Criminal Minds Slashes Female Leads

Does someone not want me to watch television anymore? First Law & Order, the original and best in my opinion, gets cancelled just before it breaks the record of 20 years for longest running prime time drama, and now some pretty disturbing cast changes are being made on another favourite, procedural drama Criminal Minds.

Can’t even blame NBC for this one. This time around it’s CBS, the network that has a history of respecting and valuing shows that appeal to a wider range of ages. But if they don’t reverse their latest casting arrangements, it sure looks like valuing female roles is no longer part of their philosophy. For financial reasons* it’s being reported, CBS is eliminating the role of Jennifer Jareau played by A.J. Cook and reducing the role of another, Emily Prentiss played by Paget Brewster (if she agrees to remain at all – quite the undeserved insult to both women it sounds like to me). This leaves Kirsten Vangsness as Penelope Garcia (technical analyst – not in the field) the only full-time female cast member, with men making up the entire BAU team in the field. No male actor has been eliminated, just two of the three females.

I should say I’ve never been a big fan of separating the sexes, of keeping count of roles held by each gender, preferring the story to dictate what roles exist. But I have a real problem with this change as it not only breaks up a highly effective and talented group of actors and characters on the BAU team, spoiling potential storylines and team dynamics, it also delivers a very disturbing message. Someone summed this up very well on cast member Joe Mantegna’s official Twitter page, “Tell CBS we women watching like being represented as something more than just victims? If it ain’t broke…”

What kind of message does it send, intentionally or otherwise, that most of the victims on the show are women, and that it’s up to a team of men to save them. Before this cast change, it was a team of men and women doing the saving. Talk about moving in the wrong direction. Every crime show I can think of has female leads in the field. All except one now…who would have thought Criminal Minds, cutting edge and groundbreaking in so many ways, would be so regressive.

I feel for the cast who it’s reported were stunned and shocked by the news. It sure will feel funny for the ones that remain when filming begins for season six.

The main objective of cialis order levitra these tablets is to create erections. Illness robertrobb.com sale on viagra can break the heart on many levels. This male enhancement drug is easily available in any drug robertrobb.com viagra price usa store or online drug store. This drug has long been a viagra cialis generic identified prescription drug; could be availed of upon doctor’s prescription only. Thomas Gibson tweeted, “To say we’re all mystified and disappointed is an understatement…”

Paget Brewster was incredibly blunt (and hurt) taking issue with the network’s attempt to say the changes were for ‘creative reasons.’ She tweeted, “‘Creative Reasons’ has been an Executive Bullshit excuse for DECADES…It IS financial. AJ is a dreamboat. And yes, I am hurt, too.”

A.J. Cook tweeted her thanks, “Your kind words and support have made me feel wanted and loved!” And Joe Mantegna tweeted a link to a petition to CBS to save the roles (it already has over 32,000 signatures), as well as a link to vote on the effect these changes will have on the show’s ratings.

A Facebook page to help save the roles has also been set up with other suggestions of whom to write to etc. Let’s hope the petitions and publicity surrounding CBS’s turn to make a boondoggle deliver a strong and effective message. May the entire cast, the one that has led to the best ratings Criminal Minds has seen, return together this fall, and not a split up cast where for all intents and purposes only the male half remain.

* Maybe CBS wouldn’t have such financial concerns if they hadn’t made such a crazy financial deal regarding one of their other shows. “Charlie Sheen will not only be staying on for two more seasons of “Two and a Half Men,” the actor is getting a huge pay raise to the tune of nearly $2 million per episode. The deal, between Sheen’s reps and Warner Bros. TV, was sealed Monday night [May 17, 2010] and bumps his salary for the CBS comedy from $850,000 to between $1.8 – $1.9 million each episode,” Variety reports. Yeah, they had to pay for that someway… You’d think given his ongoing and recently more extreme legal/criminal troubles, Sheen would have been grateful enough just to still have a job, let alone demanding more than a 100% pay raise.