BTW the only "cop" show I believe with all my heart that it is not copaganda is Columbo.
And except for certain details in some episodes you could even argue Columbo isn't a cop, but more like an ava...
@nprofile1q... I haven't seen Columbo (though of course I've absorbed some knowledge of it through the cultural zeitgeist), but I think that *any* media which positions "the criminal was arrested" as a form of justice is propaganda.
Even if the cops in it are bumbling and some third party does the real work, if a story wraps up with "hooray, this menace to society has been locked away and now all the good people are safer" then it's reinforcing a dangerous myth (one that is almost *never* questioned in our media). Even something like Shawshank Redemption depicting the escape of an innocent convict still depicts that innocence as exceptional and leaves us to believe that "all those other real criminal inmates deserve to be there" and "see from their cruelty how good it is that they're locked away". The takeaway is "we need to do better at preventing & rectifying rare lapses of justice", rather than "this whole system is corrupt and unworkable and the 'justice system' moniker is a lie through and through".
Even if the cops in it are bumbling and some third party does the real work, if a story wraps up with "hooray, this menace to society has been locked away and now all the good people are safer" then it's reinforcing a dangerous myth (one that is almost *never* questioned in our media). Even something like Shawshank Redemption depicting the escape of an innocent convict still depicts that innocence as exceptional and leaves us to believe that "all those other real criminal inmates deserve to be there" and "see from their cruelty how good it is that they're locked away". The takeaway is "we need to do better at preventing & rectifying rare lapses of justice", rather than "this whole system is corrupt and unworkable and the 'justice system' moniker is a lie through and through".