Depictions of Police in Popular Media

[Abishai100]

In earlier times, defenders of the realm were considered knights (i.e., Medieval Times) or Centurion (i.e., Roman Empire). In the time of the British Empire, Scotland Yard police popularity created the fictional folk police-detective Sherlock Holmes.

In recent times (in America), law enforcement and crime-fighting carries with it a very 'vernacular' tone in folklore and 'street-gossip,' which is reflected in colorful police-story films such as RoboCop and Inspector Gadget.

The demand in America for 'colorful policemen' parallels the popularity of vigilantism-daydream themed crime-fighting 'pulp-fiction storytelling' in comic books.

The colorful American crime-crusades depicted in the comic book stylized franchises Dick Tracy and Carmen Sandiego reflect a cultural interest in offbeat heroics, daredevil pickpockets, and zany characters in crime stories.

Hollywood (USA) has been making countless comic book adapted films recently such as The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Justice League.

This sort of 'colorfulness' in police depictions in popular media stands in stark contrast to news stories about American police brutality, LAPD corruption, and social criticism films such as Maniac Cop and Internal Affairs.

So how do we coordinate 'pulp-fiction theatrics' with 'crime-realism' storytelling?

This question is important for our modern age of media, since so many American youngsters watch TV and are exposed to crime-glorification films such as Natural Born Killers and Fight Club.

We don't want to resort to censorship...


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Dick Tracy (DT) and Carmen Sandieo (CS) became unlikely allies in a crusade to stop Spider-Man and Spider-Woman, two of America's finest vigilantes who suddenly turned into anti-social criminals in NYC. DT and CS knew they would have to undo the hero-worship of Spider-Man and Spider-Woman in the press, so people would be more prepared to deal with the spree of crime these two former 'superhuman' law officers were conducting. DT and CS decided to use 'yellow journalism' to bring down the social mystique of Spider-Man and Spider-Woman:

"It is our opinion that Spider-Man and Spider-Woman have ingested a deadly psychoactive drug while experimenting with a medicine designed to treat criminal insanity. This 'drug' has turned these two beloved vigilantes into deadly vandals, and it is up to the American people to separate fact from fiction for the moral health of the USA! In the meantime, take your kids to fire-stations and police-stations and have 'real heroes' talk to them about crime-fighting while DT and CS deal with Spider-Man and Spider-Woman who are in danger of becoming a new age 'Bonnie and Clyde'!"

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Dick Tracy (Film)

 

[SavannahMann]

It's worse than that. Even popular shows that are just smart cops solving the crimes show regular violations of Civil Rights and laws. NCIS has Gibbs regularly ordering people to hack into databases where they should have a warrant to get the information he wants to identify the baddie. No time to go through channels, in fact, many of his "rules" are to avoid lawyers.

Gibbs is just getting the information, because Gibbs knows who the bad guys are. He's just a good cop, but somehow has superhuman knowledge of when someone is lying. Of course, all cops have such a power, and when they break the rules, it's only to get the baddie.

Now, you can go onto other movies, the Lethal Weapon series, where the cops are relentless and the rules are silly things to screw up an investigation to stop international mercenary criminals or something.

So even the "tame" shows are rife with cops breaking the rules and being congratulated for it since they are possessed of a psychic power to know who is guilty. All the shows have had this. Cops breaking the law, breaking the rules, but they only do it when they KNOW the baddie is the one they are looking for. Starsky and Hutch, TJ Hooker, and the list goes on and on. Only Adam 12 showed the cops religiously following the rules, and being spanked when they broke them. This of course is hilarious when you consider that Adam 12 was filmed in Los Angeles during some of the worst regular abuses of Civil Rights in history.

Some movies show a cop as crooked, but it's only one, and it's just that he kind of got distracted down the wrong path. Black Rain, where the cop took a bribe once, just once mind you, and Internal Affairs was all over him.

Dirty Harry, the one effective cop in the entire city. Everyone else was just bumbling around trying to keep from tripping over their own two feet when thankfully Harry shows up and shoots the baddie with a real gun instead of those piss ant .38 Specials.

Time and time again, movie after movie, book after book. The cops are something truly awesome. I guess having the cop there on the side of the road zapping drivers with Radar so the city could get a little more cash from them wouldn't be much of a movie. Having a movie about a cop who stole a bunch of money and tried to kill the elderly woman he was cheating out of her cash would probably make a terrible movie wouldn't it?

Sarasota sheriff’s deputy charged with attempted murder

Then you have Blue Thunder, where the one moral cop stands up to the dark forces of the grand conspiracy. Even then he uses military grade equipment, but only to stop the bad Feds from stirring up trouble and killing people for no reason.