Another reason I value NCIS is the mentor/mentee relationship between Gibbs and his subordinates. He is gruff, demanding, quietly loving, and absolutely loyal. We see the model of Gibb's leadership in his own association with Mike Franks. These men remain psychologically close even though they rarely see each other or speak. Each knows that the other is there if needed. This season's (the 8th) finale featured the great ritualized event of Mike Franks' funeral. (See Wikipedia's entry on Jethro Gibbs.)
If the paragraph above sounds like a turn in an ongoing conversation, it is. I've been thinking about NCIS for a few seasons and presented a PowerPoint on the program last year at the Pacific-Northwest Division Conference of the Community College Humanities Association. In my presentation, I started with the axiomatic assumption that all popular texts both support the dominant ideology AND support the minds of individuals seeking to manage the challenges of their lives. The nastiest bit of ideological work that the show performs is justifying the "total surveillance society." What it offers in return is a vision of a family of workplace friends who accept each others' foibles (as long as such quirks don't involve workplace incompetence) and grant each other absolute loyalty. What I've been thinking about the past few weeks is how I've also hoped for a relationship like the one between Gibbs and Franks. Loving, protective, admiring.
But such a relationship can't really exist in my profession. The bond among those whose work involves the management of death is simply different than the one that is forged among those who don't face life's ending with regularity.
