this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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I think it's in large part because Columbo isn't really trying to portray a "real" police officer, but instead a pleasant fantasy. Shows that try to emulate what's real are also usually fantasies, but they don't portray it like that, instead trying to portray abuses as "good" or "necessary", and dealing with serious topics only on the surface level.
Columbo doesn't wear the uniform most cops do, he doesn't really do "beat cop" type activities, he's the kind of cop most people will never interact with. He also has a very distinct and recognizable persona and style. If you take a look at the worse cop shows, the police officers tend to be very similar, less distinct.
Also, I think that "The Wire" is pretty good, despite being a cop show. It tries to be real, but it does a much better job than most cop shows. It's not all black and white, and doesn't hide a lot of the issues the way other shows do.
The wire was ACAB throughout. Every cop in that show was either a criminal themselves, corrupt, incompetent and almost always extremely racist. The one (arguably) good cop in the entire show gets forced out.
It did a great job of showing how the police and the gangs are two different criminal organisations with their own heirarchies filled with actual human beings.
Season 3 was the highlight of the entire show, watching the police become the "muscle" for the drug dealers.
I'd go as far as to say it was a crime show, not a cop show.
Even the "decent" cops in The Wire are terrible people outside of policing. They're constantly cheating on their partners, drinking and driving, or looking the other way.
McNulty was a terrible person the entire series who committed a series of crimes being saved by his badge every time and whose only decent quality was being a passable detective willing to tackle big cases.
He even put himself on the level of the completely irredeemable fuck ups like
Major Spoilers
Herc when he gets Bodie killed in the final season because his illegal case building meant he had to pick him up in the middle of the street instead of doing any degree of witness protectionI was thinking more Bunk and Kima. They're serious about solving homicides but outside of work they're just more functional versions of McNutty. Daniels could also be considered decent, but he likely built his career on top of dirty money.
Really ACAB. Bodie killed one of his best friends, sold heroin, and still was less of a shit than the entire Baltimore PD lmao
Bodie was so conflicting because he showed zero remorse and the little bits of humanity we saw died when he killed his friend who was also still a CHILD at the time and just went on business as usual.
But he still didn't deserve what happened to him,
ᅟsp
Death by cop in the dumbest way possibleAnd then McNulty tries to do the exact same shit the day after.
This is the face of the show and the cops in general for most of the seasons too, the reference point for cop behaviour, he's even portrayed as one of the "better cops" when Omar gets arrested.
Kima was the most human of them all and Bunk was just sad. It felt like as long as he kept being one of the more / only competent detectives noone would ever try get him to avoid liver failure in the next few years.
If we start Prez discourse we could get a 200+ comment hexbear thread going.
Det. Greggs beats down a physically restrained "suspect" not once but twice
My first time through the Wire I knew very little about copaganda. Mildly embarrassed about that now, although the show presents plenty of ACAB counternarrative.
David Simon comes off pretty penitent in We Own This City when spilling the tea on cop brutality and lawlessness so that's a plus
Hey ACAB applies to them all. I was referring to Kima's personal story being about commitment and compromise in relationships and eventual parenthood instead of what all the other cops were up to. Still a bastard but we see some personal growth and a welcome break from the self-destructive behavior of the other characters.