NO ONE HAS done more to propagate the myth of the hero cop than the writers of network-television police procedurals. On Law & Order and its many, many offspring, you might occasionally see a stray bad apple, but they never spoil the barrel, and cops who break the rules are most often portrayed as crusaders for a greater good. Here, confessions from the writers, directors, and producers of these shows.
A writer on a procedural cop drama
→ I WAS TOLD pretty early on to avoid dirty cops as story points. Policing is presented as a morally good cause. We have heroes who are definitely molded after the shake-you-down, stop-and-frisk, throw-you-up-against-the-wall kind of cop. There are instances when, through our characters, we straight up glorify what should be illegal police practices.
Almost any time I’ve pitched a story that addresses issues of race and the police, it will go through a washing machine of notes, rewrites, and edits that turn it into something else entirely. A lot of the time, those notes are very flippant—“Well, what if he was a she? Or what if that person was gay? Or what if they were Black instead of white?” Identity, racial identity—it’s just a whim.
Anything judged to be overtly political, especially if it’s not in line with the majority of our audience’s politics, will get shot down or altered. You shift a few words and casting choices and a story can feel very different pretty quickly. I’ve seen a Black officer talking about race become a white officer talking about politics.
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