Scrubs and Ethos

The entry credits to a television show are a great time to establish ethos.  While most television shows inaccurately portray real life, they still work really hard to build credibility during the opening.  For instance, CSI shows its characters using guns and high tech forensic technology.  The tv show Bones shows clips of the main characters working long hours in the lab.  If you can't tell, I really like crime dramas.  I'm also a pretty big Scrubs fan, so I figured I would write about something that has been irking me for years. 

During the opening credits of Scrubs, a chest X-ray is put up on the light screen.  My mother pointed out to me the first time we ever watched Scrubs that the chest X-ray was put up backwards.  Amateur mistake.  I wouldn't have noticed it, but of course once I did it drove me crazy.  Anytime we watched Scrubs my mom would point it out to me, so I know it bugged her too.

I stopped watching Scrubs for quite some time, but I started again today.  I started to think about the X-ray from a more rhetorical viewpoint.  The show had such a great opportunity to establish credibility, but it completely failed.  I'm sure there are many people out there who have never noticed the X-ray, but anyone that works, or whose mom works, in a hospital is sure to notice it.  I remembered that in a later season one of the radiologists comes into the credits and says, "This is backwards! Its been driving me crazy for years!"  Then she fixes the X-ray.  I think the show made up for the mistake in style.  I'm happy that they made a point to own up to the mistake.