As a defense lawyer, I am finally glad the conversation about police abuse is going on. None of these cop shows ever discuss the question of the admissibility of evidence, because every show has cops breaching constitutional rights to gather evidence. People think we lawyers mostly defend murders and rapist, but it's less about defending the guilty and more about holding the prosecution and police to account. To make sure their case is tight and that they followed the rules.
it was really interesting to hear your perspective, thanks! I feel like cops should go through as much schooling as you guys do. how can somebody "enforce" a law that they have limited knowledge on in the first place? or at least, dont know the ins-and-outs like you guys do? why isnt the standard the same?
@@anyt7183 i saw a post about how much training american police go through and the graph compared it to nail technicians who train for longer than the cops!!!!! i was so horrified
i feel the same! I'm trained as a forensic anthropologist, and i can't watch any of the cop or forensic shows anymore, even tho i used to love watching them, because they all either misrepresent the science in a way that i know is going to mislead juries irl, or excuse blatantly illegal behavior by the cops that should rightly get any case thrown out. i just can't watch them anymore, now that i know all the harm they do to real cases and real justice.
Again, in the real world, that of course matters. In fiction, not so much, because people watch shows and films to escape the hassle of the real world. We don't /want/ to be reminded of the problems of the real world in fiction, because we use fiction to relax. To enjoy ourselves. Should we assume that cops are doing this in the real world? Fuck no! They usually don't. Hell, most of the time if you see a cop, they're not rushing off to stop some big crime. They're handling the small stuff. There /are/ times when they /DO/ have to handle the big stuff, but that's rare. Anyone who thinks this is what cops are like, well, they might need to learn how to separate fiction from reality. The truth is, while some cops do lose their way, those /are/ the exceptions that prove the rule that /most/ cops genuinely are decent people.
@@Warwolf1 I think that's a pretty large generalisation on why people consume fiction. Some people want escapism, and nothing wrong with that, but some people like their fiction to reflect the real world, be well researched or thought provoking. I've been reading the Rivers of London series and while it's about police who deal with the supernatural the writer clearly did a lot of research into how the police really function, then daily reality and often mundane of large investigations and police attitudes including towards race. Better research than I've seen in many straight up crime novels and made the books way more enjoyable. Realism can add to the immersion of fiction and be an asset.
Personally, I think that the hero cop has become a trope because what what our officers are supposed to be, what we’d like to think all cops are like (selfless, genuinely good people) even though it’s not accurate to all or even most cops and sometimes keeps us from having bigger conversations about the loss of life caused by the cops that don’t live up to this ideal.
But I find interesting is that we also see how a cop going rogue is good. Because they are doing it for the greater good, but in real life, a rogue cop is a terrible idea!
Thats all well and good as long as the good cops follow the rules. From Dirty Harry to Elliott Stabler SVU these stories make a good guy out of angry men abusing their power to intimidate and beat suspects. In these stories, abuse of power is often the key to solving the crime, when in reality, it causes more death than it’s worth
@Black Ninja I also love SVU. It is hard for me to watch some of the old episodes. Stabler (and sometimes even Benson) cross the line from being a hero, into hero complex/god complex territory. For example, there is an episode in an earlier season where a man assaults a bunch of women (which, don't get me wrong is very very bad). Benson then threatens him with being assaulted by another inmate. A few seasons later, the same character returns after being assaulted in prison and blames Benson for it. She didn't have any part it in, but even she realizes her threat was taking things too far. She is supposed to work for justice not carry out justice in a way she sees fit (aka the threat of violence). This would have been a good plot line for Stabler, had he stayed on. He actually physically hurt a few people, which good cops don't do. Even if you think a person is guilty of the most horrific of crimes, here in the Untied States we have due process. It's not perfect, but it's better than allowing arresting officers to doll out punishments as they see fit. Good cops don't do that; that, in my opinion, is a result of a god complex.
There’s a video that talks about how most Hollywood blockbusters have to be approved by the military which I saw the other day that was really interesting (just look up „one marvelous scene Captain America“). It’s quite eye opening
Ikr? When I started college in social work we spent time reading about humen injustices at an institutionalized level. At one point we read up on military corruption and I found SO MUCH CRAP on internal and external physical and sexual assault by our military specifically. Even in times of peace they've been known to beat up, rape and even kill innocent civilians around the bases. Women in the military are one of the most likely groups to experience sexual assault in their career timespan, but far more likely to from their own "comrades" then they are the enemy. It's not just women either, men experience rape too as a form of humiliation and control similar to a prison setting. I read interviews of grown women who were children during WW2 that were beaten up and raped by American soldiers after the war was declared over and the US soldiers were sent over to "help repair" while also wreaking havoc on the general populace like nothing more than gang leaders.
This is also why I don't automatically thank veterans for their service like my parents raised me to when I see them: you never know which ones are secretly rapists and abusers that believe it didn't matter on account of the victim 'not being white therefore basically not an actual human being' oof. People act like military personnel should be granted respect without question but NO ONE gets my respect until/unless they EARN it and they prove to me what kind of person they are.
I'd like to add the comment that people can't seem to tell the difference between police officers and detective. The stuff that cops do in these shows is the work detectives do. Detectives solve murders. cops do the normal stuff like write you tickets.
I'm not from the USA but what I always understood from series/movies is that a detective is a cop, not the one that's on the street giving parking tickets but still a cop. I remember on Third Watch that the woman protagonist (can't remember her name) was a normal street cop and took a test to became a detective and it was like a promotion. Please correct me if I'm wrong, that's an old series lol
@@marina.chayka I think that is still how it is done, for the most part. However this hones in the fact that detectives are higher class than a regular police officer. They generally have a college education and years of experience working as a police officer before being promoted to detective. In contrast police officers just need to go through the police academy. The thumb nail of this video has Olivia Benson as a hero cop but its pretty obvious shes a detective who specializes in a certain field. The show every now and then even references when she was just a normal police officer. Also if I may get on my soap box, describing these characters as detectives I feel reveals another aspect of why the archetype is so prevelant. in America the mystery genre has been the most popular genre for decades. Cop shows fit right into the formula. As a fan of some of these shows, I'd tell you I'm there for the mystery. I don't really see the mystery genre dying anytime soon regardless of criticisms of hero cops.
Yeah, I mean in Law and Order it’s always Detective Stabler, Detective Benson, etc. Cops in Law and Order are usually one-off characters, and sometimes even hinder the detectives.
Marina Romanelli Yeah, that’s basically how it works in the US. Most detectives are police officers (some are private investigators) but not every cop is a detective.
Actually there isn't a war movie Hollywood has produced that isn't propaganda. Yeah not even Apocalypse now, you know why I say that because the movies are never critical of American intervention, they at best ignore it and focus on individuals e.g. Apocalypse now and at worst glorify it e.g Rambo. Apocalypse Now is still my favorite war movie but if they really wanted to focus on the horror in Vietnam, they would've framed the story from the eyes of the Vietnamese commoners, you know the innocent people who had to deal with America invading their country and bombing it more times than the entire WW2.
Plus, J. Edgar Hoover was in the closet, which would probably explain why he was such a prick in real life. He just had a lot of pent up aggression against everybody he didn't like because he was too insecure to open his bottled up sexuality.
Finally, we talk about the reason why I hate when people on TV shows are portrayed as criminals or petty, unlikable, just because they DARE ask for a warrant. DARE to preserve their right to privacy and not have people just go through their homes and things. And cops who just push through everyone else because 'they are the ones who know better', despite the opinions of even their coworkers, are just always right and always forgiven for the lines they cross with applause and they condemn when others pass. And it's weird that I say that because usually, I love cop shows. (weird, so weird)
It goes back to the idea of cowboys and Natives, or the Western genera. It was the idea, out of the lawlessness of the "untamed" West. These "good" cowboys would get their land back and fight for the honor of the damsel in distress.
Then in the '70s after Vietnam, cops were portrayed as corrupt, heroic Indian fighters became genocidalists, and honorable medieval knights became brutal warlords and classist bullies. The heroes in the crime films were all criminals who shared this anti-establishment vibe.
@@gfilmer7150 Yeah, there is some truth to this. Which it's best for the media to take a more realistic perspective to the justice system as opposed to overly cynical point of view in which most cops are criminals.
I would say it goes back to peoples obsession with Sherlock Holmes. I'm a lover of the mystery genre. And I'm not a lone the mystery genre is still the most popular genre of books. is it any shock we would be attracted to cop shows who are out to solve mysteries?
So required at this point as Police Br*t*l*ty is at a peak around the world. Btw you said its a very American troupe, but here in India we have a similar troupe of police characters beating up criminals illegally and people cheering. In real life, police abuses the lower caste people and assaults lowe class girls as recent cases have shown. Although B99 is my fav show cuz of representation, Thanks for this video
i’m indian american, and almost all of the indian shows and movies i’ve seen portray cops in a good light. i find it interesting because cops in india aren’t much different than cops in the US based on what i’ve heard.
The thing I always noticed about Brooklyn 99 is that the criminals are almost always portrayed as either hardened, evil people or people who know what they're doing is wrong but do it anyway for the thrill of it. There are a few exceptions like Doug Judy, but the only time I remember in the show when an innocent person was stopped by police while walking on the street was Terry, who is a cop himself. Granted, the show is about detectives and not beat cops, but the detectives have very little connection to the community, and they mostly just swoop in to take over cases from the street cops after all of the "messy" work has already been done. And unlike shows like The Wire, B99 doesn't show the complicated relationships and power dynamics between beat cops, detectives, informants, organized criminals and petty criminals. This is necessary for the structure of the show as an episodic workplace sitcom, but it really does give you the impression that the detectives are "above it all" and almost always right about the nature of the crimes they're investigating. The power dynamics in the show are mainly between detectives and NYPD management, and the bad decisions are almost always made by people like Wuntch, rather than Captain Holt or Terry. If you're willing to turn your brain off and think of different characters in the show as being part of distinct classes (management, cops, criminals and civilians), then the show works very well. But if you try to dig into the deeper issues that the show touches on, like police corruption and brutality, you won't find a lot of nuance or real world lessons
@@tuuudes3449 Well said. I love the show but when I'm watching it, I think of the show as a fantasy that's not much different from watching game of thrones, or lord of the rings. Its a fantasy of how I wish cops could be, and I mostly get into it because the individual characters are fun to know ,and I like their relationships with each other, which the show does very well. Thats also why the propagnda in it works so well . But yeah, considering its part of a much larger tradition of sympathetic cops, its still copagnda.
@@tuuudes3449 Ikr one of my biggest complaints with B99 despite my love for it, is even when they are clearly in the wrong or being terrible people they are never punished in an equivalent way. Jake broke into a police Captian's bedroom and searched her computer only to destroy her house in the process and literally all he got was a lecture for crying out loud!
That explains most of the far left these days. I used to be on the left until 2019, when I saw that political affiliation seem to go insane, attacking everyone and anyone as evil or racist, or any other number of things. While I am still a moderate leftist myself, I no longer associate with the left as a political affiliation, and instead see myself as independent.
This is something that always bothered me, like when a cop in a movie beats a confession out of a suspect. It always seemed strange that the exact same actions that make the cop "the good guy" in a movie would make him "the bad guy" in real life. Or in those dramas where they turn the two suspects against each other, so that one testifies against the other out of revenge. It always bugged me, because what jury is going to convict someone on the testimony of someone's personal enemy?
You're right about that. If a cop did beat a suspect to confession he or she would be suspended and or fired. As for the other I've never been on a jury but I would probably not convict someone based on their enemy's testimony.
I read somewhere that getting a confession like that makes it null as in court the suspect can just say they confessed because they were in a high-stress situation and the confession will be dropped.
I’m a bit disappointed in this video: I’m glad you did it but I think you could have gone deeper. You should have talked more about how these shows & movies also paint the “criminals” & “deviants” of society and warp our perceptions of the marginalized & disenfranchised. Maybe that’s a topic for another video: how we’re brainwashed to believe that criminality is an individual failing and not a consequence of an unfair & unequal society.
@Harry Paul bro the reason is to find the cause of why people resort to violence and crime - people don't grow up say "hey I like crime I'm gonna do it". If we don't fix society we don't fix people. Nice racist dog whistle with the "no dad" comment btw.
@Harry Paul stating your assumptions about black people being fatherless and anti white as a fact is racism. These comments are coming from a place of prejudice and those who believe in it is restricting themselves from looking beyond the surface. The people who are beating and killing black people are not the only ones who are racists. Those who believes and spreads theses prejudiced view is also a racist. You can argue and edit your comments as much as you want but it's not going to take away your prejudice against them and that is the sad fact here.
OOOOFF this is extremely interesting but I do believe this subject deserves another video and a lengthy one as well... "criminality" in most cases is nothing more than lack of privilege and good resources to help individuals
Here in Peru, most of our films always represent cops as lazy, silly and mediocre. The militaries have worst representation, as abusive, authoritarian and even rapists. Is amazing the fact that big part of my country doesn't complain about this because it's viewed as normal
In the US most films that feature the military are helped funded BY the US military, not only does the film studio get a big juicy check but they're allowed to film at the bases. As a result, those films are required to feature the military as great force of good and a pillar of strength.
@@MadameTamma yeah, it's sick! I've seen many, many war films growing up (im 20 now) and even as a kid I thought it was odd. when the military does wrong in films, they already know the target audience will forgive the characters. there's rarely any emphasis on holding Americans accountable because they know the audience will inherently forgive soldiers much more easily, or even praise them. I can't think of many military movies that don't work this way...Saving Private Ryan touched on it but it still tip-toed around so much. maybe the one with Michael J. Fox (Casualties of War I think)? though I haven't actually seen it so please correct me if I'm wrong. its main premise is about "doing the right thing", but I dont know if it actually followed up on that.
Hey but in Peru there is actually a background. In the 80's during the intern conflict the brutality came also from the militars: as you can see in the CVR almost the half of the rapes were made by MILITARS. And in reality the police in our country is corrupt xdd
My bf is a cop and have always hated cop shows. He’ll tell you personally how corrupt it is and he doesn’t like telling people he’s one. Even before the footages and stories that blew up in the last several weeks that show how messed up they are. He has said countless times, the problem isn’t training, it’s who they are hiring and this sense of loyalty to their fellow officers instead of doing the right thing when you see them doing something wrong.
@@meowmiaumiauw authorized by the state, yeah. That's the thing is that cops believe they are in a brotherhood. And what happens when you snitch on a fellow brother? Good cop goes away in different ways.
Yall should have showed those police cheer when Trump told them to brutalized people they arrest. Not to mention that just because you're arrested doesn't mean you're guilty.
I think the idea of a "hero cop" should be more focused around trying to solve problems with compassion and selflessness. My father-in-law was a police officer who died on the line of duty, on a search-and-rescue mission for a single mother who went missing. After he died so many people from the drug court he worked in came forward with stories of how he helped them to turn their lives around. When somebody pulled a gun on him he de-escalated the situation by talking them down instead of pulling his own gun out. He really left a legacy of serving his community and caring about individuals. Real heroism is about so much more than the action movie tropes we see.
I think a hero cop should just stay to its motto "To serve and protect" because its not their job to catch the bad guys. Its their job to protect the people. They should just prioritize protecting citizens who are either being abused, abducted, or under distressed and need comfort. Those are cops that should be heroes.
So sorry, I know this is unrelated but I was just wondering if you guys were still continuing the Avatar The Last Airbender video series? I feel like it's been a while since you've posted one
Sis, they started the Sex and City series like two years ago and they've only been through three characters. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for more avatar videos, just be patient lol
What does it say when I would trust fictional cops over real law enforcers? I would sooner have Jake Peralta, John McClain and Olivia Benson patrolling the streets than the regular police force
Very disappointing that cop shows lack the nuace of a real police force. As much as I love crime shows it really feels like “copoganda” at times when they don’t even have 1 episode around police brutality
Notable example being, Chicago PD with Hank Voight( like the character, but some of the things he does probably aren't okay in a real world context). SVU is somewhat better having many episodes of arresting copies who turnout to be rapist, murders, or bought. Even copies in their own precinct struggling with their own potential corruption. Examples Cassidy, Rollins, Amaro, and Staboler. If ever know a cop like Staboler I would be sympathetic, but would warn him that he needed to get personal issues in order. Much like Cragan, Wong, and Tutuola.
Hot Fuzz is a satire of British police incompetence, not necessarily brutality, although there is a comic 'USA shootout' scene which is deliberately, ridiculously overblown. Traditional British policing is all about the art of ignoring minor offences so the majority of people do not feel overpoliced - I noticed this immediately when I visited the USA in comparison - although people of color etc are much more heavily targeted. The real police scandals in Britain have tended to be about police looking the other way when they shouldn't have; not just with the murder of Stephen Lawrence, when they had literal video footage of people threatening to kill a black man but failed to capitalise on it, even during the subsequent trial, but with other tragedies like the Hillsborough disaster which was televised, but police and a pro-police media were adamant that it hadn't been incompetence, the victims were to blame etc. etc. despite everyone being able to see what was happening in front of them. It isn't a surprise that the victims in these cases were black or from places associated with working class Irish immigrants either.
The incompetence was even given a reason. The police in Sanford is actually capable and qualified, but they have gotten rusty because the chief keeps telling them to just ignore things. Ignorance breeds incompetence.
I love Hot Fuzz! Angel acts admirably for a police officer and it should be noted that in that final shootout, nobody dies at the hands of the police. It’s a movie that villainizes police incompetency and makes a hero out of a cop who does his job correctly and questions the sandford regime.
@@savannahkrystall2698 yeah the irony is that he is 'maverick' and 'rogue' by following the book and being genuine, not corrupt or excessively violent. The film gives him a gentle ribbing for being uptight, but he does actually get results and solve the case. It is light hearted, even although it does make some good points that way - he gets demoted, remember, for 'making everyone else look bad' by being so good at his job, for example.
Since the cop trope has endeared so many Americans and gained their trust and respect, does there need to be shows about teachers or STEM programs in order for the general public to hold those positions in esteem?
nope, because most of us don't need to be convinced that teachers or STEM programs are decent people. if we have to be convinced that something is good, that's a pretty bright red flag to begin with. apologies, I know your comment was a rhetorical question but I just had to respond, you raised a great point.
@@anyt7183 to add to this reply, a part of the reason cop shows can rake in stacks is due to them being quite linear and mainly excuses for action. It woudl be rather hard to make a linear tv show about a person in the stem field or a teacher, filled with action. Unless of course you mean MacGyver but I reckon that could not get a lot of traction nowadays
Cop: "Oh yeah, of course we could. We can do anything we want." Cop 2: "We could drive on the wrong side of the road." Cop: "Yeah, we do that all the time. You should see the looks on people's faces." Cop 2: "Shoot people..." -Seinfeld, The Trip pt. 2
It wasn't perfect but it's definitely the best Hollywood has come up with regarding media depicting cops, I guess it was as good as it was because the writers weren't actually from Hollywood, they were journalists who lived in Baltimore for decades and were part of the community. The biggest success of the wire is showing how individual "good cops" could never rise against the corrupt system of policing.
@@PeterEhik my issue was that the writers made it seem like the system wasn't intentionally malicious, but instead some kinda out of control beast that the cops had to navigate around. Basically they blamed everything on "Hanlon's Razor", that's a copout imo.
@@blackdragon6 I think the cops had pretty serious issues of their own- they took "no snitching" as seriously as the gangsters. They're also consistantly overly aggressive- it's one of the first episdoes where Boadie right hooks that the old Irish guy, the cops start laying the boot in, Kima runs over, you think she's gonna be the hero, and she just joins in kicking the shit out of him. They also take pride in their violent reputation- "the Easterns, cracking skulls" or something like that. The Wire showed good cops and bad cops, smart and dumb, honest and corrupt. Is that not reality? Most cops are from pretty regular backgrounds, issues with police departments reflect issues in wider society. I feel like The Wire is more relevant than ever.
@@blackdragon6 I didn't get that impression at all. If anything I think it was an indictment of our institutions that suggested that even "good" people are forced to do bad things given systemic inertia, regardless of their intentions or motivations. At no point is any cop shown to be intrinsically moral.
I think the "hero cop" character is fine. We need to stop looking at this issue as good cop vs bad cop, and start looking at the issue as systemic. The problems we see today, are not the acts of "a few bad apples". There is this idea of "brotherhood" in police department, in which cops take an oath to protect each other, instead of upholding the law. Let's work on fixing that.
A lot of doctors and nurses aren't great people that don't truly care about patients and are in it for the money. They also kill people all the time whether on purpose or accident but they never face any true penalty for it. They cover it up and deal with it amongst themselves.
@@abandonedfragmentofhope5415 Nurses are in it for the money?! Complete BS. My mother was a nurse (she's retired now) and we sure as hell weren't swimming in cash. Last time I heard something like this, it was from a guy who believed the coronavirus was a hoax.
I wish I could disagree but honestly my doctor would always try to make me feel like something was wrong with me, jokes and professional diagnosis aside, which is why I’ve barely visited throught my life... some people really dgaf..
I think if the hero cop trope is guilty of being overly romanticized then anti-cop trope is guilty of being overly cynical. If there is no alternative to the hero cop cliché other than PI, DA, and superheroes then we're basically sending the message that the best way to deal with police corruption is to not deal with the police at all. I think we have to stop thinking in terms of the people vs the police, we should be thinking in terms of the people vs the system. Because whether you think cops are generally good or generally bad how does that in anyway address the underlining problem of the justice system. I know I might get a lot of hate for saying this but police brutality is just symptom to a much larger problem.
@@anyt7183 I think the system becomes problematic when it gives person or persons an unfair advantage. But the system isn't meant to give anyone an unfair advantage. It's not meant to service the accused or the victim. As the system should acknowledge everyone's rights, including the guilty.
@@meowmiaumiauw Hmm, that's only half-truth. There have been several examples throughout history of law enforcement that didn't solely originate from slave patrols or handling violent situations. I honestly don't believe the only need for law enforcement is to encounter violent aggressors or just arresting people, if anything if that is there only function then there is a problem. I agree, that more resources should be put into other social services as the police can't solve every problem. However, if there will always be an organization meant to enforce the law then simply re-allocating money isn't going to reform the police. At some point we still have to deal with how to better reform the police and simply shifting the money isn't reform.
Love you the take-- I studied film theory and Cinematography and do art criticism- thank you for making visual theory videos so fun as an artist and academic! Excited for more!!
It is interesting to see the public finally finding out about things like "qualified immunity" (which is basically a license to kill) and also that cop records are kept private so that you end up with sometimes entire decades long careers of violence and brutality which never become public until they are caught on video killing someone. Everybody having a camera on them at all times is really turning out to be the best disinfectant. The culture is this: If you ain't cop...you are the enemy and now they feel cornered. Given how militarized they are now - things are going to get worse before they get better.
I agree - I think part of the problem is the way that they're trained - I mean the ones that aren't KKK - to think that they're at war and under attack at all times. And about things getting worse - I'm extremely suspicious about this sudden crime wave that happend when defunding the police became a thing. In NYC we're now having 10 shootings a day which hasn't happened in like 30 years.
This is such an important point. In reality police do their job, and nothing more. They don't really solve crime, they don't really care to get real bad guys. They arrest the people they can, on any charge that's available to them. In other words they cut as many corners as they are allowed, and they are exactly as lazy at their job as any other profession.
That's not fair. There are situations where cops put their lives on the line for public safety. The UK, just this past week, a major criminal network was disrupted and hundreds we're arrested. Cops are often tasked with protecting civilians all the time. I work with cops who suffer from PTSD precisely because of these near death experiences all the time. That's not what your typical office jockey does. Not saying all cops are Peralta, but let's not swing one way to the next.
@Sense Sensibility Yep. But these shows push a false narrative to the public to the point where people actually think that's true and cant accept anything else😓.
It's the detectives, journalists, and private investigators that solve crimes. Most cops just give out traffic tickets or arrest homeless people. When faced with a serious crime like sexual abuse, they're highly incompetent. How often do we hear from victims that they tried to report on their abuse and they weren't taken seriously? Not to mention the backlog of rape kits the police never do anything about. I wish real life was more like SVU but Olivia Benson is just a fictional character.
@@hera8909 Another issue is, for some weird reason, we elect detectives and investigators out of Police members. As if answering 911 calls for a few years makes you good at solving murders. This is another reason why the Police as an institution no longer makes any sense. Every state and every city should have its equivalent of the FBI, an SBI or CBI. A Bureau of Investigation totally separate from people in blue walking beats or replying to 911 calls. Academics with degrees in Criminology, crime scene investigations, and criminal psychology. Those people don't need to be cops, they don't really need to be armed. Just academics doing their job.
I would love to see it take and the doctors who care too much. I recently re-watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy when somebody from outside the hospital is teaching them a new technique and he said who cares about the patient? The death glare is that Richard, Bailey , and the other doctors gave him was priceless...
One thing I don't think this video addressed, though it was amazing, was how skewed real life circumstances are to cop show circumstances. The "bad guys" in police shows are some of the worst characters you can meet and there's always massive evidence they did something. I used to love Criminal Minds, but once I got the idea to watch a few episode solely from the cops perspectives and the amount of stuff they just "happen" to know is ridiculous. Watch any show without the criminal perspective and cops are just making stuff up or going on hunches. In reality, cops rarely have as much evidence as we're led to believe. In reality, a lot of people go to jail for crimes they didn't commit that cops were certain of. Criminals are humans too. So often media portrays criminals as vile scum, when in reality, most criminals are otherwise decent people. Cops in shows have a tendency to act as judge and jury. The evidence we're given and the portrayal of the bad guy makes us believe that any action the cop takes is justified. In reality, not only do cops rarely know if they've got the actual bad guy, but the bad guy probably made a mistake that they deserve to go to jail for. They don't need the book thrown at them. They don't need to be summarily executed. They need help and reform.
I remember seeing a video analyzing The Shawshank Redemption when it first came out and how it was criticized for its sympathetic portrayal of criminals. I think that kinda speaks to how cop-centric our societal values have become
Alex Aurora yea it blows my mind how people have been indoctrinated to think that criminals aren’t people too. That committing a crime somehow just nullifies their rights.
@@KyleTranel The only prisoner I didn’t feel bad for in Shawshank was Bogs but I’m sure many people didn’t feel bad for him either considering his disgusting crimes.
While I agree 100% with the video and find it completely educational, I don’t think Brooklyn Nine Nine is a good example considering it’s supposed to be a comedy and ridiculous, same as 21 Jump Street. But I get the point and why it would be able to be seen as copaganda.
It's a bit off topic (kind of?) but I always thought it was funny how on SVU, benson & stabler made most of their cases worse lol I remember one case specifically where benson developed a relationship with a celeb's emotionally neglected daughter and then drops her when the girl finally thought someone cared for her like a real mother. Then, she tried to get the girl taken away from her very well-to-do family so she can be in the system??? That episode never made sense and there were so many like that where the cops made shit worse.
What I like about the SVU is that they try to do the right thing but ultimately they are humans and they do f**k up... a lot of times lol they do reflect on their wrongdoings though. There was this episode where Olivia prevented a kid from getting a new heart because the doctor who got the heart did it illegally (she forged the signature of the parents of the "donor") and she did her job but was it the right thing to do? I don't think so and the kid who needed the heart died at the end of the episode.
@@Chris-rg6nm oh I remember another time that was awful for me! An episode where a baby was kidnapped and Elliot was sure the mother had something to do with it and he insinuated it to the press and the harassment was such that the mother ended up killing herself, and the real kidnapper was the biological father...
@@Chris-rg6nm I was thinking the same thing, I feel like that's disturbingly commonplace for them to threaten in a series about sex crimes, if anything it makes them seem like rape is really normalized to the cops on the show since every episode has someone raped.
I'm surprised that Spike Lee's Blackkklansman was not referenced in this Take. I love that it showed that there is a certain level of awareness and the conflict of racial profiling even within the policing community themselves. It did a great job showing the bad cops & the good cops conflict. IDK just a thought
Cop shows are just idealized escapism. We use those shows make our world seem more just and less violent than it actually is. There's nothing wrong with liking those shows.
I agree because there’s tons of dramas where journalists care about actual news and politicians care about the general public it’s a rosy world that doesn’t exist but we escape to
Djerva Levy Cop shows/hero cop trope are dangerous because judging by how unsympathetic a large section of white Americans are about how real life cops terrorize and murder black people and other minority groups - think being fed these cop movies and shows for generations has affected how people treat each other. And as a result divisiveness runs amok.
I'd be interested to know if anyone connected to the creation of this episode has watched "All Rise." You tagged it as a "token black person lending their blessing" situation, but the first season has many different actors of color, and explored a lot of the issues discussed here: Police brutality, investigators who lie when building cases against those of color, undue force and the questions around it, and public defenders who will do anything to get justice for their client. It's a great show that I think was cast into an unfair part here.
Brooklyn 99 never uses lethal force. But it’s more of a sitcom so it can continue without being a cop show. The episode on racial profiling is Season 4 Episode 16
Still, they also show just how screwed up those who work in the police force can be, like the higher up who didn’t let his criminal son get any jail time. Yes it’s light hearted, but it does a lot to show that police work isn’t some action movie
I appreciate the recognition of racism, sexism, and homophobia within the police department. It wouldn't surprise me if the next season includes episodes that involves police brutality. B99 is the most consistently hilarious show on TV, so I hope they keep it up!
@@thecod2345 If you kill someone on the job, for whatever reason, accidental or not, you shouldn't be a cop. If I was an office worker, and my mistake resulted in killing someone while working, accident or not, I'd be fired. Why do we treat cops any different? What makes them so special? Especially when this happens so disgustingly often. Defending them doesn't change anything. Of course they're human- and so are the rest of us being killed by them.
@@samstribrid I've watched it in chunks over the years. While I agree about that precinct depicted as a whole (though I wonder how many police departments have specific detectives/training for those types of cases), and I haven't seen the more recent seasons but wherever Stabler / his actor went I'm rather glad. Even watching years ago I had little patience for him, but re-watching now I see how much he exemplified the toxic / insidious side of the 'hero cop' trope. manhandling / threatening confessions out of people, etc.
I am not american. My limited interaction with police in general were mild or even supportive. Now when I read or see the police brutality all over the world, I don't know how to process my privilege. My village was/is crime free so I don't even know who the cop is. In City, when i ran away from my abusive ex husband, police couldn't have been nicer, supportive. Asking me what I wanted to be the outcome. So I lived in a bubble thinking most cops are genuine decent people. Now I am learning more. I remember when my bicycle was stolen and I went crying to a police station and the cop was kind to me. Understand I am not excusing any of the police brutality, just comparing and thinking maybe I was blind and shouldve been more aware.
You weren't blind, you were just blessed and lucky to interact with cops that are genuinely good. Don't feel bad for not knowing there are awful ones out there. Be at peace with the idea that there are good and bad people in positions of power.
_The Wire_ is not a "cop show," and certainly not a "hero cop" show. It spends as much time with the Barksdale and Stanfield crews as with the cops, and as the seasons go on, spends more time with entirely different groups of people in entirely different situations (though tying them into the main framing device). And it shows each and every group of people as _human beings_ , some more sympathetic than others (who tend to get punished for the good they try to do), some total assholes (who are usually the ones who get ahead), but mostly just people trying to do the best they can in the situation they find themselves in. I'd say Stringer Bell is more of a tragic hero than Jimmy McNulty, or at least on a parallel level. As David Simon put it in his DVD commentary track/mission statement on episode 1: *"It could have, **_if we'd done everything wrong,_** been a cop show."*
The older I’ve gotten, the harder it’s been for me to trust cops. I do understand what their role is SUPPOSED to be, and I’m willing to cooperate if one needs it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I feel entirely relaxed around them. What you said near the end is so true. Cops are taught to fear and control the community. Not protect and assist it.
The majority r bad, but there r good ones. My brother in law is a narcotics officer, and if u met him he would be one of the nicest guys you’d meet. Also in CT there was a protest outside of a police station about BLM and several of the officers knelt with them. However there’s so many bad ones that they overshadow what the good ones do. Because killing a man is a lot more drastic than protesting.
a slut for sabrina spellman all companies are corrupt so does that mean everyone who works for a company,(which is like 95% of developed countries) are corrupt? No YOUR argument doesn’t work.
A. It was produced by Universal Pictures (US/International) Rogue Pictures (US). B. It still painted cops in a positive light. Honestly though, if you think about it, it made it seem like we really need cops to be highly weaponized and trained to take down terrorists even in small towns.
@@imorokr it was designed to be an homage to action movies so I get why Hot Fuzz is there (though it hurt my heart a little). But the last scene is them massively over reacting to a possible crime and is supposed to be a dig at the whole trope. They replaced the bad guys and became the bad guys themselves.
A: Police brutality/racism very much exists here in the UK, though it may not be as immediately obvious, it's very unfortunately thoroughly still there, and still a big problem for us. B: Hot Fuzz literally pops up on screen as they're explaining how not all media depicting cops is straight up copaganda.
"Stop Resisting." I never realized how insidious those words were till now The whole history of cop shows is so scary Javier's death... god that's messed up
I mean there’s nothing innately wrong with a cop as a protagonist. Saying that some cops do bad things and aren’t as pure and virtuous as society once thought is one thing but to me it seems counterproductive to outright say no more cop protagonists. If you use the same standards of who can and cannot be a protagonist/portrayed positively in media then literally nobody could be depicted in a positive light because the group of people or person will have something bad about them somewhere.
Shows & movies are oversaturated with hero cops. Personally, I don't know nearly as many cops as I do fictional ones. And even still them being all good cops. That's a false portrayal and it affects the cultural narrative. It's cultural hegemony at its finest. Honestly, rewatch the video bc clearly you weren't listening.
In real life, cops do their job without ACCOUNTABILITY. They can kill black men with impunity thanks to the bizarre legal concept of Qualified Immunity. No other profession, except the military, functions without oversight. In any other job, malpractice or misconduct will have consequences, if proven. Cops kill and torture and harass black men, and even if it does get caught on camera, this has largely gone unchecked. Up until NOW.
My father gets really angry at this trope, something about the US trying to be the center of the world and everyone's hero while doing more damage than good. Now I just can't take it seriously anymore.
The bully would be good one to do. I know you've done the mean girl one which is what many female bullies are. Bully characters are now more complex than compared to the one-dementional 80's and 90's teen movie bullies.
This video is perfectly timely in these uncertain times. The movie "The Hate U Give" came out only too years ago, but it eerily foreshadows the eventual death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, who are supposed to be our protectors. 👮🚨😔
If you like the movie you should read the book, it’s one of my favorite books and it goes further in depth into police brutality in a way that a much shorter movie couldn’t. I can’t recommend this book enough!
To be honest, I think LA Confidential (and arguably the departed) have already subverted the idea of the ‘hero cop” and addressed corruption and brutality in a way that other shows and movies are only now starting to follow
That is crazy, Tom Hanks was just talking about how the first thing he watched on UA-cam was him doing that Dragnet dance number (13:34) on the Conan O’Brien podcast.
Also a big part of this trope is the Hero Cop's antagonism towards Internal Affairs, commonly referred to as "Rat Squad" even by the supposed noblest of them, like Olivia Benson. It reinforces this idea that cops should be able to above the law that they enforce, that they should be able to act with total impunity and no oversight.
I would love it if you guys did a video on the different types of journalists and politicians in pop culture. One of the most fascinating politicians in cinema is the mayor from Jaws who starts out as an infuriating character who later becomes sympathetic. and America has a long history of hero journalists, and I wonder how that stands up to real world journalists.
Until I lived in an integrated neighborhood, I had no idea how heavily the police would make their presence known in minority neighborhoods. As a child, I was fed the "the police are your friend," narrative and would always wave hello as if they were around in the same way a neighbor would stop by to exchange pleasantries. Now that I have lived in several states and cities around the country, I know that the police were checking up and trying to entrap blacks for minding heir own business. Even as a woman, I get followed by the police either because my car was old or new and too nice to be owned by somebody black. I get pulled over when out of state with NYS tags, even when I literally drive two miles over the speed limit. I wish the police would aggressively pursue heinous crimes and leave law abiding POC alone.
The good cop, bad cop trope sucks on TV and in real life. It makes it feel like they are trying to trap a suspect by playing psychological games and it has been used on minors far too much in the US.
I love your content, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your interpretation of Brooklyn 99, and what it means to be a “hero cop” storyline. Brooklyn 99 does not show cops as heroes, but as humans. It’s important to understand that the story is filtered through the lens of comedy, and the main focus is on the relationships between the characters rather than actual police work. They do show and address issues of policing, but because the show is comedic, they try to make any moral lessons brief and effective, and usually include a couple laughs for good measure. In terms of subject matter, the show does an excellent job of showing bad actors in the police system who don’t always get caught. In the first season there is an episode where the deputy commissioner plays favorites and tries to get his son off the hook for a crime, and when Captain Holt stands up to him, he threatens Holt’s position on the force. In the racial profiling episode, the cop who profiles Terry never gets punished, as far as we know. Jake has an episode where he realizes that his old “heroes” on the police force are actually pretty insensitive and biased old men who think of the police force as a club. Captain Holt’s whole character story is about working his way up in a system that was biased against him, something that forced him to swallow a lot of unfair treatment, and caused a lot of pain to his husband as well. Jake’s story is about taking his ego down a notch and realizing that many of his heroes aren’t really heroes, though of course he will probably never shake his love of Die Hard. The show calls out the atrocities of the prison system, violence against trans people, and broken gun laws in artful ways. These are just a few examples. I’d love to see Brooklyn 99 take on more topics of police violence, but I would hate to see it lose the goofy tone that made me fall in love with the show. I disagree with the idea that simply telling a story from the perspective of a cop is a problem. Cops are humans, just like criminals are humans, so we need stories from both perspectives. The important thing is the show’s content. Just because there are systemic issues within police work does not mean that we can’t tell nuanced stories about cops, or see them as human. I could flip this and say that because Orange is the New Black shows the criminal’s perspective, it shows criminals as heroes, which of course is not true. I personally love both shows. Brooklyn 99’s lightheartedness is sometimes exactly what I need, and the interactions between the characters are hilarious and often very sweet. Orange is the New Black is darker and more painful to watch, but sometimes that type of content hits deeper. That’s just me though.
It would be great to see a show/film (or another) seeing a vigilante, vigilantes, or just a citizen/citizens standing up to/fighting against police brutality and controlling, bigotted, and/or abusive law enforcement/systems.
Oh no! poor police officers being portrayed in a negative way in early Hollywood movies. I can’t imagine any other group of people being portrayed in a negative light in Hollywood for so long.
As thorough as The Take usually is I was kinda hoping for a note about how cops are just people. While the motto ACAB is being used I would have hoped that there would have been a note that cops are people that vary wildly from their culture and institution and... well as people. As individuals. And to that point you could use the county sheriff trope. The small town sheriff is usually portrayed very differently from his city counterparts. Usually incompetent or extremely laid back except when outsiders appear. Which, while being a trope and not entirely accurate, does have something to say for how cops who are immersed in their community and get to know everyone will behave differently. And the contrast... it could be a point made that sheriffs treat their townsfolk well and not outsiders... so perhaps city cops, who have a community far too large and varied to get to know and little incentive to do it, treat everyone like an outsider.
J. Edgar Hoover suppressed the First Amendment? The police officer from fiction that I'm most afraid of his Bernadette's father from the big Bang theory. Also you think you could feature that scene of The Bible study from Mrs America? I find it appropriate for when talking about how cops were used to maintain the order of a White Supremacist and xenophobic society concerned with order and respectability.
I really enjoyed the essay but there are groundbreaking shows like The Wire that portray police and criminals in an accurate light. This could have been held up as an example of how the subject should be handled going forward.
I enjoyed this "take" immensely. I think there is a similar effect in war movies. As a vet that grew up watching the post-vietnam movies in the 80s that are overtly anti-war, for some reason that message was lost on me and those I served with. Saving Private Ryan is literally about throwing off the war's justification and doing something humaine as the only path to redemption before an inevitable death, yet so many see a movie like that and say, "wow, can't wait until I get my chance." It's disturbing. As this take on policing and the effect media has had on the expansion of power that at least 7 Amendments directly address, tells me how terrifyingly easy it is to mold minds through narratives.
Great video! It would have been interesting if you touched on kids media about cops too. Power Rangers in particular have two different seasons that feature cops from the future who spend the majority of their time fighting either an underclass of immigrant aliens or biodivergent people that were outcast by the ruling class.
Early on this one too, I'm on a role today!!😂 But It is interesting to see how recent events may have a longer cultural impact on our media, and even more interesting to have lived through the change.
As a defense lawyer, I am finally glad the conversation about police abuse is going on. None of these cop shows ever discuss the question of the admissibility of evidence, because every show has cops breaching constitutional rights to gather evidence.
People think we lawyers mostly defend murders and rapist, but it's less about defending the guilty and more about holding the prosecution and police to account. To make sure their case is tight and that they followed the rules.
it was really interesting to hear your perspective, thanks! I feel like cops should go through as much schooling as you guys do. how can somebody "enforce" a law that they have limited knowledge on in the first place? or at least, dont know the ins-and-outs like you guys do? why isnt the standard the same?
@@anyt7183 i saw a post about how much training american police go through and the graph compared it to nail technicians who train for longer than the cops!!!!! i was so horrified
i feel the same! I'm trained as a forensic anthropologist, and i can't watch any of the cop or forensic shows anymore, even tho i used to love watching them, because they all either misrepresent the science in a way that i know is going to mislead juries irl, or excuse blatantly illegal behavior by the cops that should rightly get any case thrown out. i just can't watch them anymore, now that i know all the harm they do to real cases and real justice.
Again, in the real world, that of course matters. In fiction, not so much, because people watch shows and films to escape the hassle of the real world. We don't /want/ to be reminded of the problems of the real world in fiction, because we use fiction to relax. To enjoy ourselves. Should we assume that cops are doing this in the real world? Fuck no! They usually don't. Hell, most of the time if you see a cop, they're not rushing off to stop some big crime. They're handling the small stuff. There /are/ times when they /DO/ have to handle the big stuff, but that's rare. Anyone who thinks this is what cops are like, well, they might need to learn how to separate fiction from reality. The truth is, while some cops do lose their way, those /are/ the exceptions that prove the rule that /most/ cops genuinely are decent people.
@@Warwolf1 I think that's a pretty large generalisation on why people consume fiction. Some people want escapism, and nothing wrong with that, but some people like their fiction to reflect the real world, be well researched or thought provoking.
I've been reading the Rivers of London series and while it's about police who deal with the supernatural the writer clearly did a lot of research into how the police really function, then daily reality and often mundane of large investigations and police attitudes including towards race. Better research than I've seen in many straight up crime novels and made the books way more enjoyable. Realism can add to the immersion of fiction and be an asset.
Personally, I think that the hero cop has become a trope because what what our officers are supposed to be, what we’d like to think all cops are like (selfless, genuinely good people) even though it’s not accurate to all or even most cops and sometimes keeps us from having bigger conversations about the loss of life caused by the cops that don’t live up to this ideal.
But I find interesting is that we also see how a cop going rogue is good. Because they are doing it for the greater good, but in real life, a rogue cop is a terrible idea!
Thats all well and good as long as the good cops follow the rules. From Dirty Harry to Elliott Stabler SVU these stories make a good guy out of angry men abusing their power to intimidate and beat suspects.
In these stories, abuse of power is often the key to solving the crime, when in reality, it causes more death than it’s worth
@@Chris-rg6nm Because their job, there's a reason why divorce and domestic abuse is high within the police force.
@@Chris-rg6nm How so?
@Black Ninja I also love SVU. It is hard for me to watch some of the old episodes. Stabler (and sometimes even Benson) cross the line from being a hero, into hero complex/god complex territory. For example, there is an episode in an earlier season where a man assaults a bunch of women (which, don't get me wrong is very very bad). Benson then threatens him with being assaulted by another inmate. A few seasons later, the same character returns after being assaulted in prison and blames Benson for it. She didn't have any part it in, but even she realizes her threat was taking things too far. She is supposed to work for justice not carry out justice in a way she sees fit (aka the threat of violence). This would have been a good plot line for Stabler, had he stayed on. He actually physically hurt a few people, which good cops don't do. Even if you think a person is guilty of the most horrific of crimes, here in the Untied States we have due process. It's not perfect, but it's better than allowing arresting officers to doll out punishments as they see fit. Good cops don't do that; that, in my opinion, is a result of a god complex.
What the police did with Hollywood is what the military does today as well.
There’s a video that talks about how most Hollywood blockbusters have to be approved by the military which I saw the other day that was really interesting (just look up „one marvelous scene Captain America“). It’s quite eye opening
You're not wrong
Ikr? When I started college in social work we spent time reading about humen injustices at an institutionalized level. At one point we read up on military corruption and I found SO MUCH CRAP on internal and external physical and sexual assault by our military specifically. Even in times of peace they've been known to beat up, rape and even kill innocent civilians around the bases. Women in the military are one of the most likely groups to experience sexual assault in their career timespan, but far more likely to from their own "comrades" then they are the enemy. It's not just women either, men experience rape too as a form of humiliation and control similar to a prison setting. I read interviews of grown women who were children during WW2 that were beaten up and raped by American soldiers after the war was declared over and the US soldiers were sent over to "help repair" while also wreaking havoc on the general populace like nothing more than gang leaders.
This is also why I don't automatically thank veterans for their service like my parents raised me to when I see them: you never know which ones are secretly rapists and abusers that believe it didn't matter on account of the victim 'not being white therefore basically not an actual human being' oof. People act like military personnel should be granted respect without question but NO ONE gets my respect until/unless they EARN it and they prove to me what kind of person they are.
@ Michael Bay
I'd like to add the comment that people can't seem to tell the difference between police officers and detective. The stuff that cops do in these shows is the work detectives do. Detectives solve murders. cops do the normal stuff like write you tickets.
And we mainly see detectives tbf
I'm not from the USA but what I always understood from series/movies is that a detective is a cop, not the one that's on the street giving parking tickets but still a cop. I remember on Third Watch that the woman protagonist (can't remember her name) was a normal street cop and took a test to became a detective and it was like a promotion. Please correct me if I'm wrong, that's an old series lol
@@marina.chayka I think that is still how it is done, for the most part. However this hones in the fact that detectives are higher class than a regular police officer. They generally have a college education and years of experience working as a police officer before being promoted to detective. In contrast police officers just need to go through the police academy. The thumb nail of this video has Olivia Benson as a hero cop but its pretty obvious shes a detective who specializes in a certain field. The show every now and then even references when she was just a normal police officer.
Also if I may get on my soap box, describing these characters as detectives I feel reveals another aspect of why the archetype is so prevelant. in America the mystery genre has been the most popular genre for decades. Cop shows fit right into the formula. As a fan of some of these shows, I'd tell you I'm there for the mystery. I don't really see the mystery genre dying anytime soon regardless of criticisms of hero cops.
Yeah, I mean in Law and Order it’s always Detective Stabler, Detective Benson, etc. Cops in Law and Order are usually one-off characters, and sometimes even hinder the detectives.
Marina Romanelli Yeah, that’s basically how it works in the US. Most detectives are police officers (some are private investigators) but not every cop is a detective.
War movies as propaganda would be a great topic. My favourite lie is Black Hawk Down.
and The Green Berets.
Actually there isn't a war movie Hollywood has produced that isn't propaganda. Yeah not even Apocalypse now, you know why I say that because the movies are never critical of American intervention, they at best ignore it and focus on individuals e.g. Apocalypse now and at worst glorify it e.g Rambo. Apocalypse Now is still my favorite war movie but if they really wanted to focus on the horror in Vietnam, they would've framed the story from the eyes of the Vietnamese commoners, you know the innocent people who had to deal with America invading their country and bombing it more times than the entire WW2.
There’s too many war movies theses days, films should move onto better topics
Peter E check out The Americanization of Emily if you prefer nuance in a war movie
I agree, USA uses war movies as propaganda, where they’re “the good guys”
Who else had no idea police movies were being policed by the FBI???
It's really not that surprising 😒
Plus, J. Edgar Hoover was in the closet, which would probably explain why he was such a prick in real life. He just had a lot of pent up aggression against everybody he didn't like because he was too insecure to open his bottled up sexuality.
Hahaha maybe it's "dark" in that closet?
Many productions with police, FBI, and military that serve as “consultants”
Like you think they could do better things to do than care about their image
Tom Hanks as a rapping cop will haunt me forever.
I’ve never heard of this but the thought alone that that exists is disturbing.
heroino89 read them their rights. Read them their rights.
Loved that movie and that song as a kid. It was a comedy and rap song was supposed to be funny.
"Excuse me copper/Mr Crime Stopper/ What is wrong with what we're doing/ We just like to dance in our Goat,Skin Pants!/ among an ancient ruin"
Yeah..that scared the hell out of me..
Finally, we talk about the reason why I hate when people on TV shows are portrayed as criminals or petty, unlikable, just because they DARE ask for a warrant. DARE to preserve their right to privacy and not have people just go through their homes and things. And cops who just push through everyone else because 'they are the ones who know better', despite the opinions of even their coworkers, are just always right and always forgiven for the lines they cross with applause and they condemn when others pass. And it's weird that I say that because usually, I love cop shows. (weird, so weird)
@@anyt7183 ncis does this all the time. All of them. I like those shows, but I hate when I see this. Because I know that it influences people
@@mariakilson5851 I love watching NCIS, but dear lord it loves to hammer home the "foreigners are BAD"-narrative
Watch columbo
Funny how in fiction the 'bad apples' always get picked apart and eventually 'removed'.
Totally unrealistic by today's society's standards.
Not today's society. There were always a problem with cops it's only now that we the American people have finally recognised it.
Conveniently, the full saying is forgotten: "a few bad apples _spoils the barrel_ "
@@abandonedfragmentofhope5415 I mean black Americans have been talking about police brutality for a minute now👀
ONLY today's societal standards?
@@TheArtis4n no. But I live in the now, so regardless of the past, I'd like to see this addressed NOW. That's all. :)
The Hollywood Production Code caused more damage to movies than most people really know.
Including unrealistic portrayals of law enforcement.
Totally, have you read Complicated Women?
Only caused damage to stupid people
It goes back to the idea of cowboys and Natives, or the Western genera. It was the idea, out of the lawlessness of the "untamed" West. These "good" cowboys would get their land back and fight for the honor of the damsel in distress.
Then in the '70s after Vietnam, cops were portrayed as corrupt, heroic Indian fighters became genocidalists, and honorable medieval knights became brutal warlords and classist bullies. The heroes in the crime films were all criminals who shared this anti-establishment vibe.
@@gfilmer7150 Yeah, there is some truth to this. Which it's best for the media to take a more realistic perspective to the justice system as opposed to overly cynical point of view in which most cops are criminals.
@ULGROTHA What do mean get over? Do you mean stop liking it or stop feeling bad about it?
@ULGROTHA You ain't supposed to
I would say it goes back to peoples obsession with Sherlock Holmes. I'm a lover of the mystery genre. And I'm not a lone the mystery genre is still the most popular genre of books. is it any shock we would be attracted to cop shows who are out to solve mysteries?
So required at this point as Police Br*t*l*ty is at a peak around the world. Btw you said its a very American troupe, but here in India we have a similar troupe of police characters beating up criminals illegally and people cheering. In real life, police abuses the lower caste people and assaults lowe class girls as recent cases have shown.
Although B99 is my fav show cuz of representation, Thanks for this video
i’m indian american, and almost all of the indian shows and movies i’ve seen portray cops in a good light. i find it interesting because cops in india aren’t much different than cops in the US based on what i’ve heard.
The thing I always noticed about Brooklyn 99 is that the criminals are almost always portrayed as either hardened, evil people or people who know what they're doing is wrong but do it anyway for the thrill of it. There are a few exceptions like Doug Judy, but the only time I remember in the show when an innocent person was stopped by police while walking on the street was Terry, who is a cop himself.
Granted, the show is about detectives and not beat cops, but the detectives have very little connection to the community, and they mostly just swoop in to take over cases from the street cops after all of the "messy" work has already been done. And unlike shows like The Wire, B99 doesn't show the complicated relationships and power dynamics between beat cops, detectives, informants, organized criminals and petty criminals. This is necessary for the structure of the show as an episodic workplace sitcom, but it really does give you the impression that the detectives are "above it all" and almost always right about the nature of the crimes they're investigating. The power dynamics in the show are mainly between detectives and NYPD management, and the bad decisions are almost always made by people like Wuntch, rather than Captain Holt or Terry.
If you're willing to turn your brain off and think of different characters in the show as being part of distinct classes (management, cops, criminals and civilians), then the show works very well. But if you try to dig into the deeper issues that the show touches on, like police corruption and brutality, you won't find a lot of nuance or real world lessons
@@tuuudes3449 Well said.
I love the show but when I'm watching it, I think of the show as a fantasy that's not much different from watching game of thrones, or lord of the rings. Its a fantasy of how I wish cops could be, and I mostly get into it because the individual characters are fun to know ,and I like their relationships with each other, which the show does very well. Thats also why the propagnda in it works so well .
But yeah, considering its part of a much larger tradition of sympathetic cops, its still copagnda.
Police "brutality" is actually very very low in America, where are you getting your statistics?
@@tuuudes3449 Ikr one of my biggest complaints with B99 despite my love for it, is even when they are clearly in the wrong or being terrible people they are never punished in an equivalent way. Jake broke into a police Captian's bedroom and searched her computer only to destroy her house in the process and literally all he got was a lecture for crying out loud!
I heard a really good quote recently, "When you're a hammer, *everything* looks like a nail."
Correct
knowing better?
When all you have is a hammer*
That explains most of the far left these days. I used to be on the left until 2019, when I saw that political affiliation seem to go insane, attacking everyone and anyone as evil or racist, or any other number of things. While I am still a moderate leftist myself, I no longer associate with the left as a political affiliation, and instead see myself as independent.
I have that on a t-shirt!
This comment section is gonna be spicy. Who wants popcorn, its free🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
Butter please. 🖐
It's not spicy. All of the commentors are on the same side.
@@mattburton2114 For now
I am glad I am here before the racists arrive.
@@raaid22 same tho
This is something that always bothered me, like when a cop in a movie beats a confession out of a suspect. It always seemed strange that the exact same actions that make the cop "the good guy" in a movie would make him "the bad guy" in real life.
Or in those dramas where they turn the two suspects against each other, so that one testifies against the other out of revenge. It always bugged me, because what jury is going to convict someone on the testimony of someone's personal enemy?
You're right about that. If a cop did beat a suspect to confession he or she would be suspended and or fired. As for the other I've never been on a jury but I would probably not convict someone based on their enemy's testimony.
I read somewhere that getting a confession like that makes it null as in court the suspect can just say they confessed because they were in a high-stress situation and the confession will be dropped.
I’m a bit disappointed in this video: I’m glad you did it but I think you could have gone deeper. You should have talked more about how these shows & movies also paint the “criminals” & “deviants” of society and warp our perceptions of the marginalized & disenfranchised. Maybe that’s a topic for another video: how we’re brainwashed to believe that criminality is an individual failing and not a consequence of an unfair & unequal society.
@Harry Paul bro the reason is to find the cause of why people resort to violence and crime - people don't grow up say "hey I like crime I'm gonna do it". If we don't fix society we don't fix people. Nice racist dog whistle with the "no dad" comment btw.
@Harry Paul stating your assumptions about black people being fatherless and anti white as a fact is racism. These comments are coming from a place of prejudice and those who believe in it is restricting themselves from looking beyond the surface. The people who are beating and killing black people are not the only ones who are racists. Those who believes and spreads theses prejudiced view is also a racist. You can argue and edit your comments as much as you want but it's not going to take away your prejudice against them and that is the sad fact here.
Plenty of disenfranchised people don't commit crime. You are just infantilizing people and taking away the personal agency of people.
OOOOFF this is extremely interesting but I do believe this subject deserves another video and a lengthy one as well... "criminality" in most cases is nothing more than lack of privilege and good resources to help individuals
......You lost me from almost the word go and by the end, I just had to shake my head at the stupidity of it.
Here in Peru, most of our films always represent cops as lazy, silly and mediocre. The militaries have worst representation, as abusive, authoritarian and even rapists. Is amazing the fact that big part of my country doesn't complain about this because it's viewed as normal
In the US most films that feature the military are helped funded BY the US military, not only does the film studio get a big juicy check but they're allowed to film at the bases. As a result, those films are required to feature the military as great force of good and a pillar of strength.
@@MadameTamma yeah, it's sick! I've seen many, many war films growing up (im 20 now) and even as a kid I thought it was odd. when the military does wrong in films, they already know the target audience will forgive the characters. there's rarely any emphasis on holding Americans accountable because they know the audience will inherently forgive soldiers much more easily, or even praise them. I can't think of many military movies that don't work this way...Saving Private Ryan touched on it but it still tip-toed around so much. maybe the one with Michael J. Fox (Casualties of War I think)? though I haven't actually seen it so please correct me if I'm wrong. its main premise is about "doing the right thing", but I dont know if it actually followed up on that.
Tenemos un país corrupto y deprimido, sería raro que los representaran al revés
@@maryy2077 Estados Unidos es uno de los países que los representa al revés
Hey but in Peru there is actually a background. In the 80's during the intern conflict the brutality came also from the militars: as you can see in the CVR almost the half of the rapes were made by MILITARS. And in reality the police in our country is corrupt xdd
My bf is a cop and have always hated cop shows. He’ll tell you personally how corrupt it is and he doesn’t like telling people he’s one. Even before the footages and stories that blew up in the last several weeks that show how messed up they are. He has said countless times, the problem isn’t training, it’s who they are hiring and this sense of loyalty to their fellow officers instead of doing the right thing when you see them doing something wrong.
We still need to apply substantive measures to improve hiring standards and diminish cop tribalism, if nothing else.
That is very interesting
@@meowmiaumiauw authorized by the state, yeah. That's the thing is that cops believe they are in a brotherhood. And what happens when you snitch on a fellow brother? Good cop goes away in different ways.
Yall should have showed those police cheer when Trump told them to brutalized people they arrest. Not to mention that just because you're arrested doesn't mean you're guilty.
I think the idea of a "hero cop" should be more focused around trying to solve problems with compassion and selflessness. My father-in-law was a police officer who died on the line of duty, on a search-and-rescue mission for a single mother who went missing. After he died so many people from the drug court he worked in came forward with stories of how he helped them to turn their lives around. When somebody pulled a gun on him he de-escalated the situation by talking them down instead of pulling his own gun out. He really left a legacy of serving his community and caring about individuals. Real heroism is about so much more than the action movie tropes we see.
I think a hero cop should just stay to its motto "To serve and protect" because its not their job to catch the bad guys. Its their job to protect the people. They should just prioritize protecting citizens who are either being abused, abducted, or under distressed and need comfort. Those are cops that should be heroes.
@@hoodlum4511but that's not as cool now is it? Not all cop stories have to be extremely realistic
So sorry, I know this is unrelated but I was just wondering if you guys were still continuing the Avatar The Last Airbender video series? I feel like it's been a while since you've posted one
Sis, they started the Sex and City series like two years ago and they've only been through three characters. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for more avatar videos, just be patient lol
@@maggiemcfly5267 😭
pleaseeee one more from avatar, I watched avatar because of their video ot was so good
@@maggiemcfly5267 They also started a series on Adventure Time years ago but they only ever did like three characters
They made it by patreon request so I'm guessing unless someone else request it they probably won't
What does it say when I would trust fictional cops over real law enforcers? I would sooner have Jake Peralta, John McClain and Olivia Benson patrolling the streets than the regular police force
Nine-Nine forever
Because they're designed to be trust worthy
Because they're not REAL, if they were they'd be just as fallible as real officers. Except Benson would long ago be in jail for malpractice.
You guys should make a video about the Hayes Code.
Watch be kind, rewind.
They address it's effects in most of their videos.
@@zucchinigreen I seen that one.
Very disappointing that cop shows lack the nuace of a real police force. As much as I love crime shows it really feels like “copoganda” at times when they don’t even have 1 episode around police brutality
Notable example being, Chicago PD with Hank Voight( like the character, but some of the things he does probably aren't okay in a real world context). SVU is somewhat better having many episodes of arresting copies who turnout to be rapist, murders, or bought. Even copies in their own precinct struggling with their own potential corruption. Examples Cassidy, Rollins, Amaro, and Staboler. If ever know a cop like Staboler I would be sympathetic, but would warn him that he needed to get personal issues in order. Much like Cragan, Wong, and Tutuola.
Hot Fuzz is a satire of British police incompetence, not necessarily brutality, although there is a comic 'USA shootout' scene which is deliberately, ridiculously overblown. Traditional British policing is all about the art of ignoring minor offences so the majority of people do not feel overpoliced - I noticed this immediately when I visited the USA in comparison - although people of color etc are much more heavily targeted. The real police scandals in Britain have tended to be about police looking the other way when they shouldn't have; not just with the murder of Stephen Lawrence, when they had literal video footage of people threatening to kill a black man but failed to capitalise on it, even during the subsequent trial, but with other tragedies like the Hillsborough disaster which was televised, but police and a pro-police media were adamant that it hadn't been incompetence, the victims were to blame etc. etc. despite everyone being able to see what was happening in front of them. It isn't a surprise that the victims in these cases were black or from places associated with working class Irish immigrants either.
The incompetence was even given a reason. The police in Sanford is actually capable and qualified, but they have gotten rusty because the chief keeps telling them to just ignore things. Ignorance breeds incompetence.
I love Hot Fuzz! Angel acts admirably for a police officer and it should be noted that in that final shootout, nobody dies at the hands of the police. It’s a movie that villainizes police incompetency and makes a hero out of a cop who does his job correctly and questions the sandford regime.
@@savannahkrystall2698 yeah the irony is that he is 'maverick' and 'rogue' by following the book and being genuine, not corrupt or excessively violent. The film gives him a gentle ribbing for being uptight, but he does actually get results and solve the case. It is light hearted, even although it does make some good points that way - he gets demoted, remember, for 'making everyone else look bad' by being so good at his job, for example.
Hot Fuzz is my fave Cornetto flick. Second is Shaun of the Dead. I despise the third one because what the hell was that?
Since the cop trope has endeared so many Americans and gained their trust and respect, does there need to be shows about teachers or STEM programs in order for the general public to hold those positions in esteem?
nope, because most of us don't need to be convinced that teachers or STEM programs are decent people. if we have to be convinced that something is good, that's a pretty bright red flag to begin with. apologies, I know your comment was a rhetorical question but I just had to respond, you raised a great point.
@@anyt7183 to add to this reply, a part of the reason cop shows can rake in stacks is due to them being quite linear and mainly excuses for action. It woudl be rather hard to make a linear tv show about a person in the stem field or a teacher, filled with action. Unless of course you mean MacGyver but I reckon that could not get a lot of traction nowadays
When I saw the title of the video, I clicked for the comment section.
Excellent thinking, that was my first instinct as well! 😉
Same
The audience of this channel is not diverse enough to generate the kind of action you are looking for.
This is an American thing, in Europe is still common to see cops depicted as idiots in TV shows.
Depends on the show, and depends on the character.
Um, no. This is a WHITE American thing. Been paying any attention to whats been going on lately?
yeah, in latinamerica to.
@Jeseentha that is completely disturbing, I hope karma reach that pig and the women heal from this
@@reppinseattle7974 I said, 'Portraying hero cops in movies' is an american thing. Not police brutality. LOL
The “idiot cop” trope is almost exclusively in kids movies nowadays.
Hi Damian!
I swear
Or Chief Wiggum in The Simpsons
yeah there aren't really anymore Pryzbylewski characters
What about Hitchcock and Scully
Cop: "Oh yeah, of course we could. We can do anything we want."
Cop 2: "We could drive on the wrong side of the road."
Cop: "Yeah, we do that all the time. You should see the looks on people's faces."
Cop 2: "Shoot people..."
-Seinfeld, The Trip pt. 2
"Have you ever shot your gun up into the air and gone 'AAAAAAHH' ?"
Look at The Wire doing the heavy lifting when it comes to the complexity of the issue a decade later. Step it up contemporary show runners.
Eh, it had issues too.
It wasn't perfect but it's definitely the best Hollywood has come up with regarding media depicting cops, I guess it was as good as it was because the writers weren't actually from Hollywood, they were journalists who lived in Baltimore for decades and were part of the community. The biggest success of the wire is showing how individual "good cops" could never rise against the corrupt system of policing.
@@PeterEhik my issue was that the writers made it seem like the system wasn't intentionally malicious, but instead some kinda out of control beast that the cops had to navigate around. Basically they blamed everything on "Hanlon's Razor", that's a copout imo.
@@blackdragon6 I think the cops had pretty serious issues of their own- they took "no snitching" as seriously as the gangsters. They're also consistantly overly aggressive- it's one of the first episdoes where Boadie right hooks that the old Irish guy, the cops start laying the boot in, Kima runs over, you think she's gonna be the hero, and she just joins in kicking the shit out of him. They also take pride in their violent reputation- "the Easterns, cracking skulls" or something like that.
The Wire showed good cops and bad cops, smart and dumb, honest and corrupt. Is that not reality? Most cops are from pretty regular backgrounds, issues with police departments reflect issues in wider society.
I feel like The Wire is more relevant than ever.
@@blackdragon6 I didn't get that impression at all. If anything I think it was an indictment of our institutions that suggested that even "good" people are forced to do bad things given systemic inertia, regardless of their intentions or motivations. At no point is any cop shown to be intrinsically moral.
I think the "hero cop" character is fine. We need to stop looking at this issue as good cop vs bad cop, and start looking at the issue as systemic. The problems we see today, are not the acts of "a few bad apples".
There is this idea of "brotherhood" in police department, in which cops take an oath to protect each other, instead of upholding the law. Let's work on fixing that.
Could you guys do a vid about "coming of age" movies?
Yes. I love coming of age movies as cliché as they may be. Sometimes they do a really good job of representing people of different backgrounds.
Now that's something to look forward to.
The top three most reviled jobs-cops, docs, and lawyers-are also the most beloved TV and Film Genres.
I get Lawyers and Cops, but why Doctors?
Jose Yance being a doctor is a really shitty job for a very long time until they start paying you better and still it is very shitty. No rest ever
A lot of doctors and nurses aren't great people that don't truly care about patients and are in it for the money. They also kill people all the time whether on purpose or accident but they never face any true penalty for it. They cover it up and deal with it amongst themselves.
@@abandonedfragmentofhope5415 Nurses are in it for the money?! Complete BS. My mother was a nurse (she's retired now) and we sure as hell weren't swimming in cash.
Last time I heard something like this, it was from a guy who believed the coronavirus was a hoax.
I wish I could disagree but honestly my doctor would always try to make me feel like something was wrong with me, jokes and professional diagnosis aside, which is why I’ve barely visited throught my life... some people really dgaf..
I think if the hero cop trope is guilty of being overly romanticized then anti-cop trope is guilty of being overly cynical. If there is no alternative to the hero cop cliché other than PI, DA, and superheroes then we're basically sending the message that the best way to deal with police corruption is to not deal with the police at all. I think we have to stop thinking in terms of the people vs the police, we should be thinking in terms of the people vs the system. Because whether you think cops are generally good or generally bad how does that in anyway address the underlining problem of the justice system. I know I might get a lot of hate for saying this but police brutality is just symptom to a much larger problem.
dont worry, you make a good point. the system isnt always corrupted, its doing what its designed to do. the system itself is the underlying problem.
@@anyt7183 I think the system becomes problematic when it gives person or persons an unfair advantage. But the system isn't meant to give anyone an unfair advantage. It's not meant to service the accused or the victim. As the system should acknowledge everyone's rights, including the guilty.
@@meowmiaumiauw Hmm, that's only half-truth. There have been several examples throughout history of law enforcement that didn't solely originate from slave patrols or handling violent situations. I honestly don't believe the only need for law enforcement is to encounter violent aggressors or just arresting people, if anything if that is there only function then there is a problem. I agree, that more resources should be put into other social services as the police can't solve every problem. However, if there will always be an organization meant to enforce the law then simply re-allocating money isn't going to reform the police. At some point we still have to deal with how to better reform the police and simply shifting the money isn't reform.
Love you the take-- I studied film theory and Cinematography and do art criticism- thank you for making visual theory videos so fun as an artist and academic! Excited for more!!
It is interesting to see the public finally finding out about things like "qualified immunity" (which is basically a license to kill) and also that cop records are kept private so that you end up with sometimes entire decades long careers of violence and brutality which never become public until they are caught on video killing someone.
Everybody having a camera on them at all times is really turning out to be the best disinfectant.
The culture is this: If you ain't cop...you are the enemy and now they feel cornered.
Given how militarized they are now - things are going to get worse before they get better.
I agree - I think part of the problem is the way that they're trained - I mean the ones that aren't KKK - to think that they're at war and under attack at all times. And about things getting worse - I'm extremely suspicious about this sudden crime wave that happend when defunding the police became a thing. In NYC we're now having 10 shootings a day which hasn't happened in like 30 years.
the same could be said about the portrayal of the military in American movies, sadly...
This is such an important point.
In reality police do their job, and nothing more. They don't really solve crime, they don't really care to get real bad guys. They arrest the people they can, on any charge that's available to them.
In other words they cut as many corners as they are allowed, and they are exactly as lazy at their job as any other profession.
That's not fair. There are situations where cops put their lives on the line for public safety. The UK, just this past week, a major criminal network was disrupted and hundreds we're arrested. Cops are often tasked with protecting civilians all the time.
I work with cops who suffer from PTSD precisely because of these near death experiences all the time.
That's not what your typical office jockey does. Not saying all cops are Peralta, but let's not swing one way to the next.
Effectively one major issue is a lack of perfessionalism?
@Sense Sensibility Yep. But these shows push a false narrative to the public to the point where people actually think that's true and cant accept anything else😓.
It's the detectives, journalists, and private investigators that solve crimes. Most cops just give out traffic tickets or arrest homeless people. When faced with a serious crime like sexual abuse, they're highly incompetent. How often do we hear from victims that they tried to report on their abuse and they weren't taken seriously? Not to mention the backlog of rape kits the police never do anything about. I wish real life was more like SVU but Olivia Benson is just a fictional character.
@@hera8909 Another issue is, for some weird reason, we elect detectives and investigators out of Police members.
As if answering 911 calls for a few years makes you good at solving murders.
This is another reason why the Police as an institution no longer makes any sense.
Every state and every city should have its equivalent of the FBI, an SBI or CBI.
A Bureau of Investigation totally separate from people in blue walking beats or replying to 911 calls. Academics with degrees in Criminology, crime scene investigations, and criminal psychology.
Those people don't need to be cops, they don't really need to be armed. Just academics doing their job.
I would love to see it take and the doctors who care too much. I recently re-watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy when somebody from outside the hospital is teaching them a new technique and he said who cares about the patient?
The death glare is that Richard, Bailey , and the other doctors gave him was priceless...
Last time I was this early this topic didn't give me anxiety. Oh... wait...
One thing I don't think this video addressed, though it was amazing, was how skewed real life circumstances are to cop show circumstances. The "bad guys" in police shows are some of the worst characters you can meet and there's always massive evidence they did something.
I used to love Criminal Minds, but once I got the idea to watch a few episode solely from the cops perspectives and the amount of stuff they just "happen" to know is ridiculous. Watch any show without the criminal perspective and cops are just making stuff up or going on hunches.
In reality, cops rarely have as much evidence as we're led to believe. In reality, a lot of people go to jail for crimes they didn't commit that cops were certain of.
Criminals are humans too. So often media portrays criminals as vile scum, when in reality, most criminals are otherwise decent people. Cops in shows have a tendency to act as judge and jury. The evidence we're given and the portrayal of the bad guy makes us believe that any action the cop takes is justified.
In reality, not only do cops rarely know if they've got the actual bad guy, but the bad guy probably made a mistake that they deserve to go to jail for. They don't need the book thrown at them. They don't need to be summarily executed. They need help and reform.
I remember seeing a video analyzing The Shawshank Redemption when it first came out and how it was criticized for its sympathetic portrayal of criminals. I think that kinda speaks to how cop-centric our societal values have become
Alex Aurora yea it blows my mind how people have been indoctrinated to think that criminals aren’t people too. That committing a crime somehow just nullifies their rights.
@@alexaurora4098 Oh yes ! the youtube channel Pop-Culture Detective actually made an essay video about this! 100% recommend
I liked that CSI had nuance to killers. There were some who just made stupid mistakes.
@@KyleTranel The only prisoner I didn’t feel bad for in Shawshank was Bogs but I’m sure many people didn’t feel bad for him either considering his disgusting crimes.
While I agree 100% with the video and find it completely educational, I don’t think Brooklyn Nine Nine is a good example considering it’s supposed to be a comedy and ridiculous, same as 21 Jump Street. But I get the point and why it would be able to be seen as copaganda.
It's a bit off topic (kind of?) but I always thought it was funny how on SVU, benson & stabler made most of their cases worse lol I remember one case specifically where benson developed a relationship with a celeb's emotionally neglected daughter and then drops her when the girl finally thought someone cared for her like a real mother. Then, she tried to get the girl taken away from her very well-to-do family so she can be in the system??? That episode never made sense and there were so many like that where the cops made shit worse.
The cops in SVU constantly did unethical shit in almost every episode too.
What I like about the SVU is that they try to do the right thing but ultimately they are humans and they do f**k up... a lot of times lol they do reflect on their wrongdoings though. There was this episode where Olivia prevented a kid from getting a new heart because the doctor who got the heart did it illegally (she forged the signature of the parents of the "donor") and she did her job but was it the right thing to do? I don't think so and the kid who needed the heart died at the end of the episode.
@@Chris-rg6nm oh I remember another time that was awful for me! An episode where a baby was kidnapped and Elliot was sure the mother had something to do with it and he insinuated it to the press and the harassment was such that the mother ended up killing herself, and the real kidnapper was the biological father...
@@Chris-rg6nm I was thinking the same thing, I feel like that's disturbingly commonplace for them to threaten in a series about sex crimes, if anything it makes them seem like rape is really normalized to the cops on the show since every episode has someone raped.
Chris they see it karamic Justice
I'm surprised that Spike Lee's Blackkklansman was not referenced in this Take. I love that it showed that there is a certain level of awareness and the conflict of racial profiling even within the policing community themselves. It did a great job showing the bad cops & the good cops conflict. IDK just a thought
Cop shows are just idealized escapism. We use those shows make our world seem more just and less violent than it actually is. There's nothing wrong with liking those shows.
7:36
14:41
I agree because there’s tons of dramas where journalists care about actual news and politicians care about the general public it’s a rosy world that doesn’t exist but we escape to
Djerva Levy Cop shows/hero cop trope are dangerous because judging by how unsympathetic a large section of white Americans are about how real life cops terrorize and murder black people and other minority groups - think being fed these cop movies and shows for generations has affected how people treat each other. And as a result divisiveness runs amok.
I'd be interested to know if anyone connected to the creation of this episode has watched "All Rise." You tagged it as a "token black person lending their blessing" situation, but the first season has many different actors of color, and explored a lot of the issues discussed here: Police brutality, investigators who lie when building cases against those of color, undue force and the questions around it, and public defenders who will do anything to get justice for their client. It's a great show that I think was cast into an unfair part here.
That's because The Take is too woke to be satisfied with anything. I would be interested to see their ideal casting for any cop show.
Brooklyn 99 never uses lethal force.
But it’s more of a sitcom so it can continue without being a cop show.
The episode on racial profiling is Season 4 Episode 16
Still, they also show just how screwed up those who work in the police force can be, like the higher up who didn’t let his criminal son get any jail time. Yes it’s light hearted, but it does a lot to show that police work isn’t some action movie
@@NightEyeStudio1995 I agree
I appreciate the recognition of racism, sexism, and homophobia within the police department. It wouldn't surprise me if the next season includes episodes that involves police brutality. B99 is the most consistently hilarious show on TV, so I hope they keep it up!
@@thecod2345 If you kill someone on the job, for whatever reason, accidental or not, you shouldn't be a cop. If I was an office worker, and my mistake resulted in killing someone while working, accident or not, I'd be fired.
Why do we treat cops any different? What makes them so special? Especially when this happens so disgustingly often. Defending them doesn't change anything.
Of course they're human- and so are the rest of us being killed by them.
@@Stathio
so nobody should be a cop
I’ve been binging law and order SVU so this is perfect timing
Svu while has its flaws,is the most fair and balanced you’ll get when talking about the justice system,especially in early years❤️
@@samstribrid I've watched it in chunks over the years. While I agree about that precinct depicted as a whole (though I wonder how many police departments have specific detectives/training for those types of cases), and I haven't seen the more recent seasons but wherever Stabler / his actor went I'm rather glad. Even watching years ago I had little patience for him, but re-watching now I see how much he exemplified the toxic / insidious side of the 'hero cop' trope. manhandling / threatening confessions out of people, etc.
I am not american. My limited interaction with police in general were mild or even supportive. Now when I read or see the police brutality all over the world, I don't know how to process my privilege. My village was/is crime free so I don't even know who the cop is. In City, when i ran away from my abusive ex husband, police couldn't have been nicer, supportive. Asking me what I wanted to be the outcome. So I lived in a bubble thinking most cops are genuine decent people. Now I am learning more. I remember when my bicycle was stolen and I went crying to a police station and the cop was kind to me. Understand I am not excusing any of the police brutality, just comparing and thinking maybe I was blind and shouldve been more aware.
Girl, where do you live?
Look sweetie don't apologise because you weren't as educated, I didn't think there were bad cops but now I do. As long as you know now😌😍😘
You weren't blind, you were just blessed and lucky to interact with cops that are genuinely good. Don't feel bad for not knowing there are awful ones out there. Be at peace with the idea that there are good and bad people in positions of power.
The world would be lucky to be filled with only the kinds of cops that you have interacted with.
I want to bet the cops you interacted weren't given militaristic training to deal w civilians and face actual consequences for their actions
_The Wire_ is not a "cop show," and certainly not a "hero cop" show. It spends as much time with the Barksdale and Stanfield crews as with the cops, and as the seasons go on, spends more time with entirely different groups of people in entirely different situations (though tying them into the main framing device). And it shows each and every group of people as _human beings_ , some more sympathetic than others (who tend to get punished for the good they try to do), some total assholes (who are usually the ones who get ahead), but mostly just people trying to do the best they can in the situation they find themselves in. I'd say Stringer Bell is more of a tragic hero than Jimmy McNulty, or at least on a parallel level.
As David Simon put it in his DVD commentary track/mission statement on episode 1: *"It could have, **_if we'd done everything wrong,_** been a cop show."*
"Why are you so sweaty?"
"...I was watching Cops."
The older I’ve gotten, the harder it’s been for me to trust cops. I do understand what their role is SUPPOSED to be, and I’m willing to cooperate if one needs it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I feel entirely relaxed around them. What you said near the end is so true. Cops are taught to fear and control the community. Not protect and assist it.
People like to say, "not all cops are bad." But where are the good ones when we need them? Where are the Olivia Bensons?
life hurts don't cry
good cops do exist.
in the dreams of conservatives and liberals.
The majority r bad, but there r good ones. My brother in law is a narcotics officer, and if u met him he would be one of the nicest guys you’d meet. Also in CT there was a protest outside of a police station about BLM and several of the officers knelt with them. However there’s so many bad ones that they overshadow what the good ones do. Because killing a man is a lot more drastic than protesting.
The majority are good. You just hear about the bad ones because of a very, very hungry media cycle.
a slut for sabrina spellman all companies are corrupt so does that mean everyone who works for a company,(which is like 95% of developed countries) are corrupt? No YOUR argument doesn’t work.
lisa frank THANK YOU
The sheer number of film examples you could use for this video is telling
I'm just wondering, what is Hot Fuzz doing in there? A: it's British and B: it's a _deconstruction_ of the hero cop trope...
A. It was produced by Universal Pictures (US/International)
Rogue Pictures (US). B. It still painted cops in a positive light. Honestly though, if you think about it, it made it seem like we really need cops to be highly weaponized and trained to take down terrorists even in small towns.
@@imorokr it was designed to be an homage to action movies so I get why Hot Fuzz is there (though it hurt my heart a little). But the last scene is them massively over reacting to a possible crime and is supposed to be a dig at the whole trope. They replaced the bad guys and became the bad guys themselves.
A: Police brutality/racism very much exists here in the UK, though it may not be as immediately obvious, it's very unfortunately thoroughly still there, and still a big problem for us.
B: Hot Fuzz literally pops up on screen as they're explaining how not all media depicting cops is straight up copaganda.
"Stop Resisting." I never realized how insidious those words were till now
The whole history of cop shows is so scary
Javier's death... god that's messed up
I mean there’s nothing innately wrong with a cop as a protagonist. Saying that some cops do bad things and aren’t as pure and virtuous as society once thought is one thing but to me it seems counterproductive to outright say no more cop protagonists. If you use the same standards of who can and cannot be a protagonist/portrayed positively in media then literally nobody could be depicted in a positive light because the group of people or person will have something bad about them somewhere.
Lukas Lambraia You are right. If this video's logic was applied to all professions, there would be no TV shows of movies at all.
Shows & movies are oversaturated with hero cops. Personally, I don't know nearly as many cops as I do fictional ones. And even still them being all good cops. That's a false portrayal and it affects the cultural narrative. It's cultural hegemony at its finest. Honestly, rewatch the video bc clearly you weren't listening.
In real life, cops do their job without ACCOUNTABILITY. They can kill black men with impunity thanks to the bizarre legal concept of Qualified Immunity. No other profession, except the military, functions without oversight. In any other job, malpractice or misconduct will have consequences, if proven. Cops kill and torture and harass black men, and even if it does get caught on camera, this has largely gone unchecked. Up until NOW.
i would love to see The Take making a video about peaky blinders regardless of the actual topic. i think that will be amazing
This is so strange seeing this video in the middle of this pandemic and I’m not talking about Corona.
Pretty sure you're not aware what 'pandemic' actually means. But hey, we at least got your point.
I don’t get her point, what the heck does that even mean? This is not odd at all? Very relevant right now...
My father gets really angry at this trope, something about the US trying to be the center of the world and everyone's hero while doing more damage than good.
Now I just can't take it seriously anymore.
Your father is a smart man
The bully would be good one to do. I know you've done the mean girl one which is what many female bullies are. Bully characters are now more complex than compared to the one-dementional 80's and 90's teen movie bullies.
This video is perfectly timely in these uncertain times. The movie "The Hate U Give" came out only too years ago, but it eerily foreshadows the eventual death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, who are supposed to be our protectors. 👮🚨😔
If you like the movie you should read the book, it’s one of my favorite books and it goes further in depth into police brutality in a way that a much shorter movie couldn’t. I can’t recommend this book enough!
To be honest, I think LA Confidential (and arguably the departed) have already subverted the idea of the ‘hero cop” and addressed corruption and brutality in a way that other shows and movies are only now starting to follow
The Departed is my favorite cop vs gangster film. I'm not into mob movies, but that one is incredible
That is crazy, Tom Hanks was just talking about how the first thing he watched on UA-cam was him doing that Dragnet dance number (13:34) on the Conan O’Brien podcast.
I gotta say, the only cops I trust are in TV and movies...
Yep, only trust CSI and the Brooklyn 99 cops! 🚨👮
@laura marrero fabian Olivia Benson, absolutely! lol
As long as you don't happen to be their suspect. If you are, expect to get threatened, humiliated and beaten up before any trial.
Also a big part of this trope is the Hero Cop's antagonism towards Internal Affairs, commonly referred to as "Rat Squad" even by the supposed noblest of them, like Olivia Benson. It reinforces this idea that cops should be able to above the law that they enforce, that they should be able to act with total impunity and no oversight.
I would love it if you guys did a video on the different types of journalists and politicians in pop culture. One of the most fascinating politicians in cinema is the mayor from Jaws who starts out as an infuriating character who later becomes sympathetic. and America has a long history of hero journalists, and I wonder how that stands up to real world journalists.
I also find hero journalist films a little fantastical at times
One quibble is that defense attorneys are often depicted negatively as helping guilty rich clients evade justice.
I wanted to say something witty about being so early... but I can't think of anything, so I'm just happy that there is another "the take" video
"There are no heroes anymore, Bishop. Only men who follow orders."
Until I lived in an integrated neighborhood, I had no idea how heavily the police would make their presence known in minority neighborhoods. As a child, I was fed the "the police are your friend," narrative and would always wave hello as if they were around in the same way a neighbor would stop by to exchange pleasantries. Now that I have lived in several states and cities around the country, I know that the police were checking up and trying to entrap blacks for minding heir own business.
Even as a woman, I get followed by the police either because my car was old or new and too nice to be owned by somebody black. I get pulled over when out of state with NYS tags, even when I literally drive two miles over the speed limit. I wish the police would aggressively pursue heinous crimes and leave law abiding POC alone.
This is finally being talked about on a big platform
wish you would’ve talked about the wire instead of just showing clips
This is why I love The Wire
The good cop, bad cop trope sucks on TV and in real life. It makes it feel like they are trying to trap a suspect by playing psychological games and it has been used on minors far too much in the US.
I love your content, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your interpretation of Brooklyn 99, and what it means to be a “hero cop” storyline. Brooklyn 99 does not show cops as heroes, but as humans. It’s important to understand that the story is filtered through the lens of comedy, and the main focus is on the relationships between the characters rather than actual police work. They do show and address issues of policing, but because the show is comedic, they try to make any moral lessons brief and effective, and usually include a couple laughs for good measure. In terms of subject matter, the show does an excellent job of showing bad actors in the police system who don’t always get caught. In the first season there is an episode where the deputy commissioner plays favorites and tries to get his son off the hook for a crime, and when Captain Holt stands up to him, he threatens Holt’s position on the force. In the racial profiling episode, the cop who profiles Terry never gets punished, as far as we know. Jake has an episode where he realizes that his old “heroes” on the police force are actually pretty insensitive and biased old men who think of the police force as a club. Captain Holt’s whole character story is about working his way up in a system that was biased against him, something that forced him to swallow a lot of unfair treatment, and caused a lot of pain to his husband as well. Jake’s story is about taking his ego down a notch and realizing that many of his heroes aren’t really heroes, though of course he will probably never shake his love of Die Hard. The show calls out the atrocities of the prison system, violence against trans people, and broken gun laws in artful ways. These are just a few examples. I’d love to see Brooklyn 99 take on more topics of police violence, but I would hate to see it lose the goofy tone that made me fall in love with the show.
I disagree with the idea that simply telling a story from the perspective of a cop is a problem. Cops are humans, just like criminals are humans, so we need stories from both perspectives. The important thing is the show’s content. Just because there are systemic issues within police work does not mean that we can’t tell nuanced stories about cops, or see them as human. I could flip this and say that because Orange is the New Black shows the criminal’s perspective, it shows criminals as heroes, which of course is not true. I personally love both shows. Brooklyn 99’s lightheartedness is sometimes exactly what I need, and the interactions between the characters are hilarious and often very sweet. Orange is the New Black is darker and more painful to watch, but sometimes that type of content hits deeper. That’s just me though.
I saw the title in my notifications and immediately knew the video and comment section was gonna be spicy
It would be great to see a show/film (or another) seeing a vigilante, vigilantes, or just a citizen/citizens standing up to/fighting against police brutality and controlling, bigotted, and/or abusive law enforcement/systems.
Okay but to be fair, Brooklyn nine-nine has addressed police brutality and all the corruption in the NYPD system numerous times.
But when they acknowledge it they think it’s about the PEOPLE in power rather than the SYSTEM in place
You know there’s something wrong when a light-hearted comedy addresses stuff like that, but not dramas...
Oh no! poor police officers being portrayed in a negative way in early Hollywood movies. I can’t imagine any other group of people being portrayed in a negative light in Hollywood for so long.
I do enjoy crime dramas, but from the crime side of the drama (Bronx Tale, John Wick, Godfather, etc...)
I searched for “ why are all cop shows so glamorous “ glad I found this video.
last time i was this early, i could still go outside.
Black Ninja true actually. mask gang
As thorough as The Take usually is I was kinda hoping for a note about how cops are just people. While the motto ACAB is being used I would have hoped that there would have been a note that cops are people that vary wildly from their culture and institution and... well as people. As individuals.
And to that point you could use the county sheriff trope. The small town sheriff is usually portrayed very differently from his city counterparts. Usually incompetent or extremely laid back except when outsiders appear.
Which, while being a trope and not entirely accurate, does have something to say for how cops who are immersed in their community and get to know everyone will behave differently.
And the contrast... it could be a point made that sheriffs treat their townsfolk well and not outsiders... so perhaps city cops, who have a community far too large and varied to get to know and little incentive to do it, treat everyone like an outsider.
J. Edgar Hoover suppressed the First Amendment?
The police officer from fiction that I'm most afraid of his Bernadette's father from the big Bang theory.
Also you think you could feature that scene of The Bible study from Mrs America? I find it appropriate for when talking about how cops were used to maintain the order of a White Supremacist and xenophobic society concerned with order and respectability.
Proof that they don’t even follow the laws they enforce.
you just put into words everything I've been trying to explain to my husband for years.
There's a major problem with how every cop show that talks about police brutality or corruption tells it from the perspective of "good cops"
You guys should also talk about the media's perception of the military as well. That would make an interesting topic that's somewhat similar to this.
Oh I’m sure the comment section is gonna be civil.
So far so good.
The comments section on theTake videos aren't usually that bad from what I've seen
I love Brooklyn 99 a lot, but even so, I know it's a fantasy of what cops could really be like.
I really enjoyed the essay but there are groundbreaking shows like The Wire that portray police and criminals in an accurate light. This could have been held up as an example of how the subject should be handled going forward.
I enjoyed this "take" immensely. I think there is a similar effect in war movies. As a vet that grew up watching the post-vietnam movies in the 80s that are overtly anti-war, for some reason that message was lost on me and those I served with. Saving Private Ryan is literally about throwing off the war's justification and doing something humaine as the only path to redemption before an inevitable death, yet so many see a movie like that and say, "wow, can't wait until I get my chance." It's disturbing.
As this take on policing and the effect media has had on the expansion of power that at least 7 Amendments directly address, tells me how terrifyingly easy it is to mold minds through narratives.
Olivia and Stabler ruined more lives than they saved. I liked law and order svu, but damn Stabler was a perfect of a designated hero.
Watch Section 375, an Indian movie showing realistic side of the justice system.
nerdamy a good movie
So basically: give us a real Mr. Robinson's neighborhood show.
MUCH NEEDED VIDEO! Do American war and military movies next!
Great video! It would have been interesting if you touched on kids media about cops too. Power Rangers in particular have two different seasons that feature cops from the future who spend the majority of their time fighting either an underclass of immigrant aliens or biodivergent people that were outcast by the ruling class.
What about paw patrol?
Oh and let's not forget Robocop The Animated Series.
There was soooo many ads, only 20 minutes had passed and 5 ads popped out. I will considerate seeing this channel again... 😔😔😔
Early on this one too, I'm on a role today!!😂
But It is interesting to see how recent events may have a longer cultural impact on our media, and even more interesting to have lived through the change.
This is why movies about controversial or even downright bad cops are far more interesting. Like French Connection and Cop Land.
But not Dirty Harry. That crypto-facist nonsense can sod off.