>On empirical evidence, Prof. Frithjof Bergman once pointed out in a class
on philosophy of science, that social sciences are sometimes plagued by a
tendency to make statements that tell us less than we know already. Most of
us have enormous (and sufficiently random) samples of what is on television
in general. We don't need a sociological data survey to tell us what we
already know at least in some dimensions. Social scientists should be
resourceful in using facts we already have from our experience.
Well, now here's a marxist understanding of 'empirical reality' For heaven's sake Charles, if anything, Marxist theory suggests that empirical reality is not something that we can easily ahd happily grasp isomorphically and re-present unproblematically in our telling of what we observe.
Obviously, there are going to be different interpretations here because you're interpreting the genre of cop shows through a social location/ subject position that is quite different from that of Paul's. (cf the work of cultural studies scholars on various international interpretations of Dallas and Cosby; don't have refs right now)
So it seems to me that positing *your* experience against an entirely different kind of *experience* --namely positivist social science (surveys, polls, etc) is hardly the point. BOTH are claims about our capacity to somehow isomorphically grasp what it is that we observe. Neither approach utilizes a critical theoretical approach to science.
And yeah, we might want to use social science surveys and other forms of gathering data to tell us something different about what we already think we know, to wit:
--that most rapes are perpetrated by people the victim knows --that most violent crime is between people of the same race
And so on. And so forth.
Dismissing social science research in such a facile way and saying that we already know it all is pretty lame. Now, there are of course other ways in which to critique positivist social science as part and parcel of the processes of capitalist domination. But what you've offered us here is NOT a very sophisticated critique now is it. Referencing Prof F is hardly convincing to me because profs have ideological commitments as well and it seems to me, from what you've said, he's a flaming interpretivist positivist.
>Another fact I feel sure in is that there are a disproportionate number of
cop shows relative to other occupations. I haven't seen any shows based on
auto or steelworkers lives. There are very few or none on busdrivers, etc.
, etc.
Who cares??!! As if this will matter one wit. And what about Roseanne? And Grace Under Fire? There are a slew of other shows that depict the working class and, indeed, cops are working class in TeeVee land. They are considered working class in 'not' TeeVee land as well.
The entire genre comes out of the hard-boiled detective genre:
The cop is the lone hero struggling against bureaucratic regimes of rules and regulations as well as the bureaucratic incompetence that these effect.
The cop is also struggling against the self-serving rhetoric of the managerial professional class (the parade of expert witnesses, psychologists, social workers, etc). Cop shows that follow this genre in the strictest sense reinforce our commitment to individualism: the idea that individuals can struggle against oppression, that society and collective struggle is somehow inherently impure and corrupt, that society--in effect--corrupts us rather than makes us who we are.
Cops *are* working class. And yeah they are often portrayed as loveable complex human beings, so the fuck what??!! Cops *are* human beings in real life for pete's sake.
And all this nonsense about cop shows and whether they're exceptions to the genre rules or not is just plain silliness. Firstly, in order for the 'working against' to work in the first place, there has to be an understanding of the genre. This is how irony works and this is how shows that go beyond the boundaries of the genre work on us. They play with the genre rules, winking at us subtly and not so subtly. In some ways this fissure can make us open up and reflect on the genre rules. Maybe. I tend to doubt it for the most part.
What's going on here Charles is TeeVee's use of gaps and fissures inorder to convey a multiplicity of meanings so that lots of different audiences can relate to and identify with a show. Sometimes the relation is one of enjoyment out of feeling superior to the fools on the show (HS students enjoying episodes of 90210 perhaps?). Then there's the "hey look at us, we're different we're going against the grain, we're so hip and kewl." sucks ya right in, doesn't it? In either case you're watching ey? so, expecting that something is going to be radically changed by the infusion of shows about bus drivers or waitresses (I'll add waitresses since the little list of what counts as working class was pathetically penocentric {c-paula}
Kelley, feeling Marcuse today