Politically Correct Policing
There’s possibly a whole generation out there now who think Politically Correct Policing all started in Britain in about 1999 when the McPherson Report was published. Well, I’ve got news for those punks. Politically correct cops had been with us since the 1970’s and for a while it seemed like you couldn’t be a successful cop unless you had some kind of problem. But the problem didn’t mean you needed help, your problem instead made you special.
It had all begun even earlier. It was that year of revolution – 1967 and a cop was shot in the line of duty. Who can forget the buzz-saw theme as Ironside was felled in silhouette by an assassin’s bullet. Left paraplegic, there was no time for moping around for this tough cookie. He became the wheelchair-bound leader of a crack force of law and order. No wheel was left unturned as Robert T. Ironside added even further to his politically correct credentials by employing the silky but tough Eve Whitfield, a crook-cracking female constable, or whatever the heck the Yanks called her rank.
Once the TV police had cottoned-on to how well the public responded to a politically correct cop, the spring turned into a mountain stream in full flood. In no particular order they flowed off the Quinn Martin & Others production line. In no order other than my random memory, there was…
THE OBESE COP
Cannon was fat but any female under threat knew they were safe in his hands, just so long as they didn’t mind sharing them with pizza and pasta. Showing a surprising agility Frank Cannon could negotiate the criminal elements with as much élan as he would the Drive In Restaurants, when on duty. His driving in fact became a major feature of his crime-busting since like Ironside he wasn’t much use on his own two feet, but this fat guy didn’t mope about on a couch, waiting for a tummy tuck. He got out there and pulled his weight.
THE BLIND COP
Longstreet was sublimely handsome. He was so blonde and beautiful it’s probably just as well that he was blind because otherwise he would probably never have gotten past the mirror each morning, and never actually become perhaps the most politically correct of all the cops. Unable to see a clue, he could sense them instead. Unable to hear a criminal, he could smell them; but in fact smelling the crooks was also the job of his just as stunningly attractive guide-dog, Pax. A blind man and his best friend, the all-seeing dog. There has never been anyone to match Longstreet as not just correct but totally on-message. Give a man a chance and no disability can stand in the way of the pursuit of Justice.
THE BOW-LEGGED COP
You might think being bow-legged is not such a terrible disability for a cop, and on the scale of paraplegia some way down from the difficulties overcome by Ironside. But being bow-legged was not the only problem McCloud had to deal with. He also had to chase crooks wearing dude cowboy boots, which, if you’re bow-legged as well, is no mean feat. His biggest problem though was to get his horse around town without the animal becoming an equine casualty of the Highway. McCloud’s ceaseless loyalty to his horse surely marks him out as the premier example of a cop who is kind to animals too.
THE OLD COP
In these troubling times of an increasing ageist tendency, Barnaby Jones proved that your body might be decrepit but so long as the mind remained sharp, no criminal could evade you for long. In truth the British had pre-empted this political correctness with the BBC’s Dixon of Dock Green, who for many years proved that just because you are in your Seventies doesn’t mean that you cannot keep the streets safe for women to walk on. A more recent UK policy seems to be to instead remove the men of seventy and put them in prison instead. It seems a new cop will always beat an old cop – given the chance to best him of course.
THE MARRIED COP
Proving that marriage was no obstacle to being a great cop MacMillan and Wife kept the streets clean and ensured there was no hanky-panky on duty for the craggily good-looking Mac. Demonstrating that a wife was a positive asset to any crime-fighter, the concept proved so popular that it was rebooted for Hart to Hart, a male-female crime-fighting duo who even took the concept of politically correct policing into the 1980s.
THE BALD COP
Just having the disability of having no hair might seem no big thing to a 21st Century man but believe me, being bald as a coot in the 1970’s marked you out as weird, man. Add to that you appear to carry around an endless supply of lollipops, and it’s not hard to see that in this century Kojak might be so politically correct for the 1970’s that he might now be deemed as hiding in plain sight. Who loves ya Baby, *cough*
THE FEMALE COP
Police Woman demonstrated that being blond, petite and pretty was no bar to kicking crook-ass and Pepper, as she was called would put salt on any boy’s tail as she cleaned up the city.. single-handed. Pepper became eclipsed by Charlie’s Angels, who were the three high-kickers who even survived into the new century but in their first incarnation, don’t be misled by the notion that they belonged to any man. These girls were strictly their own women and Charlie was just a voice on a phone. No men required, and it doesn’t get any more politically correct than that in the UK just now.
THE COP WITH ANGER MANAGEMENT ISSUES
Proving that just because you spend your large chunks of your life alongside dead bodies doesn’t make you weird, Quincy could catch a criminal simply by analysing a sample from the victim. Perhaps Quincy wasn’t quite up to the modern mark of preventative policing, but give Quince a vic and he’d give you the crim before the hour was up. Quincy’s biggest contribution to politically correct policing was however his Empathising with the Victim anger issues. You could be certain that Quincy would explode with fury and much slamming of doors, several times an episode as his frustration that all his clients were already dead would continually come to the fore.
Finally, perhaps the biggest contributor to Politically Correct Policing was Columbo. It wasn’t that he was a one-eyed cop. This aspect of his persona never became part of the plot. Rather than whine about having a glass eye, peter Falk simply exploited his disability to perfect a quizzical squint. So, I won’t mention the fact Columbo was the original one-eyed policeman… well not again anyway. No, the real contribution of Columbo was the he remains the one and only AUTISTIC COP WITH ASPERGER TENDENCIES. What made Columbo truly special was that he never sought therapy or medical help for his personality defects and faults. He just did things his way, and his results are still borne witness to most weekends, on some channel somewhere, even now, in the ever-increasing circles of the world of politically correct policing in the 21st century. Mental health? For Columbo it was just a state of mind.
Oh…
Just one moor thing…
Humm… Maybe later….
Moor Larkin
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November 16, 2014 at 9:01 am -
While walking through central Budapest I stumbled upon http://tinyurl.com/ohosh93
I assume he is scratching his autistic head trying to work out WTF connection he has with the city. No doubt the fASHites will demand the Town Fathers take an angle grinder to his hand…for the sake of the Cheeldreen of course.
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November 16, 2014 at 9:12 am -
A refinement on the ‘Obese Cop’ is the ‘Self-Made Obese Cop’, as largely portrayed by Richard Griffiths in the ridiculous ‘Pie In The Sky’ construct, where he not only consumed vast calories but cooked them as well.
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November 16, 2014 at 9:16 am -
I loved Columbo, if not just for his dress sense. His wandering eye aside, and his obvious Aspergic tendancies I can relate to him in ways you cannot imagine. Not in the sense of stature or colouring. He was squat and dark, whilst I’m tall, fair and impecably handsome- ask any of the girls hereabouts. What impressed me was his understated, quiet and relentless intelligence. Smart dishevelled cooky, indeed.
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November 16, 2014 at 9:39 am -
When it comes to cops with autism/aspergers, the new Scandi Noir Genre does rather well. The young woman in The Bridge is a very compelling character in that way.
There also has to be a category for Cop With a Drink Problem, of whom Inspector Morse – as originally created – was the apogee, though they rather toned that down in later episodes.-
November 16, 2014 at 10:29 am -
Ahhh yes, the Scandi Noirs- when they say “jumpers”, they mean the article of clothing.
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November 16, 2014 at 12:54 pm -
And what about ‘Monk’..?
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November 16, 2014 at 1:17 pm -
Ha! But I have never watched it…!
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November 16, 2014 at 9:54 am -
Kojak would be top of today’s hit list for forcing the cheeldren to eat sweets.
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November 16, 2014 at 10:43 am -
When it comes to 70s US cops, there’s also The Black Cop, of course. John Shaft may have been a private dick who was also a sex machine to all the chicks, but I suppose he still counts.
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November 16, 2014 at 10:45 am -
November 16, 2014 at 12:54 pm -
‘…shut yo mouf!’
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November 16, 2014 at 10:44 am -
Columbo’s raincoat has lasted a heck of a long time. My husband’s similar ‘mac’ is in the wardrobe, and is probably even older. I have a photo of him attending my 2nd cousin’s wedding clad in this splendid garment. It was not new then! Heart Beat is a favourite in our abode. A procession of grumpy sergeants has ruled the roost in this crime ridden ?country town. The latest one is so crabby and PC it is painful. I used to be glued to Z Cars and Kojak, Brian Blessed is the fall out from Z…a very noisy one too. Never since Z Cars have I had the patience to be glued to any police fiction, PC or otherwise. The real ones on Pick channel are sometimes more amusing. Stab vests, regional accents and high tech gadgetry galore. They are hopefully the salt of the earth, honest, hard working and sometimes very wise and experienced.
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November 16, 2014 at 12:57 pm -
“The Bill” was pretty god. And how could you have passed up ‘The Gentle Touch’!
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November 16, 2014 at 1:01 pm -
May I throw the resolutely northern Juliet Bravo into the mix – female boss takes on gruff subordinates in grimy Lancastrian/Yorkshire setting with a theme tune based on Bach. What more could you want on a Saturday night in the early 80s ?
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November 16, 2014 at 11:21 am -
Not quite a cop, perhaps, but wasn’t ‘The Saint’ of about that era?
This probably says more about my warped mind than anything else – and it was a decade or so later – but my favourite was ‘The Detectives’ with Jasper Carrott, Robert Powell and Brian Sewell. It sent the whole cop show genre up wonderfully.
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November 16, 2014 at 11:55 am -
I think the boss was actually played by George “UFO/Get Carter” Sewell – although if it had been Brian Sewell it would certainly have been worth watching in a sort of when worlds collide way ….
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November 16, 2014 at 12:13 pm -
You are quite right – with both points!
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November 16, 2014 at 11:39 am -
There was also the Home Base type cop, endlessly trying to build his own house. Petrocelli? Or was he a private investigator?
And also the cop on a horse – what was he called?-
November 16, 2014 at 12:00 pm -
It was Petrocelli – always taking on impeccably liberal causes in the course of his legal doings – and he never did get that house built …
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November 16, 2014 at 12:55 pm -
Poor sod. His series was cancelled before he could build that house..!
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November 16, 2014 at 12:56 pm -
The cop on a horse was McCloud…
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November 16, 2014 at 1:17 pm -
That’s the one!
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November 16, 2014 at 11:47 am -
Maybe we could soon have a new TV series of a Cop with a load of “Priors” given that the Metropolitan police are now disregarding many previous convictions in order to boost recruitment from ethnic minorities. This should certainly give the imaginative TV scriptwriters some great potential new material.
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November 16, 2014 at 11:54 am -
You forgot the high-functioning sociopath Sherlock Holmes, though technically speaking he isn’t a cop. Perhaps a new theme of anti-cop? You know, showing those cops how it’s really done….
It’s ridiculous that the telly is so totally taken over by these cops shows, though isn’t it? What’s that all about? Why are we so obssessed with a hero who has come to save us all or at least right a few wrongs?
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November 16, 2014 at 1:01 pm -
Gene Hunt gets my vote every time…
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November 16, 2014 at 8:29 pm -
Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes were great, very much in the spirit of the Sweeney. The Professionals were a laugh as well
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November 16, 2014 at 12:39 pm -
I seem to recall that the early 70s Quinn Martin productions such as The Streets of San Francisco were always split into Acts and had a stentorian voiced announcer who would read out that weeks portentously titled episode as well as the names of the guest stars – something ably parodied by the pre-Naked Gun tv series Police Squad.
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November 16, 2014 at 12:56 pm -
I LOVED ‘A Quinn Martin Production!’ thundering stentoriously from the TV… *sighs*
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November 16, 2014 at 12:52 pm -
/applause
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November 16, 2014 at 1:00 pm -
And of course, for Politically Correct Cop of the Decade, look no further than ‘Due South’s’ Mountie…
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November 16, 2014 at 1:34 pm -
It all got a bit far-fetched as time went on. ‘Miami Vice’ was just an excuse for showing off in fast cars, posh boats, designer stubble and other general rock-n-roll; including the theme music. It did have a token black cop, though, so it met the PC requirements. Miss Marple it wasn’t!
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November 16, 2014 at 1:38 pm -
Not a cop show and somewhat off topic but has anyone else noticed that four episodes in and the new Constantine -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_(TV_series)-has yet to openly smoke a cigarette (couple of from behind shots or smouldering in the ashtray)? They take PC too far when the character that launched a thousand Silk Cut smokers….
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November 16, 2014 at 6:20 pm -
Ahhh, I haven’t seen that yet! Been eagerly awaiting it though.’Gotham’ is proving to be quite a find in the meantime.
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November 16, 2014 at 8:40 pm -
As they have not only cut his chain smoking but his bisexuality and changed his scouse accent *cringe* to southern welsh*2x Cringe*, you’re not missing much (Why oh why could not Moore have made him a Cockney?). Amusing really; “Remember Kids, it’s B A D to smoke and sticking your willy in another guy’s butthole makes Baby Jesus Cry but chronic alcoholism, fraud, theft, graphic violence, impersonating a federal agent and summoning Demons- that’ s COOL”.
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November 17, 2014 at 12:12 pm -
Priorities….
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November 16, 2014 at 3:22 pm -
There’s also the “maverick cop/cops who are taking on powerful forces inside and outside of the police (the latter usually involving the government/MI5/MI6 etc) to solve crimes whilst dealing with a chaotic personal life” trope much loved by the BBC especially over the last twenty years or so; thing like “Between The Lines” (police investigating police), “Waking The Dead” (very shouty Trevor Eve and friends get involved in increasingly convoluted cold cases), “The Cops” (most of the police are corrupt), Red Riding (all the police are corrupt – and murder people too) and the 70s G F Newman devised “Law and Order” (where everyone – police, legal system, prison system – is corrupt).
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November 16, 2014 at 6:21 pm -
‘Between The Lines’ had the best final scene, though..
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November 16, 2014 at 6:29 pm -
The pleasure of the unresolved cliffhanger ! Like the ending to “The Italian Job” only deadlier and waterier!
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November 16, 2014 at 3:57 pm -
Moor. You forgot ‘Crazy cop who talks to his gun’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvEHFTjp3JA-
November 17, 2014 at 3:57 am -
Sledge, perhaps more than any other character ever, deserves to be labelled, “special needs”, but he wraps up every case in 23 minutes, even if it means that many innocent people have to suffer along the way.
Like in Starsky and Hutch, the boss was a loud-mouthed melanin-rich character. Captain Trunk also qualifies as being neurotic and paranoid, but with good reason, of course: Mr Hammer (“That’s Mrrrrrrrr!”).
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November 16, 2014 at 4:17 pm -
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November 16, 2014 at 4:25 pm -
The Taggart stories whilst Mark McManus was still alive – especially the early ones – were a lot darker and more Gothic than a lot of similar shows of that time; poisonous snakes and spiders, voodoo, gypsy curses and body parts galore!
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November 16, 2014 at 4:28 pm -
Yeah, but after a while you noticed that only the last 15 minutes of the three part saga was worth watching, as there were more dead red herrings in the preceding 2+3/4 hours than you’d find in an Arbroath Smokehouse
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November 16, 2014 at 4:44 pm -
True – the Agatha Christie approach to whodunnit plotting; plenty of suspects, plenty of motives, plenty of red herrings !
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November 16, 2014 at 8:31 pm -
Aye there’s been a murda, call the polis
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November 16, 2014 at 10:27 pm -
It’s pronounced “Murrrduurrr”.
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November 17, 2014 at 4:02 am -
“It’s pronounced “Murrrduurrr”.”
Well, there are two Rs, so yes, us Glaswegians pronounce the wurrrrd correctly.
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November 17, 2014 at 4:12 am -
I hate to speak ill of the dead, but wasn’t Mark McManus a terribly wooden actor.
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November 17, 2014 at 1:44 pm -
Taggart was all right, but I think Rebus (Ken Stott) was much better.
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November 17, 2014 at 9:25 pm -
I suspect that was more the type of person he was trying to play – stoic, lacking in emotion, or at least lacking ready display of emotion. It was what men were expected to be like in the mid-20th century.
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November 17, 2014 at 10:18 pm -
Being a stilted Scots actor is still much better than being a lumbering English one
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November 16, 2014 at 4:21 pm -
And Emma Peel (The Avengers) would be banned, at least before the watershed, and possibly even after it, too as too sexy by half.
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November 16, 2014 at 8:36 pm -
Ah, Emma Peel & John Steed, known in the trade as a ‘two-hander’. Many blokes, apparently, managed to watch it one-handed.
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November 16, 2014 at 4:25 pm -
And with no lady drivers, the Keystone Cops could only still get an airing East of Suez
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November 16, 2014 at 5:10 pm -
At least Thames Television aired Rumpole of the Bailey.
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November 17, 2014 at 12:15 pm -
I suspect that some episodes of Rumpole would never get made today, especially the one that lampoons the satantic abuse panic.
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November 16, 2014 at 5:20 pm -
Z-Cars was rather politically correct. Firstly it was set in the gritty northern place called Newtown, which itself was a departure from the home counties-based cop shows like No Hiding Place, based on Kirkby on Merseyside. Secondly the police force included minorities like Sergeant Bert Lynch and a constable called Jock to make expatriate offenders from the Celtic fringes feel at home in the nick. There was also a chubby cop called Fancy Smith, and an honest-to-goodness Yorkshire Tyke played by Colin Welland. These characters were a marked contrast to Inspector Lockhart (played in the clipped tones of Raymond Francis) who had clearly been a commissioned officer in the military police, before stepping back into civvy street after the War.
Not a police show, but the prison drama Porridge also demonstrated embryonic political correctness by portraying villains sympathetically and law enforcement professionals as rigid martinets. Porridge elevated public awareness of “slopping” out and the practice of issuing prisoners hard Izal toilet paper which could also be used as tracing paper to wipe their delicate bums.
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November 16, 2014 at 5:50 pm -
Nowadays there’s also the skinny, built like a model, female cop in four inch heels who can still chase down bad guys and throw them to the floor, twist their arms up behind their back and cuff them, without breaking sweat.
The american ones usually have smart but wimpy and oddball male sidekicks who they never quite get off with, and who the producers name the show after. (Castle and The Mentalist are the two I mean).
Of course our proud british lady cop, Bailey, (of Scott and Bailey) does the 100m in 4-inch heel dash, wrestle huge bloke to the floor and cuff him routine whilst being a chain smoker and having an alchoholic boss.
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November 16, 2014 at 6:23 pm -
My favourite cop show of recent years is ‘Engrenages’, or ‘Spiral’ as it was titled on the BBC. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_%28TV_series%29. Sadly it was hidden away on BBC3 or BBC4. Series 5 is currently on Canal+, so here’s hoping it will shortly return to the BBC and they will stick the previous series back up on iplayer.
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November 16, 2014 at 6:31 pm -
As far as Euro crime is concerned Inspector Montalbano has some of the best scenery – makes you want go on holiday to Sicily (as long as you can avoid the Mafia and assorted murders that seem to abound) …
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November 16, 2014 at 9:42 pm -
Definitely my current cops favourite; notice how bandy Zingaretti is too?
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November 16, 2014 at 6:44 pm -
Good news my friendly Curmudgeon, it has just been announced for ‘winter viewing’ on BBC 4. I love the characters in it!
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November 16, 2014 at 7:16 pm -
Monk is far more ASD than Columbo ; Columbo knew exactly what he was doing, appearing scruffy and clueless to trap his victims.
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November 16, 2014 at 8:49 pm -
Love your posts and especially this one as I have a soft spot for watching “cop shows” but the PC stuff does sometimes get a bit tedious.
What are your thoughts (and your readers) on “NYPD Blue” which I still watch on regular occasions from the box set I have – particularly the episodes with good old Sipowitz (Dennis Franz) who often voices and sometimes murmurs asides to “perps” which would probably not be allowed today? In fact, he not only voiced off to “perps”, he was known at times to have a go at his black superior, Lt Fancy.
Great show which I suspect showed more real life than many of the others put together. -
November 17, 2014 at 12:32 am -
November 17, 2014 at 11:18 am -
Rufus Sewell, Zen. Nothing more to say.
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November 17, 2014 at 12:21 pm -
The funny thing about Dixon of Dock Green is that it was supposedly the epitome of twee niceness, faultless bobbies, and “it’s a fair cop” criminals, but many of the surviving episodes don’t actually entirely support that image. Certainly the recently-release colour episodes from the early 1970s have a bleak grittiness, with plots that wouldn’t seem out of place in either The Sweeney or The Professionals, even though they pre-date those series. To be honest, even those series are a lot harder than the patiche of Live on Mars/Ashes to Ashes would have people believe today.
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November 21, 2014 at 7:18 am -
Old, fat, bald. That is not politically correct! It is just about any policeman that every lived LOL
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November 23, 2014 at 5:55 am -
Moor,
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I remember all of them except Longstreet, which I somehow must have missed.
And, like Julia M, I still clearly remember “‘A Quinn Martin Production!’ thundering stentoriously from the TV”.
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