Hello, Eric et al. -
 
It'd be interesting to see whether we can tease out some of the complex
of factors that go into how COPS gets to *mean* whatever it means...
 
To me, one of the striking aspects of watching the show (which I do
with difficulty) is that I am unable to protest the inequities and
brutalities perpetrated by the cops - the show seems to turn me into
a dumb (literally, one having no voice) witness - like I was on the
sidelines of a Rape (a la The Accused) or the Rodney King beating.
But at the same time, I feel the unspoken fear of the cops - that any
situation may explode on them at any moment, and that they dare not
take any chances - and I am drawn to side with them on that account.
Very strange...
 
Some other observations - although the Rodney King 'COPS verite'
become contextualized as a racial incident, what I often see in COPS
is a class prejudice: people in trailer parks never get treated with
the same respect as do people in higher SES. The second, allied point,
has to do with the invasion of privacy. Don't these people investigated
by the cops have any rights? I was struck last week as the teenage
daughters of a woman arrested for being drunk were humiliated in their
grief for the tittillation of the national TV audience...
 
_Den-BagfullOfVerites
 
 
Den' Raphaely
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