I associate myself with Paul Rosenberg. Law and Order really addresses major social and political issues.
I can't speak to "generic" cop shows because the ordinary crap is just that. But I would have to point out that every age has its ordinary crap. What is interesting is that even with the tight deadlines and constraints of writing to a 45 minute format (1hr minus ads) and what advertisers will and will not do, it is pretty remarkable that some of these shows have done as much as they have. Law and Order in particular has mixed in with homicide quetions about biological manipulation of reproduction, race, free speech, and many other things besides. There was even one episode, as I recall, about the ability of corporate fat cats to avoid a criminal rap on a serious negligence charge (shipping out a product which was used for murder) with some cynical conclusions about the likely inability of the main victim to recover through the civil courts.
The other "good" shows (Homicide, Hill Street Blues, ER) tend to be less exploratory. What I find interesting about them is that each in its own way shows society as about to fly apart, and the drama comes from the desperate attempts of people "doing their jobs" to try to maintain a social order which is in fact being driven to the edge of anarchy. ER tends to be about trying to bring some kind of social equity into "health care."
What these shows do is show life in two ways, "from the ground up," i.e. from the lumpen "looking at" power as they perceive it: in the hospital, in the gun in a cop's hand, and from the point of view of the middle class salaried grunts (or relatively well off doctors) who deliver the necessary services.
What tends to be absent from all these shows is a detailed look at the actual power structure of mega corporations and the state. Is this a "conspiracy"? Hard to say. The truth is that if you are selling to a mass market you have to sell to "what people can relate." Most people are so far from corporate boardrooms and the halls of Congress that there probably is no more of a market for that than showing the romantic intrigues of workers in an experimental virology lab.
The theme of "the world about to fly apart" is a common one. It is the underlying motif of standard comics (Batman, Superman, etc.) that there are these "dark characters" out there who will undermine the existing order. But these dark characters are very seldom weapons sellers or polluters (if ever). These shows also play on the deep sense of insecurity that are common to most people (and which reflect objective vulnerability): they know their personal resources to be inadequate and the dangers to be potentially overwhelming, but they can't always specify precisely how and in what ways.
-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222
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