>>> Paul Henry Rosenberg <rad at gte.net> 01/25 6:29 PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>
> >>> Paul Henry Rosenberg <rad at gte.net> 01/25 1:49 PM >>>
> Charles Brown wrote:
>
> > I'm on page 80. I'm a presenter on the Althusser chapter,
> > nice since he seems to be bringing in the law with the
> > turning-to-the-cop-when-he -calls issue, which seems to
> > be THE LAW. What I thought of last nite , when I saw that
> > Arsenio Hall is now a tv cop, is that tv and movies have
> > always been heavily disproportionally cop shows, since
> > cowboys sheriffs and Dragnet. Don't you think that
> > cops as heroes/oppressors is Judy's subjection of us ?
> > Television, which I call Big Brother that we watch instead
> > of BB watching us, is a main site of subjection. Think of
> > how many cop shows there are, where they make cops such
> > lovable people ? Ain't that Judy ? Cops, the very teeth
> > of the repressive apparatus of the state, the Force in the
> > Power, are like our best friends and selves in the American
> > mind control machine.
>
> Paul:
> Just because a program has cops as protagonists doesn't really say much.
> (Remember "Car 54, Where Are You"?)
>
> Charles; Yes, and The Keystone Cops. I don't quite follow you,
> because funny cops makes my point even better than serious cops.
> Cops are fun is really the opposite of cops as repressors.
Paul: Good lord! If you don't understand the Keystone Cops, what DO you understand?
Charles: I do understand the Keystone Cops.It is you who don't understand.
Paul: The Keystone Cops weren't "cops as fun", they were objects of oppression being portrayed derisively as clowns. They were made for immigrant communities for whom seeing cops in this light was a very liberating experience.
Charles: You got it backwards. Cops are SUBJECTS of repression. They are main agents of the repressive apparatus of the state. By portraying them as clowns, the objects of repression, the masses of people, find them less threatening and accept the repression.
Paul: The kind of casual misreading you show in this comment is just what really gets to me. You are damn secure in your high-and-mighty theory you wouldn't know the working class if it came along and bit you in the ass.
Charles: Oh no, this is a profound reading. You are just so superficial , you miss it. I know the working class well from being in it. We know a petit bourgeois intellectual when we see one.
> _______
>
> Paul:
> For one thing, back in the real world, there's a difference between cop
> as person and the police as state power.
>
> For another, oppressed communities are often quite hungry for effective,
> honest law enforcement. It's not a revolutionary demand, perhaps, but
> then their own physical safety does have a legitimate place in the
> scheme of things, don't you think?
> ________
>
> Charles: Yes, I do, and you seem to be missing the point that
> I am calling this contradictory. Cops are both repressors and
> heroes to people who live in a crime ridden society. The
> televisions shows only portray them as oneside of the contradiction,
> as heroes.
Paul I'm not talking about "the television shows", I'm talking about SPECIFIC shows: "Homicide" and "Law & Order." Your statement is objectively false when applied to these two shows. BOTH of them have dealt with police violence & corruption, as well as with the repressive nature of the law itself.
Charles: Those shows, if they are as you say, are exceptions. Most television shows are not subtle critiques of the police and the legal system.
Paul: But, I guess, if you've got a good enough theory, who needs evidence, right? And that makes you a hero, not a repressor, right?
Charles: The "evidence" ? Been watching television lawyers? You won't find out about evidence from them. The evidence on television shows is with me; or my comment is based on the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Television cops are portrayed as friendly and heroes, in general, from Dragnet to NYPD
Charles:
> I assume Judith Butler is analyzing a contradiction too. The
> first sentence of her book is "As a form of power, subjection
> is paradoxical." You know, dialectics, contradictions. Cops are
> repressor/heroes.
Paul: My responmse to this is rather technical: Well, DUH!
Charles: That's the way I would characterize your whole response on this thread. duh
> ___________
>
> Paul
> Then there's the passage in "The Drum Major Instinct" where King talks
> about his conversations with his white jailers -- not beat cops, but
> surely part of the same apparatus -- and his assertion of their common
> class position, telling them that they should be marching with him,
> considering how poor and exploited they were.
>
> All of this is to say that whether or not the police function solely as
> means of oppression is something to be questioned and contested. TV
> programs can gloss over this, they can celebrate oppression in the name
> of justice, or they can open up these kinds of questions, etc.
> _______
>
> Charles: See above. Television emphasizes one part of the contradiction.
Paul: See above. I don't watch "television." I watch SPECIFIC shows. The shows I watch EMPASIZE THE CONTRADICTION.
Charles: Yes, but you are not the great mass of the people. They watch the other shows too. One might say , you are not typical of the working class.
__________
> _________
> Paul
> Now, I don't spend all my TV time watching "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer."
> When it comes to TV dramas, the top of my list is cop shows: "Homicide,
> Life on the Street" and "Law & Order". Both shows DO consistently
> question the nature of law, justice, morality, power, and their own
> roles, as well as that of the system they serve. (William Kunstler even
> appeared as himself on "Law & Order" about a year before he died.)
> _______
>
> Charles: Actually, I don't watch tv much these days, because it
> makes me sick and it feels good to pull the electrodes out of my
> head.
Paul: Ah, now why am I not the least bit surprised with this elitist crie de couer?
Charles: I don't know. I guess because you are confusing your elitism with my anti-elitism. You are pretty confused.
Paul: So, in other words, you freely admit that you have NO idea what you're talking about.
Charles: I freely admit you have no idea what's up here or in the real world.
Charles
> But over the years, it seems there are much more shows in
> which cops are heroes and likable than shows that raise
> questions about the state.
Paul I guess this means that you've never heard of "The X-Files," either.
Charles: I've heard of it, but it's too scary for me. What's it about, Malcolm X ? The cops on there, FBI , are pretty friendly too.
> _______
>
> Paul:
> I wouldn't call either of them revolutionary, but they are thoughtful,
> disturbing and illuminating -- as well being consistently well-written
> and well-acted.
>
> In contrast to them, you have the total moral/intellectual collapse of
> Steven Bochco, whose work in the 90s (except for Murder One) I find
> unwatchable.
>
> If you compare what's going on in Bocho's work vs. "Homicide" and "Law &
> Order" the differences are overwhelming. They don't have any lovable
> racist cops, I can tell you straight out. In fact, "Homicide" just had
> an really excellent show that really got into deconstructing and
> problemtizing racial/ethnic identity. They do have an old-line Irish
> cop who's got his prejudices, but he's used in a way that's light years
> removed from NYPD Blue Land. That show was not the first time he was
> used to pry at the relationships between racism, prejudice, bias,
> professional experience, etc. There was no hint of his prejudice being
> accepted or forgiven.
> ________
>
> Charles: yes, this seems to be consistent with what I
> am saying. Television does not portray cops as repressors,
> when in reality that is the function of the police as
> an institution, regardless of the personalities of the
> individual cops.
Paul: "television" again. For umpteenth time, I'm not talking about television. I'm talking about SPECIFIC shows.
Charles: I am talking about GENERAL shows. To measure the impact on the great mass of people, instead of just you in your little world, we need to consider television in GENERAL , not in the specific. If everybody watched only your three little shows, the other shows would go off of the air, so lots of people are watching television in GENERAL.
Paul Do these shows DWELL on the institutional function of the police as oppressors? No, of course not. Do they BRING IT UP from time to time, in a dramatically compelling manner, as opposed to clumsily shoving it down peoples throats as your commisarrship would prefer? YES, definitely.
Charles: So, your position is that these SPECIFIC shows are subversive ? Hollywood is now undermining the subjection of people, as Judith Butler discusses it ? Are you saying that Judith Butler's analysis of subjection is not applicable to your SPECIFIC shows ? Sounds like an X-files episode. Television producers undermine subjection process.
> _________
> Paul:
> And, of course, NYPD Blue has just one black in the regular cast, who is
> a total cypher. "Homicide" just lost Andre Braugher (best TV actor of
> the 90s) this year, but it gained another great black protagonist, whose
> given incredible material to work with.
>
> In short, the meaning of cop shows can't be written off so
> simplistically. I think that, as a GENERAL phenomenon, it can be
> pointed to in terms of the issues that obsess us, but NOT in terms of
> the attitudes expressed toward those issues, or the ideologies embedded
> in them. That requires a case-by-case examination.
> ________
>
> Charles: I don't follow you. Everything you are saying
> supports my point.
Paul: Everything supports your point, Charles. That's because you're utterly impervious to evidence.
Charles: No, I make my points after reviewing evidence. ( Like the lawyers on television). That's why the points end up being supported by the evidence. They are derived from the evidence.
Paul:
> Character depth in tv cops overemphasizes their humanity
> as compared with real life.
Paul: It's called DRAMA, Charles. You should read this guy Aristotle, he'll clue you in. I think he writes for the Star.
Charles: Well, Aristotle is always cited for the idea of catharsis or the evocation of fear and pity in the audience, but I go with Hegel: Comedic logic is superior to tragic logic.
Charles:
> Sure they are human in real life, but they are also
> the complete opposite of human.
Paul: Human IS the complete opposite of human.
Charles: Trying to get dialectical on me, are you Paul ? Don't tell me. It was actually Aristotle who first differentiated dialectical logic from formal logic.
Charles:
> They are the teeth in the repressive apparatus of the
> bourgeois state.
Paul: And, of course, using that formula, we just KNOW what riviting TV *YOU* would make!
Bad revolutionary art, God SAVE me from it!
Charles: You are such a tragic figure, Paul. So I have good news: the revolution won' t be televised. So, keep watchin tv and you won't see any revolutionary art.
Charles:
> So, television portrayls of cops are misleading
> and brainwashings. That seems complex, not simple.
Paul: In short, your mind is made up, don't confuse you with the facts.
I hear ya, boss!
Charles: You remind me of Reagan. For you , facts are stupid things.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reagan and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the television BACK into the information age!"