John Oliver has more than fair criticism for Dick Wolf over Law & Order‘s unrealistic world
“Law & Order is never going to grapple with the reality of policing in a meaningful way,” Oliver says in last night's episode of Last Week Tonight
Aux News Law & Order
In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the actual criminal justice system and how Dick Wolf thinks it works, or should work. Actually, scratch that—one of those groups is a filmed fantasy and the other is one of America’s most consequential government systems. More often than not, as John Oliver points out in Sunday’s especially apt episode of Last Week Tonight, Dick Wolf’s world and the real world exist in total opposition to each other.
In an episode discussing Law & Order, Oliver takes aim at the longstanding franchise’s depiction of the justice system, stating that the series “makes a lot of choices that significantly distort the big picture of police.” Oliver also notes that Wolf, the series creator, has historically maintained a “close, behind-the-scenes relationship with the NYPD, employing officers as consultants and boasting about the access he had.”
“Law & Order is never going to grapple with the reality of policing in a meaningful way…” Oliver says. “Because fundamentally, the person who is responsible for Law & Order and its brand is Dick Wolf.” Wolf has previously described himself as “unabashedly pro-law enforcement.”
Oliver also cites an old interview where Wolf explains that Law & Order’s purpose isn’t to “do Abner Louima,” a Black man who was sodomized and beaten by NYPD officers in 1997.
“That’s a terrible thing that happened, but that represents one or two bad apples in a police force of 35,000 people,” Wolf says, parroting a classic pro-policing argument that begs the question: can one really compare a few bad apples to one enormous, systemically violent orange?
Per Oliver, many of Law & Order’s problems stem from the fact that the reality of policing in America would be “unwatchable” for most audiences. “Nobody wants to watch a show where 97 percent of episodes end with two lawyers striking a deal in a windowless room and then you get to watch the defendant serve six months and struggle to get a job at their local Jiffy Lube,” he asserts.
Oliver also cites the endless stream of wealthy, white defendants in the series, a writing decision that Wolf has explained in interviews by stating “there are no rich-white-guy pressure groups. You can do anything you want to rich white guys and nobody cares.” What that mentality accomplishes, Oliver argues, is that “instead of depicting a flawed system riddled with structural racism, the show presents exceptionally competent cops working within a largely fair framework that mostly convicts white people.”
In conclusion, Oliver argues that Law & Order plays like less of a crime series and more like an advertisement for police. But unlike the stream of good-guy cops on the series, Oliver asserts that Law & Order fails in capturing its “defective” subject. In Wolf’s warped onscreen world, Oliver says, “the cops can always figure out who did it, defense attorneys are irritating obstacles to be overcome, and even if a cop roughs up a suspect, it’s all in pursuit of a just outcome.”
430 Comments
“He was allergic to bananas!”
Sept 2022: John Oliver has run out of things to skewer, or whatever.I can’t wait for his segment destroying “West Wing” and pointing out that D.C. politicians are sometimes dishonest.
Every TV show about politicians = politicians are corruptEvery TV show about cops = cops are herosConsensus is all politicians are corrupt. Consensus is all cops are heros.I guess you can argue chicken or egg… but it’s weird how so many here are poo-poo ing the idea that TV shapes narratives… when there’s a pretty good chance what I described above isn’t a coincidence.
Do people actually believe that Law & Order in any way represents reality? Because if enough of them do, then that is a bigger problem than any TV show depicting heroic cops.
I mean there are many people in the US who generally believe that the justice system and the police force are overall fair and not in need of reform, so…probably?
That’s because, overwhelmingly, it is. Dumb fuck
If there’s anything I know by now, it’s that people are totally capable of understanding they’re watching fiction and still develop an understanding of reality based on that fiction.
You mean all bailiffs aren’t comically large simpletons or sassy black women?!?!?!
No, some of them are chain smoking old white ladies.
You clearly have L&O mistaken for Night Court. It’s a simple and reasonable enough mistake to make. Also, when did Bull learn how to use a computer? Did Dan have anything to do with this?
I’d go one step further and say that most people’s understanding of most jobs is influenced, if not outright taken, from fiction. No normal person is going to make it more than ten minutes into a minute by minute rundown of what a lawyer’s average day is like because it’s both very complicated and boring as fuck, especially to a layperson. But we’ve all seen a thousand TV and movie lawyers, so when asked what to imagine what a lawyer might do, a normal person has a deep well of fictionalized portrayals and somewhere between nothing and a mug full of actual experience to draw from. The same goes for cops, engineers, archaeologists, architects, etc…
I had a whole spiel lined up but you fuckin’ nailed it in a single sentence. Well done.
Yeah. I mean, anyone who is in denial about this is, uh, well, in denial.
Your comment should be tattooed on the forehead of every person who ever says “but it’s just fiction!”
Poe’s Law. It’s impossible to make a satire so extreme than literally no one will believe it to be true.
Yet this doesn’t make the criticism fair. People being stupid enough to think a tv show is real is not a unique problem to this show. The show never claimed to be realistic, and if the show was realistic it wouldn’t be entertaining.The result is either we never have any shows about cops(which would be a stupid resolution) or we just accept some might believe it’s real, but most won’t.There are a lot of problems with the police and how they operate, and NONE of those problems stem from friggin Law and Order.
I didn’t try to make the criticism fair. I just answered your question.
Yeah, well, at least we got that awful Paw Patrol off the air.
For the record Paw Patrol: SVU is actually pretty good.
Ryder’s name has some unfortunate implications on that show, however.
“The show never claimed to be realistic, and if the show was realistic it wouldn’t be entertaining.” The second part of this is true. The first part is false. The beginning of every episode starts with the words “The criminal justice system is…”
“The result is either we never have any shows about cops(which would be a stupid resolution) or we just accept some might believe it’s real, but most won’t.” Are you confident in your assertion about “most” viewers? I’m… less so. Are you confident in your assertion about the resolution? Because I’d counter-argue that The Wire spent a significant amount of time painting a more realistic picture of policing in America than the most realistic episode of L&O.
“There are a lot of problems with the police and how they operate, and NONE of those problems stem from friggin Law and Order.” Again, partly true and partly false. If some people (in society at large) believe that L&O is even somewhat realistic, then they’re inclined to believe any number of things that L&O presents as true. If some police believe that L&O represents a somewhat realistic portrayal of how they should be viewed by society at large, they’ll be more inclined to react with extra-judicial shortcuts. That’s not to suggest that L&O is at the root of these issues, but rather that if it underscores/reinforces these problems, and/or if it makes the distortions around these problems more appetizing as “good policing,” then again, your all caps NONE is hopeful at best and naïve at worst.
Then lets get rid of all entertainment then, since someone will always find a fucking reason to whine.I apologize, I just don’t know what the solution to this would be other than “fuck it, no more cop shows, if you like them enjoy law and order reruns and shut the fuck up”. Which no, doesn’t work for me. And I dont even like these procedural cop shows, but some do and who am I to take away from that? Show me data showing the show causes real harm.
“who am I to take away from that?”Holy shit, my man. You are making the biggest mountain of this molehill. This isn’t some fucking civil rights conversation. We’re talking about no longer producing cop shows. Big deal! Those folks have reruns or can move on to other TV shows, of which there are MANY.
The second part of this is true. The first part is false. The beginning of every episode starts with the words “The criminal justice system is…”To be pedantic, the episode begins with “In the criminal justice system” or “In X city”. Also, each episode ends with a disclaimer that all episodes are works of fiction.
Your pedantry strengthens my point. You realize that, right?
Eh, I had to try.
“The show never claimed to be realistic”Yes. It did. It is a selling point of the show that it’s “based on” true stories. Wolf modeled it after Dragnet’s approach.“The result is either we never have any shows about cops (which would be a stupid resolution)“Why? Why is that “stupid”? Do we need more cop shows? It is an occupation that has been mined for DECADES for TV narrative. What the fuck else is there to say about law enforcement???I teach TV writing, so I understand the appeal of the police drama. Law enforcement invites conflict. It creates space for engaging characters. It is a very useful occupation for creating stories. Same with lawyers. Same with doctors. Some occupations are just inherently dramatic. BUT SO FUCKING WHAT? Get creative, for chrissakes.
They take stories from the headlines. In that sense it is realistic.
Personally I don’t watch cop shows, but why should there be none? That is the world you want. If people like them, why not? And fuck this “get creative” response, unless you lash out at places like Disney for being so uncreative they just do a race swapped Little Mermaid, for example. In fact, all race and gender swapping is lazy. They need to get creative, right?
My dog is going crazy right now from all the whistling in this post. Which is crazy cuz I don’t know how she can hear over all the whataboutism.“That is the world you want.” Good lord, take it down a notch. I just don’t think it would be a BIG DEAL if we never got another cop show. People like them because people like workplace dramas about “exciting” occupations. (Ignoring the many criticisms over the years that most of those occupations involve a shitload of boring paperwork.) If you can write a half-decent character then you can set a show ANYWHERE.
“unless you lash out at places like Disney for being so uncreative they just do a race swapped Little Mermaid”Actually everybody already lashes out at Disney and other big production companies for recycling old stories, so try again in your vain search for hypocrisy. Also Disney isn’t doing a “race-swapped Little Mermaid.” They’re doing a live-action Little Mermaid, just like they’ve done a live-action Lion King, Aladdin, Pinocchio, Mulan, and whatever else. The actor who is playing the live-action Ariel happens to be Black. That’s not the same as saying they set out to do a “race-swapped” Little Mermaid for the purpose of doing a race-swapped Little Mermaid. They are turning all their classics live-action. Why? Because they already own the rights to the stories and can capitalize off the nostalgia. Eric is still white as hell, so that should be some comfort to you.
The problems inherent in American policing certainly don’t stem from Law and Order, but the population’s willingness to tolerate those problems absolutely is bolstered by media that presents police as heroes with always-pure motives.
…and who always bust the few (very few!) “bad apples” themselves rather than covering for them!I came up with a spec L&O: SVU episode about a “beloved comedian” of Color accused of raping young protégés, including one who was was killed shortly after filing a complaint. The comedian was arrested, but then Benson & Co. started noticing details that didn’t quite fit…. It turned out the protégé was killed by another protégé who was driven insane by being raped but was afraid the comedian would get off, so she killed her friend to make sure he paid for what he did to them all! In the end the DA’s office drops the charges—and when Benson goes into blast DA McCoy over it, he shows her a newspaper headline of two White cops getting off for having shot a young Black man…again, and that the comedian (who had originally disparaged Black activists) standing alongside a Louis Farrakhan analogue who was using his arrest to show that it didn’t matter how rich or popular a Black man was, the cops would come for him for the least excuse! McCoy says that maybe if the jury had, for once, believed the evidence rather than the inherent innocence of the White cops things would be different now, but he can see this is a fight the NYPD and the DA’s Office can’t win at this time….
Plus, Law and Order isn’t presented as satire.
This is just like when Hollywood presents a movie they say is a “true story”. Usually, it’s not. It might be loosely based on something that happened, but they will change a lot.This is what Law and Order does. They have flat out said they take stories from the headlines and adapt them. That is probably the closest “real” part of it, though I assume the legal jargon is accurate.
Who wants a show where the cops are either all racist or sexist, or they just sit around barely doing anything exciting, or a mixture of both? Keep in mind the majority of cops are not racist, but some people sure as hell think they are.
“Keep in mind the majority of cops are not racist,”I won’t keep that in mind at all since I have no way of knowing it’s true. What I will keep in mind is that the institution of policing in the US is racist, and therefore it doesn’t matter anyway if the individual cop is a racist (though it’s not unlikely that the individual cop is also racist).
“then that is a bigger problem…”Now you’re getting it.
The show tells people that the stories are all based from reality.
Even if they don’t do at the intro, they sure as hell do it in promos and advertisements leading up to that “special” episode.
People are already willing to believe fictional stories (it’s the whole reason people started #thanoswasright), but that’s always been happening since the creation of the bible.
The real issue is shows like Law and Order taking all the credit and none of the accountability of their motives.
My general take with all media is that people understand it’s slanted in some way but have no idea about how. Like, people know reality TV isn’t an unbiased record of exactly what transpired without interference from the producers who aren’t credited as “writers” but ought to be … but they don’t understand how much of it is “written”, at least in the sense that Curb Your Enthusiasm is also written.People who watched CSI, I’ll bet, understood that probably most police departments didn’t operate like that and some of the technology was hyped, but didn’t realize that whole fields of forensic “science” are bullshit.L&O always had the “ripped from the headlines” thing going for it to further muddy the waters.
“People who watched CSI, I’ll bet, understood that probably most police departments didn’t operate like that and some of the technology was hyped, but didn’t realize that whole fields of forensic “science” are bullshit.”Not really. Prosecuters had to start doing their job differently because of the TV show CSI.
I’d say the number of folks who believe that is somewhere between “not insignificant” and “way more than you’d think.”
I mean, the Daily Show and Last Week: Tonight are still listed as news programs, so
Dick Wolf started in advertising. Do you believe that advertising is completely useless and corporations spend billions a year purchasing it because they’re deluded?Oliver points out that actual police who are in the NYPD SVU have said that they learned how to operate by watching Law & Order. If the cops think it represents reality, why would people less familiar with law enforcement think otherwise?
Yes, it is a bigger problem. I always know when I’m discussing law-like stuff with an L&O viewer, because at some point they’ll say that it’s the police’s job to ‘get the scum off the streets’ and don’t care how that’s accomplished.
Which it is not the police’s job to decide who is ‘scum’ and railroad them into prison.
Most of L&O’s runtime every week is the cops and prosecutors going after some innocent person, only to find the real criminal in the last ten minutes, and never a bit of remorse about the innocent person whose life they made a living hell. Just of part of ‘justice’ according to Dick Wolf.
L&O has desensitized a large swath of views to police injustice. That is supremely damaging to our society.
You’re an unbelievably unintelligent person
Is it a *bigger* problem or a different version of the same problem?
Can’t speak to the police side, but they get closer on the actual law side than most TV shows. They write actual evidentiary issues into the facts of the case of the week, so that the defense attorney has a legitimate reason for getting parts of the State’s case withheld from the jury.
Yes, I wouldn’t wager on the exact percentage but a significant number of people who watch crime procedurals – which have been one of the most popular TV drama genres for many decades – believe that they are a more or less accurate (with perhaps some dramatic embellishment, they might acknowledge) portrayal of the American criminal justice system.
Are you saying drunken A.D.A.’s don’t stumble around courtrooms and deliver heroic speeches every single case that gets to trial?
Yes. Yes there are. A LOT of people think shows like this and Cops depict reality. Come down to a red state sometime and be horrified.
Yes. And the Last Week Tonight piece even discusses the influence the show has on ACTUAL law enforcement officers. Particularly SVU cops, since they are tragically undertrained.I know you’re angling for a “people should be able to tell the difference between fiction and reality” spin, but you’re also ignoring A) how social psychology works B) how propaganda works and C) the fact that the show, in the tradition of Dragnet (also mentioned in the piece), presents itself as “ripped from the headlines”, ie: based in “truth”.
Yeah? And also it’s not a question of what people believe to be true in TV. It’s about that fact that when people are shown a certain picture often enough, that picture becomes reality to them, and once it’s become reality to them, then confirmation bias will do the rest.
Oh, yeah—outside of the major cities? Probably a majority of people.If they’re White? An overwhelming majority, because they’re not the ones who have to make sure their license and registration are out and their hands are visible on the dash so they don’t present a threat when a cop walks up to their window over a bullshit traffic stop.If they’re Black or Hispanic, OTOH? They know better….
Yes, many of my sheltered conservative “friends” that will not come within 50 miles of a city.
Did you…. watch the episode? He mentions that a lot of law enforcement officers cite watching Law and Order as a major portion of their law enforcement education and training.
I watched the episode of Last Week and one of the clips showed a lawyer flat out saying “I got my law degree from Harvard, but most of my law education came from watching Law and Order”, so yeah, there’s a BIG fucking problem.
The amount of people that falsely believe all police forces have super magical computers like CSI would make your head spin.
I mean, what’s so bad about watching a fantasy world in which cops are good at their jobs and affluent white people actually get punished for the crimes they commit? It’s a nice break from reality!
It would be if it didn’t continue to enable cops to get away with being terrible at their jobs
I’m pretty sure corrupt police unions are to blame for that, not a TV show, but since we seem to only try and fix societal issues through media I suppose Dick Wolf should get on it!
You are aware you’re on a pop culture criticism website, right?
Criticizing pop culture vs. blaming it for society’s woes are two different things. For instance, blaming a cop TV show for enabling bad cop behavior is not a far argument from blaming violent video games for violence in society. Now, would I like a show like Law and Order with such a large reach to bear some responsibility for the way it depicts real-world issues? Sure, a little bit, that’d be nice. But I also don’t think we should rely on media to be the message-setter, and I don’t think fictional media should be culpable when people misinterpret the fiction as reality.
You do know that Dick Wolf is working closely WITH the corrupt police in producing the show, right? This isn’t just some weird coincidence. Nobody is suggesting Wolf should “fix societal issues through media,” Oliver is arguing that’s he’s actively making this issue worse by generating huge amounts of pro-police propaganda that bears no resemblance to reality.
I get it, I know he works with the cops on it. I was mainly replying to Recognitions, who seemed to imply that somehow the show’s existence was enabling bad cop behavior, which is a stretch. Even though they do work closely with cops, I worry that when we start directing our ire at a TV show we’re just going after the easy-access target. I’d just wonder what actual effect it would have if Law and Order suddenly changed their ways and started being “realistic” (or, say, if L&O ceased to exist, would this have an actual impact on anything, or would we just feel better?)Now I worry I’m being lumped into the “the show’s doing nothing wrong” crowd which I’m definitely not a part of. The show’s garbage and clearly fake. But – again – it’s fake. And if people watch it and somehow believe that it’s really the way things are (lawmakers and journalists as someone pointed out) well, I’m not sure it’s the show’s responsibilty to own that. Even if it tries to give off some air of authenticity by saying they work with cops on it…I dunno. But I it’s easier to fix a stupid TV show than it is to fix stupid people, so, whatever.I’ve waded too far into this for being bored on a Monday.
Cops literally learned how to be cops from the show. It’s in Oliver’s segment.
“I was mainly replying to Recognitions, who seemed to imply that somehow the show’s existence was enabling bad cop behavior, which is a stretch.”Except that neither he nor anyone else said it was the show’s existence that enabled cop behavior. He and everyone else said that it was the way the show depicted police behavior and the effect that had on society at large which was an enabling factor bad cop behavior.
There have been a lot of episodes in the Dick Wolf universe that don’t depict cops in the best light. SVU’s Elliot Stabler was one step away from psycho and has “tuned up” more than a couple of suspects. Chicago PD depicts a “reformed” dirty cop who has murdered at least two people since season 1 and runs a unit that constantly beats the crap out of people and shoots someone just about every episode. What Wolf does is exaggerate for the purposes of entertainment. A lot of his characters are horribly flawed to the point of being almost unbelievable (i.e. Elliot Stabler). This is a classic redemption trope. The character is essentially a good guy who does something really bad and tries to make up for it. Its a constant theme in Wolf shows. The only propaganda I see is making people think that crooks are always caught and that speedy trials are the norm.
How do you suppose police unions got emboldened to the point where they could advocate for cops to act with impunity in public? Does the phrase “manufacturing consent” mean anything to you?
Buddy, I already gave up. I’m not arguing with you, you won.
But you’re still here
Cops have been doing that long before TV was invented.
And maybe TV could not exacerbate the problem. Why do people keep replying with the same comments?
A Chomsky reference (heart)
Too bad about him lately
I’m pretty sure it’s more complicated than your simplisitc “only the police unions” take.
If you see a river, do you assume it only has one source? We could eliminate “corrupt police unions” by Friday and we’d still have plenty of issues with terrible cops being terrible at their terrible jobs… (Or… performing according to expectations.)
Watch the LWT piece. It answers your questions.
Except no one said the tv show is solely to blame? It can be both the tv show and the police themselves. And politicians. And lots of other actors. There’s nothing wrong with identifying multiple factors that contribute to a problem. Why do you think there’s something wrong with identifying multiple factors that contribute to a problem?
The thing that enables cops to get away with anything is not TV, since the same thing applied before TV even existed.
Hmm I wonder if TV could be helping to alleviate the problem instead of aggravating it
The real problem is the general public which consumes media is not interested in greater accuracy.https://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/11/the-real-problem.html
They’ll be interested if the writers aren’t lazy shits.
There are systematic biases in fiction, and not just because every writer in lazier than you:https://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/12/biases-of-fiction.html
Rather people like certain kinds of stories more than others.
None of what shows up in this linked article counters my argument. Or really supports the point you made earlier. You’re trying to say that viewers like heroes. Well no shit. So tell stories about heroes who DON’T work in law enforcement. What’s lazy is creating yet another cop show when we’ve had decades of cop shows. It’s an occupation that generates lots of potential for conflict and drama, but if you’re a GOOD WRITER you can get conflict and drama out of ANY OCCUPATION.The linked article actually SUPPORTS Oliver’s piece. Because it talks about audiences not wanting reflections of reality. But L&O is very much a “ripped from the headlines” show that wants to pretend it IS a reflection of reality.Now maybe you disagree with that. Okay, fair enough. But then don’t try to use this linked article to support your current position. It doesn’t work. Either L&O needs to be more clearly fictional and stop pretending/selling itself as reflective of reality OR people actually WANT reality and they’re not being served by the skewed “reality” present in the show.
Jon Oliver wasn’t arguing that Dick Wolf should be making shows about people who don’t work in law enforcement (though I believe he has made some such shows for firefighters & emergency medical workers in Chicago). He was arguing that the show depicts law enforcement in an inaccurately idealized way.There are a few kinds of professions that can generate enough material for a long-lasting procedural. Cops & lawyers are two of them. Perhaps Nabokov could have done that for sanitation workers or schoolbus drivers or architects, but people like him don’t dedicate their time to churning out hundreds of episodes of a procedural series.People want deviations from reality, but generally a limited amount of it. So in a supernatural story adding one violation of natural law as part of the premise is fine, but if you add a lot of them audiences get less interested.Law & Order sells itself as being “ripped from the headlines”, but I don’t think it ever claimed to be an accurate depiction of the cases that inspired it (unlike Dragnet). Every audience member aware of the real stories they’re riffing on also knows that the show isn’t going to just play out the same way with changed names (which would bore them), but instead play out a variation of the L&O formula.
You don’t have to be fucking Nabakov. Jesus, give decent writers some credit.How many seasons did we get of Thirtysomething? Parenthood? The OC? Most soap operas have been going for DECADES.We don’t need any more cop dramas. (Or medical dramas. Or lawyer shows.)
I didn’t watch Thirtysomething, Parenthood or The OC but my understanding is that none of them are about occupations. They aren’t procedurals. Nor is it sensible to think every workplace procedural should be replaced with a family drama. The people who want to watch family dramas can watch family dramas, while the people who want to watch procedurals can watch procedurals (these sets intersect, and fortunately we have delayed viewing nowadays so people can watch both even if they air at the same time).
“procedural” just means that the episodes are self-contained. Technically stuff like The Shield or The Wire were serial, not procedural. Even though they were “cop shows”.And yeah, people who want to watch workplace procedurals can do so. So let’s give them a greater variety of workplaces. Maybe some that haven’t been explored since the invention of fucking television?
Episodic anthologies are self-contained, as is the archetypal sitcom, but that’s not enough to be a procedural.Lots of people work in offices for various businesses, but that’s atypical for TV. There was a UK show later adapted for America titled “The Office”, but that wasn’t a procedural actually about working for a paper company.
I read scripts professionally and teach TV writing. I know what I’m talking about. The Office IS a procedural workplace comedy. “Procedural” gets used as a synonym for “episodic”, but I’ve always personally preferred “procedural” to describe the format because every TV show has “episodes”, even if they’re serial.
I’ve heard the term “episodic” used to describe films which consist of rather loosely connected incidents even though it doesn’t actually come in units of “episodes”.I never watched a full episode of The Office, so you probably do know more about it than me. But weren’t episodes apt to focus on things like one character pulling pranks on another or the romantic relationships of characters rather than the actual work they were supposed to be doing?
But it contributes. Especially since juries watch TV.
Police don’t work with these TV shows out of the kindness of their hearts. They do it because they know it works in their favour.
The consultants hired by the show do it because they’re being paid, but working in TV/entertainment does indeed have non-pecuniary benefits for many.
They do it for the craft services table.
Lol “enable” God you’re stupid
a tv show doesn’t allow police to do anything.
Actually, the cops are often depicted as bumbling idiots on the mothership.That’s the majority of the 2nd half plots—-McCoy/Cutter/Stone/etc. having to clean up the mess the cops caused in the beginning of the episode.(all the while Adam Schiff telling his ADAs how they’ll never win)
The problem is it does not depict them as violent murderers who are derelict in their duties and accountable to no one
You have obviously not watched Chicago PD, another Dick Wolf show. The lead on that show has murdered two people since season 1 and has gotten away with it both times.
yougethowthatsworseright.gif
It doesn’t. And if we think it does then why are people always angry when politicians say that violent games and tv shows create violent people?
Because nobody is going out and shooting people because of videogames but cops shoot innocent people all the time?
Except we know for a fact that violent video games increase aggression levels in people. We just haven’t had any specific crime tied to a specific video game.
So you’re saying that media does effect people’s behavior. But weren’t you just telling me that it doesn’t? Because those were actually the very first words in the first comment you left me. “It doesn’t.” Which is it?
Oh, I don’t care. I’m just pointing out how childish this entire article is and how completely and utterly worthless it is.
How is it childish to point out how fucked up it is for cops to use a major television network to whitewash their murderous behavior
Which cops are using it?
“Oliver also notes that Wolf, the series creator, has historically
maintained a “close, behind-the-scenes relationship with the NYPD,
employing officers as consultants and boasting about the access he had.”
Reading the article you replied to is A1, son.
And? Baltimore cops were heavily involved in the making of The Wire too.
Oh come on
Oliver’s segment shows interviews with the show’s actors who have cops walk up to them to thank them for putting them in such a good light and all that. So those cops are using it. And I don’t think Dominic West gets the same pats on the back for the drunken, broken mess that was McNulty. Let alone actors like John Doman for the reprehensible Rawls, the kind of characters The Wire is full of.
I like Oliver. He picks one side, goes all in, and is wildly outrageous about it. That is his schtick. Its why people tune in. There are plenty of episodes of L&O that depict bad cops, cops crossing the line, cops beating up suspects, cops killing someone. But bringing that up could temper his outrage and biting sarcasm. Oliver says L&O is copaganda and that’s it.
Maybe he was at a restaurant and ordered the chocolate lava cake for desert only to be told that they were all being held for Dick Wolf’s table. And they weren’t even there yet!
Sure. And if those handful of episodes weren’t lost in a sea of THOUSANDS maybe you’d have a point.
There are plenty of episodes of L&O that depict bad cops, cops crossing the line, cops beating up suspects, cops killing someone. But bringing that up could temper his outrage and biting sarcasm.What are you talking about? He brings that up himself in the segment.
I would give John Doman a pat on the back, he was fucking fantastic. So was Delaney Williams, who played Landsman, and now recurs on SVU as a truly reprehensible defense attorney.But I’m not a cop.
Exactly, John Doman’s character was fascinating and incredibly well-acted, but was also pretty much the poster boy of corrupt and messed up career cops.
Yes, at the end of season 1, when Kima was shot (spoilers from 20 years ago) both Rawls and Landsmann both showed that they were capable of being good “po-lice” when they were motivated to, with Rawls taking over the scene like a boss, and Landsmann, all 400 lbs of him, was out leading the detectives in searching the area.They had long ago given up being good cops to “play the game”, but they both had skills when they needed them.
Gotta protect your own, right? Even Daniels dabbled in that with Prez’s major fuckup.
The article that’s a summary of a Last Week Tonight piece?I think you’re aiming your dumb ire at the wrong target.
There is a difference between saying that entertainment “creates” a situation and that entertainment *reflects* a situation. Police malfeasance doesn’t happen because of L&O. L&O fails to accurately depict the problems of law enforcement while simultaneously pretending that it’s a reflection of reality. The problem those politicians have is that they should really be arguing whether violent games and shows *reflect* societal violence. And if so, why is that?
Its a problem when law makers and journalists assume its accurate and law enforcement see it as a teaching tool.
“The Apprentice” showed a fantasy world where Donald Trump fired employees to their faces instead of quietly clearing out their offices and telling the front gate guards to take their keys. And people believed it.I’d far prefer something like Murder, She Wrote or Columbo, where the affluent white people may be getting punished, but it’s clearly unrealistic. Helps that there’s very little casual police brutality in those shows, and it isn’t presented in way that makes it feel justified.
No one cares what you like or think
One of the things is they inevitably set up defense attorneys as bad and unethical, and talk about how unfair it is when bad guys get off on technicalities like “you illegally searched their house”.
Because people don’t think unless made to. So they drive this propaganda into their brains, night after night, until every trope and lie in the show becomes “how things are” to them.
If you know what reality is, maybe. If you don’t know what reality is, what you see on TV becomes your idea of what reality is, so that when people complain about racism in policing and overpolicing of minority areas, your mind immediately disagrees because that complaint is not in keeping with your false version of reality.
If Oliver thinks Law and Order is bad, he should give Chicago PD a try (also created by Dick Wolf). It’s so pro-cop it would blow his mind. It makes Law and Order look like The Wire by comparison.
One thing being worse does not preclude the other thing also being bad. If anything, L&O is more insidious because its degree of propaganda isn’t obvious.
You’re mentally ill
The only propaganda I see on Law and Order (the mothership) is that the ADAs are superheroes.The police themselves, other than Van Buren or Kragen (early years) are depicted as hapless fools screwing up the cases.
That’s an odd take, considering well over 90% of L&O episodes include the arrest and conviction of a presumed-correct villain.
But they frequently screw up the impending indictment and/or trial by bumbling their way through the investigation and arrest.
I’d say the detectives are depicted as good at their jobs, but most uniformed cops are lazy, sloppy or dishonest with the occasional actual criminal. The show needs you to like the main characters so that’s hardly a surprise.Also, L&O doesn’t exist to critique policing in America. Oliver can use his own show to do that.
Exactly, there are plenty of pro-cop shows out there and picking L&O as the example seems a poor choice when it is really celebrating ADAs/DAs (which is also problematic but for different reasons). People can argue that L&O makes the cops look well meaning (which they often aren’t) but they still make them look like incompetent oafs most of the time.
Probably because LAW & ORDER presents itself as a “realistic” police drama—unlike STARSKY & HUTCH with two good-looking police officers rolling off the side of their car with guns pointed, or CASTLE with a smoking hot female police captain fighting crime in high heels dragging along her mystery writer husband. Even NYPD BLUE, which got more details right than people think, presents Andy Sipowicz as an ultimately heroic cop with some “old-fashioned” attitudes that got softened over the series’ run. One reason the L&O series I liked best was CRIMINAL INTENT was because it didn’t pretend to be “realistic”—instead, it was about an eccentric, overweight genius solving crimes that mostly belonged in a mystery novel, aided by his more stable female partner who may as well have been named “Joan Goodwin” or “Archangela Watson”.
The police themselves, other than Van Buren or Kragen (early years) are depicted as hapless fools screwing up the cases.
I get the sense that it’s intended to be viewed more as “the police are good enough to consistently get the right guy but the rules are too strict to allow them to do it so sometimes they do what needs to be done even if it means getting their hands dirty, and then the DAs ruin everything because they’re not on the ground, man, they didn’t see the bodies, how could they tell me to “just let it go” when they didn’t even look into that little girl’s eyes, how can bureaucracy let a guilty man walk free like this?!”
The overall message is “everyone in the legal system is good at what they do and the laws protecting citizens are just getting in the way of letting law enforcement do their jobs.”
I don’t think that’s true. A lot of times the cops do the smarter thing and the ADAs screw it up somehow. It’s pretty equal opportunity with the mistakes.
(I was answering to a different post)
That’s the same trope you see on home renovation shows when suddenly there is a beam or a rotting sill plate. It builds the tension only to be resolved by the next commercial break.
I was coming to say this. Not that L&O is awesome (early L&O was more clear-eyed, though… SVU is absolutely ridiculous, even though I watch it) but Chicago PD is both over the top and whitewashes a department that’s considerably worse than the NYPD.
You mean there should be pro-crime episodes in Chicago PD? Huh.
All episodes of Chicago PD are already pro-crime. Because the corruption of the main characters is so bad it is criminal.
It’s like The Shield without consequences.
But we only got consequences in the last season of The Shield, right?
I know. Hank Voight has killed two people in cold blood. I am sure the real Chicago PD loves that kind of propaganda.
That works for some of the characters, but not all of them.
Nothing tops Blue Bloods for blue-lives-matter reactionary prime time copaganda.
COPS. COPS does.
Fair
I tried watching an episode of Chicago PD as part of a crossover…I cannot stand the lead actor. His voice and delivery make me want to shove hot pokers in my ears.
Wait till he finds out that the healthcare system bears absolutely no resemblance to “Grey’s Anatomy.”
It’s almost like the refusal of mainstream television to engage with the issues actually confronting most Americans is a problem across the board or something.
If they depicted these institutions accurately, boredom would be a bigger problem than outrage.Nobody wants to watch a medical show where the ER doc manages a half dozen cases of atypical chest pain and watches drunk people sleep it off for 8 hours.
One of my best friends was an ER doc for 27 years, and all I would say to add to your apt description is that you left off the people with “pain” looking for some “pain meds” to make it “go away.” Also, endless administrative paperwork.That, and our hospitals proximity to the city and having a well-regarded trauma center and helipad for the weekend Gun & Knife Club overflows from city hospitals.
Oh, yeah. I can help you make a riveting, scripted, hour long, prestige medical drama where you watch me click fields in the EHR and sign my name to a stack of form letters while SIMULTANEOUSLY sitting on hold with an insurance company waiting to do a peer-to-peer review of a dumb denial.I promise very low production costs.
I believe Oliver did also make a “filling out insurance claim forms” joke in relation to “Grey’s Anatomy.”
That and people explaining how things accidentally ended up their butts.
Or people sitting in the waiting area for hours on end watching a hospital channel version CNN purged of all medical stories.
I remember a SVU episode that I guess was meant to be more a day in the life of the detectives than the show’s typical melodrama. The main story was a he said / she said date rape where it was completely unclear what really happened. It ended with a never-resolved cliffhanger (went black before verdict delivery). That was probably the most realistic and thus unsatisfying episode ever.
Are you the one doctor that didn’t watch Scrubs? 😉
I said elsewhere in this thread that “Scrubs”is the most accurate and only good medical show, but Kinja.
Yes because tv owes it to you to play by your fucking dumb ass world view
network TV drama may not be the venue best suited to engaging with the issues beyond superficial Very Special Episodes, what with fucking advertising being required to support it
Ok and that still doesn’t mean we should let actual propaganda go uncriticizedplus there’s also this thing called “news”
A lot of times they do. Then they have to solve all life’s problems in an hour or maybe a three episode arc. Back in the day they used to refer to them as “very special” episodes.
That would be a good point if he hadn’t explicitly discussed “Grey’s Anatomy” on his show. I’m paraphrasing, but his two points were that nobody really thinks actual doctors and nurses at a hospital are that attractive, and (more importantly) the show would be in trouble if it actively depicted medical misinformation like giving incorrect medicine to a patient or claiming that COVID is a hoax.
I’ve never seen a medical show that didn’t actively depict medical misinformation.Doubly so if it involves any mention of clinical trials and medical research.
Some of these responses read as people who didn’t actually watch the piece.
Of course its not like Grey’s Anatomy. I bet its more like Scrubs
I have said many times that “Scrubs” is the most accurate medical show I’ve ever seen and nothing else really comes close.
We’re talking about Dick Wolf, gotta be Chicago Med.
I dunno, I picture this happening every time I go to a hospital.
I’ve seen worse.
Wait till he finds out that the healthcare system bears absolutely no resemblance to “Grey’s Anatomy.”???He literally said that in the show.
I would never go to the hospital from Grey’s Anatomy. Just look at all the doctors and patients that have been killed there in really strange ways.
The first rule of being a patient is “never be interesting to your doctor.”
He mentions that in the segement!
Except for the sex. That’s gotta be real. Good looking doctors, nurses, cops and fire fighters are all doing it with each other. That’s real.
I can tell you that lack of sleep in your late 20’s doesn’t make you look good, but it does make you horny as hell.
He jokingly addresses that in the episode, so not quite the gotcha you think.
Christ I never knew how much of a prick Dick Wolf is. All makes sense looking back.
Whaaat?! Next you’ll tell me defendants don’t always break down on the stand and suddenly confess their crimes, or that grocery store workers don’t all have excellent memory of the goings-on of passers-by from a week ago.Which is to say, none of this is particularly groundbreaking but I suppose it is important to keep in mind. Speaking as a fan, it can be more complex than Oliver is giving it credit in how it depicts the justice system as unfair (especially in the older episodes), but ultimately it is a one hour fictional TV show that goes for melodramatic storylines. I gave up on the revival season of the mothership because of how clumsily it tried to be current and acknowledge policing in a post-George Floyd era while still being very rah-rah, police! And the Burn Notice guy’s character was such an asshole.
I’m a grocery store worker and I couldn’t tell you what passers-by did a few minutes ago, let alone a week ago.
Yes, yes. Fuck the police. Fuck them all. Until you need them. See: Philadelphia, PASheesh.
See also Uvalde?When the police are more concerned with protecting themselves than protecting the citizens they supposedly serve (though not legally), they can’t do the job we need them to do. You’d think the many many “not bad apple” police officers would be first in line advocating reforms.Where are they?
“Yeah fuck the police. But not THOSE police in DC that protected our super special elite politicians. Give them more money, they are the only good police!”-Democrat logic
“We are a groupthinking monolith who clearly never suffers from infighting!” – dipshit fantasies of Democrat logic
Cope and seethe son, cope and seethe.
And assuming in the absolute sanctity of every citizen is naïve.
Either you don’t really know what sanctity means, or your a bigger monster than you seemed at first.
Plus, apparently all these people giving the “bad apples” excuse are forgetting the full saying is “A few bad apples spoil the whole barrel.”
The problem for me is that there are more than a few bad apples, and, critically, the ones who consider themselves good apples refuse to do anything about the bad ones, and often actively protect them. It’s the whole set up of police unions. Not just in the US.
There are a few bad apples.A few good apples.And a lot of regular apples.People get caught up in this false dichotomy that bad cop = kills someone… and therefore all other cops are good. Nah. Probably 90% of cops are just people doing their job. A bunch suck. And a bunch are truly good cops.
Indeed, like the quote says, they spoil the whole barrel.
I lost my best friend to the Thin Blue Line. She’s in law enforcement and we had a falling out over the race riots in the last few years. What I found especially galling was her argument that she would trust her coworkers to have her back in any situation. I guess she completely forgot the older guy coworker who stalked her for half a decade. Or the coworker who jumped into her car after work and jerked off in front of her. Or the several coworkers who tried to get her fired because they didn’t like that she took on union duties. I could go on about all the ways that her coworkers “had her back”.
Wait…Louis CK is a cop now?
spoken like someone who’s never needed the police and thus falsely believes in their efficacy
Yeah. See comment below re: my plant manager. Also, have stepped over dead bodies outside my factory. See Philadelphia Keystone Opportunity Zones, cross-referenced with Kensington, bub.
This is not a problem to be solved by cops.Bub.
When was the last time you called the cops and for what?
My plant manager was shot coming out of a Wawa on his way to work. Drug addict hoping he had ATM cash. That was a couple years ago.
Wait I thought we were asking for stories about your reliance on the police, not proof that their work is reactionary rather than preventative.
Nope. Not sure how you gathered that from my original comment, or any responses I gave.
Probably from the way that, when asked about your experiences with the police as a response to your assertion that everyone hates the cops until they need them, you only described crimes rather than times you were helped, protected by, or even interacted with the police. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And that proves cops are good… how?
Did the police help?
Because one of my family members was shot (my aunt) and multiple people I know have had shit stolen over the years, myself included, and in none of those situations did the police actually solve anything.Quite frankly, I know more people who’ve been unfairly harassed by police than I know people who’ve been helped by them.Do they solve / prevent crimes? Sure! I won’t deny that. But their efficacy ain’t that great, and the side effects can be pretty devastating for some people. I don’t think it’s possible to have a large society without some form of law enforcement apparatus, but I also don’t think the one that currently exists is functioning anywhere close to acceptably, and it’s more than a few tweaks and bad apples away from working.
I strongly suspect we have no idea to which the degree that cops just don’t bother doing their jobs a lot of the time
I answered the question. He asked when was the last time I called the cops and for what.
I never said you didn’t answer his question. I asked you a different question.
Interesting. See, it sounds like what was *actually* necessary in this situation was drug addiction counseling and enforcement of gun laws by a gun store clerk or third party seller. Seems like a cop wouldn’t be necessary if we actually spent money where it should be spent.But sure. Send in the barely trained, out of their depth tool of fascists.
Yes, drug addition counseling and mental health are wonderful concepts. Come to Philly down around Kensington and Aramingo and see how that’s working out for the people there.
Not sure how “moar kops!” works out any better.
Sadly my friend, it doesn’t really seem like less cops is going so swimmingly either.
I’ve called the police twice in my life, both times to report that the contents of my car had been ripped off.The first time, I called first thing in the morning on December 27th to report that the Christmas presents I left in the car like a moron were gone. An officer came by around 4pm to agree that I no longer had a car stereo, write down my license plate which I had given them over the phone, despite the car still being in my possession.The second time, my trunk was crowbarred and two laptops taken. The dispatcher told me they couldn’t send an officer out for property crime on a Saturday night, and if I had the serial numbers I should probably call pawn shops next week.
This is one of the most unsophisticated points I’ve ever read.
What about Philadelphia, PA are we supposed to see? Did you just offer that city because you don’t have any specifics to offer about “Chicago” or what? The last time I “saw” Philadelphia, PA I saw lots of jorts and the inside of some great restaurants and some appropriately gritty bars. The time before that I saw the inside of a great music venue. I didn’t need the police and the police didn’t need me; that had no impact on my perception of the police of Philadelphia, nor do the times I’ve needed police outweigh the times when others have needed police to do things like… not pull them over for pretextual reasons. Or not allow a battering spouse to stay in the home with the family they’re terrorizing. Or worse.
Your inability to conceive of the idea that there might be a better way of doing something than the clearly flawed way it has been done for a couple of hundred years is the limitation that allows you to offer a defensive posture in the form of a caricature of the argument you’re against. That’s not the same as negating the argument you’re against. It’s not the same as engaging with the people making the argument you’re against. It’s just a defensive caricature.
You mean like when the Philadelphia PD snatched a child from a mother after arresting her when she was trying to get away from a clash with protestors…..and then peddled a lie that the child (that they snatched) was a random child wandering aimlessly during this (supposedly) violent protest that had to be rescued by the police department?You mean like that?
The problem with Philly PD is that they don’t show up when you do need them either though?I was hit by a car in a hit and run at 7th and Chestnut a few years ago. It happened literally in front of the police station. I gave the cops the plate number. Two separate officers told me that it wasn’t worth their time to look into and to call my insurance company. I told them that I had just gotten laid off and didn’t have insurance. They shrugged.They’ve been on a soft strike since Krasner’s election in 2017 and that has only gotten worse since 2020. Hell, there were dozens of cops that could have prevented the mass shooting on South Street in June. Instead they literally sat there and watched a fight escalate to gunfire and didn’t respond until there were a dozen victims in the street. Don’t even get me started on the nonsense surrounding the “shooting” on the parkway on the Fourth of July.Hell, I truly believe that the Philly FOP president McNesby belongs in jail. I’ve never seen a more blatantly, openly corrupt public official.You probably should have picked a less blatantly corrupt PD to use as an example. Just for good measure, let’s throw in this example: https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-settles-millions-rickia-young-unrest-20210913.html
Next Week on L&O: SVU
Detective Benson must hunt down a perverted British man named Ron Boliver who is carrying a horrible new STD that threatens the entire city.
Notice there was no mention of the unrealistic portrayal of female cops on these shows? Who routinely physically overpower larger men, etc.
It’s not realistic. In fact, this is a trope. Even in non-fantasy shows without any super powers, female characters routinely take down much larger male characters. This doesn’t bother me, because I’m not a lunatic, but John Oliver should strive for some form of consistency.
“This doesn’t bother me, but I figured I would make a whole post about. Because I’m not a lunatic. Just a huge misogynistic piece of shit.”
Notice I didn’t insult you, but you had to insult me. I started out nice, but now: fuck you kid. No misogyny, just pointing out your rank hypocrisy. Deal with it.
“I started out nice”Goodness, how rude of me to insult the sexist pile of dog vomit! After all that “niceness”, too!You insult yourself by thinking the way you do, kid.
I’m as left as they come, feminist as they come and all that, but he’s not wrong. Small woman cops are routinely taking down large suspects, and never waiting for backup, and somehow never getting their ass kicked. In real life they would be waiting for backup, or have their gun out before getting within 30 feet of a large, possibly violent suspect. Male cops, too, tbh.
It’s also a point he repeatedly makes in multiple posts. To the degree that it’s clearly not a matter of “realism” or whatever. Which is an incredibly stupid complaint about a show with SO many problems in its treatment of “reality”.
No surprise that a right-winger is terrified of powerful women
I bet you wont say shit about the princess in house of the dragon making a subordinate fuck her. Betcha.And there will be no “he wanted it!”. I’m sure Monica wanted to suck off Bill Clinton too. Don’t go there.
Presumably it’s a form of koala chlamydia.
Oft-derided mayor of Danbury named an entire Sewage Treatment Plant after Johnny.
Maybe if we taught critical thinking in school, we’d have fewer people consuming entertainment as fact.
I’m telling Mitch McConnell on you!
Doing a close analysis is different from having the TV on in the background and half paying attention to it.Propaganda works. Critical thinking is only a partial protection against it. The propagandists have lots of money and can hire lots of people to produce and distribute their work. Depending upon your media exposure and consumption habits, you might have to employ that critical thought 16+ hours a day in order to be inoculated, and that is exhausting. All they have to do is slip one unexamined assumption past your mental guard and they’ve won a victory.Social media is especially great for propagandists. If you check Twitter right after you wake up and right before you go to bed, then you’re available to them before you’re even fully alert.That’s why it’s so important to have third party groups doing critical analysis, like John Oliver and his writers. The idea that each of us as individuals has to operate alone in fighting against the power and influence of groups with lots of money and resources has to be one of the most effective pieces of propaganda deployed against Americans, especially. The wealthy and powerful find their strength in groups, whether it be law firms or corporations or political supporters or other billionaires. But for the rest of us, it’s all about self-reliance!
What makes John Oliver a “third party group” rather than just another propagandist? He’s got a TV show… like Dick Wolf. What consequences would he face if he mislead his viewers?
I feel like the takeaway from that question is more “yes, and we should always reserve a healthy amount of skepticism for all media” than “yes, so we shouldn’t consider his opinion.”
In what way was Oliver’s take propaganda… in terms of the definition of propaganda, not in terms of “he disagree with me”?
It’s not a matter of agreement or disagreement. I’m treating his show as equivalent to other shows. And I used the term “propaganda” because that’s what Narsham used describing other shows.
You haven’t answered the question. How was Oliver’s piece propaganda?
It propagates opinions/ideologies in an effort to persuade viewers. It does so in a more explicitly didactic manner than L&O, which you may well find preferable.
Lol I do not find lolbertarian bullshit preferable to much of anything, especially when it’s two white guys handwringing about the “feminization of academia” Please get out of your comfort zone and actually read writings by women and/or people of colorEdit: nvm I thought you were responding to my other comment. But anyway propaganda is used for political purposes. What political agenda does John Oliver have?
I think John Oliver makes a lot of good points and accurately points out bad shit all the time, but it’s pretty clear that he has a political agenda. Hell, speaking ‘truth to power’, no matter if that power is political, cultural, economical or something else, is a political agenda by itself. Journalism, even the stuff laced with comedy, is a political profession. He leans close to those turn-of-the-century muckrakers, sandwiching his (and his team’s) muckraking in-between jokes.Propaganda is also for more than just overtly political purposes. Advertising is propaganda, proselytising religions use propaganda, etc.
So basically this waters down the definition of propaganda to the point of making it completely meaningless
It’s always meant this and has not been meaningless. This is nothing new.
What political agenda does John Oliver have?I don’t really have a horse in this discussion (honestly, it’s been years since I’ve watched Last Week Tonight), so I’m not gonna get too deep into the weeds on this one. But in total fairness, I think John Oliver himself would freely and proudly admit that he and his show has a political agenda. He has a pretty clear center-left political lining at the very least, which is frequently reflected in the issues he raises and the perspectives taken on them, he’s pretty clearly trying to raise awareness of and trying to change people’s minds on these issues, and better-equipped commentators than myself have discussed “the John Oliver effect” whereby his show has had actual effect on the political issues of the day (including the Net Neutrality issue, I believe).I don’t know if I’d go so far as to label it ‘propaganda’, but it seems pretty clear that he does have an open political agenda.
I think you and I had a conversation yonks ago about demagoguery of guys like Oliver and their shows, and how it’s just some Pavlovian bullshit.
No, kids don’t remember what they’re taught in school and there’s no evidence we can teach them how to think critically in the first place.
This nihilism is false.
Someone complained elsewhere that I was linking to blog post summaries rather than academic publications, so here’s one on “transfer of learning” which teaching critical thinking would require:https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.24.369&rep=rep1&type=pdf
I don’t entirely understand how transfer of learning or lack thereof as of 1992 is proof that kids flat “don’t remember what they’re taught in school”. From the paper: In summary, a superficial look at how research on transfer casts its
vote is discouraging. The preponderance of studies suggest that transfer
comes hard. However, a closer examination of the conditions under which
transfer does and does not occur and the mechanisms at work presents a more
positive picture. Education can achieve abundant transfer if it is designed to
do so.I’m not seeing the proof either there or more recently that kids don’t remember what they are taught in school.https://www.aft.org/ae/fall2015/willingham
That link was just about transfer of learning rather than forgetting. Here’s one for that:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/00346543066003227
Students lose a month every summer vacation, and after the last year of school the summer vacation effectively never ends. And it might be true, as Willingham says, that someone who got a better grade will remember more of a foreign language a decade later than someone who got a worse grade, but in absolute terms people don’t retain fluency in a foreign language years later. I can tell you I don’t even though four years of it were required of me.If you think education has improved since 1992, I’d advise you to pay attention to how hostile educators are to Direct Instruction.
Direct instruction is a tool of bullshit rote memorization and teaches NOTHING except how to fill your brain with data.Signed,An educator
Teaching “NOTHING except how to fill your brain with data” is a step above just plain “NOTHING”. Although I do appreciate you doing your bit to confirm my claim about that hostility!Direct Instruction has been tested against other approaches:https://psych.athabascau.ca/open/engelmann/direct-evid.php
I mean… yeah, that was partially the point of my response. You’re right that some of us are hostile to direct instruction. Because again, it’s rote memorization bullshit. It doesn’t at all take into account the individual student. And the effectiveness touted is based on test result data, which AGAIN doesn’t take into account individual students. It’s an ouroboros. OF COURSE the test results of an educational method that is designed for tests are going to look good.
It’s certainly far from individual tutoring, but I don’t think that’s an option (and the studies that have been done on smaller class sizes were not encouraging).How does test result data not “take into account individual students”? And what evidence shows any other method to be superior to direct instruction?
It’s an ouroboros. OF COURSE the test results of an educational method that is designed for tests are going to look good.
Many people have attempted to raise test scores and failed.
OK. I don’t think anything you’ve shown supports “kids don’t remember what they’ve been taught in school”. It’s not like I read about Napoleon or Antigone afterwards. I understand data and the hot contrary takes that ensue (been a SABR guy for 15+ years), but your sweeping hand-wave is not something that makes sense.
And who has a strangle hold on academia? Not conservatives. Most teachers are liberal.
“People don’t need to think. They need to OBEY.” -Politicians
We’d also have fewer Republicans, which is why it won’t happen
No one who is watching Law & Order is also thinking critically about it.
At this point if anyone is surprised that these shows don’t depict reality, that’s on them and them alone.
That’s not the point. It was never the point.And attacking the strawman you just did, doesn’t make you sound as smart as your smugness makes it seem like you think you are.
That’s not how media representation works. Or social psychology. Or society generally.And nobody is “surprised” by the idea that those shows don’t depict reality. They’re not TOLD that this is the case. And in fact the LWT piece makes a very pointed effort to discuss the influence of Dragnet on L&O. Dragnet was more blatant about it but L&O also presents itself as “based on true stories”. So what they’re actually TOLD is that these shows depict some version of reality.
Anyone else sick of “White Man Tells Us The Real Story” show like Oliver’s show? He is missing the irony here.
Then make your own. Make the anti-policing series this country, in your eyes, seems to so desperately crave. Bury L&O in the ratings and make that viewpoint obsolete. “Go away and die” doesn’t seem to be working.
I love a good “Transformers is a good movie because it made a lot of money” argument.
I mean…. The Shield existed. Southland existed. The Wire existed. It’s not like there have been NO police-critical series.And FWIW, take the occupation out of the equation. People are more drawn to “heroic” protagonists than “villainous” protagonists. Which means that whatever occupation the protagonists engage in is likely going to be seen as a “good” thing.It’s a more complicated problem than “go away and die”. But the counter is also NOT “So make your own series.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like this episode is targeting a major show from another competing network.
It’s still a great episode, Law and Order deserves to get knocked down more than a few pegs, but I still can’t help but wonder…
“Would they do this for The Wire, True Detective?”
Probably not, considering both those shows (especially The Wire) had a strong distrust of the system baked into their DNA.
But that distrust also came with huge amounts of abuse of the system like stealing money, lying, even exploiting the law to fake a car accident…
I don’t like the idea of taking sides just because one show’s cops are more nuanced with its abuse of power.
Equating pointing out the differences between two shows’ tonal and thematic content as “taking sides” is itself not very nuanced.
You think the real cops that watch SVU and The Wire are looking for nuance?
Go ahead an accuse me of simplifying the topic, it’s safe because I’m not the one carrying a gun and putting stickers all over my car that say “protect the blue line”.
Considering you’re sharply pivoting from “are we sure Oliver’s intentions are good and he’s not just perpetuating an inter-network beef?” to “actually what he’s saying is a lot more serious than you and I think, and how would you feel if I had a gun and a back the blue sticker!”…maybe there’s a lot of nuance to your thought process that isn’t making it into the final comment, but it rather seems like you’re just shifting the lens in whatever way will frame this as an argument and not a discussion. I don’t think we disagree on a lot of levels, but you keep digging into the .5% semantic shit we don’t.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nobody who ever watched the Wire or True Detective would accuse them of being copaganda
I only saw season 1 but it definitely had elements of it
So is that the limit?
Cops can break rules, lie, steal money and evidence…as long as they learn their lesson at the end and still get promoted on these non-copaganda shows?
We can’t forgive blatant abuse of the law, only the times it’s subtle?
If you show cops breaking the law, and not getting punished for it, you’re showing a system in a state of systemic rot. (If you watched a show like the shield and felt better about policing after it, you had a different experience then what the creative crew was going for). Copaganda shows are meant to make police look like paragons of virtue who are the only things standing between the fall of civilization and the Jeffersons barbecuing in their back yards. Shows like Dragnet were literally PR arms for police departments.
I don’t believe that those policemen that have the punisher blue line symbol would know the difference between which show doesn’t have the paragons you’re talking about.
Ultimately I know both shows as fiction, but I’m not the one carrying a gun and looking forward to “fellow” cop stories that they find in The Wire.
I’ve previously expressed my exasperation at comedians decrying how deplorable everything is with no answer in sight (in short, I no longer find it entertaining since it is so horrific, nor do I expect these hosts to come up with workable solutions to fix it). That said, I do appreciate Oliver in particular shedding light on some of the lesser-known evils; the one about right wing groups taking over local stations in particular was good.But this one is just misguided. I have to imagine that the portion of his audience that thinks L&O is 1) accurate and 2) a-ok with them is pretty small. There are plenty of evils out there in the world, and going after this show for not depicting reality accurately is a stretch.
Would it be evil if left wing groups took over local stations?
Why does that matter? Left wing groups aren’t taking over local stations. What are you trying to achieve by posing a hypothetical when the answer is obviously, ‘yes’?
I’m glad you asked. If right wingers taking over local stations is bad, surely the left wingers controlling academia and the entertainment industry is bad, right? Go on, be a hypocrite and say it’s (D)ifferent.
It is different because local stations are not academia nor Hollywood. You would have to convince me that there is an equivalency first before we proceed. And then you would have to provide proof beyond your feelings that academia and Hollywood are, in fact, controlled by left-wing interest groups acting in concert in order to disseminate propaganda. Both would be stretches, imo, but you are welcome to argue your point further.
All the biggest teachers unions are left wing. Something like 95% of all political donations go to democrats. Most teachers identify as liberal, especially in college.So for all practical purposes, academia is indeed left wing. For the most part, they push trans ideology. And when they begin saying boys should be able to compete in sports against girls if they take hormones because it negates all advantages? That lie is pure propaganda. The advantages are not all negated unless you start drugging the kid prior to puberty. Or take how some schools push the 1619 project, despite credible historians pointing out numerous errors. Again: these are credit historians not right wing whackjobs. It’s propaganda. Hollywood, most actors are liberal. I bet you’d struggle to name 10 popular actors in Hollywood under the age of 40 that are hard-core conservatives. And they push propaganda too. Of course there is no one person or group representing Hollywood, but we’ve seen stars put out propaganda about the gender wage gap(which is due to life choices, not sexism). Hell we even had that PSA in 2016 with a bunch of stars begging for that “faithless electors” bullshit. Essentially election deniers. Or at the very least celebrities just begging electors to toss out 60 million votes. Heck 2 out 3 of democrats thought Russia literally changed votes in 2016, it’s why I don’t buy this crying about election denying.
Whoo boy. I do not have time to debunk all that. And pretty much all of it deserves debunking. I was really hoping you might have some salient points, but no. This has been a disappointing interaction from beginning to end. Adieu.
Oh bullshit. Just to pick one thing, the 1619 HAS been called out by legit historians. Face facts: you can’t debunk it. So I accept your surrender. Adieu indeed.
Look, person, I know we’re all anonymous on the internet, so you have no idea who I am or that I am an academic historian who specializes in sports history and 19th century African American studies. So you had no idea that I am exactly the person who knows everything you said is bullshit because I have spent literal years of my life studying and researching slavery, race relations in the U.S., female athleticism, and organized women’s sports.
No, trans women don’t have any advantages in sports. You are just perpetuating 100+ years of misogyny where men try to exclude certain women from sports because they don’t satisfy the patriarchy’s idea of femininity and all the while claim that it’s for women’s protection.
Yes, the Gang of Five raised a kerfuffle about the 1619 Project, but I bet you couldn’t accurately paraphrase their complaints if your life depended on it. Never mind that it’s an ongoing debate and most of us historians disagree with Sean Wilentz. Also, I know of no academic historian who has a problem with the teaching materials that the New York Times created for schools. They are good curricular materials for teaching a difficult topic to young audiences. We just have quibbles with the original text.
All right, so now that I’ve clarified the substance of your post is horseshit. Let’s talk about the structure of your argument. The VERY FIRST THING I asked for was for you to prove that there is an equivalency between local news stations and Hollywood/Academia. You didn’t even try. Stop taking that as a priori. Hollywood and Academia do not have the same influence or reach as local news stations.
I will say this once: “that’s bullshit” is not an argument. You didn’t actually debunk anything. One of the biggest criticisms of the 1619 project was the lie that the American revolution was fought to preserve slavery. It wasn’t. But hey you claim you’re educated and a student of history so I know you won’t try to argue with me. Because the mental gymnastics required to argue that are astronomical. Yep, trans women do have an advantage over real women. Otherwise explain why Lia Thomas is suddenly winning races and in the top 10. Notice you just said “no you’re wrong. With no proof. I gave you an example of of athlete being poorly ranked as a male swimmer and being in the top 10 when racing women. If it’s not happening due to his physical advantages as a man: use science to explain why he is suddenly winning.You also said “most of us historians disagree with Sean Walentz”. Neat. Prove it. With data, not your personal anecdotes.
The core of the problem is the police are involved in creating this show to portray themselves as the core of moral certainty. More than that is the implication that if the show isn’t run to police satisfaction that bad things would happen to the show. Given the real-life performances of the police it’s clear they don’t want the typical viewer to know what they are actually like.
Were you ok with the CIA advising the producers of Zero Dark Thirty to depict torture as necessary to capture Bin Laden when it wasn’t?
“more likely to believe that police are successful at lowering crime […] which would be great if it were true, but if you’re watching this show you probably know it is not”
Well I don’t watch any late night TV, but I know that police do indeed reduce crime.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/01/more-police-fewer-prisons-less-crime.html
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/police-crime-and-the-usefulness-of-economics.html
I don’t watch any procedurals now, and haven’t watched any medical show other than The Knick, but I also wouldn’t expect them to be realistic. One that showed them to be ineffective on the margin wouldn’t last long. The Knick could show them failing repeatedly because it was set so long ago the idea was to convey how things have improved since then.
The truth is, the vast majority of people do not form opinions on police based on procedural cop shows. John Oliver, once again, has made a point that doesn’t need be made. He has, once again, created a grievance that isn’t really there.But hey…I liked him on “Community”. So there is that.
“the vast majority of people do not form opinions on police based on procedural cop shows”What proof do you have of this?It’s your assertion. Back it up.
I am responding to the notion presented in the article, without proof, that these shows have that impact.Tell you what: your next post lacks any proof? I accept your surrender 🙂
Watch. The. Piece.Some of you people are bitching about the article for the wrong reason. It’s not a bad article because of the points it makes (with which you disagree whiningly). It’s a bad article because it’s just a summary of a 20+ minute comic analysis.
You wanna know how I know you’re not a serious person or a smart one?“Tell you what: your next post lacks any proof? I accept your surrender 🙂 “Reasonable, intelligent people don’t say shit like this. You’re a dipshit.
Citation needed.
The two links you provide themselves contain better links to actual studies. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just use THOSE links. Except maybe because the writer of those links is making the point you prefer in their minor analysis.Of which the second is primarily financial. So who fucking cares?And both are focused on what is categorized as very particular kinds of “crime”. Wage theft is the biggest crime in the country but do cops do fuck-all about it? Nope! It’s not even in most conversations about crime prevention. Because it’s white collar shit.So you’ll forgive me if I blow raspberries at your post.
Primarily financial? It says that police reduce violent crime more than property crime. And I linked to blog posts because a blog post is a closer equivalent to Newswire here than an academic study is.As for which kinds of crime to be concerned with, we can look to how much people want to avoid it and the distortions caused by people acting out of fear of crime:https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cPDptuFTiCLr8XXkL/cause-exploration-prizes-crime-reduction
This is all cost analysis! I don’t know why you think this supports “police reduce crime” when you and I *clearly* don’t agree on what constitutes “crime”. If you want to say that police increase the likelihood of financial stability through stopping crime without financial redress, then I’m not going to argue with you. But I also say Who Fucking Cares? That’s a bottom line, frankly borderline sociopathic way to look at the issue. I don’t care about the fucking tax burden of cops stopping shoplifters!And in the context of the article, are you trying to use some economist gotcha to criticize Oliver’s point? Cuz… I guess have at it?
We can both agree that murder constitutes “crime”, right? It’s generally considered the most accurately measured form of it, because we don’t rely on the victim reporting it but instead a dead body being found or a person going missing. It’s also a violent crime, which as noted is more deterred by police than a property crime like shoplifting. As for “Who Fucking Cares?”, basically everybody doesn’t want to be murdered and people tend to leave an area if they fear staying there will result in them being murdered.
How is murder “the most accurately measured form of it”? Crime stats are based on reporting, which includes NON murders.I think you may be more paranoid and obsessed with murder than most Murderinos. Listen to fewer episodes of MFM, friend. I love those gals, too, but yeesh.
The FBI does victimization surveys, which show vastly higher victimization rates for many crimes than what are reported to police. The biggest exception for non-homicide crimes is car theft, since cars are valuable enough that people usually report them. With murder there is no requirement that the victim report the crime. Since murder is both the most serious crime that we invest the most in solving (attempted murders are solved much less often by police as a result) and the most accurately measured, is is often used as a proxy for the crime rate. For example, murder recently shot up and at the same time we had a large increase in traffic fatalities as people increasingly broke vehicular laws. We don’t know overall how much more often people are speeding or driving under the influence, since many cases are never flagged (speeding cameras can help with the former at least), but those traffic fatalities indicate a threshold effect.I’ve heard of MFM, but never listened to it. I’m overall not that into “true crime” as a genre of specific stories, but I have read the late Mark Kleiman on William Stuntz on crime more generally.
Since you enjoy links so much, how about this one?https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/There’s even a helpful graph that shows how LITTLE crime is made up of murder. Turns out that *assault*, not murder, is the most prevalent violent crime.That aside, all of these posts seem to imply that the best preventative of crime is a police state wherein everyone is watched at all times by law enforcement. Is that not what you’re advocating? Or a fucking Pre-Crime Division?Either way shows like L&O are not about crime PREVENTION. They are about crime REDRESS. So why the fuck are we even talking about prevention?
I absolutely agree assault is more common than murder. I mentioned a “threshold effect” in the context of vehicular fatalities where the lawbreaking which often precedes said fatalities is far more common, but not measured as well without the evidence of wrecked cars & dead bodies. So when we look at the murder rate shoot up, we can guess that the assault rate probably did as well even if we don’t have comparable data for that (things like improvements in emergency room treatments can lower the ratio of murders to assaults over time, which will affect comparisons across decades, but we don’t expect to be that important from one year to the next). As your link points out, most crimes are not reported to the police (auto theft being a notable exception), hence homicide being a useful kind of crime to look at to avoid non-reporting bias.It’s true that L&O focuses on redress rather than prevention, as it’s about homicide detectives rather than uniformed patrolmen. The reason that police devote so much in the way of resources to investigating homicide is because letting people commit murder with impunity is extremely corrosive. People at risk will then be more likely to start carrying guns themselves, engaging in retaliatory violence and that can cause an escalating spiral. It is expected that the deterrent effect of raising the probability of getting caught will prevent crime, but that’s paired with patrols specifically intended for prevention rather than redress.As for what’s socially optimal, that will be a matter of opinion. Here’s one proposal for people to choose how comfortable they are with surveillance in order to trade off against things like how much they pay for insurance:https://www.overcomingbias.com/2019/09/who-vouches-for-you.html
I have expressed skepticism of that proposal as applied to larger criminal organizations of the sort that undermine the law in places like parts of Latin America where routes to US drug markets are contested, but it might be of interest to you on the question you raised.
Lol what the HELL is that website omg
It would be fair criticism if the show claimed to be realistic, but it doesn’t.And no mention of how unrealistic it is for female cops to be routinely beating down much larger men? Happens all the time on these shows.
You really are triggered by female cops beating up dudes. You’ve made this comment like 4 times.
If you look around a bit they whine about She-Hulk, too. I don’t think it’s female cops that are triggering them. I think it’s the existence of women full stop.
I guess hypocritical little shits like you do trigger me. You cherry pick which unrealistic aspects of the show you don’t like. I have no issues with women kicking butt, loved the Wonder Woman movies.
But it’s just not realistic in this show. Not the sheer number of times it happens too.
I’m not a female cop.You’re triggered by fictional female cops. Why do you think that is?I’ve got theories 🙂
It does claim to be realistic, though. That is one of the selling points of the show.
If you like Law and Order or any of the other shows that wash the balls of cops I just assume you’re a fascist.
Soooooo brave. And your opinion means a ton right?
The mothership certainly does NOT wash the balls of cops. Maybe the other series did, but half the OG Law and Order plots were McCoy and Stone trying to fix the disaster the keystone cops did in the first half.
Please don’t tell me She-Hulk Attorney at Law is not realistic either, it’s too high quality! Dont take away my dreams!
The last good cop show was Southland, which started as a pretty
traditional TV cop fantasy* but gradually changed into something meaner
and uglier. You still got your weekly dose of procedural dopamine, but you also saw multiple characters
sink into corruption, while the two true “good guy” cops
found themselves increasingly worn down not only by their jobs but also
the ways that they
had to compromise themselves in the process – often because they found
themselves having to tolerate, or support, the corruption and abuses of
power going on around them.
*(On, and there was this whole crappy soap angle where a
bunch of the cops lived in the same neighborhood – not unrealistic! –
with an emphasis on “Their home lives are just as complicated as their work!”
Thankfully, when the show moved from NBC to TNT, the budget got slashed
and that went out the window to just focus on the core cast of patrol cops/detectives.)
One of the greatest episodes of TV ever made was in the last season of Southland, that being “Chaos”. That was an absolutely mesmerizing hour of TV. Still sticks in my head.Too bad the showrunners haven’t gone on to do anything of that level since–”Animal Kingdom” was mostly meh, and “Shameless” went off a cliff after about season 5. Haven’t seen “Seal Team” but reviews i’ve seen haven’t been overly praiseworthy.
The thing that sticks with me most from the final season is Gerald McRaney’s guest appearances as Coop’s training officer/mentor, the guy he still holds up in his mind as the example par excellence of the LAPD…And then Coop realizes he’s developed a crippling alcohol problem to deal with his PTSD and only just manages to stop him during a suicide attempt. Coop’s entire S5 plotline is some of the bleakest television I’ve ever seen, even BEFORE he has his own The Onion Field experience in “Chaos.”
The worst thing to happen to liberalism is people trying to force moralism into art/entertainment. It really makes us look foolish.
Wait… so… moralism that supports the status quo = fine and dandy??
Any art / entertainment should be fine and dandy. Criticism of the creator’s POV should be saved for the critics and audience, not be misrepresented as a serious issue by political pundits.
Sorry, do you not understand the comedian John Oliver’s show? I feel like maybe you don’t get HBO’s Last Week Tonight, which is not CNN’s Crossfire.
I watch the show and enjoy some of the segments for their reporting. The jokes are abysmal, clunky, repetitive, and lazy. It can be funny when they find some funny clips or do something crazy. But I just don’t see how pundit is an inappropriate way to describe him.
Ok so you don’t understand the concept of the personal being political. Got it.
No I just don’t think creatives have a responsibility to cater to the interpretations people might have. And I don’t think art is ruined just because I might disagree with the POV of the artist. This shit is no different than the uptight religious types who freak out about GTA or whatever.
Do they have a responsibility to cater to the executives who are advising by cops on how to make the cops look good?
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but virtually all art engages with commerce to some extent. Doubly so for film and TV. Good luck finding something to watch that doesn’t have a big stinky shit somewhere in the supply chain.
I mean, duh? But according to you if we criticize the implications of that we’re right-wing moms freaking out over videogames.
The “implications” of how someone might react to Law and Order have just as much establishment of evidence as the claims that video games cause violence.
Except that cops actually commit violence all the time.
I agree. I hate cops. But there’s zero evidence that has anything to do with TV, so I’m not sure what your point is.
I see we have someone else here who doesn’t understand the concept of manufacturing consent.
At least we can agree on that. You’ve lost me with your argument style of ignoring basic statements and saying random things in response.
I mean your statements were definitely basic just like your thinking. Continue wallowing in ignorance I guess
I mean when you insinuate inane things like Law and Order is related to police violence, the burden of proof is on you. The world being round is a basic statement too, but that doesn’t mean it’s complex for you to say the world is flat.
Again, please educate yourself on the concept of manufacturing consentI love how every weird pedant’s argument in these comments comes down to “We all know mass media shapes people’s thinking and is a major source of information for most people. What this comment presupposes is…what if it isn’t?”
Lol you can refer to a million different opinion pieces as evidence but that just makes you look more foolish. The fact is there is no proof that people form opinions based on media vs. being attracted to media that affirms their opinions and twisting things to fit their narrative. This idea places way too much faith in humanity. Occam’s razor. People suck and believe horrible things, it’s as simple as that.JD Salinger didn’t kill John Lennon. Christopher Nolan didn’t shoot up a theatre.
God this is so weird. Imagine being so dead set on defending a dumb tv show that you have to ignore mass media’s pervasive influence on the culture and make up weak strawmen nobody said to boot
I don’t know what the strawman is, I’m trying to respond to your arguments, which is more than you’ve done for me. Good day to you sir.
Lol flounce
Do you realize the things you are saying are vacuous to the point of having little to no meaning?
Basically all I’ve said the whole time is that there’s no logical reason to think Law and Order has affected society in any meaningful way. Hemming and hawing with no evidence to the contrary isn’t going to inspire much discussion from me except to restate the premise and hope people decide to actually engage with my statements.
“Basically all I’ve said the whole time is that there’s no logical reason to think Law and Order has affected society in any meaningful way.”People have presented this case. The article did. Many commenters have. And you’ve stuck your fingers in your ears and said “lalalalala… No evidence*”. Why should anyone engage with someone like you?*Note: You mean “proof”. There is LOADS of evidence. Although maybe if L&O can’t even teach dullards the difference between proof and evidence… maybe it doesn’t effect much. LOL
What I’ve seen is neither proof nor evidence. The arguments are simply disingenuous and assume extremely flawed correlations.
Again. Re-read your dismissiveness and clear closed-mindedness.Why would anyone engage you? You’re an angry sea lion.
I’m open minded. If someone presented any shred of evidence then I’d believe it. If someone presented evidence of the earth being flat, or god’s existence, or trickle down economics, I’d believe it too. You are presenting opinion as fact. Good day to you sir.
Evidence. Is. Not. The. Same. Thing. As. Proof.I have tons of evidence you’re a dumdum. Though it may not reach the level of proof yet.I’ll await more evidence.
Lol pedantry is a great way to argue, really productive to avoid engaging with my obvious point and focus on a meaningless distinction in the context of this argument. Should I start pointing out your grammar flaws and pretending they make any difference to the overall discussion?
Shows depicting cops realistically (highly likely that John Oliver is aware of them) like The Wire and more recently We Own This City exist. Then again, those who enjoy Law & Order will never watch them, and those who enjoy and understand David Simon’s shows cannot stand to watch anything other cops shows anymore.
Trying to imagine the outrage at AV Club if, instead of always blaming rich white guys, Law & Order accurately represented the racial makeup of the city’s worst criminals.
Define “worst”.Define “criminals”.Define “dogwhistle.”Oh wait, you got the third one covered!
1. murderers
2. people who break the law
3. truths that contradict the narrative you have been conditioned to parrot
1. Disagree2. Define “break” and “law”3. hahahaha-no
lol. you’re not very good at this, are you?
“Per Oliver, many of Law & Order’s problems stem from the fact that the reality of policing in America would be “unwatchable” for most audiences.”David Simon would like to have a word with him on that.
I somehow made it my entire life without ever seeing a picture of Dick Wolf until today. And I was OK with that.
On the other hand: He really does look like an elderly former porn star, as his name implies.
He looks like the unholy spawn of Tom Hanks and Uwe Boll.
His porn name is Wolf Dick.
He does make unannounced cameos in his shows.
All the NCIS shows are the same way. I like watching them, but I know that they don’t represent reality.
Are you suggesting than a 90 pound ex-Mossad agent wouldn’t be always untouchable when going against 250lb thugs?BLASPHEMY
She was trained by the head of the Mossad! of course her brother killed one of the team at the end of season 2 so there’s that.
I’ve only seen the commercials, but most of the actors look like they wouldn’t actually be in the navy.
They aren’t. Like actual NCIS agents, the characters are civilians.
Didn’t know that. Thanks for clearing that up.Still weird to me that they’re not Navy. Maybe better since that hopefully makes them more independent, but weird all the same.
The only one who was in the military was Gibbs and that was the Marines. NCIS will recruit from the military, but you can apply even if you weren’t in service.
Apparently it’s the only branch of the military where that’s the case? Which seems a little odd to me; I wouldn’t necessarily have pegged the Navy as the outliers.
What’s stopping John Oliver from making his own show about police?
I can’t possibly imagine being the kind of miserable person who gets mad about “copaganda”.
I can’t imagine being the type of person who doesn’t think that TV influences people.Think about a football game.Most people think about how football is shown to them via TV when they’re told to think about a game.
Well maybe you need to have an unarmed family member get shot by a fucking cop! Would that aid in your empathy?
So you don’t know any Black people. Cool.
Would John Oliver ever have received his own television show if he wasn’t benefitting from some of the same distortion that allows a supposedly “liberal media” outlet to offer multiple series based upon how noble and virtuous law enforcement is? Asking for all of the not-traditionally-attractive brown people from other countries with foreign accents that might want their own television show…
John Oliver’s criticism is all valid.I think in a lot of ways, people tend to watch Law & Order largely as a whodunit than as a police procedural. The older seasons didn’t often focus on the nuts and bolts of how to be a cop so much on figuring out which suspect is the bad guy. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but I find Blue Bloods to be far more police propaganda than Law & Order which is more like a true crime podcast.
My parents watch both and good lord yes. Blue Bloods is fucking ridiculous with the pro-cop posturing.
And racist as hell
And a touch Christofascist!
Blue Bloods is horrifying.
Ah, we’re back to fully summarizing every talking point from Last Week Tonight in News wires again. I prefer to watch them tbh.
yah I still haven’t seen this episode yet, basically scrolled after the first two paragraphs to realize they were summarizing the entire bit.
I’ve watched a lot of Law & Order in my day, and, love ya John, but I get the sense John Oliver is referring to what he assumes Law & Order might be, having never watched it. While SVU may have devolved into “SuperCops Team” chasing sicko-of-the-week, the flagship Law & Order was a relatively bleak (not David Simon “bleak” but relative for a network show in the early 1990s) look at the criminal justice system and its shades of grey.
For one thing, Law & Order features detectives, not the kinds of feet on the ground “policing” Oliver is referring to. Not that detectives can’t be racist a-holes and bad at their job, but that’s generally not the source of the negative interactions people are having with cops that we all-too-often read about. The L&O detectives featured might be flawed yet likeable, but that serves the repeated procedural format – we have to like the detectives more than a murderer in order to watch the next episode (detectives also don’t have 25 murder cases per year throughout all of Manhattan). The show’s actors would often tire of the show because their characters were so thinly written in order to focus on the system it questioned. In its first 10-15 seasons, the show repeatedly featured a flawed, often racist, judicial system of overworked civil employees and defence inequity. Like, that was its thing that it did. The show often argued jurisprudence and even police overreach at length. It might not have delved very deep and conveniently used secondary characters as its bad apples, but it was not a show in black and white (though, its more recent revival is a lot dumber).
“that’s generally not the source of the negative interactions people are having with cops that we all-too-often read about.”What does this mean
Detectives aren’t on patrol in uniform like most of the ones people have problems with? What exactly is hard to grasp here?
You don’t think people ever have bad experiences with police detectives? Like the ones who have been wrongfully incarcerated due to having evidence planted on them?
Exactly what it says. The highly negative interactions people are having with cops (i.e., unjustified shootings, excessive force, prejudiced treatment) are by cops of the street at point of contact – beat cops, state troopers, patrol cars, etc. Detectives investigating a crime are typically more experienced and only on the scene after a crime has been committed to survey the scene and interview witnesses. They can still be shitty and prejudiced or part of that fraternity, but Lennie Briscoe following the evidence chain from his desk isn’t the oppressor that John Oliver makes him out to be.
Repeating my comment from above: You don’t think people ever have bad experiences with police detectives?
Like the ones who have been wrongfully incarcerated due to having
evidence planted on them?
Repeating my comment from above: You don’t think people ever have bad experiences with police detectives?Seriously, are you a bot? Read the whole comment – I’ll repeat for the 2nd (and last) time.
“Not that detectives can’t be racist a-holes and bad at their job”
“[detectives] can still be shitty and prejudiced or part of that fraternity…”Also, DA’s offices can also be part of the problem blindly seeking convictions based on bad detective work. But the point remains that detectives aren’t typically the primary culprits in most cases of bad policing that Oliver is referring to. Cases of evidence-planting is incredibly rare, (cases of ignoring evidence that could exonerate are far more common, unfortunately).So, have I answered your question enough times?
So there are a lot of things you just described in your comment that are counter to the way detectives are portrayed on Law & Order. Thank you for making my point for me.
Repeating myself three times is quantitatively “a lot”? I’m not sure that’s how it works. But, often the detectives on Law & Order are portrayed as faulty as well, so no, recogbot, your point is not made. Obviously it’s not an accurate portrait of reality, but as I wrote, it isn’t the black and white glorification that Oliver claims it is.
Nobody said it was “black and white”. The point is the propaganda is all the more insidious because it isn’t obvious.
Calling a 42-minute TV show about the inequities of the US criminal justice system “insidious propaganda” is just something a mindless bot would say.
Now you’ve just got empty ad hominems. Is Law and Order, a television show, really this important to you that you have to protect its honor?
Now you’ve just got empty ad hominems. Is Law and Order, a television
show, really this important to you that you have to protect its honor?
Ah so now it’s just a television show and not “insidious propaganda”? Gotcha. Does someone who makes no point, drops hot takes, calls questions “comments”, and asks the same already answered question repeatedly really deserve anything more regard?
Lol making up things I never said
Lol making up things I never saidI have no idea if you said these things. You did, however, type them. Or do you not only not read what others have written, but not even your own copy?
Meaningless content-free response
You didn’t leave a comment to repeat, you asked a question which was clearly answered if you’d bother to read the entire sentence.
What?
What?Go home, recognitioins, you’re drunk!
Sorry that absolutely nothing in your reply followed from my comment, I guess? Also not sure why you needed to reply twice.
“That’s a terrible thing that happened, but that represents one or two bad apples in a police force of 35,000 people,” There was more than one or two bad apples in the Abner Louima case.He doesn’t even get his own justification right.
Per Oliver, many of Law & Order’s
problems stem from the fact that the reality of policing in America
would be “unwatchable” for most audiences. “Nobody wants to watch a show
where 97 percent of episodes end with two lawyers striking a deal in a
windowless room and then you get to watch the defendant serve six months
and struggle to get a job at their local Jiffy Lube,” he asserts.
HBO should really let Oliver know about The Wire, available on the same streaming service he appears on.Now, many episodes of The Wire made me want to scream or throw things at the wall, but it’s wasn’t ever unwatchable.
I mean, going by its ratings at the time it was on, Oliver has a case.
Isn’t the far left’s thing to always go “why are you focusing on [objectionable thing that someone on the far left did or said] when the real problems are much worse?” In that spirit, of all the things for John Oliver to do his sanctimonious lecture thing on….Law & Order? Really?By the way, if a show like Law & Order actually sought to represent the real picture of crime broken down by ethnicity, show’s like Oliver’s would go nuclear.
Interesting. It’d be great if they represented a real picture of CRIME. Like ALL crime. You know, including white collar shit. And not just the stuff that you’re clearly dog-whistling.
Not a dog whistle at all. As Wolf said, they load up on white-collar crime in large part because it’s unlikely to offend people. Now more than ever, I guarantee you that they’re pulling back on showing crime committed by people other than rich white guys because they don’t want blowback. One could argue that that isn’t a realistic picture of crime in New York, but efforts to rebalance that would generate a lot of outrage by the same people decrying the show for its unrealistic picture of crime.
No, what he said was that they load up on white collar PEOPLE *committing* street-level/non-white-collar crime.
Right, to a degree that is almost certainly vastly disproportionate, and feels like an overcorrection. It’s the same reasoning behind why every action movie villain is now from some vague Eastern European country.
Man, it’s like some of you haven’t actually watched the Oliver piece. Wolf states that it’s purposely disproportionate. Because there’s less chance of getting blowback from vilifying rich white criminals. He’s very upfront that it’s a strategy to fend off criticism.
Exactly. John Oliver is criticizing the show for an overreliance on white criminals getting punished, saying it’s an unrealistic picture of the police in NYC. I’m saying that, were the show to make producing a realistic look at the criminal justice system in New York its top priority, there would be a significant increase in non-white criminals on the show compared to what the balance on the show is now. Were that to happen, the same people ripping the show for being unrealistic would start ripping it for being, in a way, too realistic.
I don’t know that that’s true. They might rip the show for exploiting bad practices in law enforcement. But they kind of already do. And Oliver has done several episodes about what constitutes “crime”, the inequities in how “criminals” are treated, bail problems, for-profit prisons, etc. Maybe L&O should do episodes about that? But they won’t. Because that’s not what Dick Wolf is interested in. He’s got a boner for cops.
The way you guys go out of your way to exemplify this: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilCannotComprehendGood
We do live in a world in which if I say, I used to watch Adam-12 back in the day. Good show. and someone, most likely a Millennial, will immediately complain that you’re defending police brutality.
Okay, Boomer.(c’mon, someone had to say it)
It’s a fucking tv show.
I made a good choice when I decided to stop watching The John Oliver Wokescold Half-Hour. Does he still do interminable shouty bits with people in funny costumes?
the moment when Wolf began writing and creating stories for Hill Street Blues is obvious. It coincides with a dramatic decrease in believability and quality.
If we are going to blame a TV show for how people treat cops, how are we against blaming TV and Video Games for violent children?
“Law & Order” – at least early on – was basically “let’s read the Post and Daily News headlines and make a story that’s kinda the same thing.”
ROTFL! I was just waiting for the moment where, while showing all the people living and working in NYC who’ve been on LAW & ORDER, if they’d cut to John Oliver doing a bit as a defense attorney or something, and Oliver looking sheepish when they cut back to him….
John Oliver: Law and Order needs to be more realistic!Dick Wolf: Okay.Two seasons where every other episode is about a black guy who shot another black guy in an argument over something utterly trivial later…JO: Law and Order encourages racial stereotyping!
What’s really odd though is that the show *doesn’t* depict the justice system working. I cannot admit to having watched every episode, but I also cannot admit to ever having seen one where the courtroom portion of the episode depicts a trial which is won or lost according to evidence and legal arguments.Every single episode I’ve ever seen involves the lawyer goading, needling and provoking the accused person until their pride is so wounded that they can’t stop themselves from making a self-incriminating outburst. That’s the only means by which a verdict is reached.
I’m happy to be told that I simply saw the small overall number of episodes in which this is true, but even then: it happens a stupidly large amount.
Speaking solely for myself, however, in 100% of the Law & Order episodes I’ve seen (I think SVU is the one whose episodes I’ve seen the most of): the trial culminates with just an ostensible cross-examination in which the lawyer says something like “You were mad at her because she likes men with big penises, and you have a little penis. And you saw her going out having the time of her life with all these big-penised men, and it consumed you, as a man with a little penis. Just a young woman, enjoying the excitement and pleasure of sex with a huge penis, leaving you and your small penis at home” until eventually the man with the small penis yells out “SHE WAS A SLUT AND SHE DESERVED TO BE PUNISHED” or something, and then there’s a pin-drop silence followed by some murmuring jurors and then they just blurt out a tearful, frustrated confession, and then there’s a direct fade to the denouement.In Law & Order, the justice system never delivers justice: unruly, idiotic cross-examinees just can’t stop incriminating themselves. I always feel like the police work and the investigation and the boring bit in the middle where everyone stands around debating each moral conundrum from a different position are totally pointless: they could save time by simply being rude to the person they think did it.
Dick Wolf , who the hell calls their kid Dick Wolf??.
All Dicks are Richards who chose to be Dicks
Why would anyone want fiction to be realistic? Who would prefer fiction to be a reminder of bad real world shit instead of an escape from it?
Does nobody who uses the phrase “a few bad apples” remember what the rest of that saying is?They spoil the whole batch. That means even if there are only a couple bad actors in an institution mostly made up of good people, and they are allowed to remain, their corruption will inevitably spread until the whole system is rotten and does more harm than good.
Goddammit, how is it possible that there are ~250 comments on this story and not a single link to the greatest AV Club thread? The standards of this place keep slipping:https://disqus.com/home/discussion/avclub/sam_waterston_will_be_the_quietly_stern_sam_waterston_type_in_aaron_sorkins_hbo_pilot/
Note to John Oliver: IT’S FICTION. Fiction is supposed to suspend disbelief. Even when its “ripped from the headlines”. Does anybody really believe that all cases are solved and go to court almost immediately? I hope not. He is right that real police work and the criminal justice system is boring as hell and in a lot of cases wildly unfair. L&O (and Chicago PD) have done episodes that try to capture this but there is only so much you can do with a format that requires things to be wrapped up in an hour.