Surveillance and Terror in Post-911 British and American Television by Darcie Rives-East

Author:Darcie Rives-East
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030169008
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The Police Apparatus and the Visual Spectacle of Violence

This narrative of the police progress despite ongoing problems also preoccupies the programs Life on Mars (both the British and American versions) and Copper , although each acknowledge the darker actions of the police apparatus more than Ripper Street or Whitechapel do. For example, in both the British and American versions of Life on Mars , Detective Sam Tyler appears to travel back in time to the 1970s and must survive as a policeman of that era (in the Greater Manchester Police in the U.K. series, and in the NYPD in the U.S. iteration). He is shocked by the rampant corruption , use of violence to coerce confessions or to maintain police power, and the limited abilities or even desire to uncover criminal activity. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, given what I discussed earlier about the American press’ and public’s more favorable attitudes toward the police, the U.S. version of Life on Mars is critical but less so than the U.K. version of 1970s’ policing practices. The police commander Lt. Gene Hunt (portrayed by Harvey Keitel) becomes a more sympathetic and humorous character, not to mention a father figure, to Sam Tyler. This is opposed to the analogous character of DCI Gene Hunt (played by Phillip Glenister) in the original U.K. series, who remains a deeply problematic and brutal character throughout the program. Given that American policing incorporates more militarized and brutal police tactics than the British, and, given the greater acceptance of these practices in the U.S. (both in the nineteenth century and today), it should not be unexpected that these factors translate into the U.S. Life on Mars’s more benign depiction of 1970s American policing. However, in the BBC version, our subject position is that of Sam Tyler, and so we as viewers are invited to be as equally upset and concerned about the British policing methods of the past.

In a similar way, Copper transports the viewer to the Five Points borough of 1864 New York, a rough and cruel neighborhood in which the cops are likewise brutal and pitiless in their methods of dispensing justice and maintaining law and order. Like Life on Mars , the series encourages us to consider that the brutal methods of policing are something of the past and that law enforcement has today become a more sophisticated and regulated apparatus. Although in Copper some officers, such as protagonist Detective Corky Corcoran, are more interested in justice than others, he is still depicted as a product of his time, ready to use violence and coercion rather than investigative techniques to maintain peace and apprehend criminals. The same is true in Life on Mars , where brutality, bribery, and corruption are at par for the course.

As we discussed earlier, the 1863 New York Draft Riots were described as a form of terrorism on the part of wealthier New Yorkers for whom the event was analogous to 9/11 in its traumatic effects; they, along with the city’s Republican

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