THE LAWYER IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE
As human beings we struggle between good and bad—both internally and within a community of others who struggle as well. A society's popular culture reflects such basic human concerns and can be seen through the records it keeps. Undeniably, American popular culture has been well recorded. By looking at contemporary commentary, literature, and film we are able to see how the important issues of the times—our society's struggles to define what's right and wrong—have been reflected throughout our history. And what better venue to illustrate the eternal struggle between good and bad than the legal profession, which by definition exists to ensure that the rule of law is upheld, that good prevails.
Lawyers enter the legal profession intending to preserve justice and champion individual rights while at the same time ensuring the common good—at least they re supposed to. These are lofty goals considering that lawyers are no less "human" than anyone else, prone to the same abuse of power. By defining the different sides of a particular issue— or aspects of a profession—writers, journalists, artists, and filmmakers provide the reading and viewing public with materials that can both entertain us and make us think. As far as the legal profession is concerned, we see a good lawyer as a reflection of people's hopes, and a bad lawyer as a reflection of people's worst fears. Given the vital importance of the integrity of the law in America, and our natural cynicism when it comes to entrusting our future with an individual, is it any wonder that over the course of this country's history, the legal system in its entirety is more often than not viewed as a slew of rascals, cither distorting the law in their own self-interest or sidelining common justice in order to protect criminals and maintain deep pockets. We are especially interested in recognizing the bad, self-serving lawyer because our deepest wish is that if we need a lawyer, we will get one of the good ones!
Judging from the historical record, the trivialization of the lawyer in popular culture appears to be a time-honored theme, stretching as far back as the beginning of the modern period, when the process of consolidating a fragmented legal system into a coherent whole began. A late-seventeenth-century anonymous "legal coat of arms" depicts allegorically the purported values and interests of law professionals. The scene presents a fox, hardly a symbol of trustworthiness, surrounded by two figures of Questionable character, at least one of them a wealthy client. Following a theme that reappears consistently throughout the history of popular attitudes toward lawyers, the fox spews forth long reams of legal rhetoric in broken Latin, underscoring lawyers' incapacity to "speak the truth" or engage in common-sense dialogue. And as if to drive the satiric dagger deeper still, the reason for such slyness is plain and simple: the deep loyalty to material well-being rather than to the principle of social justice or the defense of the common man. Thus the designs' motto of "DUM VIVO THRIVO," which translates into "Where I live, I thrive."
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