Police badge used by Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU
notes: label: Description
content: Police badge, part of a costume ensemble worn by Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson in Law & Order: SVU. The gold colored metal badge in decorated shield-shape has blue accents under text and center design. "CITY OF NEW YORK POLICE" is stamped at top and "CAPTAIN" at bottom. The leather case has a flap that is held closed with velcro.
label: Description
content: This costume was worn by Mariska Hargitay in the role of Olivia Benson on the long-running NBC police procedural television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The costume was used in production of episode #25008, titled “Third Man Syndrome,” which originally aired March 21, 2024, episode 8 of season 25 of the series. Law & Order: SVU is a spinoff of the original series Law & Order (1990-2010), following New York City Police detectives Benson and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) as they investigate and prosecute crimes of a sexual nature, including rape, sexual violence, child sexual abuse, and human trafficking. Episode plots are sometimes drawn from real life crimes that have been reported in the media. The series, like its predecessor created by Dick Wolf and originally produced by Wolf Entertainment Studios USA, premiered on NBC on September 20, 1999. Now produced by Universal Television, the series became the longest-running primetime live-action series on American television at the beginning of its 21st season in 2019, which made Olivia Benson the longest running drama character on prime-time television.
label: Description
content: Hargitay’s portrayal of Benson is a notable television representation of female law enforcement officers, a demographic underrepresented on television’s male-dominated police procedural series. Benson’s character defies many of television’s popular female character tropes: she is not in a long-term romantic relationship, balances her job with being a mother to her adoptive son Noah beginning in season 12, and works in the field rather than in a subordinate position. Benson eventually rises to the rank of Captain as the Commanding Officer of the Special Victims Unit, demonstrating her character’s success despite the lack of a male counterpart like Stabler.
label: Description
content: Law & Order: SVU is significant not only for its popularity and longevity, but also the critical acclaim it has received and its influence on the medium. The series has received 108 award nominations, winning 33 awards, including a 2006 Primetime Emmy Award for Mariska Hargitay for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. The win made Hargitay the first performer from any of the Law & Order franchise series to win an Emmy, and the first to win a Golden Globe, for an acting role on the show. The series frequently grapples with significant political and social issues including sexual preference, gender identity, domestic violence, human trafficking, and civil rights. Benson is depicted as a passionate advocate for victims, as she was driven to join the special victims unit due to her own life as the child of a rape victim. Hargitay is herself a survivor of rape, became a certified rape counselor, and in 2004, after receiving numerous letters from women who had experienced sexual violence and abuse, established the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization to provide support to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse and human trafficking.
label: Description
content: This costume was worn in the Law & Order: SVU episode “Third Man Syndrome,” written by Kathy Dobie and Candace Sanchez MacFarlane and directed by Norberto Barba. The episode focuses on the police team’s investigation of an assault and homicide perpetrated against two Latino men by two white men who suspect them to be homosexual. The SVU team pursues prosecution as a hate crime, which requires Benson to convince a home-bound witness to testify. The episode was based on a real-life crime committed in 2008, when two brothers from Ecuador, Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay, were attacked in Brooklyn. A man named Keith Phoenix witnessed the brothers walking arm-in-arm and leaning close to each other, common gestures of friendly intimacy among men in Latino cultures, but misinterpreted by Phoenix, who believed that they were a gay couple. Phoenix and an accomplice, Hakim Scott, attacked the men with a beer bottle and aluminum baseball bat. Jose, who sustained injuries from a baseball bat, was brought to a hospital in critical condition and eventually succumbed to his wounds. Police discovered that witnesses had heard Phoenix and Scott voice anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs before the assault and decided to bring hate crime charges against the men. Phoenix was convicted of murder as a hate crime and sentenced to life in prison on Aug. 5, 2010. His cohort, Hakim Scott, was convicted the month before of manslaughter.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: associated subject
content: Law Enforcement
label: associated subject
content: Policing
label: associated subject
content: Television
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of NBCUniversal Asset Center
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2024.0108.01.05
label: catalog number
content: 2024.0108.01.05
label: accession number
content: 2024.0108
objectType: label: Object Name
content: badge
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: leather (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 1/2 in x 2 5/16 in x 1 1/2 in; 8.89 cm x 5.87375 cm x 3.81 cm