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Anyway, I'm gonna post a thread on some of the biggest copaganda shows ever. Here we go.
The first and most influential copaganda of all time is Dragnet, the show created by Jack Webb which was the greatest advertisement for the LAPD ever.
Dragnet was the first police procedual to appear on the air. It started as a radio program in 1948 before moving to the small screen in 1951.
Dragnet had a good relationship with the LAPD. In return for shooting permits and technical assistance, Dragnet would show a positive portrayal of the LAPD as an incorruptible and overly benevolent institution whose officers were consummate professionals.
Overseeing this show's production was the Chief of Police at the time, Bill Parker - the man who militarized the LAPD and turned it further against Black and Mexican Angelenos for his entire 16 year tenure.
Obviously, Dragnet never showed police misconduct or brutality. It constructed a world where cops were efficient crime stopping machines.
The show ran on 8 years from 1951-59 and was revived for four seasons from 1967-70.
Another piece of copaganda, one that was not a contemporary setting, was Gunsmoke - one of the longest running tv series of all time.
Gunsmoke, which starred James Aurness as Marshal Matt Dillon, took place in Dodge City during the Old West. Every week, there was a murder or some kind of violent crime that Matt needed to stop. In reality, Dodge City only had maybe 1-2 murders a year.
But this is copaganda because it shows that without some guntoting law man, the town would fall into chaos...even tho the town seems to fall into chaos every week!
Up next "The F.B.I." which aired on ABC from 1965-1974 with the help of the most notorious law man in the US, J. Edgar Hoover.
The funny thing about the FBI is that every episode would end in a "most wanted" segment hosted by the lead actor - which asked for the public to help hunt some dude the FBI was chasing.
Sort of like Dragnet, the FBI showcased stories based on real-life cases. Of course, names and dates were changed and cops were made to be heroic.
Again, there were other shows that had FBI agents, Western Lawmen or LAPD officers. But Dragnet, Gunsmoke, and The FBI were the biggest and most influential to their respective settings
Later on, I'll jump to a new time period.
So the 70s had some other police procedurals like Adam-12 (co-created by Dragnet's Jack Webb), Hawaii Five-O, and CHiPs. Two of these took place in Cali.
Now, let's go to film really briefly. One cop film that influenced so many others was "In the Heat of the Night," starring Sydney Poitier and Rod Steiger, who attempt to solve a murder in the Jim Crow South.
The reason why this film is significant is because it's one of the first times I can see where they teamed up a Black cop with a White cop to solve a crime.
This trope of an interracial cop tandem would be repeated in buddy cop films like 48 Hrs., with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy, and the Lethal Weapon series with Danny Glover and Mel Gibson.
This trope is used to assuage the viewing public that the police aren't racist. After all, a Black and white cop are working together right? Postracial Police are the way to go!
Well, this theme would continue with the TV show adaptation of "In the Heat of the Night," which aired in the 1980s and starred Howard Rollins and Carroll O'Connor.
In the Heat of the Night dealt with racism in Mississippi, but posited the modern integrated Spartan police as the solution compared to the racist force of the past.
Another series that continued the interracial cop theme was Miami Vice, in which the titular unit took on drug traffickers and murderers every single week.
But, both "In the Heat of the Night" and Miami Vice were made possible because of an earlier 80s police procedural called "Hill Street Blues."
Hill Street Blues pretty much continued the tradition of copaganda by writing BIPOC characters as one dimensional villains or difficult eyewitnesses. And the cops had to shoot them.
Miami Vice would usually have some Cuban characters with terrible accents who only lived to import drugs and kill people. Comparatively speaking, In the Heat of the Night was better at this than its counterparts but still.
HSB, MV, and ITHOTN were the go to cop shows of the 80s. They all had an interracial cast and single episode stories. More importantly, these shows parroted the idea that the police were the only institution keeping order and stability in their societies.
Seriously, how does a supposedly small town in Mississippi have a murder EVERY SINGLE WEEK? Miami might have been corrupt, but how many major drug lords with terrible accents keep popping up?
And just where the hell is HSB even supposed to be?
Anyway, the biggest piece of copaganda, the one that changed everything, premiered in 1990. *chung chung*
Boy oh boy. Law & Order is pretty much a result of HSB but it was stylistically different. Without it, there's probably no CSI, NCIS, Homicide, Chicago PD, FBI etc,.
If you look at the series and how they tackled things like race, class, and sexuality, it's pretty much frustrating to watch.
There was an episode where ADA Jack McCoy successfully nullified same sex marriage in the state of New York just to get someone to testify in a single case.
If that's not textbook authoritarianism, idk what is.
And of course, the spinoffs. SVU & Criminal Intent, the former of which is the longest running live action drama series of all time...surpassing other copaganda favorite Gunsmoke.
SVU has one of the most fascist cops since Dirty Harry - Elliot Stabler. That man abused suspects and had people cheering him for doing so.
Dirty Harry killed people, so he was considerably worse. But Stabler beat on every pedo and chomo, people whom audiences REALLY hate.
One of the problems with SVU is that it was inspired by a unit ran by Linda Fairstein...yeah...her.
They also are responsible for propagating the notion that cops care about survivors of sexual assault and are effective in solving their crimes. that's FAR from reality.
They also made Internal Affairs look like career opportunists who just sought to railroad "good cops." They frequently referred to them as rats and all kinds of slurs.
Then there's Criminal Intent, in which Goren is supposed to be like Sherlock Holmes and able to get confessions. In reality, a great deal of confessions are false and overturned because of how they're coerced.
Also, a common archetype present throughout Law & Order, especially on SVU, are those slimy defense lawyers, who cops castigate whenever they can.
A lot of those lawyers use underhanded, often illegal tactics, while defending obviously guilty suspects. It's disturbing as hell to watch.
Also, the show really wants us to understand that these lawyers are Jews. They are Jewy Jew Jews! They're Hanukkah celebrating Yom Kippur observant bagel and the lox eatin JEWS.
Did I also mention they're Jewish?
Did I also mention they're Jewish?
But yeah, SVU is the longest running series and their structure hasn't changed in the 22 years they've been on air.
As for CSI, that show is responsible for audience awareness of forensic science. It also parroted some pseudoscience like bitemark analysis and handwriting expertise.
Also, why are lab technicians out here carrying firearms and making arrests? that makes no sense! They're not even supposed to work for the police...but...
