Have you noticed that at some point the protagonists of procedural mystery shows switched from private investigators to police officers? Have you ever wondered what caused this shift? Well, I'm going to try and keep this short, but nevertheless, this will be a THREAD.

The idea of the detective story really started to take hold in the late 1800s. At the time, police departments were operating as protection rackets rather than police departments. The heroes couldn't be cops because that idea did not meet the standards for suspension of disbelief

Before I continue, I should say that almost everything I am going to say here was documented by @AlyssaRosenberg four years ago in a five part series she wrote for the @washingtonpost. Her series was not the only source I used, but I found myself coming back to it again and again

You can find Part I of her series here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/opinions/2016/10/24/how-police-censorship-shaped-hollywood/ and that page will contain links to all the remaining stories in the series.

Anyway, in the early days of cinema cops were portrayed as inept. The Keystone Kops were not unique, just the most known. This was because it was preferred to showing them as corrupt and sleazy, though this also happened.

Then after a number of scandals rocked Hollywood, members of the leadership from several (Christian) faiths were brought in to "clean up" Hollywood. Among those were two Catholics: Martin Quigley and Father Daniel A. Lord, who wrote the first adopted production code.

This code was adopted in 1934 and severely limited what could be shown on screen. The code wasn't just to censor unwanted material, but made an underlying judgment on the overall moral value of the film as a whole.

Now it is important to remember that even in the 1930s the Irish made up a disproportionate number of the police force, and as such it was important to the Catholics who wrote the first Production Code that police were portrayed in a positive light.

As such there is a clear change in how police were portrayed on cinema post-1934. In the case of procedural mysteries, they were largely avoided entirely or were background players to the main character's private investigator.

By 1951, motion pictures were ruled to have First Amendment protection and as a result enforcement of the code began to slip. Police movies still had not become popular, but at the same time a new medium was beginning to take form: Television.

And that brings us to "Dragnet". Now Dragnet began as a radio program in 1949, and Jack Webb who created and starred in both the radio and the television program as a stickler for accuracy. In order to achieve that accuracy he needed police consultants.

It should be noted that Webb was also a huge supporter of the police, and he was offended by their general portrayal in media. It's also worth noting that at the time the first Dragnet TV series was made L.A.'s police department was notoriously violent and corrupt.

But that wasn't the "realism" Webb was interested in, he wanted to get the uniforms right--he wanted them to use real codes. He wanted to get all the details right--so long as they were positive for the cops. And he largely got his wish.

At the height of its popularity Dragnet was the second most popular show on television and was being viewed on over half of all tuned in televisions. The first version ran eight seasons with 276 total episodes.

Dragnet would return again—a few times—including Adam-12 that was basically Dragnet with the names changed. Adam-12 did introduce one of the first “Cowboy Cops”, I.e. the loose cannon cop, that would later become a staple of the genre.

By this time movies were starting to catch up, but unlike polished television, movies in the 60s and 70s tended to be dark—and police officers weren’t heroes but anti-heroes fighting for justice but hamstrung by the rules.

And so stories that would traditionally be about private eyes making ethically dubious and/or illegal decisions were now being shifted to officers of the law. They were still the protagonists of their stories, and their actions were viewed as necessary.

This was in touch with the times—violent crime skyrocketed in the 60s and 70s across America—for a variety of reasons we will have to explore at another time.

Eventually cops replaced private investigators as the default protagonist—or a private investigator that works for the police department in order to give them a “loophole” to avoid police procedures.

That’s not to say every cop show has portrayed cops in a positive light. Shows like The Shield and The Wire offered more complex views, for a couple of examples.

But to a large extent Webb was able to not only control how cops were portrayed on television, but also transformed how they appeared in film as well—as cops as protagonists became far more popular in the 60s onward.

And generally if cops are portrayed in a negative light it is other cops that expose them and save the day. The keep their job (or are promoted) and are hailed as a hero.

You might recognize this as something that never happens in real life.

Indeed, most cop shows feature Internal Affairs as antagonistic not just to the characters but to the job of a police officer.

Shows often show officers making extra-judicial killings in what are intended to be happy endings for the shows.

How much did Andy Sipowicz being a racist and a “good cop” influence the American psyche? How much did Jack Bauer allow us to stomach torture? Did Dirty Harry make us more tolerant of police violence?

The answer to these questions is likely yes. Of course the three examples I provided were all from acclaimed dramas that were—at least at times—very well received.

Now a test: name three police based television shows where the lead character (first billed) was not a white man.

You guys got that faster than I thought—though the answers have still largely been limited.

Now how many cop shows have you seen where the cops break the law in order to bring a suspect to justice?

All this is not to say cop shows should be censored or canceled, but rather we should consider more the messages we are consuming, praising and creating, and stop assuming they won’t effect how we view the real world.

Regrettably, even if you go out of your way to make it clear your main character is a bad guy... remember how fans of Breaking Bad were threatening Anna Gunn?

I don’t have any solutions here. But it’s something we need to talk about.