Cop shows and fascism
Being back home — where my parents watch many crime dramas — reminds me of another hypothesis that I’ve been kicking around for a while: those dramas are objectively pro-fascist (or at least pro-authoritarian). It starts with the preface to Law and Order:
In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
First of all, DAs prosecute innocent people quite often. So that’s a misstatement of fact. But the slogan also contains a sin of omission: the people are also represented by defense attorneys. The defense attorneys protect us from the government. Protecting us from the government is what the U.S. Bill of Rights is all about. Imagining that prosecution is the entirety of what protects the people is a classic misunderstanding of government, and a classic pro-authoritarian position.
Then there’s the continuously upstanding position of the cops. When the police break a rule, it turns out to be necessary so that they could protect us; when defense attorneys work within the system, and zealously defend their clients, it’s “getting off on a technicality.” This is a classic misrepresentation of what the Bill of Rights is about, and of what defense lawyers do.
Now take any one of these shows and punch up the above (e.g., 24, where Jack Bauer famously tortures people if he needs to). Then positively saturate the airwaves with variant after variant of the same formula (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: Trial by Jury, Law and Order: Conviction, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, CSI: Las Vegas). Then add in TV news, where “if it bleeds, it leads” is the formula, leading people to think that violent crime is much more prevalent than it is. (Law and Order: Bankruptcy Court has somewhat less punch.) And when people imagine the police who respond to these violent crimes, they envision someone like Jerry Orbach — rumpled, weary, but fundamentally good. They don’t imagine Justin Volpe, who sodomized Abner Louima with a broomstick handle while Louima was handcuffed in the Brooklyn 70th Precinct station; it doesn’t make as good copy.
Then add in the general societal hatred for defense attorneys, which has been stoked by corporate interests and by conservatives intent on pushing their law-and-order platform but which probably reflects some deeper American way of life. The deck is thoroughly stacked against the defenders of the Bill of Rights.
All told, it seems pretty clear to me that television pushes an authoritarian worldview. Someone who watches more TV than I do could probably make the argument more convincingly, but I’m pretty sure the general line of argument is correct.
I wonder what this can be traced back to? Dragnet? From before TV?
Or perhaps WWII. I think prior to WWII, Americans were pretty distrustful of government. Then, everybody had to bond together to win WWII. Those who were at home had to duitfully do what the government said, and everybody else was regimentally put into the military. I think this caused the flip in people’s thinking from “always have a little mistrust of the government” to “Always give the government the benefit of the doubt. After all, they saved us from the Nazis.” Then you have urban flight and skyrocketing crime, culminating in the terrible city centers of the 70′s and 80′s. At that point people want to trust the government and are afraid. Who will save them? Tough cops who won’t let the guy who mugged you at in Times Square, for gosh sake, get away on a technicality. TV rushes in to fill the need, et voila, fascist cop shows!
But all that just sounds too trite.
Comment by mrz — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am