“Break the Rules, not the Law”: Normalizing Brutality and Reinforcing Police Authority in US Series

Authors

  • Melina Meimaridis Programa de Pós Graduação em Comunicação, Instituto de Artes e Comunicação Social, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Brazil https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3481-817X
  • Rodrigo Quinan Programa de Pós Graduação em Comunicação, Instituto de Artes e Comunicação Social, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Brazil https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5344-0574

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.42(2022).4002

Keywords:

television, fictional institutions, police series, police brutality

Abstract

Since the 1950s, the institutional police series have been among the most popular productions on US television. Through the reiteration of the “us versus them” mentality, police officers are fictionalized as normative agents who uphold “goodness”, while crime is portrayed as a moral and individual flaw of the criminal. Not only do these productions recurrently ignore systemic problems in US society, which are used to explain crime in the real world, but they also reinforce the authority of the institution as the force capable of maintaining the status quo. From the perspective that these series act in the construction and mediation of meaning about the role played by real-world police institutions and their members in society, we structure the text around two main arguments: (a) TV series reinforce the police institution’s authority, treating its actions as unquestionable and, most importantly, allowing real-world institutions to interfere in their fictionalization processes; (b) TV series normalize police brutality, with narratives often justifying violent acts as an efficient investigative tool, illustrating norms and bureaucracies as major impediments to the police officer’s work. By framing ethical and human rights violations as efficient and necessary acts, these series contribute to normalizing some of the dirtiest aspects of the profession.

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Author Biographies

Melina Meimaridis, Programa de Pós Graduação em Comunicação, Instituto de Artes e Comunicação Social, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Brazil

Melina Meimaridis received her master’s and PhD degrees from the Graduate Program in Communication at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) in Brazil, where she is now conducting postdoctoral research with a fellowship from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. She is investigating how serialized television fiction constructs understandings of institutions and how these meanings circulate in transnational television flows. Other interests are media industries, comfort series, and video streaming services in national and regional markets. At the moment, she is one of the coordinators of the research group TeleVisões: Núcleo de pesquisa em televisão e novas mídias (TeleVisions: Research group on television and new media; UFF) and an associate researcher of Nemacs: Research group on mass communication and consumption (UFF).

Rodrigo Quinan, Programa de Pós Graduação em Comunicação, Instituto de Artes e Comunicação Social, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Brazil

Rodrigo Quinan has a master of arts in communication and is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Program in Communication at Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) in Brazil. His research is dedicated to analyzing the rise of conspiracy theories, the epistemological crisis, and the representation of reality in television serialized fiction. He integrates the Laboratório de Mídia e Democracia (UFF), the Rede Conecta (UFF), and the Laboratório de Investigação, Ciência, Inovação, Tecnologia e Educação (UFF).

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Published

2022-12-16

How to Cite

Meimaridis, M., & Quinan, R. (2022). “Break the Rules, not the Law”: Normalizing Brutality and Reinforcing Police Authority in US Series. Comunicação E Sociedade, 42, 113–132. https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.42(2022).4002

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