VLVL 345 Critiquing Hector and TV Crime Drama

[davemarc]

Observing addled Tube addict Hector's obsession with pitching to Hollywood:

"It was disheartening to see how much he depended on these Tubal fantasies
about his profession, relentlessly pushing their propaganda message of
cops-are-only-human-got-to-do-their-jobs, turning agents of government
repression into sympathetic heroes. Nobody thought it was peculiar anymore,
no more than the routine violations of constitutional rights these
characters performed week after week, now absorbed into the vernacular of
American expectations. Cop shows were in a genre right-wing weekly TV Guide
called Crime Drama, and numbered among their zealous fans working cops like
Hector who should have known better."

Those who are not very familiar with TV crime dramas and the U.S.
Constitution might find it helpful to know that the above reflects the point
of view of numerous informed Americans--including cops and academics--who
feel that those shows do indeed depict violations of constitutional rights
on a weekly basis (daily if you count syndication). One police study
apparently found that a significant portion of the public actually didn't
think it was peculiar. Citations follow--they're quite interesting.

d.

"Police object most strongly to the way TV shows depict them as driving
irresponsibly, violating the Constitutional rights of suspects, and not
using their weapons responsibly."
http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimemedia/lecture6.html
Do the images of police work that appear in the media affect the public's
understanding of law enforcement? The NYC Police Foundation wondered about
this question and interviewed both the public and police officers to find
out. The study reached a number of interesting conclusions:

 1) For a significant proportion of the public, TV cop shows are assumed to
depict reality. In particular, people believe that their favorite shows are
credible.
 2) On the other hand, the police concluded the shows to be inaccurate, and
rarely depict real-life police work.
 3) The public, however, claims that TV police shows have little impact on
their image of the police, stating that they get their information mostly
from news.
 4) The police believe the public gets its information mostly from TV cop
shows, not news.
 5) The police believe TV cop shows hurt their image with the public, rather
than improve it.
 6) Police object most strongly to the way TV shows depict them as driving
irresponsibly, violating the Constitutional rights of suspects, and not
using their weapons responsibly.

When the public was questioned concerning their attitude toward the NYPD,
they were rated highest in areas that TV shows tend to give a positive
portrayal of: character, integrity, honesty, and professionalism (Compare
that to the image of NYPD that appears in films such as Serpico (1973) and
Prince of the City (1981) which picture NYPD as riddled with corruption and
deceit). The police received lower ratings on the areas that TV shows
frequently portrayed as standard operating procedure (e.g., respect for
Constitutional rights of citizens, responsible use of weapons).

Other specific findings of this study appear below:

1) 40 % of the public believe police shows offer accurate portrayals of
police work v. only 14% of the police interviewed.
2) Do TV police dramas hurt the image of the police? 46% of the public said
they had no effect, while 48% of police said such programming hurt their
image.
3) On the issue of violations of Constitutional rights of citizens by
police, the most surprising slip occurred. It is on this issue that the
public are probably most effected by TV. The result of the constant
violation of such rights by TV cops is that a significant portion of the
public has come to expect it as standard operating procedure of real police
officers.   61% of the public said TV police respected the rights of
suspects while 34% of the sample said that real police do not respect
suspects' rights. In comparison, 60% of the police interviewed said TV
police did not act within the law.
 On weapons use 64% of the public said TV police used their weapons
responsibly, while 67% of the police said they did not.
 While viewers were accepting of the driving patterns demonstrated in TV cop
shows, real police recognized the driving as irresponsible.

The public mistakes reel cops for real.


http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimemedia/lecture8.html
Steven Stark traced the TV history of lawyers in his essay, "Perry Mason
Meets Sonny Crockett." He discussed both TV cop and lawyer shows, claiming
to have uncovered a cyclical pattern to the way both groups were portrayed.
His theory was that cop shows were popular during conservative periods in
our society, while programs that feature lawyers (particularly defense
lawyers) were in vogue during more liberal or anti-establishment periods.
Good defense attorneys make not only prosecutors, but the police also, look
bad. However, for the most part television has been on the side of the
police rather than those defending criminals, making the former into
blue-collar and, later, middle-class heroes. Well qualified prosecutors, a
rarity on TV until the 1990s, expose defense attorneys as win-at-all-cost
deceivers and mercenaries.

In the 1950's, the heroes of prime time crime shows were the police: Jack
Webb, Broderick Crawford, and Robert Stack played an LA detective, highway
patrolman, and G-man respectively. This was a period of cultural
conservatism (the Eisenhower Years)."

[D]uring the early 1960s, police shows became extremely unpopular. The
bottom was finally reached when Batman appeared in 1965, making crime
fighting into an ongoing joke. Police shows made a return in the late 1960s
with programs such as Mod Squad, Ironside, Hawaii 5-0, Adam 12, and The
Rookies. It required integrated, hip, young police departments to bring the
TV audiences back. In the larger society, while the student revolt,
anti-Viet Nam War movement, and civil rights campaigns were still prominent,
a law and order rhetoric became the new political line of conservative
political candidates. Nixon's victory in 1968 was a sign of the return to
conservative ways.


http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimemedia/lecture6.html
By 1976, lawyer on prime-time TV had all but disappeared. The cops were
turned lose to browbeat suspects and witnesses while acting as judge, jury
and, frequently, executioner. Fighting crime was primary; the constitutional
rights of suspects and defendants were treated as impediments to justice.
But, by the early 1980s, cop shows no longer permitted law enforcement to
manhandle suspects and witnesses for no reason. The stressed-out cops were
humanized, and permitted to show their emotions and fears. Shows like Cagney
and Lacey, Hill St. Blues, and even Miami Vice dealt much more with the
everyday problems of cops than catching the bad guys. Lawyers were about to
make a return.

In Hollywood and prime time crime dramas and movies, the police often act as
if Constitutional safeguards are mere hindrances to effectively stopping
crime. Both suspects and witnesses are frequently assaulted or threatened in
order for TV and movie cops to get the information they need. The issue of
civil liability for illegal police actions rarely comes up. If real life
police followed the practices of their media counterparts, the liability
suits that would result would bankrupt the police departments of most of our
major cities in short order. This is exactly what happened in 2000 with the
LAPD Rampart Scandal.

Ben Stein, in the late 1970s, interviewed the writers and producers of
police shows, trying to explain prime time's view of police as brutalizers.
Most TV police shows of that era had heroes (Starsky and Hutch, Cagney and
Lacey, Vinny of Wiseguy [1987-90], Crockett and Stubbs of Miami Vice
[1984-89], etc.) who routinely brutalized suspects and witnesses. Even
though they may be frequently brutal and may sometimes follow wrong leads or
miss clues, they nevertheless always catch their suspect before the end of
the show. However, the police around them are not often pictured as
successfully. Police commanders demand that the heroes, follow the rules;
but everyone knows media criminals can't be caught simply by going by the
book.

Among the attitudes toward police held by the Hollywood writing community
Stein interviewed were the following: 1) The police are in our employ,
they're there to look after us 2) blacks and young people are hassled by the
police, showing the police to be biased 3) the police in many cities are
"owned" by the Mafia and may even sell drugs themselves 4) the police are
simply ineffective at either preventing or solving crimes 5) police often
become a "paranoid in-group," sometimes resulting in their becoming even
more brutal than the criminals they arrest. Writers believed some of these
police attitudes were seen as the result of the job and its stresses. The
terrifying aspects of police work produces a "we" versus "them" attitude
among cops. Underpay and ill-treatment by the public only makes matters
worse.

The resulting image that we see on prime time is one in which cops are
allowed to exorcise their demons, by brutalizing criminals. Society's poor
treatment of the police has driven them to behave the way they do. On the
shows of the late 1970s, of course, we tend to see only the effects of the
brutalization, but not what causes it.

Also:
http://saysuncle.com/archives/000479.html
http://saysuncle.com/archives/002782.html