QUESTION ASKED: Are Cops Allowed to Be the Good Guys Yet?
Hollywood nuked the hero-cop, in an effort to be less offensive to those who might confuse movies with real life. Nowadays, exploring a cop’s internal struggles in film and seeing the world through their eyes in our current, crime-ridden era is far too brazen and provocative.
And if a filmmaker dares try, our cadre of trusty critics and demagogues are ready to swarm and condemn any effort as an endorsement of all police actions and an apology for anything awful that a real cop has ever done.
Maybe we are this impressionable?
Would the resurrection of cops as big-screen protagonists elevate the optics of the law enforcement profession, attracting a more inspired applicant? (See the Navy recruitment boost after 1986’s “Top Gun”) Cadets who are more equipped to deescalate tensions, make split-second life-or-death calls, even catch the teenage version of me?
We empower police with lethality; we should only encourage this if we want cops to be the best of us.
“There’s a flip side to that coin.”
Passions have simmered since 2020. In Minneapolis, where they enacted cuts to law enforcement budgets and staff, and in LA, where the mayor pledged to cut one hundred fifty million in police funding outside his mansion in Hancock Park, the statistics should be strategically dismissed.
Sure, crime rates have soared and response times have increased, but why would we want to summon the police anyway? Aren’t they the bad guys now?
Even if some of our national crime wave isn’t being exaggerated by Fox News, people on the Westside need not worry, it’s the communities of color that will continue to suffer the brunt of this brave new world.
Cops are still acceptable on the small screen, however. In his 1983 book Inside Prime Time, the late Todd Gitlin wrote:
[Police Story and Police Woman producer David] Gerber took to cop shows not only because the police were society’s blue line but because they could be the networks’. In the industry jargon, they afforded a franchise—a hero’s right to interfere every week in the lives of others. “In television there are a certain amount of franchises,” Gerber points out. “What do you got? You got doctor, lawyer, and chief. Throw in some Indians, for westerns. So doctor, lawyer, and police; the westerns are gone. You try to do something offbeat—White Shadow, Paper Chase, American Dream—and you get shot down. So you stay with the franchise or you take a chance. In June the networks have patience with anything. The flowers are blooming, hooray, hooray. Come September, they lose patience, because they’re in a competitive race.”
Much more recently — last year — Cheers producer Rob Long wrote in Commentary: How You Know Americans Like Cops.
But my friend who pitched this project did not make a sale. Cops, he was told, are problematic. People, he was told, don’t like cop shows because they no longer like cops. And no one wants to see a show about bad cops trying to go straight.
Which was an odd conclusion for those television executives to draw. From the Law & Order franchise (begun in 1990) to the CSI collection of hit police dramas on CBS (begun in 2000) to the successful reboots of S.W.A.T. (premiered 2017) and FBI (debuted 2018)—American audiences can’t seem to get enough of cops putting bad guys in jail. Blue Bloods, a popular and long-running drama on CBS about an NYPD family, has been a ratings workhorse since 2010. It rarely dips below 10 million viewers per episode. And don’t forget the two 911s on Fox and Chicago PD on NBC.
So why did my friend strike out all over town? Because he was pitching a new series, something fresh and original—well, not too fresh or original, it was basically The Dirty Dozen with cops—and it rattled the executives. It’s one thing to extend a franchise that already exists and that comes from a powerful producer—Dick Wolf at NBC, Jerry Bruckheimer at CBS— but it’s another to ask a network exec to lean back in his Aeron and take a chance on something, especially when all the cultural indicators he follows are sending the loud message that cops are radioactive.
And yet: The ratings for these shows in general have been steady-as-she-goes, even during 2020, the tumultuous year that saw protests, riots, and the defund-the-police movement take hold of American culture. Well, certain parts of American culture.
According to my rough math, based on weekly Nielsen ratings, about 75 million people watch police dramas every week. They may be out of step with the moment, but that’s a lot of people. Enough to make a difference in things that depend on getting a large group to agree with you, as in election results.
I’ll bet a fair amount of those viewers would enjoy a good big screen popcorn movie about cops as well.