Posted in: Look! It Moves! by Adi Tantimedh, Movies, Recent Updates, TV | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, ferguson, film, Genius, judge dredd, leftovers, missouri, tv, walking dead

To Cop Or Not To Cop In Pop Culture – Look! It Moves! by Adi Tantimedh

Adi Tantimedh writes:

In the past week, the biggest thing happening in America has been the police siege of Ferguson, Missouri. Social media has given a fuller account than mainstream media of the lies, contradictions and outright violations of the law and the US Constitution that the Ferguson police department has committed to intimate and suppress the community. It is the flashpoint of state oppression, racism and propaganda for the world to see. I'm writing this on Sunday night as the police are firing tear gas, threatening and arresting journalists covering the event.

A major socio-political event tends to have an effect on pop culture, and pop culture is worthless if it doesn't reflect the times. As you might have noticed by now, Bleeding Cool and several websites have pointed out that Genius, the Top Cow comic by Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman and Afua Richardson, has suddenly become the most topical and relevant comic being published in America right now. The story of a young African-American woman who organises the gangs in her neighbourhood to wage war against the cops was created back in 2008, and its continued relevance is a depressing indictment of just how bad things have been for a long time and haven't changed. The images in the comic are eerily similar to the photos taken by press and local people in Ferguson. Genius is reminiscent of the angry crime fiction of Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines.

What's happening in Ferguson is the kind of thing that cautionary tales from Science Fiction authors Philip K. Dick, John Shirley and the Judge Dredd series have been warning us about for decades. Suddenly, Judge Dredd is no longer just dark satire but reality.

This leads me to think about mainstream pop culture's continuing fixation on cops. Good cops. Heroic cops. We've all been taught since childhood that cops are there to protect us. Cops are symbols of safety, security and the status quo. TV networks especially keep pushing cop series. Major Crimes is practically an advertisement for the LAPD. Cop shows are the comfort food of television drama, even if the reality isn't quite so reassuring. Cop heroes are the default of many screenwriters.

It's no surprise that Rick Grimes, the hero of The Walking Dead, is a sheriff, since he represents a need for order and reassurance. After all, why couldn't he be something other than a cop, like a plumber or an accountant? The writers of the comic and the show claim not to be conscious of any subtext in the story, but the hero being a cop carries subtext about the need for control and social stability, which is of course challenged in the story.

Then there's The Leftovers. There is a long list of things wrong about the show, but I'll just talk about one of the most glaring things about it. The main character in the original novel was a middle-class businessman representing the everyman in a world reeling from the sudden disappearance of a section of the population. The TV series rather pointlessly changes the main character to a cop. I say "pointlessly", but it's more interesting to wonder why the writers made the change in the first place. To make a main character a cop means he's no longer "ordinary" but someone representing authority and the status quo, and the possibility, expectation of him saving the day and maintaining order. It's almost as if the writers felt the need to reassure the viewers and perhaps themselves by having a cop protagonist. The cop has real power, even if he's as confused as everyone else. To have power in a confusing and fallen world is to have some semblance of comfort.

It's darkly ironic that Let's Be Cops should hit the cinema the very week that the siege in Ferguson kicked off. It's about two schlubs who discover real power when they masquerade as cops. Of course, they end up dealing with real criminals and have to learn a lesson about responsibility. The theme and subtext here is about the abuse of power, played for laughs. Like last year's hit comedy The Heat, it revels in the comedy of the main characters acting like fascists, in this case under false pretenses, and unconsciously reflects mainstream pop culture's obsession with cops and that it's really about craving power. That's a lot more revealing than the movie probably set out to be.

What many people find shocking about Ferguson is that the extent to which the police do not always have the public's best interests at heart, and on such a wide, institutional scale. It's a town's entire police force that's gone evil. Ferguson has hammered its way into the history books. It may or may not bring about social and legislative change in the US, but it's unlikely that Hollywood is going to stop coming up with more shows and movies about heroic cops. The Shield was one of the few exceptions that had corrupt cops as its main characters, but they were depicted as bad apples rather than a symptom of institutional rot. What's new is this: The entire Ferguson PD has publicly revealed as racist, vindictive, lying, overzealous fascists, and that is a beautiful gift to screenwriters, novelists and comic book writers everywhere. This will be used as the model for an entire corrupt police force in pop culture for years to come.

Copping out at lookitmoves@gmail.com

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Look! It Moves! © Adisakdi Tantimedh

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