copaganda

My Elementary catch-up marathon has indeed stalled due to having very low tolerance for cop shows at the moment. As part of my self-reflection in these times, I took a moment to think about all the fiction I consider myself to be a fan of that features law enforcement.

• Elementary
• Sherlock Holmes in general, I'll not list all the other adaptations
• Bones
• Criminal Minds
• The X-Files
• The Dresden Files book series
• Rivers of London book series
• Harry and Ron become aurors/wizard cops in the epilogue of the Harry Potter series
• Brooklyn 99
• Castle
• Almost Human
• Arrow/The Flash
• Psych
• Rizzoli & Isles
• Zootopia
• The Silence of the Lambs

These are just the properties I'm comfortable saying that I either am a fan of or was a fan at one point. The ones I could think of in like ten minutes, anyway. The list of movies or tv shows or books I've casually taken in that feature law enforcement protagonists would be huge. 

So... I found this list surprising. I don't love all these properties the same way. Some I stopped engaging with before they were even complete. Some I followed for years and are really important to me. One I love enough to have a tattoo for. Some are bad and I knew they were bad even when I watched. Some are so far removed from any realistic portrayal not just of law enforcement but of the world that it feels difficult to consider in any kind of nuanced conversation. 

But I've been on the left end of the political spectrum my whole life and I like to think I've been actively working on being anti-racist for at least... a decade now? And yet look at that list. Maybe because a lot of these particular franchises also feature women and/or people of color I didn't interrogate them like I could have? I don't think I'm a bad person for liking these things, or that anyone else is a bad person for enjoying some cop shows.

But holy crap look how ubiquitous they are. Look how many different stories got me to say "I am rooting for this/these cops!" My rooting for them often has very little to do with their law enforcement activities. (It is almost always "I want this cop to smash their face together with this other cop." I'm trash.) But... it's interesting.

No lesson. No moral. Just... surprise.