When it comes to television, art has a tendency to imitate life and something tells me that such mimesis is most present in series that focus on crime. Such is the case for an upcoming episode of Law & Order: LA as rumor has it, the series will take on a storyline involving a congresswoman who is gunned down in public.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Law & Order: LA has begun filming an episode that closely resembles the shooting that took place last January and involved a gunman’s attempt to murder U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, killing a federal judge and some other people in the process.
EW notes that Law & Order has often borrowed stories from real headlines and that tonight’s episode is “loosely based” on the murder of publicist Ronni Chasen. Regardless, I still think it’s a bit soon to be milking the Arizona shooting for dramatic (and ratings) purposes, considering Giffords is still recovering from the incident and may be for some time. Then again, maybe there's no such thing as "too soon" when it comes to this sort of thing but it does sort of make me question whether something like this is exploitation for the sake of entertainment and if so, where is the line drawn on that?
