#also i don't think dead cops are good cops bc dead cops who are shitbags don't deserve all the

[ssaalexblake]

How would you respond to claims that 13's run feels a bit dodgy by having a cop travel with them?

You know, the other day while generally browsing the internet I happened across somebody complaining about this war movie. They were angry it was glorifying soldiers. Were anti-military themselves in general. You know what I mean. The thing is, though, the literature course I did in school had an entire unit and exam on war literature and I've read the book upon which the movie was based on and it has stuck with me as an incredible critique of war, conscription and the military by portraying those things in fiction. I would never pick it up again, not because it was bad, but because it was rough to 17yo me, but I am happy I've read it and other pieces of literature like it. I am happy I was taught to analyse and contextualise media with a serious subject such as that.

Now, this isn't the exact same thing as this. The BBC would legit never allow their lead children's show to Explicitly portray any acab message, like, ever, lets be true to reality here. But also, I genuinely think there is a fair amount of that puritanical black and white thinking going on here on the riff of Yaz working for the police being an immediate strike against the show because people think that portraying something is automatically lauding it because uh, the content of the story does Not track with the idea they're saying cop work is good work.

I have seen (on this site and many others) people say over and over again the only good cops are either dead or have quit bc they realised it was a crock of shit. In which case, the question becomes;

Did y'all miss the part where Yaz quit?

Yaz is not a cop anymore. Yaz quit. Yaz is portrayed as thinking it's frustrating bc because the helping people thing she was supposed to be doing isn't happening and we're shown this from literally the get go, her very first scene, and from there is only seen as trying A) to get work where she's actually helping somebody and totally failing to get it and B) straight up trying to get out of going to work by actually forging paperwork. S/O to her for that bit of illegality btw. Love that for her. She does not end the series employed by the police. Yaz found an actual way to help people and chose to do That instead.

Yaz's career arc is 'disillusioned teen signs up to be cop, realises it's bullshit and there are actual ways to help people and quits to go do that instead' which is, if i'm not mistaken, what we want actual real life cops to realise about their life choices.

I get it's a tetchy subject bc acab, i agree, and I get and agree and wish that this stuff could be more explicitly portrayed as well bc i'm sick of media or execs being too cowardly to be bold about messaging, but the insinuation that this portrayed the cops as systematically helpful or useful by having Yaz start out as a cop? No. Would I have liked it to be more explicit? Well yes, duh, but I cannot emphasise how that was literally never gonna happen. I can however emphasise how ideas like Yaz, whose main goal is to help, quitting being a cop bc she wasn't helping anybody beamed into impressionable young minds do, in fact, take root though.

Like, having a plucky teen hero character go through an arc of helping people and them Ending a cop to carry on the good work is Vastly different to a plucky teen starting out a cop bc they think that's how they get to help people then quitting bc they realised that's not true. One of these things is pro cop, the other is not.

I also hasten to mention again that there is a genuine conversation here abt the dodgy-ness cops being used in mental health emergencies. I wrote this out about it [Here].

On a personal note on this score, I, much like Sonya have been forced to deal with cops throughout somebody else's mental health emergency when I never should have had to and it fucking sucked. What an unempathetic bunch of rats who clearly haven't even done a google search's worth of research on how to discuss these things, let alone give it the gravity it deserves. That my choices were either cops or somebody dying is a travesty. And maybe this story speaks to me more personally as somebody who has had this experience and wants to throw hands over it still over a decade later, but that lady did not help Yaz, Yaz helped herself after a measly pep talk and the woman obviously never bothered to keep tabs and see if Yaz was okay afterwards either. Ryan helped his mate. Graham spreads good mental health advice that benefits others. The hospital in Syria was dealing in mental heath care by professionals of the time. Cop lady convinced Yaz to go home, succeeded, and Yaz gave her the credit when it was Her who dug herself out of that pit and not anybody else.

Like, genuinely this whole thing sets me off angry. And I could critique the execution if I wanted to but the bottom line is i've not actually seen anything else even go slightly Near where this plot went and I genuinely think it was something that should be said. As I said, a decade later and I still want to throw hands.

So basically like, I get the discomfort, I do, I get not wanting to see it as well, but Yaz grew OUT of this. Not the other way around. Portrayal is not endorsement. I do not personally find this era difficult to parse but people seem either unwilling or unable to do so on literally every theme addressed in it, but I am just back to being that 17yo in an english lit class being taught how to examine things through the vehicle of anti-war stories, ones that people are actually nowadays mad at for glorifying war just because they portray it when this couldn't be farther from the truth, and I cannot help but relate the situations a bit.

I mean, I don't think it's a 10/10 and I would tweak, but I am aware you won't be finding anything as bold as blatant acab on dw in this geopolitical climate and since that's endemic literally everywhere i'm not gonna single out This show for it when at least its trying (watching classic who and the things they just openly say and portray is soooooo eye opening. TV of the 21st century has no spine in general.) But the portrayal of something does not imply that said thing is positive. If real cops ditching the badge on principle is a good thing that we want to continue, I fail to see how fake ones portraying that said same thing is bad.