Tag Archives: COPS

COPS: Everything that’s wrong about America in one short “reality” show

OK so you probably read about a cameraman getting shot and killed on the production of this show, recently. Which is a really very sad and unfortunate thing, both for this man, his family and for the show and its fans.

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Though it’s pretty surprising this is the first time it happened. Probably, if you found this story somehow through the Internet, then you’re like me, because, yes – I admit that I sometimes watch COPS. Sometimes, even, I binge watch COPS (episodes are only 22 minutes long; also, they’re often set in Palm Springs, where I used to live, which gives me a kick).

But it’s like that empty high, that kind you get from the pink and white iced cupcake you know you shouldn’t be eating but do anyway and you’re gagging about 20 minutes later. Because COPS brings out the worst in us.

It’s about making us laugh at the misfortunes of poor people, mostly. Yuck yuck yuck, here’s another poor white trash slob getting pulled out from under his trailer. Surprise – he’s not wearing a shirt, he’s drunk, and he has no teeth. Well – I may have it bad, but not that bad! Not yet anyway.

Also I think the show really points out the absurd futility of the war on drugs, and the asinine laws we have on the books which routinely revel in absolutely destroying young men’s lives. More often than not, they’re young men of color. Although I’m sure the producers of COPS go to great pains to at least give the illusion that they’re unbiased in reporting on crime and race.

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But it’s so often set in some small town in a backward state where these minor drug crimes are felonies and it’s the way to keep these people off the streets, right – we don’t have that slavery anymore so that sure as hell won’t work – so send them all to prison. That’s the plan, right?

I get mad. Not only am I watching these COPS, who are probably decent guys and gals just hoping to make a living so they can buy a house and have kids and get a decent pension if they don’t get shot first, participate in this ruin but I also see it’s my tax dollars going to waste.

And sometimes their moralizing makes absolutely no sense. I remember one episode set in Vegas (another one of their favorite locations) and they were busting a young lady for streetwalking on the Strip. In the interview with the female task force officer, the girl talked about the money she’d make turning tricks (hundreds of dollars per night, or more) and the Person in Charge went on to detail how bad a life this would be, etc etc. But this young lady knows, like you and I both do, that a pretty 19 year old girl with perhaps a H.S. diploma, if that, in today’s world, might be able to get a fast food minimum wage job in a hellhole place like that, paying $8.25 per hour and requiring her to wear a silly costume and be a latter day wage slave – with no real hope of ever getting anywhere economically.

Not that prostitution is a sure road to a fantastic middle class life (though it could be a start) at least it pays a decent wage and there’s some semblance of control (at least this particular girl seemed quite smart to me). So what’s the real crime here? A no-victim offense like prostitution, or the systematic elimination of any real route to middle class?

All this is to say I resent the moralizing this show wants to convey and their definition of “crime.”

I’m really not sure who the real criminals are anymore.

 

 

 

 

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