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Tuesday, October 05, 2004
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COMING DOWN HARD:
Television Responds to the NYU Suicides From Washington Square News, October 5, 2004: Students and university officials are angry about an episode of the NBC drama "Law and Order" in which a string of student suicides devastates a college campus. The episode, titled "Coming Down Hard," was shot around the Village on Aug. 23 and will air at 10 p.m. tomorrow - one month after the sixth NYU student in a year fell to her death and a full year after Stephen Bohler fell to his death from the 10th-floor balcony of Bobst Library. "Law & Order" defended the episode, in which detectives investigate a pharmaceutical company that provides trial anti-depressant drugs to the students who later die. "The storyline is about clinical drug trials and not about suicide," a "Law & Order" spokesman said in a statement. "And secondly, the school is not NYU. It's fictional, as is the story." While the episode is set at a fictional school, the connection to the tragedies that occurred at NYU is unmistakable, university officials said. “We were dismayed by the insensitivity and poor judgment shown by the producers of 'Law & Order,'" university spokesman Josh Taylor said in a statement. "This is one story that should not have been ripped from the headlines." Carolyn Bohler, the mother of Stephen Bohler, whose death was ruled a drug-induced accident, said the episode was conceived in "extremely bad taste - unthinking and unfeeling, or both." She said, "There's just such a vast community that's affected by it, beyond family. It's such an affront to everybody." Many students said they were also offended by the idea of the episode. "It just doesn't seem right to essentially sensationalize these suicides for entertainment purposes, especially so soon after the most recent one," said Adam Yeremian, a Tisch sophomore in film and television production. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UD understands that Fox Broadcasting has something in the works along the same lines. SPLAT! is a weekly series that will follow the lives and sudden deaths of smart, hip students who attend Nova York College in Manhattan. Each episode will feature one talented, high-strung undergraduate who slowly unravels and enters into existential despair. The camera will follow the steps of the student as he/she walks up a long flight of stairs in a selected high-rise and then leaps off a ledge. During the climb, there will be a series of backstory cutaways to the student’s life at home and at college, with suggestions as to the people and incidents that might have contributed to the tragic outcome. “Fox is proud to be able to contribute to the critical national discussion of college suicide through the presentation of SPLAT!” said a Fox executive in announcing the program. |