How is it that VERONICA MARS gets better on new viewings?? Great video! Can you look at legend of korra? That show I think would be a great addition at to copoganda. I think it’s a show that is one of the most pro-cops shows and is indicative of the horrid “moderate American liberalism” that has never gone away and is dominant in liberal corners since the end of the great society era. As a result, the show, like most copoganda shows, eschews real systemic change and GLAMORIZES corrupt, incompetent people and institutions that have authority power. The cops on korra are cruel, brutal, and yet the show makes the police commissioner a hero.
I’ve been following this series for a while and I love it. Please please consider doing THE MENTALIST - 2008-2015. It’s crazy how many of these shows were just on on regular european cable all the time….
Yeah, but that sentiment (a) referred much more to the idea that everyone is corrupt and so justice doesn't really matter, which ends up being disproved multiple times for character growth without any regard for structural inequalities, and (b) is never explicitly mentioned again. Better Call Saul is still basically copaganda.
@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233yeah but wasn’t his whole story about how his son died because the whole police force was corrupt including him? I think that shows how the series presents mike being a cop as a negative within the story.
In the early days, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were a lot more critical of cops. They cleaned that up when some of the early books were spruced up for republication in (IIRC) the 70s.
@@EmeraldCityVideo yeah, those rewrites are so ridiculous sometimes, cuz like they did that to make them less racist, but in some cases they accidentally made them MORE racist
@@EmeraldCityVideoSherlock Holmes also dedicated a lot of space to talking shit about police detectives for not having the training to actually solve a crime
This is why the "Veronica joins the FBI/Logan joins the military" storylines felt so off. The later seasons felt like they were ruined by studio meddling and the creators trying to find an audience. It was really a shame. That first season will always mean so much to me, though. It's the only show that has imho depicted what post SA is like when interacting with the police. Sheriff Lamb was always such an underrated villain.
I think that's why the reboot hurt so much, in that it felt like it undermined so much of the messaging of the original run, and made Veronica's character growth seemingly go *backwards*. It was super frustrating, and it did feel more like a cop show than it should have. The original run was truly great though, modern noir cinema at it's most teen drama, iconic.
@@salyxI was so confused why they didn't have it be that she left town at 18 and rarely came back, until the series starts up and she needs to come investigate a bit overarching season mystery again. It always makes me sad when a reboot is founded on "basically nothing changed between the series finale and now", especially in cases like these when the reboot is spiritually notably different.
@@ruminationstation4200 you must have skipped the movie, because that's exactly what they did. She came back for one mystery and decided to stay afterwards.
I’m forever indebted to an old friend for getting me to watch this series. She got a local venue to show the film when it came out and my favorite moment was the dead silence when she ran the trivia portion of the night due to it’s obscure questions that would stump anyone if used for Final Jeopardy.
the movie basically chickened out in taking Veronica elsewhere (but pls dear god not the FBI) and then the reboot just shit all over the fans i dont even get it
Agatha Christie was writing mysteries with bumbling and corrupt detectives back in the 1920s and I feel like the original detective novels are interesting to consider in how they play into the procedural
The hard-boiled detective stories of Hammett and Chandler, adaptations of which are referenced in the film noir section here, are explicitly anti-cop, more than most movie adaptations that were still hampered by the production code. Rockford Files is another show that took a lot from that style and starts off with a very anti-cop vibe, which does eventually cool to mostly focusing on some specific cops, if I recall.
My friends and I were seniors in high school in September 2009, and we skipped school on 9/09/09 (“O-Niner Day”) to have an all-day Veronica Mars watch party. One of the greatest shows ever made.
THIIIS. I like the mystery/suspense subgenre of romance but I've been searching for a series for ages that doesn't have at least 1 cop in the main couple. Mission fucking impossible.
@@CT_Phippsthey tend to be ex-cops, I guess what they mean is someone without any relation to cops. Because having an ex cop or cop just says that it's being a cop that lets you do this cool stuff, therefore cops are cool? Maybe? Idk
@@cgijokerman5787 Eh, there's the caveat they're usually private detectives (in fiction) because they get kicked off the force. But if you mean RL private eyes being glamorized and mostly ex-cops, point taken.
I don't know if it was intentional or not, but Veronica Mars also made a compelling case for the whole, "the law isn't always right/the right thing isn't always legal," argument. In the episode about the cult, Keith chose not to report the missing 17-year-old girl, because he knew she was safer at the commune than in the foster system. When Wallace's coach was "murdered," Keith didn't report the truth to the authorities, because it would've disqualified the family from getting the insurance money that their father died to make sure they got. By working outside the law, the Mars' are able to make moral choices at their discretion. I think this is stressed by the fact that, hours after learning the truth about Wallace's coach, Keith is reinstated as acting Sheriff, wherein he'd have had to arrest the assistant coach for murder and take away the insurance payout from the coach's family, i.e. the whole reason he had himself killed in the first place.
One of my favorite things about Veronica Mars is that many of the crimes are misdemeanor-level everyday stuff. While the big arcs might be about murder and whatnot, you also have fake IDs and vandalism as crimes-of-the-week
Let's take note of the even further accuracy of Veronica's dad being the closest thing to a good cop and promptly being ousted and fired for it. ALL cops are bad cause the good ones aren't cops anymore, or just dead via "mysterious circumstances".
The "good cops" enter a system made to protect the bad apples by making the "good cops" the minority, thus making their behavior out of the ordinary instead of expected.
As an aspiring writer I always wanted to see more of these types of mystery shows from the perspective of an investigative journalist type character someone trying to uncover the very overt ignored corruption in society
I know 2 women who investigated unexpected deaths of their relatives while in health care institutions, & both got justice for their relatives (1 was an aunt in the UK; the other was an elderly cousin in Ireland; the 2 women who successfully got justice for their dead are Canadians). I think a Nurse Practitioner or medical illustrator who investigates the death of her beloved mentally ill aunt in an institution, alongside her paralegal or investigative journalist or smthg best friend, add a social worker buddy, a digital archivist (researcher) cover the aunt case in the pilot, then that experience changes the people who investigated & they become a team who goes on to specialize in investigating medical negligence in a case of the week procedural mystery with that setup would be pretty cool.
02:34 I think Veronica Mars’ portrayal of the police/sheriffs is far more realistic than any cop show. They’re incompetent, arrest the wrong people because they’re the stereotype suspect and corrupt. And the them not investigating her rape allegation properly again is a pretty accurate portrayal of the crime in real life, it’s only a tiny percentage of reported rapes that actually move forward to prosecution and an even smaller percentage where the suspects are convicted. 🤔🤷
Are you not just applauding it for replacing one caricature for another? Also, "He said She said" cases are hard to move forward/prove, no? And isn't that what a lot of rapes are? And that is assuming everything reported is true to begin with. After all we do not want to go back to the era when an accusation by the "right" women was all it took, yes? I think you are raising a valid concern. But how it is answered is very complex.
@@Toanleigha backlog of untested rape kits kinda blows ur argument up. The whole clearance rate being lower than most other crimes (literally just solving and “closing” the case). No convictions required. And they can’t even do that. You’re focusing on a non issue
@@Toanleigh if you look at the stats, less than 1% of reported sexual assaults are false accusations. barely any are convicted. and most people don't even report them in the first place. false accusations of sexual assault are a much, much, much, much, much, much smaller issue than the dismissals of true accusations.
Seeing you distill all the different ways Veronica Mars repeatedly shows police as fundamentally corrupt and incompetent really hammers home how much Leverage fails to make the same point. Where Veronica is out for revenge the Leverage crew tend to focus on monetary and emotional restitution for victims and preventing harm-causers from repeating those offenses, which is genuinely a progressive vision for justice, and yet Leverage goes out of its way to stick to the "a few bad apples" frame of policing. So frustrating. Anyway, Veronica Mars is such an underrated gem and I hope your covering it means more people will see it!
Haven't seen Leverage, but a combination of transformative/restorative justice of that show and the ACAB and class critique of Veronica, would be the perfect leftist crime show.
@@KarlSnarksthere is an episode in Leverage in which they ‘steal congress’ to get a bill passed and it is the single most hilariously sad and accurate (yet still made simple for run time) portrayal of the process towards getting a bill passed. It's really a must watch episode. It is to be noted that a lot of the episodes are ripped from the headlines, but the writers expressed how depressing it was writing for the show since they had to significantly tone down the actions and corruptions of the irl villains to make them somewhat believable, as fictional villains. It does have a mild criticism of the police in that there are a lot of corrupt law enforcement and the only good police in the show are either so incompetent they only progress in their careers due to the cases being handed to them by the main characters (criminals) and a ‘one good cop’ character who is technically working with the main characters who are criminals and turning a blind eye to their actions due to having been helped by them. Which is ‘good’ in the show, but isn't a great look for law enforcement in general.
Yeah Leverage didn’t go hard on criticism of the police for it's concept of when the law fails you.... I do remember it being harsher than usual (which isn't saying much) on cops with having the only ‘good’ cops being hilariously incompetent or definitely allowing the criminal behavior of the main characters to continue. And the main antagonist who always won was basically a bastard ‘cop’ (Interpol) but not exactly in a corrupt way he was just a bastard in character (Sterling). It was limited in that the mastermind character was set up to be a ‘law abiding’ citizen who controlled a group of criminals for good when the law failed. In other words he used the system instead of exactly breaking the system. I was interested to see if that changed when the criminal characters took over as matermind, but I never got around to watching the new series. In the end the same criticism of Veronica Mars applies, ultimately they both funnel the cases back to the police system after doing all the polices leg work.
Veronica Mars was essentially a detective show with a non- traditional sleuth combined with socioeconomic analysis of suburban America. This is why the show was so good. It was a surprisingly ambitious show. A really rare series of its kind.
One crazy show I watched was "Grimm". The hero is a cop, in episode one, and remains a cop for the entire series, even after he acquires supernatural powers, and uses them to become a serial killer, and fight a clandestine race war against other people with supernatural powers. The amazing thing about this show is the show-runners seem completely oblivious to having turned their hero into a serial killer. He learns that most of the small fraction of humanity with these supernatural powers are kind of like werewolves. One of the characters, introduced in episode one, is a werewolf kind of character - but reformed. Unfortunately, some of these people don't get cool transformations. They are meek, as regular humans, and fear transforms them into meek rodent like animals. Our hero's supernatural power is that he can see the hidden forms of those other guys, when other people see them as normal. That makes him a "Grimm". It's genetic. And, he learns his ancestors have a long and bloody history of detecting and murdering those other people. Anyhow, in just about every episode he kills at least one supernatural person, and then uses his cop authority to cover it up. In episode one two beautiful women are introduced... his initial girlfriend, and this lawyer, who is one of those supernatural people. She is his first nemesis. It is one of the weird things about this show, her initial representation is as one of the "bad" people, even though she never kills anyone, and, after all these years, I can't remember her committing any crimes. If the show-runners had tweaked their initial concept a little bit, they could have made her the hero, a plucky lass, trying to protect her ethnic group from the dangerous serial killers, like the corrupt homicide cop in her town.
Notably, he's the only Grimm who is NOT a indiscriminate serial killer of Wesen. Every other one hunts them for existing. He waits until they commit murders. Which is much better than Buffy.
@@CT_Phipps You are correct, he does show more discrimination than earlier Grimms. But he also used his cop authority to hide his own murders. I wondered, if the supernatural aspect of Grimm was true, and one was a law enforcement official, who had Grimm powers thrust upon him, like our hero, how should one react in a way that respects the rule of law? First, go to the FBI, and convince someone in authority of the existence of Wesen. Second, prepare a training manual briefing non-Grimm law enforcement officials on how to recognize Wesen among their suspect pools. Third, perhaps if you work with them, boffins can create Wesen detection technology. If you had to kill a couple of Wesen, before that contact with the FBI, don't cover up your crime. You can't do that, while respecting the rule of law. If the corpse's lack of teeth and claws undermines your self-defense claim, that is just one of the risks of working in law-enforcement. FWIW the show-runners completely disregarded the genetics everyone should have learned in their Grade nine science class.
In the first season, he at least tries no to kill them, but later on, he just straight up kills them. There is even a plot about how he was upset after killing non-Wessen human by accident and was even called on it. But Adalind did commit crimes - she hired people to successfully kill Marie Kessler and had put Juliette and Hank in coma, raped Nick.
@@adapienkowska2605 Maybe you paid better attention than I did. I think I watched most or all of season one, and I don't recall Nick ever showing any hesitation or remorse over killing Wesen. WRT Adalind and Nick's Aunt Marie... She was a Grimm, who had targetted Adalind. I didn't recall Adalind hiring people to kill Aunt Marie, although I do recall her dying, in episode one, if I am not mistaken. Nick finds telephoto pictures Aunt Marie had taken of Adalind. Aunt Marie was clearly targeting Adalind. So, why doesn't that make the steps Adalind took, self-defense. Aunt Marie started it. Nick continued it. So, does that make the steps Adalind took to defend herself against Nick and his friends, self-defense? I still think that the show-runners could have made Adalind the plucky hero, defending herself and her people against the racist rogue cop and serial killer, Nick.
The point that Keith does more to combat corruption in Neptune when not a cop is SO true, and i kind of wish they had made that a purposeful storyline rather than have him want to become sherrif again
I feel that's being overly generous to PSYCH as "The cops are morons" are undermined by the fact that they're still helping them. Also, he learned everything from his dad.
@@CT_Phipps The premise of the show is that the cops have put him in the situation because they falsely accuse him of a crime he didnt commit I cant imagine a bigger obstacle. The police threaten his freedom with their incompetence
@@jak1165 Yeah but the the show doesn't ultimately disparage them. They're not inept, they're just not as good as Shawn. Juliet, Lassiter, and Chief Vick are all still shown to be extremely competent and generally good at their jobs, and Shawn's dad is constantly talking about the need to respect the institution and how hard they work. And if anything, the very premise you're mentioning is them doing their job well. They didn't just "falsely accuse" Shawn out of nowhere; they brought him in after he provided information someone not involved in the crime _shouldn't_ have known. They happened to be wrong, but they were actually doing their job by following up on Shawn as a suspicious lead.
Psych is my absolute favorite show of all time, but even I have to admit that it's not very critical of policing. The show makes cops look silly, sure, but rarely if ever critiques the systems in place or cops' ability to detect things. The biggest critique it has of cops is that they're close-minded
Hey Skip, when I was younger I saw some cartoons that took the format of police procedurals and transplanted them into a school setting: _Fillmore!_ and _Sally Bollywood: Super Detective_ being the ones I remember most vividly. What stood out to me even back then - and why they've stayed in my memory - is how _violent_ the perps in these shows got, usually during the once-per-episode chase scene. One scene that's remained in my memory was in _Sally_ where one of the perps throws a cymbal so hard its edge imbeds itself in a wall - and seemingly would have decapitated Sally had she not dodged. I remember thinking that the level of violence was _entirely_ inappropriate for the crimes the perps were accused of, such that it would have produced the far heftier charge than the thing they were being investigated for. _So_ much heftier that they'd probably recieve _actual prison time_ had it happened in real life, it not just being forgotten about once they're finally cornered. Having now watched your _Copaganda_ series, which show that adult police procerdurals _also_ heavily exaggerate the amount of violence police deal with, I was wondering if these cop cartoons were simply unconsciously copying the format - and thereby the ideas - of adult cop shows. They could simply be injecting some action to make the shows more interesting, of course. The level of violence is about equal to shows like _Avatar_ or _Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja._ Its just that in those shows that level is understandable and verisimilar.
i remember hearing about it, but i assumed it was just some standard teen girl show so i ignored it. 8 minutes into this video im considering pirating the first season.
@@sheepwshotguns42 do it! i couldn't believe how much i enjoyed the show. on the surface, i shouldn't have. but this video does a really good job of breaking down + summarizing why i did//do. it's imperfect (of course); but still - 10/10 i def recommend.
@@jamescarr1265 Definitely not season 4. I liked it but it was too plot driven every single episode. The other 3 seasons I enjoyed the anthological approach with plot being background focus
I also gotta say the actor for Veronica’s dad is one of my favorite character actors. Also!!! This may be an interesting topic. Covering Person of Interest, and how it relates to the surveillance state, AI, the war on terror and Jim Caviezal being a nutjob
Jackson, I think you are my favourite UA-cam channel I’ve ever come across. I’m a criminology student, and your analysis of these issues and how they’re presented in the media - chefs kiss.
Honestly when I first watched VM I also couldn't stop seeing her as Eleanor, but they're SUCH different characters that now, watching each show, I just see them instead of the other or Kristin Bell
Hell yeah, the creator might've blown up the show in the last season but the shows DNA is still unflinchingly honest about the corruption of the police.
Just wanted to share that only the on-air version of Veronica Mars began directly with the income/wealth inequality speech about Neptune High. The shipped version actually begins with one of the best film noire cold open monologues I've seen to date, and was the original reason I got hooked in the first place. Veronica's opening line is: "I'm never getting married. You want an absolute? There it is."
Came for the Veronica Mars... Got a 80+ year History Lesson and new appreciation that its mysteries were far deeper then I expected. As one of the Movie's Kickstarters... I have hope VM will return someday (Season 5?) Will Neptune ever get itself figured out?
Aside from a few forays into white savior tropes and the problematic relationship between Veronica and the cop, Veronica Mars has aged pretty well. I binged the entire series (and the movie) before watching season 4 on Hulu, and was reminded both of what a great show it was and of how perfectly-cast Kristen Bell was in the lead role
I never really saw it as a white savior show. Veronica kinda plays the role of everyone's fixer. And if anything it was about class And status. Veronica was poor. Most of the poor people were disadvantaged by the wealthy. Veronica was once allowed into that world but was kicked out and lost all the privilege she used to get.
@@kellharris2491 Except, she’s able to get back that privilege by dating an 09er. Also, for anyone who don’t know her, she can easily “pass” as an 09er. As shown in the video, Weevil points out a few times throughout the series that Veronica has more options than him-within and beyond Neptune-in part because of race. Neptune exists within the US and that certainly makes a mark on world of VM. IRL and in the show class and race frequently intersect, and the show definitely demonstrated that.
Did not expect a fellow ranger fan in here but I'm in full agreement on this. Especially the episode that stopped all of their instant "you're guilty!" In their tracks when the alien came up innocent AFTER they finished beating the crap out of him.
Granted. Just rewatched a clip from that episode and the accused ended up being a bounty hunter (so cop) anyways 🤣 they then proceed to throw a car at a suspect to prove they're guilty lol just all around abuse of power lol
If anyone here doesn't already know channel That Dang Dad, you should. He's Phil, an ex-police police abolitionist. He talks philosophy, games (particularly games referencing real-life structures of oppression and segregation), music, policing, equality, and just doing better for each other - and in a very enjoyably mellow speaking voice. Criminally low subscriber/view counts over there, I expect, are at least partly due to UA-cam's aversion to many of the topics and views central to That Dang Dad (named so irrelevantly because his first kid came into being, bringing him into fatherhood, when he was inaugurating his UA-cam channel). Anyay, if you dig my neighbor Jackson here, and/or this fantastic _Copaganda_ series of his, you might also find Phil's content well worth your time.
His 'mellow' speaking voice annoyed me a bit when I first saw his videos (I'm not here for an ASMR session dammit! ;P) but I mellowed to it lol. Other than that his videos especially on cop stuff are great.
14:05, my theory for why it was portrayed as okay for teen girls to date so many adult men on tv was because thats just what holywood was doing at the time. If you look back soooo many girl teen stars that were like 15-17 year olds dating their 22-28 year old male co-stars. They weren’t even hiding it really at the time either, I remember being confused about it as a kid why 18 years old was the minimum age of consent but that was happening on tv and no one was doing anything about it and no adults were upset
Season 5 was a complete betrayal of everything Veronica Mars stood for from the beginning. I don’t think we could get a modernized Veronica Mars. The modern mainstream cannot supply something with the same intense sincerity. EDIT: At least they got Weevil’s character right. I can’t say the same about everyone else. He was always the best character, no matter how fascinating I find Logan.
Gosh I love this series! I'd like to suggest putting Psych on your radar, if it isn't already. The character of Lassiter specifically is a good study in how cop comedy draw out humor using police brutality. Season 3, Episode 11 is a great place to start for this. Keep up the great work! 👍
One of the best shows for showing the difference between the two is Babylon 5. Many Many times over the course of that series the law enforcement officers as well as other political figures demonstrate ways to address criminal acts other then just punitive incarceration. I'd highly recommend it. The show has a very general anti-revenge theme to it, often pointing out when a punishment is far far too severe for the crime committed.
Garibaldi's typical cop tenancies are never criticised, there's unfortunately a fair amount of unchallenged "if the right guys are cops with the power to bend/break the rules then that's good" even though the show is about fascism. Hope that JMS fixes that if he does get a reboot of the series.
@@tomharrison1393 The only time I would say Garibaldi truly represents the bad side of cops is when he shows support the the death penalty. He let G'Kar out of prison not because he served his full sentence but because he didn't see a point to it. He also was shown to forgive people in later seasons. He goes on a character arc from being the typical bad cop to someone who even leaves the job eventually. I would say Zack overall does a better job of representing justice with the exception of his prejudice against telepaths. But overall the show demonizes bad behaviour of those in power and preaches a message of forgiveness and trying to find other ways to deal with societies problems.
@@JoeNunyabidness No I understand it's just that as I said the character goes on a bit of an arc throughout the series starting off as a more traditional cop but eventually softening and becoming more interested in justice. But the show definitely takes a stance that anytime corrupt or vengeful actions are used they are called out and they typically are shown to cause more harm than good.
I like B5, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the show has that gross "West Wing" liberal fantasy feeling to it. Like, there's that episode where the dockworkers on B5 go on strike and Sinclair wants to work with them but the government won't let him. He baits the government into invoking an act that allows a strike to be suppressed "by any means necessary" and then chooses the means of meeting the striking workers' demands. It's a solution that is at best highly unlikely, and is really just unrealistic. I don't think the show could have done better while still being a good show, because putting the time and effort into recreating the Virginia coal wars in spaaaaaaaace would have derailed the story, but it still feels kinda crummy. Like maybe it was an issue too big to be tackled by the show and they should have left it alone if they couldn't find more space for it.
No strong disagreements with anyone here, but the b5 cops regularly abuse their power in early seasons, and I'm not sure Garibaldi's arc really tackles that in a satisfactory way imo. I'm enjoying Jessie Gender and Council of Geeks' "Jumpgate" B5 rewatch podcast, can recommend.
I’d love to see an episode on “Criminal Minds” at some point. It was the only cop show I enjoyed, since it took a far more psychological approach than most other shows, but I’m sure it still has plenty of flaws
The first major flaw is the very psychological approach it has. It follows a fairly common idea within real-life law enforcement, that tends to emphasize personal psychology over other circumstances, leading to a skewed perception of crime as a whole. (it does, however, form entertaining mysteries)
I always liked the psychological focus of "Criminal Minds" and enjoyed it when I was younger. But rewatching it a few years ago, I was disturbed to realize how often an episode ends with one of our "good guy" protagonists shooting (and often killing) the criminal. I still like the premise but the violence touted as "solutions" or satisfactory endings has tainted the show for me a bit.
This is my first time coming across this channel, and i loved how thoughtfully done this was. The connection between "anti-communist" labor laws and the modern police procedural was especially interesting. I really hope the show "The blacklist" makes it into this copaganda series at some point, it'd be interesting to hear your take on that, because despite the FBI being painted as obviously corrupt basically being part of the selling point of the show it still REALLY feels like copaganda fairly often, its definetely a guilty pleasure of mine lol
Murder, she wrote, is my favourite fictional crime show because the cops are so useless they need a crime writer to pretty much do everything for them. So imma gonna love Veronica Mars
you mentioning shitty age gap relationships in the early 2000s makes me think of the chokehold “ezria” from pretty little liars had on their (mainly teen girl) audience. like damn they had us rooting for a teacher and his STUDENT????? CRAZY
Need you to know I've made like 10 posts over the years wishing for an hour long Veronica Mars essay and!!! Wow I couldn't be happier right now!! Thank youuuuuu 💗💗💗
I have always loved the private investigator mysteries and I do still love. They have so much potential in discussing crime and policing. One of my favorites is Millenium trilogy (and the swedish film versions of it). The moral of it is that it's that fascism makes people okay with murder, the surveillance state protects the real dangers to society and mentally ill and neurodivergent people are criminalized as convenient scapegoats. There's not a single actual cop character, the climax is a super intense court scene (and it slaps) and the hero is an autistic bi goth queen who kicks ass and steels from the rich. It does have it's flaws too but mostly it's actually pretty radical. I would love to see your take on it if you'd want to cover it on this show some day!
this is why i want a batman show that actually cares about making him the greatest detective rather just a superhero. it's why i think me and a lot of batman fans really connected with robert pattinson's batman, he was primarily a detective that saw the need for an alternative to the police -- they even turn gordon into more of a sidekick than a cop. now it all needs it's adding all his children.
He's also a billionaire whose super power is "being rich" and who never questions the status quo. Shouldn't need to explain why that is problematic for a lot of people.
Fun fact: the shite defense attorney Cliff is played by Daran Norris, who's a voice actor with many credits perhaps most notably Cozmo/Timmy's Dad in Fairly Oddparents. Was waiting for Jackson to come out with a "Dinklebeeeerg..." joke but evidently he has much more tact than me.
It was a show primarily aimed at teenage girls, an audience that is widely despised. Not to mention that inequalities were not discussed by media all that much back then. Veronica Mars was just too ahead of its time and aimed at an audience of people constantly dismissed and ridiculed.
Similar reason why BattleStar Galactica didn't get many awards, {insert genre television name} Ghetto. If a show gets relegated to one of the ghettos, it will never be considered for any award except one which would apply to that genre.
Thank you for keeping this mostly spoiler free I've heard of this show many times but this is the most I've seen it and it seems great! Gonna start it.
On topic of cop stories I play a starfinder game. Me and another character are cyberpunk cops. In this dystopian world, police is basically US police, but with 100% gun discharge rate and even smaller salaries to encourage even bigger bribes. We basically get to play good guys buy working from inside the police on projects that would get fired and eliminated if discovered. But, being hero pigs, when we aren't saving the world from evil corporations, we get to take bribes, shoot people for no reason and be a general murder hobo chaotic neutral, but somehow without breaking a character
Veronica mars is one of my favourite shows, It's very compelling. One of the major critiques I have of it though that you didn't have a chance to touch on here is how it handle (and often mishandles) r---. SA comes up a lot, even from episode 1 and it doesn't do a great job all the time. At least the SA is about the victim in this case (Which is so rare. There are so many shows where the SA is about the brother/boyfriend/father), but it absolutely falls apart with how it handles them. Especially when it comes to veronica's SA reveal in the end of season 1 and the ret con they did in season 2. Just... ooph. The show deals with SA a LOT and its really hit or miss on whether its good. Sometimes it's outright bad.
I litterally just got to the point where you said. "And Sheriffs, well they're just the absolute fucking worst." Then a True Detective season 4 trailer started playing amd I honestly didn't know if it was an ad or a part of your video. 😂
Only point I would make about this video is you keep inferring that the typical officer is not a member of the working class. But they are. They're just class traitors. Don't absolve them of one wrongdoing in effort to see them persecuted for others.
A full hour of Veronica Mars analysis??? Is it my birthday? Really great analysis, yes, Veronica wasn't perfect, but it's just really good and way more nuanced than a lot of other shows. I would be so curious on a video about iZombie, which feels in some ways like a step back for creator Rob Thomas. Because that one is a police procedural, even if our hero is a zombie who works in the coroner's office, but it does actually have one good cop. (perhaps more, I don't remember exactly). And the way it does class dynamics is not as interesting as VM, I think, though it still has a focus on that.
I kept skipping over the Veronica Mars thing, wondering why they were sending it to me - then I saw it was you, so I watched it! I agree that detective shows could be done without cop heroes, and we need some more like that to overcome the vast, excessive amount of Copaganda police shows give us. Personally, I love police & detective shows, but watching your series has been an eye-opener. I've had some of these thoughts for quite a while, but you're Siri shows us Ihow pervasive it is, and how even "good" cop dramas reinforce stereotypes
So we should have more private eye shows and media, since most even up to Sherlock Holmes depict cops as either incompetent, corrupt, willfully ignorant, or keeping silent.
I just love a new take on an old favorite. Thank you for showing us the strengths of this show, and also calling out the flaws. No one is perfect, and a show like this - AND your criticism of it - reminds me that flaws are good, actually.
In this vein, I'd love to see you cover Person of Interest, which does a great job of portraying police corruption (to the point of treating it like its own gang, and following the "no good cop rule" almost to a T). The basic premise of "we just know a name, we don't know if they're a victim or a perpetrator" allows for some interesting exploration of biases, subversions of various procedural tropes, and lets them focus on very human stories imo. It does eventually veer off into delicious sci-fi bullshit territory though, so if you do cover it, be prepared to talk around that.
What’s crazy is I probably would’ve loved this show, but I never gave it a chance and ironically, I think it’s because Bell did such a stellar acting job as an unlikable character in Deadwood- that I couldn’t watch her in anything for a while after. It wasn’t a conscious thing either, I know what acting is, but looking back- I’m sure that’s why I never watched it. Probably would’ve had a hard time committing to a show where the young man who played King Geoffrey on GOT was a main character in the first few years after his exit- which is insane bc the only reason to dislike him (need a breather) is because he was a phenomenal actor as that loathsome character. Sorry for the tangent… excellent video, as always! 😉
I dont know why, but it seems everytime I watch one of these videos I end up making a new story that involves a cop who quits (usually via supernatural death stuff) and then becomes a PI. They are much aided by a cast of atleast one fervent bacon hater. God i love these videos.
The opening of this video essay just reminded me of a class I had on Horror Films and I wonder what your take on how cops/the police were used in the Horror Subgenre (and how it shifted) fits in the overall "Copaganda" arc. Like, do Horror/Monster Movies act as counterprogramming to Copaganda post 1968's "Night of the Living Dead"? It might make a great "Halloween" special if nothing else.
i wanted to let you know that i watched the entirety of Veronica Mars because of the beginning of this video, I wanted to better understand what you were going to go through in this video so I paused and now I’m back since i’ve finished and know exactly what you’re talking about (it was fun)
Oh my gosh, have you watched Moonhaven? I would love to hear your thoughts on Moonhaven. Dominic Monaghan is a policeman on a moon colony whose structure and culture was designed by an AI trained on human failure. The police’s job is to support people affected by the crimes and to help the perpetrators “heal” the damage to the community. The scenes he has with with the other main character, who is a smuggler from Earth, are great.
I love this series, and I learn so much from it every time. Would you ever consider doing a video on Gotham? I've watched that show start to finish a few times, and it has some... interesting implications about policing.
The little side storyline of one episode where Veronica's Dad and her friend's mom being a landlord and her dad forcibly evicting the tenant was and still is weird.
One thing I always appreciated about Veronica Mars, besides the anti-copaganda, is the show was never afraid to show Veronica in an unflattering light, that nuance is rare of for female characters even today. There are many moments in the show where she's ruthless, close-minded, and petty. The show doesn't try to reframe it into something positive because she's the main character. Often times it bites her back or leads to unintended harm. A big reason I couldn't stand the reboot was the girlbossification of Veronica. A lot of her toxic taits are reframed as empowering. Couldn't stand that.
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Now do Chicago P.D.
Can't wait to see it.
How is it that VERONICA MARS gets better on new viewings?? Great video!
Can you look at legend of korra? That show I think would be a great addition at to copoganda. I think it’s a show that is one of the most pro-cops shows and is indicative of the horrid “moderate American liberalism” that has never gone away and is dominant in liberal corners since the end of the great society era. As a result, the show, like most copoganda shows, eschews real systemic change and GLAMORIZES corrupt, incompetent people and institutions that have authority power. The cops on korra are cruel, brutal, and yet the show makes the police commissioner a hero.
Seeing Enrico Colantoni reminds me FLASHPOINT! 😊
Where did you get your shirt.
I’ve been following this series for a while and I love it. Please please consider doing THE MENTALIST - 2008-2015. It’s crazy how many of these shows were just on on regular european cable all the time….
To quote Mike in Better Call Saul, "I didn't say you were a bad person I said you were a criminal"
Yeah, but that sentiment (a) referred much more to the idea that everyone is corrupt and so justice doesn't really matter, which ends up being disproved multiple times for character growth without any regard for structural inequalities, and (b) is never explicitly mentioned again. Better Call Saul is still basically copaganda.
My favorite quote from _BCS,_ bar none!
goes hard
To bad Mike is an Ex-Cop :)
@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233yeah but wasn’t his whole story about how his son died because the whole police force was corrupt including him? I think that shows how the series presents mike being a cop as a negative within the story.
veronica mars is basically if nancy drew hated cops, and i love it
Well except for her dad. Who got removed by the richies.
In the early days, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were a lot more critical of cops. They cleaned that up when some of the early books were spruced up for republication in (IIRC) the 70s.
@@EmeraldCityVideo yeah, those rewrites are so ridiculous sometimes, cuz like they did that to make them less racist, but in some cases they accidentally made them MORE racist
@@EmeraldCityVideoSherlock Holmes also dedicated a lot of space to talking shit about police detectives for not having the training to actually solve a crime
Never seen the show. But your description made me want to watch it
This is why the "Veronica joins the FBI/Logan joins the military" storylines felt so off. The later seasons felt like they were ruined by studio meddling and the creators trying to find an audience. It was really a shame.
That first season will always mean so much to me, though. It's the only show that has imho depicted what post SA is like when interacting with the police. Sheriff Lamb was always such an underrated villain.
Seriously. I wish they'd had her become an investigative journalist.
yup. the audacity to make Veronica a freaking cop, after everything that happened with her and her dad and her friends??? seriously?
@@AllTheArtsy why? Now she can clean up from the inside.
@@poppers7317 did you not watch this video at all?
@@AllTheArtsy of course not.
I think that's why the reboot hurt so much, in that it felt like it undermined so much of the messaging of the original run, and made Veronica's character growth seemingly go *backwards*. It was super frustrating, and it did feel more like a cop show than it should have. The original run was truly great though, modern noir cinema at it's most teen drama, iconic.
I don’t think I will watch it again. So many frustrating choices were made.
@@salyxI was so confused why they didn't have it be that she left town at 18 and rarely came back, until the series starts up and she needs to come investigate a bit overarching season mystery again. It always makes me sad when a reboot is founded on "basically nothing changed between the series finale and now", especially in cases like these when the reboot is spiritually notably different.
@@ruminationstation4200 you must have skipped the movie, because that's exactly what they did. She came back for one mystery and decided to stay afterwards.
I’m forever indebted to an old friend for getting me to watch this series. She got a local venue to show the film when it came out and my favorite moment was the dead silence when she ran the trivia portion of the night due to it’s obscure questions that would stump anyone if used for Final Jeopardy.
the movie basically chickened out in taking Veronica elsewhere (but pls dear god not the FBI) and then the reboot just shit all over the fans i dont even get it
Agatha Christie was writing mysteries with bumbling and corrupt detectives back in the 1920s and I feel like the original detective novels are interesting to consider in how they play into the procedural
The hard-boiled detective stories of Hammett and Chandler, adaptations of which are referenced in the film noir section here, are explicitly anti-cop, more than most movie adaptations that were still hampered by the production code.
Rockford Files is another show that took a lot from that style and starts off with a very anti-cop vibe, which does eventually cool to mostly focusing on some specific cops, if I recall.
@@Neil3271 Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe fits in, too.
I’d watch an episode on hard boiled detective fiction!
Agatha Christie was not an anti cop lunatic like you.
@@Neil3271I know this isn’t my side of UA-cam, but in what universe is being anti cop a good thing? It’s insanity.
My friends and I were seniors in high school in September 2009, and we skipped school on 9/09/09 (“O-Niner Day”) to have an all-day Veronica Mars watch party. One of the greatest shows ever made.
Lol so does that mean that you and your friends identified with the 0-9ers?
We really need to popularize non-police investigators for mystery stories.
THIIIS. I like the mystery/suspense subgenre of romance but I've been searching for a series for ages that doesn't have at least 1 cop in the main couple. Mission fucking impossible.
Uh private detectives?
@@CT_Phippsthey tend to be ex-cops, I guess what they mean is someone without any relation to cops. Because having an ex cop or cop just says that it's being a cop that lets you do this cool stuff, therefore cops are cool? Maybe? Idk
Ummm... Anything by Agatha Christie & Sherlock Holmes etc😂
@@cgijokerman5787 Eh, there's the caveat they're usually private detectives (in fiction) because they get kicked off the force. But if you mean RL private eyes being glamorized and mostly ex-cops, point taken.
Is so sad that she did such great work and still ended up in the bad place
😸
Hey, I see what you did there!🤣 But the bad place destination might have been due to the reefer madness.
I wish I would’ve thought of that
probably for bugging that confession booth
@6:50 sounds like a line right out of a season 2 flashback
I don't know if it was intentional or not, but Veronica Mars also made a compelling case for the whole, "the law isn't always right/the right thing isn't always legal," argument. In the episode about the cult, Keith chose not to report the missing 17-year-old girl, because he knew she was safer at the commune than in the foster system. When Wallace's coach was "murdered," Keith didn't report the truth to the authorities, because it would've disqualified the family from getting the insurance money that their father died to make sure they got. By working outside the law, the Mars' are able to make moral choices at their discretion. I think this is stressed by the fact that, hours after learning the truth about Wallace's coach, Keith is reinstated as acting Sheriff, wherein he'd have had to arrest the assistant coach for murder and take away the insurance payout from the coach's family, i.e. the whole reason he had himself killed in the first place.
One of my favorite things about Veronica Mars is that many of the crimes are misdemeanor-level everyday stuff. While the big arcs might be about murder and whatnot, you also have fake IDs and vandalism as crimes-of-the-week
Let's take note of the even further accuracy of Veronica's dad being the closest thing to a good cop and promptly being ousted and fired for it.
ALL cops are bad cause the good ones aren't cops anymore, or just dead via "mysterious circumstances".
Exactly. The "good" ones usually realize they can't fix a broken system and leave or are forced out like you said.
The "good cops" enter a system made to protect the bad apples by making the "good cops" the minority, thus making their behavior out of the ordinary instead of expected.
He was a better cop outside the force than when he was in the force.
@@adapienkowska2605That’s the point. He’s not a cop but provides what the cops cannot - justice.
@@Aster_RiskThe good cops who have saved lives and protect people aren’t good cops apparently.
As an aspiring writer I always wanted to see more of these types of mystery shows from the perspective of an investigative journalist type character someone trying to uncover the very overt ignored corruption in society
I know 2 women who investigated unexpected deaths of their relatives while in health care institutions, & both got justice for their relatives (1 was an aunt in the UK; the other was an elderly cousin in Ireland; the 2 women who successfully got justice for their dead are Canadians).
I think a Nurse Practitioner or medical illustrator who investigates the death of her beloved mentally ill aunt in an institution, alongside her paralegal or investigative journalist or smthg best friend, add a social worker buddy, a digital archivist (researcher) cover the aunt case in the pilot, then that experience changes the people who investigated & they become a team who goes on to specialize in investigating medical negligence in a case of the week procedural mystery with that setup would be pretty cool.
02:34 I think Veronica Mars’ portrayal of the police/sheriffs is far more realistic than any cop show. They’re incompetent, arrest the wrong people because they’re the stereotype suspect and corrupt. And the them not investigating her rape allegation properly again is a pretty accurate portrayal of the crime in real life, it’s only a tiny percentage of reported rapes that actually move forward to prosecution and an even smaller percentage where the suspects are convicted. 🤔🤷
Are you not just applauding it for replacing one caricature for another?
Also, "He said She said" cases are hard to move forward/prove, no?
And isn't that what a lot of rapes are?
And that is assuming everything reported is true to begin with.
After all we do not want to go back to the era when an accusation by the "right" women was all it took, yes?
I think you are raising a valid concern.
But how it is answered is very complex.
@@Toanleigha backlog of untested rape kits kinda blows ur argument up. The whole clearance rate being lower than most other crimes (literally just solving and “closing” the case). No convictions required. And they can’t even do that. You’re focusing on a non issue
this @@Toanleigh
@@Toanleighyeah that's not at all what's happening.
@@Toanleigh if you look at the stats, less than 1% of reported sexual assaults are false accusations. barely any are convicted. and most people don't even report them in the first place. false accusations of sexual assault are a much, much, much, much, much, much smaller issue than the dismissals of true accusations.
Seeing you distill all the different ways Veronica Mars repeatedly shows police as fundamentally corrupt and incompetent really hammers home how much Leverage fails to make the same point. Where Veronica is out for revenge the Leverage crew tend to focus on monetary and emotional restitution for victims and preventing harm-causers from repeating those offenses, which is genuinely a progressive vision for justice, and yet Leverage goes out of its way to stick to the "a few bad apples" frame of policing. So frustrating. Anyway, Veronica Mars is such an underrated gem and I hope your covering it means more people will see it!
Haven't seen Leverage, but a combination of transformative/restorative justice of that show and the ACAB and class critique of Veronica, would be the perfect leftist crime show.
@@KarlSnarks It may not be what you look at, but it's more Anti-Capitalism than ACAB, I'd still recommend watching it because it's god damn hilarious.
@@KarlSnarksthere is an episode in Leverage in which they ‘steal congress’ to get a bill passed and it is the single most hilariously sad and accurate (yet still made simple for run time) portrayal of the process towards getting a bill passed. It's really a must watch episode. It is to be noted that a lot of the episodes are ripped from the headlines, but the writers expressed how depressing it was writing for the show since they had to significantly tone down the actions and corruptions of the irl villains to make them somewhat believable, as fictional villains. It does have a mild criticism of the police in that there are a lot of corrupt law enforcement and the only good police in the show are either so incompetent they only progress in their careers due to the cases being handed to them by the main characters (criminals) and a ‘one good cop’ character who is technically working with the main characters who are criminals and turning a blind eye to their actions due to having been helped by them. Which is ‘good’ in the show, but isn't a great look for law enforcement in general.
Yeah Leverage didn’t go hard on criticism of the police for it's concept of when the law fails you.... I do remember it being harsher than usual (which isn't saying much) on cops with having the only ‘good’ cops being hilariously incompetent or definitely allowing the criminal behavior of the main characters to continue. And the main antagonist who always won was basically a bastard ‘cop’ (Interpol) but not exactly in a corrupt way he was just a bastard in character (Sterling). It was limited in that the mastermind character was set up to be a ‘law abiding’ citizen who controlled a group of criminals for good when the law failed. In other words he used the system instead of exactly breaking the system. I was interested to see if that changed when the criminal characters took over as matermind, but I never got around to watching the new series. In the end the same criticism of Veronica Mars applies, ultimately they both funnel the cases back to the police system after doing all the polices leg work.
He should definitely do a video on leverage next, I love that show but I would like to see it critiqued on this point
The drunk teens narrative was there because you could get tax breaks for featuring it in your show.
Wow that's such an interesting fact! Is there any sources?
@@tutyketdolli know sarah z made a video about the buffy episode on teen drinking and she gets into that.
Veronica Mars was essentially a detective show with a non- traditional sleuth combined with socioeconomic analysis of suburban America.
This is why the show was so good. It was a surprisingly ambitious show. A really rare series of its kind.
One crazy show I watched was "Grimm". The hero is a cop, in episode one, and remains a cop for the entire series, even after he acquires supernatural powers, and uses them to become a serial killer, and fight a clandestine race war against other people with supernatural powers.
The amazing thing about this show is the show-runners seem completely oblivious to having turned their hero into a serial killer.
He learns that most of the small fraction of humanity with these supernatural powers are kind of like werewolves. One of the characters, introduced in episode one, is a werewolf kind of character - but reformed. Unfortunately, some of these people don't get cool transformations. They are meek, as regular humans, and fear transforms them into meek rodent like animals.
Our hero's supernatural power is that he can see the hidden forms of those other guys, when other people see them as normal. That makes him a "Grimm". It's genetic. And, he learns his ancestors have a long and bloody history of detecting and murdering those other people.
Anyhow, in just about every episode he kills at least one supernatural person, and then uses his cop authority to cover it up.
In episode one two beautiful women are introduced... his initial girlfriend, and this lawyer, who is one of those supernatural people. She is his first nemesis.
It is one of the weird things about this show, her initial representation is as one of the "bad" people, even though she never kills anyone, and, after all these years, I can't remember her committing any crimes.
If the show-runners had tweaked their initial concept a little bit, they could have made her the hero, a plucky lass, trying to protect her ethnic group from the dangerous serial killers, like the corrupt homicide cop in her town.
Notably, he's the only Grimm who is NOT a indiscriminate serial killer of Wesen. Every other one hunts them for existing. He waits until they commit murders. Which is much better than Buffy.
@@CT_Phipps You are correct, he does show more discrimination than earlier Grimms. But he also used his cop authority to hide his own murders.
I wondered, if the supernatural aspect of Grimm was true, and one was a law enforcement official, who had Grimm powers thrust upon him, like our hero, how should one react in a way that respects the rule of law?
First, go to the FBI, and convince someone in authority of the existence of Wesen. Second, prepare a training manual briefing non-Grimm law enforcement officials on how to recognize Wesen among their suspect pools. Third, perhaps if you work with them, boffins can create Wesen detection technology.
If you had to kill a couple of Wesen, before that contact with the FBI, don't cover up your crime. You can't do that, while respecting the rule of law. If the corpse's lack of teeth and claws undermines your self-defense claim, that is just one of the risks of working in law-enforcement.
FWIW the show-runners completely disregarded the genetics everyone should have learned in their Grade nine science class.
i think Skip has a video about Grimm in this series
In the first season, he at least tries no to kill them, but later on, he just straight up kills them. There is even a plot about how he was upset after killing non-Wessen human by accident and was even called on it.
But Adalind did commit crimes - she hired people to successfully kill Marie Kessler and had put Juliette and Hank in coma, raped Nick.
@@adapienkowska2605 Maybe you paid better attention than I did. I think I watched most or all of season one, and I don't recall Nick ever showing any hesitation or remorse over killing Wesen.
WRT Adalind and Nick's Aunt Marie... She was a Grimm, who had targetted Adalind. I didn't recall Adalind hiring people to kill Aunt Marie, although I do recall her dying, in episode one, if I am not mistaken. Nick finds telephoto pictures Aunt Marie had taken of Adalind. Aunt Marie was clearly targeting Adalind. So, why doesn't that make the steps Adalind took, self-defense. Aunt Marie started it. Nick continued it. So, does that make the steps Adalind took to defend herself against Nick and his friends, self-defense?
I still think that the show-runners could have made Adalind the plucky hero, defending herself and her people against the racist rogue cop and serial killer, Nick.
The point that Keith does more to combat corruption in Neptune when not a cop is SO true, and i kind of wish they had made that a purposeful storyline rather than have him want to become sherrif again
The "police as an obstacle" is why I love Pysch
I feel that's being overly generous to PSYCH as "The cops are morons" are undermined by the fact that they're still helping them. Also, he learned everything from his dad.
@@CT_Phipps The premise of the show is that the cops have put him in the situation because they falsely accuse him of a crime he didnt commit
I cant imagine a bigger obstacle. The police threaten his freedom with their incompetence
@@jak1165 Yeah but the the show doesn't ultimately disparage them. They're not inept, they're just not as good as Shawn. Juliet, Lassiter, and Chief Vick are all still shown to be extremely competent and generally good at their jobs, and Shawn's dad is constantly talking about the need to respect the institution and how hard they work.
And if anything, the very premise you're mentioning is them doing their job well. They didn't just "falsely accuse" Shawn out of nowhere; they brought him in after he provided information someone not involved in the crime _shouldn't_ have known. They happened to be wrong, but they were actually doing their job by following up on Shawn as a suspicious lead.
Psych is my absolute favorite show of all time, but even I have to admit that it's not very critical of policing. The show makes cops look silly, sure, but rarely if ever critiques the systems in place or cops' ability to detect things. The biggest critique it has of cops is that they're close-minded
The idea that "power changes context" is key to avoiding all kinds of misunderstanding, imo.
Hey Skip, when I was younger I saw some cartoons that took the format of police procedurals and transplanted them into a school setting: _Fillmore!_ and _Sally Bollywood: Super Detective_ being the ones I remember most vividly.
What stood out to me even back then - and why they've stayed in my memory - is how _violent_ the perps in these shows got, usually during the once-per-episode chase scene. One scene that's remained in my memory was in _Sally_ where one of the perps throws a cymbal so hard its edge imbeds itself in a wall - and seemingly would have decapitated Sally had she not dodged. I remember thinking that the level of violence was _entirely_ inappropriate for the crimes the perps were accused of, such that it would have produced the far heftier charge than the thing they were being investigated for. _So_ much heftier that they'd probably recieve _actual prison time_ had it happened in real life, it not just being forgotten about once they're finally cornered.
Having now watched your _Copaganda_ series, which show that adult police procerdurals _also_ heavily exaggerate the amount of violence police deal with, I was wondering if these cop cartoons were simply unconsciously copying the format - and thereby the ideas - of adult cop shows.
They could simply be injecting some action to make the shows more interesting, of course. The level of violence is about equal to shows like _Avatar_ or _Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja._ Its just that in those shows that level is understandable and verisimilar.
time to rewatch Veronica Mars AGAINNNN
I’m always a few months away from a rewatch
Maybe throw the books into the mix and reduce that Mars Gap... (1) The Thousand Dollar Tan Line and (2) Mr. Kiss and Tell
Veronica Mars is one of the best female characters of all time.
i remember hearing about it, but i assumed it was just some standard teen girl show so i ignored it. 8 minutes into this video im considering pirating the first season.
@@sheepwshotguns42 please do. all of the seasons are worth a watch although none are anywhere near as good as the first season.
@@sheepwshotguns42 do it! i couldn't believe how much i enjoyed the show. on the surface, i shouldn't have. but this video does a really good job of breaking down + summarizing why i did//do.
it's imperfect (of course); but still - 10/10 i def recommend.
@@jamescarr1265 Definitely not season 4. I liked it but it was too plot driven every single episode. The other 3 seasons I enjoyed the anthological approach with plot being background focus
@@sheepwshotguns42 My own consideration has been done, cause at the end of the day you can't go wrong with Kristen Bell.
I also gotta say the actor for Veronica’s dad is one of my favorite character actors.
Also!!! This may be an interesting topic. Covering Person of Interest, and how it relates to the surveillance state, AI, the war on terror and Jim Caviezal being a nutjob
Jackson, I think you are my favourite UA-cam channel I’ve ever come across. I’m a criminology student, and your analysis of these issues and how they’re presented in the media - chefs kiss.
Huh, I'm also studying criminology.
As someone who had never heard of Veronica Mars, all I see is Eleanor Shellstrop being a detective lol.
This calls for a first time watch for you. Such a good clever show
this is absolutely how i feel about the good place. like what? thats veronica mars in heaven
Honestly when I first watched VM I also couldn't stop seeing her as Eleanor, but they're SUCH different characters that now, watching each show, I just see them instead of the other or Kristin Bell
Hell yeah, the creator might've blown up the show in the last season but the shows DNA is still unflinchingly honest about the corruption of the police.
Love seeing anyone give this awesome show attention. It's criminal that this show is forgotten.
French left activists have this saying : "police partout, justice nulle part" which means "police everywhere, justice nowhere".
this copaganda series is so good. the gift that keeps on giving. cheers for doing the research and the work to put a spotlight on this phenomena
Just wanted to share that only the on-air version of Veronica Mars began directly with the income/wealth inequality speech about Neptune High. The shipped version actually begins with one of the best film noire cold open monologues I've seen to date, and was the original reason I got hooked in the first place. Veronica's opening line is:
"I'm never getting married. You want an absolute? There it is."
Came for the Veronica Mars... Got a 80+ year History Lesson and new appreciation that its mysteries were far deeper then I expected. As one of the Movie's Kickstarters... I have hope VM will return someday (Season 5?) Will Neptune ever get itself figured out?
Aside from a few forays into white savior tropes and the problematic relationship between Veronica and the cop, Veronica Mars has aged pretty well. I binged the entire series (and the movie) before watching season 4 on Hulu, and was reminded both of what a great show it was and of how perfectly-cast Kristen Bell was in the lead role
I never really saw it as a white savior show. Veronica kinda plays the role of everyone's fixer. And if anything it was about class And status. Veronica was poor. Most of the poor people were disadvantaged by the wealthy. Veronica was once allowed into that world but was kicked out and lost all the privilege she used to get.
@@kellharris2491 Except, she’s able to get back that privilege by dating an 09er. Also, for anyone who don’t know her, she can easily “pass” as an 09er.
As shown in the video, Weevil points out a few times throughout the series that Veronica has more options than him-within and beyond Neptune-in part because of race. Neptune exists within the US and that certainly makes a mark on world of VM. IRL and in the show class and race frequently intersect, and the show definitely demonstrated that.
Once again requesting you do an episode on Power Rangers SPD and how police handle immigrants and minorities
Did not expect a fellow ranger fan in here but I'm in full agreement on this. Especially the episode that stopped all of their instant "you're guilty!" In their tracks when the alien came up innocent AFTER they finished beating the crap out of him.
Granted. Just rewatched a clip from that episode and the accused ended up being a bounty hunter (so cop) anyways 🤣 they then proceed to throw a car at a suspect to prove they're guilty lol just all around abuse of power lol
Love me some rangers. Been requesting this since Paw Patrol was announced so I hope we get there
That'd be amazing
If anyone here doesn't already know channel That Dang Dad, you should. He's Phil, an ex-police police abolitionist. He talks philosophy, games (particularly games referencing real-life structures of oppression and segregation), music, policing, equality, and just doing better for each other - and in a very enjoyably mellow speaking voice. Criminally low subscriber/view counts over there, I expect, are at least partly due to UA-cam's aversion to many of the topics and views central to That Dang Dad (named so irrelevantly because his first kid came into being, bringing him into fatherhood, when he was inaugurating his UA-cam channel). Anyay, if you dig my neighbor Jackson here, and/or this fantastic _Copaganda_ series of his, you might also find Phil's content well worth your time.
His 'mellow' speaking voice annoyed me a bit when I first saw his videos (I'm not here for an ASMR session dammit! ;P) but I mellowed to it lol. Other than that his videos especially on cop stuff are great.
comment boost to this
14:05, my theory for why it was portrayed as okay for teen girls to date so many adult men on tv was because thats just what holywood was doing at the time. If you look back soooo many girl teen stars that were like 15-17 year olds dating their 22-28 year old male co-stars. They weren’t even hiding it really at the time either, I remember being confused about it as a kid why 18 years old was the minimum age of consent but that was happening on tv and no one was doing anything about it and no adults were upset
Season 5 was a complete betrayal of everything Veronica Mars stood for from the beginning. I don’t think we could get a modernized Veronica Mars. The modern mainstream cannot supply something with the same intense sincerity.
EDIT: At least they got Weevil’s character right. I can’t say the same about everyone else. He was always the best character, no matter how fascinating I find Logan.
Mean Season 4 right? Not 5? Unless your counting the movie as S4 if so then ignore me.
Gosh I love this series! I'd like to suggest putting Psych on your radar, if it isn't already. The character of Lassiter specifically is a good study in how cop comedy draw out humor using police brutality. Season 3, Episode 11 is a great place to start for this. Keep up the great work! 👍
8:35 Blue Bloods; only the 3rd most watched scripted show on TV, just behind TWO OTHER Police procedural series, all produced by the same network.
One of the best shows for showing the difference between the two is Babylon 5. Many Many times over the course of that series the law enforcement officers as well as other political figures demonstrate ways to address criminal acts other then just punitive incarceration. I'd highly recommend it.
The show has a very general anti-revenge theme to it, often pointing out when a punishment is far far too severe for the crime committed.
Garibaldi's typical cop tenancies are never criticised, there's unfortunately a fair amount of unchallenged "if the right guys are cops with the power to bend/break the rules then that's good" even though the show is about fascism. Hope that JMS fixes that if he does get a reboot of the series.
@@tomharrison1393 The only time I would say Garibaldi truly represents the bad side of cops is when he shows support the the death penalty.
He let G'Kar out of prison not because he served his full sentence but because he didn't see a point to it. He also was shown to forgive people in later seasons. He goes on a character arc from being the typical bad cop to someone who even leaves the job eventually.
I would say Zack overall does a better job of representing justice with the exception of his prejudice against telepaths.
But overall the show demonizes bad behaviour of those in power and preaches a message of forgiveness and trying to find other ways to deal with societies problems.
@@JoeNunyabidness No I understand it's just that as I said the character goes on a bit of an arc throughout the series starting off as a more traditional cop but eventually softening and becoming more interested in justice.
But the show definitely takes a stance that anytime corrupt or vengeful actions are used they are called out and they typically are shown to cause more harm than good.
I like B5, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the show has that gross "West Wing" liberal fantasy feeling to it. Like, there's that episode where the dockworkers on B5 go on strike and Sinclair wants to work with them but the government won't let him. He baits the government into invoking an act that allows a strike to be suppressed "by any means necessary" and then chooses the means of meeting the striking workers' demands. It's a solution that is at best highly unlikely, and is really just unrealistic. I don't think the show could have done better while still being a good show, because putting the time and effort into recreating the Virginia coal wars in spaaaaaaaace would have derailed the story, but it still feels kinda crummy. Like maybe it was an issue too big to be tackled by the show and they should have left it alone if they couldn't find more space for it.
No strong disagreements with anyone here, but the b5 cops regularly abuse their power in early seasons, and I'm not sure Garibaldi's arc really tackles that in a satisfactory way imo.
I'm enjoying Jessie Gender and Council of Geeks' "Jumpgate" B5 rewatch podcast, can recommend.
Funny, I just finished watching seasons 1-3! It’s a pretty good comfort show if you like fun revenge plots and it has Cliff. WE LOVE CLIFF, OKAY?
So excited! Love Veronica Mars and can’t wait to see what you have to say about it!
I’d love to see an episode on “Criminal Minds” at some point. It was the only cop show I enjoyed, since it took a far more psychological approach than most other shows, but I’m sure it still has plenty of flaws
The first major flaw is the very psychological approach it has.
It follows a fairly common idea within real-life law enforcement, that tends to emphasize personal psychology over other circumstances, leading to a skewed perception of crime as a whole.
(it does, however, form entertaining mysteries)
I always liked the psychological focus of "Criminal Minds" and enjoyed it when I was younger. But rewatching it a few years ago, I was disturbed to realize how often an episode ends with one of our "good guy" protagonists shooting (and often killing) the criminal. I still like the premise but the violence touted as "solutions" or satisfactory endings has tainted the show for me a bit.
Fortunately, in PA, sheriffs are not law enforcement. They are agents of the court - serve warrants, transfer prisoners, and provide security.
Loved this episode and all the Copaganda series. I vote for Justified next.
Yeah I feel like there are so many options. Columbo, true detective, deadwood ect.
This is my first time coming across this channel, and i loved how thoughtfully done this was. The connection between "anti-communist" labor laws and the modern police procedural was especially interesting. I really hope the show "The blacklist" makes it into this copaganda series at some point, it'd be interesting to hear your take on that, because despite the FBI being painted as obviously corrupt basically being part of the selling point of the show it still REALLY feels like copaganda fairly often, its definetely a guilty pleasure of mine lol
I mean the FBI are going after massive super criminals so, yeah, very copaganda.
Murder, she wrote, is my favourite fictional crime show because the cops are so useless they need a crime writer to pretty much do everything for them. So imma gonna love Veronica Mars
you mentioning shitty age gap relationships in the early 2000s makes me think of the chokehold “ezria” from pretty little liars had on their (mainly teen girl) audience. like damn they had us rooting for a teacher and his STUDENT????? CRAZY
righttt 😭her being 18 was NOT an excuse
The shows are written for teenagers, they depict teenage fantasies. It only seems weird when you're looking back as an adult.
@@peacemaster8117 they are written to groom the youth, and also to justify their own degeneracy.
Need you to know I've made like 10 posts over the years wishing for an hour long Veronica Mars essay and!!! Wow I couldn't be happier right now!! Thank youuuuuu 💗💗💗
I have always loved the private investigator mysteries and I do still love. They have so much potential in discussing crime and policing. One of my favorites is Millenium trilogy (and the swedish film versions of it). The moral of it is that it's that fascism makes people okay with murder, the surveillance state protects the real dangers to society and mentally ill and neurodivergent people are criminalized as convenient scapegoats. There's not a single actual cop character, the climax is a super intense court scene (and it slaps) and the hero is an autistic bi goth queen who kicks ass and steels from the rich. It does have it's flaws too but mostly it's actually pretty radical. I would love to see your take on it if you'd want to cover it on this show some day!
I know these videos arent getting the views they should but keep up the good work. This is important stuff
this is why i want a batman show that actually cares about making him the greatest detective rather just a superhero. it's why i think me and a lot of batman fans really connected with robert pattinson's batman, he was primarily a detective that saw the need for an alternative to the police -- they even turn gordon into more of a sidekick than a cop. now it all needs it's adding all his children.
He's also a billionaire whose super power is "being rich" and who never questions the status quo. Shouldn't need to explain why that is problematic for a lot of people.
Fun fact: the shite defense attorney Cliff is played by Daran Norris, who's a voice actor with many credits perhaps most notably Cozmo/Timmy's Dad in Fairly Oddparents.
Was waiting for Jackson to come out with a "Dinklebeeeerg..." joke but evidently he has much more tact than me.
Thank you, no one talks about Veronica Mars and they should.
Veronica Mars is one of my favourite shows, loved hearing your thoughts on it
i did this ive been praying for more veronica mars content thank u
Why wasn't this show sweeping all the awards back when it was on?
It was a show primarily aimed at teenage girls, an audience that is widely despised. Not to mention that inequalities were not discussed by media all that much back then. Veronica Mars was just too ahead of its time and aimed at an audience of people constantly dismissed and ridiculed.
Similar reason why BattleStar Galactica didn't get many awards, {insert genre television name} Ghetto. If a show gets relegated to one of the ghettos, it will never be considered for any award except one which would apply to that genre.
ive loved this show forever. its my favorite thing to introduce people to
Thank you for keeping this mostly spoiler free I've heard of this show many times but this is the most I've seen it and it seems great! Gonna start it.
I love your video production, wit, and research! These videos should be watched by WAY more people.
On topic of cop stories
I play a starfinder game. Me and another character are cyberpunk cops. In this dystopian world, police is basically US police, but with 100% gun discharge rate and even smaller salaries to encourage even bigger bribes.
We basically get to play good guys buy working from inside the police on projects that would get fired and eliminated if discovered. But, being hero pigs, when we aren't saving the world from evil corporations, we get to take bribes, shoot people for no reason and be a general murder hobo chaotic neutral, but somehow without breaking a character
Veronica mars is one of my favourite shows, It's very compelling. One of the major critiques I have of it though that you didn't have a chance to touch on here is how it handle (and often mishandles) r---. SA comes up a lot, even from episode 1 and it doesn't do a great job all the time. At least the SA is about the victim in this case (Which is so rare. There are so many shows where the SA is about the brother/boyfriend/father), but it absolutely falls apart with how it handles them. Especially when it comes to veronica's SA reveal in the end of season 1 and the ret con they did in season 2. Just... ooph. The show deals with SA a LOT and its really hit or miss on whether its good. Sometimes it's outright bad.
I litterally just got to the point where you said. "And Sheriffs, well they're just the absolute fucking worst." Then a True Detective season 4 trailer started playing amd I honestly didn't know if it was an ad or a part of your video. 😂
Only point I would make about this video is you keep inferring that the typical officer is not a member of the working class.
But they are. They're just class traitors.
Don't absolve them of one wrongdoing in effort to see them persecuted for others.
Can i request anything from the blue skies era: psych, white collar, burn notice or something like leverage
cant believe this is the first V Mars video essay ive seen on the platform! cant wait to dive in
Your dang background music always makes me think an iPhone is going off somewhere!
I want a remake of Dragnet, but all of the characters are in drag like I thought the show would be as a kid
A full hour of Veronica Mars analysis??? Is it my birthday?
Really great analysis, yes, Veronica wasn't perfect, but it's just really good and way more nuanced than a lot of other shows.
I would be so curious on a video about iZombie, which feels in some ways like a step back for creator Rob Thomas. Because that one is a police procedural, even if our hero is a zombie who works in the coroner's office, but it does actually have one good cop. (perhaps more, I don't remember exactly). And the way it does class dynamics is not as interesting as VM, I think, though it still has a focus on that.
Izombie is pretty typical copaganda with the main cop being a minority, good intentioned, and ethically devoted to his job.
@@CT_Phipps yeah, and it wasn't just him, I think, sure there were dirty cops, but I think they had a bunch more good apples in there :/
Best YT channel making a video about the best TV show
I love your content and Veronica Mars. I'm so glad you did this and I'm glad for the most part you ignored the fourth season...
I kept skipping over the Veronica Mars thing, wondering why they were sending it to me - then I saw it was you, so I watched it!
I agree that detective shows could be done without cop heroes, and we need some more like that to overcome the vast, excessive amount of Copaganda police shows give us.
Personally, I love police & detective shows, but watching your series has been an eye-opener. I've had some of these thoughts for quite a while, but you're Siri shows us Ihow pervasive it is, and how even "good" cop dramas reinforce stereotypes
i will still stand by season one of westworld, mostly because i haven't finished even season 2
Season 1 was interesting. They had no idea what to do with it after that.
I was just thinking when the next episode of Copaganda is coming out. I enjoy your content!
So we should have more private eye shows and media, since most even up to Sherlock Holmes depict cops as either incompetent, corrupt, willfully ignorant, or keeping silent.
the 5-4 podcast is amazing btw. Great add to the video!
Fun video. Veronica Amar’s is a show I will probably never watch, but happy to learn about its cultural footprint.
I just love a new take on an old favorite. Thank you for showing us the strengths of this show, and also calling out the flaws. No one is perfect, and a show like this - AND your criticism of it - reminds me that flaws are good, actually.
I enjoyed Veronica Mars but I wasn't aware of all the careful nuance they put into so many of the details. Really just heightens my respect.
Once again another banger with so much research behind it. Entertaining and educational, huzzah.
Veronica Mars is an amazing show, wish there were more of that)
Thank you so much I can’t even explain how important this show is to me I love when people talk about it
"THE SMELL OF FRYING BACON KEEPS ME GOING" FUCKIN SENT ME 😂😂😂
Thanks for doing this video. I didn't watch the series, but I have seen the movie several times. Now I feel like watching it again.
In this vein, I'd love to see you cover Person of Interest, which does a great job of portraying police corruption (to the point of treating it like its own gang, and following the "no good cop rule" almost to a T).
The basic premise of "we just know a name, we don't know if they're a victim or a perpetrator" allows for some interesting exploration of biases, subversions of various procedural tropes, and lets them focus on very human stories imo. It does eventually veer off into delicious sci-fi bullshit territory though, so if you do cover it, be prepared to talk around that.
What’s crazy is I probably would’ve loved this show, but I never gave it a chance and ironically, I think it’s because Bell did such a stellar acting job as an unlikable character in Deadwood- that I couldn’t watch her in anything for a while after. It wasn’t a conscious thing either, I know what acting is, but looking back- I’m sure that’s why I never watched it. Probably would’ve had a hard time committing to a show where the young man who played King Geoffrey on GOT was a main character in the first few years after his exit- which is insane bc the only reason to dislike him (need a breather) is because he was a phenomenal actor as that loathsome character.
Sorry for the tangent… excellent video, as always! 😉
...You know this show predates the Game of Thrones adaptation right? By like nearly a decade???
I dont know why, but it seems everytime I watch one of these videos I end up making a new story that involves a cop who quits (usually via supernatural death stuff) and then becomes a PI. They are much aided by a cast of atleast one fervent bacon hater. God i love these videos.
The opening of this video essay just reminded me of a class I had on Horror Films and I wonder what your take on how cops/the police were used in the Horror Subgenre (and how it shifted) fits in the overall "Copaganda" arc. Like, do Horror/Monster Movies act as counterprogramming to Copaganda post 1968's "Night of the Living Dead"?
It might make a great "Halloween" special if nothing else.
would love to see you cover both monk and psych
I have been waiting for this episode!!
Now that's a great sponsor tie-in. It's actually useful for the same purpose I watched the video.
Please never quit
My entire brain was wiped clean and replaced solely with the knowledge that "films noir" is the proper wording for that
i wanted to let you know that i watched the entirety of Veronica Mars because of the beginning of this video, I wanted to better understand what you were going to go through in this video so I paused and now I’m back since i’ve finished and know exactly what you’re talking about (it was fun)
Oh my gosh, have you watched Moonhaven? I would love to hear your thoughts on Moonhaven. Dominic Monaghan is a policeman on a moon colony whose structure and culture was designed by an AI trained on human failure. The police’s job is to support people affected by the crimes and to help the perpetrators “heal” the damage to the community. The scenes he has with with the other main character, who is a smuggler from Earth, are great.
I love this series, and I learn so much from it every time. Would you ever consider doing a video on Gotham? I've watched that show start to finish a few times, and it has some... interesting implications about policing.
The little side storyline of one episode where Veronica's Dad and her friend's mom being a landlord and her dad forcibly evicting the tenant was and still is weird.
Well he was threatening her and her son, breaking into her house at night
awww yeah been waiting for the veronica mars episode
One thing I always appreciated about Veronica Mars, besides the anti-copaganda, is the show was never afraid to show Veronica in an unflattering light, that nuance is rare of for female characters even today. There are many moments in the show where she's ruthless, close-minded, and petty. The show doesn't try to reframe it into something positive because she's the main character. Often times it bites her back or leads to unintended harm. A big reason I couldn't stand the reboot was the girlbossification of Veronica. A lot of her toxic taits are reframed as empowering. Couldn't stand that.