ZNet | Repression

by Jordan Flaherty; September 14, 2007

Next Monday the Fox network presents a new television show called K-Ville. Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, the show promises to highlight the heroism of New Orleans cops. Unfortunately, the true story of policing in New Orleans is unlikely to be told by Fox, or by anyone in the corporate media.

Since at least the 1950s, and shows like Dragnet, Hollywood's representation of cops has been as a thin blue line of heroes protecting the good people from the bad. The Seventies were a time of radical movements, and this brought radical criticisms of police into the mainstream, with films like Serpico and Chinatown exposing police corruption and brutality. However, the Seventies ultimately led to a new kind of hero. " Dirty Harry" played by Clint Eastwood – the cop – or, in the case of the Death Wish movies, vigilante - who was brutal and violent, but ultimately sympathetic.