Crime in the classroom

The credits to 'Dirty Harry' haven't even begun rolling when feet begin to shuffle, belongings are gathered and car keys start jingling. But as the lights flip on they reveal a classroom, not a theater, and a gray-haired criminal justice professor rises to the front of the room.

No more than 25 students stare back at the professor as he concludes his Crime in the Media class for the afternoon. The professor is Bill Head, and it doesn't seem to take long for students to realize that his class is far from conventional. Maybe it's the way he announces that he is "stirring his victory soup" when he gets something right (like guessing students' high school mascots). Or maybe it's a having class based on Head's student-approved philosophy, that books don't do the teaching in his class. Instead, they will watch 19 movies in 14 days.

"This idea of just sitting down and reading a textbook, you know, 'This is the gospel, this is what you should learn,'" Head says. "I don't think you're getting in touch with what would be relevant for today's college student."

With Friday's release of "Ocean's 13," the third in a series of crime movies featuring traditional bad guys as protagonists, the timing for a class such as Head's couldn't be more perfect. But why are these types of movies so popular? Do they reflect reality? Or does reality reflect them?

Those are the questions Head's class will seek to answer. To find those answers, the class follows right in line with the legal process: from the police station ("Dirty Harry"), to the courtroom ("To Kill a Mockingbird"), to prison ("The Shawshank Redemption"). Head hopes to show his students that these films were created for a reason -- to be the voices for their respective eras.

The crime film genre grew from primitive and simplistic beginnings in the 1930s, but has since evolved in several ways, Head says. Crime films later turned toward a classic approach in the late '40s and early '50s, growing to include film noir, where "the bad guy is much less defined," he said. By the '70s, people began questioning authority, Head says, and this resulted in "anti-establishment kinds of films," including the "The Godfather," "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

Comparing these historical films to the likes of "Oceans 13" shows students that today's movies have begun to resemble movies of the '70s, with people rising up against authority, he says.

"Now we're staring to see -- with the war in Iraq -- people discontent with society starting to rise up again," he says. "So you're starting to see more and more movies questioning the party line and how things are playing out. More movies are subversive in tone."

Aside from all sharing the same theme -- crime -- these movies share something else. They were all box office successes. The test of time has proven that one way or another, crime speaks to people.

"People identify with the people in crime movies, whether it's the good guys or the bad guys," Head says. "Most people are generally law-abiding by nature, but it is kind of fun to see what the bad guys are doing and whether or not they're gonna get away with it."

Head uses a book by Northeastern University professor and researcher Nicole Rafter, who wrote "Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films in Society." Rafter, who developed one of the first classes on crime and film, explained that people enjoy the transgression in crime movies. That explains why people can sometimes find themselves rooting for the person doing an illegal activity and even wanting them to get away with it.

"Movies enable us to be happy hypocrites," she says. "We can indentify with the bad guy, but then we can identify with those who put the bad guy under control."

But the question still remains: Do these movies reflect society, or does society reflect these movies?

The answer might be neither.

Instead, a feedback loop exists between films and society, Rafter says. Having crime in films does not necessarily cause society to change its behavior. Likewise, society is not always reflected by crime movies accurately.

"Crime films reflect society, but they also affect how we think about crime," Rafter says. "How we think about law enforcement, how we think about . . . gender. Or race."

Brian Powell, professor of sociology at IU, said testing the effects of the media on society is complex, so one cannot automatically assume crime movies depict reality.

He agreed that a feedback loop might exist, where "the media may affect people's views to some degree, but people's views, in turn, affect media." And even if these films do hold an influence over people, their effects may not always be the same. Some viewers may grow more violent, while others may become more passive and frightened of violence.

"My sense about it, my reading of the literature, is that there are more important things than media in terms of what people believe and what they do," he says.

So as the students of Crime in the Media shuffle out of their classroom, having just watched Clint Eastwood shoot up half of San Fransisco, the rest of Bloomington can rest easy. Nobody's getting any wise ideas.

Top 5 Crime Films

 • "The Godfather" (1972) This movie makes you an offer you can't refuse. It is perhaps the quintessential crime film, cataloging the trials and tribulations of the Corleone family. The film is "a turning point in how people view gangsters," Head says.

 • "Dirty Harry" (1971) Do you feel lucky? Well, if you've seen this movie you should. The Colt Magnum-wielding Harry is one of Clint Eastwood's absolute best performances. "Dirty Harry" is "the most influential police film," according to Head.

 • "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994) If you haven't seen the movie, you've most certainly seen it listed in somebody's Facebook profile. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman team up for a timeless performance as prisoners in the corrupt Shawshank Prison. Trivia fact: The prison used for the movie is right across the border in Ohio.

 • "The Green Mile" (1999) Here is another classic prison film, starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan in his breakthrough big screen performance. Its unforgettable ending "had a pretty big impact in terms of the death penalty," Head says.

 • "The Departed" (2006) The most recent winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, this mob movie has an all-star cast featuring Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Sheen and "Marky Mark" Wahlberg -- all directed by Martin Scorsese.