual enslavement goes 
to the hospital with Benson, the scenes that follow are problematic. While Benson asks her 
about her trauma, the camera pans over the girl’s exposed body in suggestive patterns, down 
her back, up between her legs, and over her chest; focuses on a needle slowly penetrating 
her skin; and shows her expressionless, motionless, haunted face. These startling and pseu-
do-pornographic images, along with how her narrative is given as a voice-over, draw atten-
tion away from her narrating her trauma and toward her body. While this scene certainly 
demonstrates and raises awareness about the trauma of getting a rape kit, it does so in a way 
that is also exploitative.

The White Knight with a Badge: SVU’s Use of the White Savior Trope
Throughout literature pertaining to slavery, one widespread trope is that of the white savior—

the “messianic white self ” who “is the redeemer of the weak, the great leader who saves blacks 
from slavery or oppression” (Vera and Gordon 33). The white savior is persistent throughout film 
and TV alike in such blockbusters as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Matrix, Avatar, 
and The Blind Side, and it is much more harmful than it may seem. 

Originating in Western traditions of enslavement, the white savior represents a history of 
white paternalism and racist abolition movements, as well as a supposition of nonwhite sub-
mission and an inherent need for a savior. According to authors Hernán Vera (a professor of 
sociology and a prolific race relations writer) and Andrew M. Gordon (an associate professor 
of English and a film critic), in contemporary media, these types of characters present “whites 
with pleasing images of themselves as saviors rather than oppressors of other races,” when his-
tory clearly shows the latter to be a much more accurate depiction (34). 

When analyzing the depiction of an issue as racially-charged as slavery, it is important to eval-
uate whether the work in question is complicit in the use of this harmful and pervasive character 
type. Upon evaluating several episodes of SVU, I have found the white savior to be alarmingly 
prevalent. In order to demonstrate the various ways that the white savior trope is present in SVU, 
I will examine two episodes in particular: “Ritual” and “Merchandise.”

In “Ritual,” a white man purchases a young black boy from Nigeria through a trafficking ring 
to use for his own sexual perversions while his wife is away. The episode evolves to revolve 
around how these young black children from Nigeria are taken under false pretenses from their 
homes to be trafficked into the United States for sexual exploitation and domestic servitude. 
Throughout this episode, the black child slaves are portrayed in a way similar to how Vera and 
Gordon analyze the treatment of natives in the film Stargate: they are “credulous, ignorant, 
and superstitious” and even have special amulets like the black characters of that movie (36). 
This places these characters in a white-savioristic situation, which problematically “racializes 
and separates people into those who are redeemers (whites) and those who are redeemed or in 
need of redemption (nonwhites),” as Mathew W. Hughey describes the trope in his book The 
White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption (2).  

Over the course of this episode, the detectives work to uncover the trafficking operation. 
Toward the end, the detectives receive information which leads to a raid on a warehouse and 
the discovery of dozens of black children in chains, huddled in the dark, their faces now up-

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turned from their previous stupor of hopelessness as they are rescued by their white saviors. 
This image of black bodies—much less those of black children—in chains is problematic on 
many levels which will be discussed later, but here I will emphasize the way that this episode 
positions the seemingly ignorant, helpless, compliant black slave children with the bold, 
justice-seeking white adults. 

Later on in the episode, it is revealed that the main perpetrator of enslaving these children 
is a man from Nigeria himself, thus positioning the only adult from these children’s home as 
the episode’s villain. What’s more, the typecasting for this character buys into mainstream 
colorism, a type of discrimination based on skin color (distinctly different from racism which is 
based on ancestry and various other factors in addition to skin color). According to Dr. Ronald 
Hall of the University of St. Thomas, who is one of the nation’s leading scholars on skin color, 
“African American males who have darker skin are viewed as more sinister and threatening by 
both the dominant and dominated populations” (178). Since the actor for the Nigerian traf-
ficker is one of the darkest male characters in the episode, the show is simultaneously ascribing 
negative connotations to him based on his darker skin color and potentially contributing to 
viewers’ preexisting colorism mentalities. Even at the end of this episode when the one black 
detective, Fin (who notably happens to be much lighter than the trafficker), is accosting the 
trafficker and the situation turns violent, the white detectives intervene to make the official 
arrest, thus yet again “saving” the day.

In “Merchandise,” the white savior trope takes a turn by juxtaposing the power of the various 
detectives on the force. When the case of enslaved at-risk American youths becomes one of 
federal jurisdiction, Benson and Stabler become temporary U.S. Marshals. It is important to 
note here that even though Fin—again, the team’s only black detective—played an integral role 
in the case thus far, it is the white detectives who achieve this new level of authority. Indeed, 
directly following this scene, Fin expresses how impressed he is with their new credentials, 
reinforcing the underlying theme of white saviordom by juxtaposing his lack of power to save 
the children with the white detectives’ newly-empowered ability to do so.

As these episodes are representative of trends within the show, it is clear that SVU leans on the 
white savior trope throughout its treatment of slavery. Even though we have already examined 
several ways in which SVU is productively adding to the trafficking discourse and raising aware-
ness about real-world slavery concerns, it is important here to discuss the ways that its reliance 
on this character type could be causing some level of harm to viewers and, by extension, to race 
relations in modern society. 

The white savior is a trope of contention wherever it appears with “people wrangl[ing] 
over the site and suitability” and “stak[ing] out a position along the spectrum of evaluations: 
good to bad, progressive to racist, and stereotype to true story” (Hughey 3-4). Within the 
context of SVU specifically, it is my position that the white savior falls on the latter side of 
this spectrum because of its subtlety; it is extremely prevalent without being so obvious 
that the average viewer would necessarily notice. The motif makes appearances in such a 
subversive way that could potentially derail any productive efforts the show could be having 
within the trafficking discourse. Similar to films depending on this trope, SVU characters 
might come across as straight-forward depictions of heroic characters, and “yet they are sites 
of both purposeful ideological labor and implicit explanations about race so normalized as 
common sense that many may fail to recognize them as ideological” (Hughey 8). From a 
show with a flawed framework which allows for this kind of treatment of race relations, it is 

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important to be critical about whether it can still make positive and productive contribu-
tions to the discourse surrounding slavery.

In a study on racial stereotypes, S. Plous and Tyrone Williams of Wesleyan University 
ascertained that: “Some 20% of the public expresses a belief that blacks are innately inferior 
in thinking ability, and a majority endorses at least one racial stereotype concerning inborn 
ability. In addition, roughly 50% of the public endorses at least one stereotypical difference in 
anatomy between blacks and whites” (811).  Their research summary explains how stereotypes 
of this sort have firmly rooted themselves in the American history of oppression since early 
views about blacks centered on “characteristics which, it was argued, naturally suited them to 
slavery” (796). One of the reasons for these types of stereotypes remaining persistent today 
can be ascribed to the media’s treatment of people of color. In our visual culture, images have 
the ability to shape people’s worldviews. This includes both obvious sources like the news and 
also more seemingly innocent forms like entertainment television. In turn, we can posit that 
the way shows like SVU lean on racist and colorist tropes like the white savior is problematical-
ly adding to this harmful trend.

However, while certainly problematic, there could potentially be a somewhat plausible motive 
behind its use. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nicholas Kristof often uses this trope within his 
own writing, but he believes that it is for a greater cause:

Frankly, the moment a reader sees that I’m writing about Central Africa, for an awful lot of them, 
that’s the moment to turn the page…. One way of getting people to read at least a few [paragraphs] 
in is to have some kind of foreign protagonist, some American who they can identify with as a bridge 
character. And so if this is a way I can get people to care about foreign countries, to read about them, 
ideally, to get a little bit more involved, then I plead guilty. (qtd. in Hughey 3)

While Kristof ’s argument may be partially applicable to SVU, it cannot fully excuse the trope’s 
presence due to the entertainment factor. Regardless of its attributes, this show still runs on TV 
stations like USA alongside other shows like White Collar and Psych, programs whose main 
purpose is to entertain. This begs the question of whether or not the primary goal of this show 
is to divert audiences, as opposed to getting them “a little bit more involved.” Thus, what value 
does its use of the white savior truly have? Especially when one considers all of the evidence 
which points to the trope being harmful, these small attempts at using it productively seem to 
be a weak justification at best.

Although it is clear that SVU has a problematic tendency to lean on the white savior trope 
throughout its treatment of the issue of slavery, this seemingly clear-cut issue is complicated 
by a single factor, namely a single character: Olivia Benson. Detective Benson is a strong fe-
male character in the show and always has been from the first season. Throughout the show’s 
sixteen seasons, she has advanced through the ranks to become the current supervisor of the 
detective squad. As a “feminist heroine ” (Cuklanz and Moorti 305), Benson demonstrates 
many characteristics that many within the feminist conversation surrounding the show have 
praised as one of SVU’s most powerful and positive contributions to the gender discourse in 
modern television. 

However, as a white detective, Benson still finds herself in the position of the white savior quite 
frequently, raising concerns about her character’s productive nature within the critical discourse 
surrounding the show as a whole. In his book, Hughey points to several films which include 
“characters whose innate sense of justice drives these tales of racial cooperation, nonwhite uplift, 

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and white redemption” (7). While these particular themes may not be applicable to the show as 
a whole, one can certainly make a case that they are present in the episodes discussed thus far in 
this analysis. Benson is certainly a white protagonist character who fits Hughey’s description of 
this type of white savior; however, we arrive at the point of contention when the gender factor 
comes into play because, usually, the white savior trope refers to a man.

Amidst the productive ways that Benson’s character interacts with the storyline in regards 
to feminist theory, there are these problematic elements of her character which stem from the 
show’s favoritism toward white savioristic depictions and situations. This again raises the ques-
tion of whether or not the show is productive or problematic within the trafficking discourse. The 
severity of this tension makes it difficult to discern whether there is a clear answer.

Indeed, Benson is further complicated by the actress who plays her: Mariska Hargitay is 
an activist and advocate in real life for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child 
abuse. “It all started for me when I began my work on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit over 
a decade ago,” she says on the website for her organization, the Joyful Heart Foundation. 
She describes shocking statistics about sexual abuse, along with letters from viewers who 
wanted to share their stories about abuse. “That these individuals would reveal something so 
intensely personal—often for the very first time—to someone they knew only as a character 
on television demonstrated to me how desperate they were to be heard, believed, supported, 
and healed,” she writes, and these experiences moved her to become an activist. Not in name 
only, Hargitay has received training to become a crisis counselor, studied the subject, used 
her visibility to become an advocate and affect change, and has several advocacy awards to 
show for it.

This is not to sing Hargitay’s praises but to demonstrate her dedication to bringing about 
awareness and change regarding several issues central to the conflict in SVU. Indeed, according 
to Cuklanz and Moorti, “Hargitay’s volunteer work outside the show… emphasize[s] the com-
mitment of both SVU the program and Benson the character to victims’ perspectives and experi-
ences” (305). How, then, could a person so passionate about productive discourse possibly find 
herself complicit in a show which, as we have seen, has so many exploitative tendencies? 

Cinematographic Sins: Exploitative Portrayals and Voyeuristic 
Tendencies

Since television is predominately visual, it is vital to consider the imagery in a show like 
SVU when questioning its potential for being productive versus exploitative. As viewers of 
this program most likely have noticed, often the images the producers select to tell these sto-
ries of trauma can be traumatizing in and of themselves. When discussing the issue of slav-
ery, these images can have even more sinister implications which could potentially stand in 
the way of SVU being a productive venue for the trafficking discourse by becoming complicit 
in voyeurism.

In many episodes, the body of a victim is put on display for viewers. This has caused a 
great deal of controversy within feminist discussions of the show from the very beginning 
because “while the majority of the episodes in the first season focused on the victimization 
of ‘classic’ powerless subjects—women and children—storylines have increasingly drawn 
attention to other violated bodies, those gendered subjects who occupy the space of the 
female body in ‘rape scripts’” (Cuklanz and Moorti 301). Indeed, this progression has con-
tinued throughout the seasons with increasingly more disturbing visual representations of 

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victims’ traumatic experiences. A prime example of this trend can be found in the medical 
exam scene from “Stranger.”

These kinds of pseudo-pornographic images become much more explicit in some of the 
other episodes like “Slaves.” In this episode, detectives investigate a case of a young Roma-
nian girl being held as a domestic/sex slave. Even though “Slaves” brings to light several of 
the issues surrounding domestic slavery in the United States, several moments overtly point 
to the BDSM (bondage-discipline/dominance-submission/sadism-masochism) subculture. 
Throughout the course of questioning a suspect, the detectives use photos of tortured fe-
male bodies who allegedly had died as a result of torture. Later, upon searching the home of 
the suspect, they find various incriminating devices, including chains, head cages, and other 
instruments of torture, which could clearly point to sexual slavery. However, the case is com-
plicated by the wife’s seemingly willing participation (which turns out to be anything but) in 
these practices until the detectives discover the Romanian girl being held in a cage box built 
into the underside of the couple’s bed. 

The fact that this episode relies so heavily on BDSM culture while simultaneously engaging in 
the topic of slavery is a site of tension because of the fact that several sexually deviant behaviors 
associated in BDSM, while consensual, have their roots in fantasies of rape and sexual slavery. 
Scholar Marcus Wood asks in his book Slavery, Empathy and Pornography: 

“Is it too much to see bondage, body art, sado-masochism, mystical religious cults, the con-
structions of black male and female sexuality by whites as having evolved, more or less directly, 
out of the submerged and devious reaction of successive Western societies to the inheritance of 
Atlantic slavery?” (12). 

When considering SVU, the answer is an emphatic no. Even though the victim here is white, 
the episode nonetheless makes connections between the slave trade and modern sexual 
practices in such a way as to invite a voyeuristic viewing from audience members. Thus, it 
implicitly welcomes “white fantasies of black lives and suffering,” which is “more or less, 
the cultural memory of English slavery,” according to Wood (21). Specifically, the imagery 
of instruments of torture is fetishized by the photographs of tortured female bodies, the 
BDSM themes, the final image of the girl in the box, and the general context of the episode 
as a whole. In summation, this episode’s imagery plays into a highly problematic tendency 
to associate legitimate sexual slavery with its consensual counterpart. “Slaves” is even more 
disarming to the viewer since it is the finale to the first season, which was one of the most 
moderate of the sixteen seasons.

Potentially even more problematic than the show’s treatment of the enslaved female body is 
that of the black slave body. SVU buys into a media tendency to discount the value of a sin-
gle black voice by reducing individualized narratives in favor of groups in need of salvation: 
“although a single white victim was frequently the sole focus of an episode on SVU, minority 
victims were almost always portrayed in groups” (Britto et al. 47). This practice mirrors that of 
reality since “similar to past media research when minority victims are shown [in SVU], they 
are often depersonalized by only showing a photo rather than a person and grouping victims 
together and not developing their individual stories” (Britto et al. 50). 

This practice is arguably never more prevalent than in “Ritual” during the liberation scene.  
In this scene, the group of black children in chains draws on highly sinister roots in the heri-

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tage of the slave trade. Historically, chains have served not only as devices of physical control 
but also of psychological dehumanization. By placing the slaves in chains, they are likened 
to animals, who are then rendered much easier to exploit and control. According to Wood, 
“The comparison of slave body with the animal body has often been considered in terms of 
the manner in which it legitimated inhuman behavior on the part of the slave owner” (403). 
“Ritual” specifically draws on this history in a disconcertingly vivid way since the children are 
often kept as domestic “pets” by white families: “Yet perhaps of more sinister cultural import 
is the manner in which the slave-animal comparison, within the context of the domestic pet, 
opened up areas of positive emotional identification” (Wood 403). Wood goes on to discuss 
the significance of the use of the collar and other forms of restraints in the iconography of 
enslavement, a trope which is clearly evident in this scene from “Ritual.” As one of the show’s 
most disturbing moments, this scene seems to serve no productive purpose and draws on a 
history of black subjugation in the exploitative context of the black child slave’s body, in addi-
tion to the white savior themes.

The fact that these types of abuse of the victim’s body take place within the context of a TV 
show adds an extra level of exploitation because of the viewer’s voyeuristic ability to re-watch 
scenes of torture and subjugation. This relates directly to Wood’s discussion of Laurence Sterne’s 
A Sentimental Journey, when he says of the narrator: “He can come back to, and ‘enjoy’ the suf-
fering of his fantasy slave at any time, and in any way he likes. This act of imaginative possession 
exists in a troubled relation to the manner in which a real slave-owner can use the slave’s body at 
any time, in any way” (16). 

Watching Real Children in Chains: An Area for Further Consideration
Besides the various ways examined here regarding SVU’s exploitative practices, I believe 

that an even deeper and more threatening issue merits further consideration. There has yet 
to be meaningful research about what these experiences do to the child actors who facilitate 
these traumatic narratives. For example, a great number of young child actors of color were 
needed for the liberation scene from “Ritual” discussed at length above, and these young 
performers were actually physically occupying the space of a trafficked child being saved 
by white detectives. What is the show performing when it creates this situation where these 
children are acting out these highly traumatic scenes of racialized subjugation at such an im-
pressionable age? While this is not a question I am qualified to answer here, it merits further 
consideration and warrants mentioning here since it represents a potentially highly problem-
atic site of exploitation. 

Conclusion
According to Baer, “SVU asks the major questions—troubling, difficult, intractable issues 

of our time…I’m interested in how things fall apart” (qtd. in Lee 92). Indeed, the show does 
seem to spend a considerable amount of effort in productively participating in trafficking 
dialogue and raising awareness about critical issues pertaining to real-life themes. However, 
these efforts “fall apart” when one considers the various exploitative implications and under-
lying sinister themes of individual episodes and, by extension, the show as a whole. In order 
to be truly productive, SVU would need to shy away from harmful practices like the white 
savior trope and treat issues like revictimization in ways in which it does not end up partici-
pating in it themselves. 

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In such a visual medium as television, it is vital to ensure that a show of this nature does 
not become explicitly exploitative through cinematographic decisions. While graphic 
moments may draw viewers in, it does so for voyeuristic reasons, which are harmful to the 
show’s overall value as a productive participant in the dialogue. In tackling difficult subject 
matter like child enslavement, it is understandable that a program merely meant for enter-
tainment may come up short when critically examined for these types of issues. However, 
by choosing to focus on “special victims,” SVU opens the door for this type of criticism. In 
terms of visual culture, it is important to note that because “images can educate as well as 
corrupt,” the show has a responsibility to guide viewers to the former, although “the power 
of interpretation, or revision… lies solely with the viewer” (Bachman 151). As the show 
progresses through its sixteenth season, critical viewers can hope that these types of con-
siderations will be taken into account so that the potential for productive conversation can 
come to fruition.



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