Police procedurals, past and present, have ruled television. Is that the best thing?
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Online Editor
I am a big fan of police procedurals. I do regular recaps of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” for The Montage website. There are many other police shows that I am a big fan of, like “Chicago P.D” or even older, more infamous shows like “The Shield.”
These shows, and many others like them, glorify police officers, and in the wake of the murder of George Floyd this past May, and in the wake of every police-involved shooting since, a conversation has resurfaced about whether or not that’s the best thing.
Indeed, many of these shows portray some of these cops in a heroic light when they’re achieving their goals by horrifying means, or they just straight up glorify their heinous actions.
Take “Chicago P.D.” for example. It’s a well-written, action-packed show with compelling characters that you want to invest in. But at its center is Sergeant Hank Voight (portrayed by Jason Beghe), a man who protects the city of Chicago by any means necessary.
That’s not hyperbole; the man is routinely brutal when it comes to bringing suspects to justice. Over the course of seven seasons of television, I’ve seen the man drown people at the bottom of a river, cut off the fingers of an old lady kidnapper, and force the man who murdered his son to dig his own grave before putting him in there himself.
Voight is a character that justifies these actions as being for the greater good, and that the people who were on the receiving end deserved what they got. It’s righteous vengeance. But while the majority of the shows viewers like Voight… it doesn’t change that his actions are messed up. It doesn’t change the fact that his actions are an abuse of power, and they very rarely result in any sort of consequence for his career or life. The only consequence, especially in the most recent season, is that his team is becoming more like him.
And take “The Shield” as another, more blatant example. “The Shield” is one of the best shows ever made, and doesn’t get enough credit for how innovative it was. But it’s also a show full of dirty cops, and everyone involved makes no attempt to appear as anything other than that. Detective Vic Mackey (portrayed by Michael Chiklis) is the ring-leader of a team full of cops, called the “Strike Team” that routinely break the law.
Mackey himself murders a fellow cop in the pilot in order to keep his crimes a secret, and his companions aren’t any more decent than he is. Over the rest of the show’s run, his team commits a series of crimes that range from embezzlement and robbery to straight-up murder. Even when trying to do good deeds, the team’s actions are questionable.
And while his entire team either winds up dead or in prison… Mackey gets off basically scott-free, with an immunity deal that protects him from prosecution. While he ends up alone, he never faces any real judicial consequence for his crimes other than being forced to work a desk job.
Even the Special Victims Unit isn’t immune from having a dirty cop or two. While long-time protagonist Olivia Benson (portrayed by Mariska Hargitay) is largely on the straight-and-narrow, it’d be wrong to ignore the instances in the past where she used her job position for shady purposes.
And her longtime partner Elliot Stabler (portrayed by Christopher Meloni) was a violent individual himself. His repeated misconduct, as well as the amount of shootings he was involved in, resulted in his character being forced to retire… until a spin-off series starring him was announced earlier this year.
In the aftermath of the events of this year in Minneapolis and Kenosha, there has been some discussion about whether or not police procedurals have a place on network television, or any sort of television at all for that matter. I’d argue that despite all of the negative aspects of them, they do.
Television is an escape from reality, and while the police in the real world have a lot of explaining to do, I don’t think the same can be said for the fictional cops on our screens. What we see on our screens has nothing to do with the cops that shot George Floyd or Jacob Blake. It is not the responsibility of Hollywood showrunners to influence the public at large; it is up to the public to choose what they consume. And even then, it is up to them to distinguish fact from fiction.
If anything, these shows that are still on the air can now take their upcoming delayed seasons to address these issues head on. For example, when it returns from it’s Coronavirus-imposed hiatus this November, “Chicago P.D.” will continue to tell a long-simmering, fascinating story with one of its cast members about racial tension and police misconduct, and what it means to be a black cop in America.
There still is a purpose to having these kinds of shows on TV. But if they want to avoid more intense scrutiny in the months and years ahead, the police procedurals that are still airing just have to be more realistic about confronting the dark side of the job, and they have to hold those characters who go there accountable.
