Lately,
there’s been talk about how policing is portrayed in Hollywood, with a lot of
focus being given to cop shows and movies. Understandably so – in both film and
television, cop stories comprise their own genre, with a particular emphasis on
protagonists who “don’t play by the rules,” nobly nabbing the bad guys by
“coloring outside the lines” of what they’re allowed to do. In shows like this,
we’re shown cops who rough up suspects in interrogation and scoff at warrants,
and we’re taught to see them as heroes. Any suspect who asks for a lawyer is
obviously guilty, and these justice-minded officers could really clean up the
streets were it not for all the “departmental red tape” trying to tie their
hands behind their backs. Excessive force and “bending the rules” = good,
respecting civil liberties = bad. If we see anything about racial profiling or
police killings of unarmed Black people, 1) it’s usually a one-off Very Special
Episode and 2) it’s about a “racist bad apple” who has nothing to do with the
main characers.
It’s
easy to see why these narratives provoke consternation among people advocating
for reform and/or defunding, and I get why shows and movies like this have been
dubbed “copaganda.” However, there have been a lot of articles on that subject
that are more informed than any post I could write, in no small part because I
don’t consume a ton of media in that genre. I do watch a lot of superhero media, though, and this recent
discussion has got me thinking about the police’s role in those stories.
For
starters, police presence in superhero stories isn’t uniform across in the
board. A number of superhero stories pit the titular hero against the cops, often because costumed, usually-powered
vigilantes operate extralegally. Daredevil, Batman, and Spider-Man (especially
the Tobey Maguire films) have had run-ins with police departments trying to
bring them in because they’re deemed a danger to the city. Additionally, Batman
is necessary in part due to widespread corruption in the GCPD, and Luke Cage
steps up as the hero of Harlem when the cops leave the neighborhood to the
mercy of gang violence. Plenty of superheroes have uneasy relationships with
law enforcement at best.
That
said, even though pretty much all superheroes work outside the system and many
have at least quasi-antagonistic interactions with the police, many of them
still buy into the system on the whole. Almost any hero who operates in part on
the street level is shown at various times leaving “gift-wrapped” criminals for
the cops to book. We see Spider-Man doing this, along with Supergirl, the
Flash, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Batwoman, Batman, and others. It’s a cliché at
this point – Supergirl rolling her eyes as bank robbers’ bullets bounce off of
her, Spider-Man stringing muggers up by his webbing, and so forth. The bad guys
go to jail, and the heroes move on to the real threat, usually of a powered
nature. (Side note: most superheroes also have zero qualms about using
excessive force against non-powered crooks.)
But
particularly when we talk about defunding or abolishment, it becomes less
innocuous to see this recurring minor plot point. The criminals are always
dangerous, their motive – if any is presented – is rarely anything deeper than
greed, and tossing them over to the criminal justice system is always a good
thing. It makes me wonder what superhero stories would look like without police
and what better alternatives might be.
To
start with examples that we sometimes do
see, usually in TV shows which have time to switch things up now and again, we
occasionally see a superhero talking someone down instead of a more physical
intervention. I can think of instances where both Supergirl and the Flash have
down this, connecting with the perpetrator instead of just punching them. Of
course, this is a lot less cinematic, and I can already hear people complaining
about SJWs, but really, the carjackers and jewel thieves are often minor
features in a given story anyway, a means of establishing the day-to-day
business of superheroing before a powered threat comes in to pose a greater
challenge. Will it really hurt the proceedings to see superheroes more
regularly try to defuse situations or figure out why this person is committing that crime?
From
there, what other possibilities could we see? If you view things from a
defunding or abolishment perspective, we could see the superhero dropping off
the perpetrator, not on the doorstep of the police department, but at a rehab
or mental health facility (not Arkham
Asylum, just to clarify.) We could see heroes using both their powers and
platform to fight crime on the proactive side of things instead of the reactive
side – imagine the Flash helping to renovate new affordable housing with his super
speed, or Spider-Man promoting a kick-off event for a new job-placement
program. Hell, we see actors who play superheroes visiting children’s hospitals
in real life; a hero in a show or a movie could do that once in a while as a
filler scene.
I
get that these shows and movies aren’t going to lose the action, and I wouldn’t
want them to – I love a good superpowered fight scene. But even when it comes
to the hero vs. villain stuff, we could see some changes. Right now, a
superhero’s chief moral stand when it comes to a villain’s rights is not
killing them, and that’s partly what fuels the device of villains instead being
brought in and sent to jail. As we’ve seen, though, “incarceration for people
with powers” and “civil liberties” do not
go hand in hand. The Flash got in trouble for locking up metahumans at Star
Labs without trials or any oversight, and in Captain America: Civil War, some of our own heroes get sent to The
Raft, a black site prison in the middle of ocean that’s the equivalent of
throwing them into a high-security hole in the ground. In that same movie, it’s
disturbing when Everett Ross laughs at the idea of Bucky being granted access
to a lawyer, because we know and care about Bucky, but when Zemo is given the
same treatment at the end of the film, it’s framed as a victory. If we want to
rethink the way justice is carried out in superhero stories, even for powered
villains, we need to begin with the idea of the superhero as judge and jury.
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