There’s a time and a place…
...for running exploitative 'documentaries' about policemen chasing people in cars. It's called ITV4. There's a whole fucking channel devoted to car crashes, police chases, Sheriff John ('Do you think he might be?') Bunnell, Mancunian voiceovers chortling "Well this fella's got a bit of explaining to do down the station", people in cars, people chasing people in cars, coppers talking to each other in cars about chasing other people in cars... all that shit. It's there, in an easy one-stop shop, so you don't have to fucking go anywhere else for it.
Seeing as this - as opposed to local news, which apparently can be jettisoned like a fat man in a falling balloon - is what ITV has decided to focus its resources on, then let the fuckers do it. There's no benefit for the viewer other than to see a few cars crashing, a bit of crashporn with the added spice of a ridiculously hammy Bunnell linking sequence. Which I imagine is the best thing in the world if it's 5am and you're forcing down the remnants of a Vesta 99p curry (or is it your own sick? It's hard to remember, through the haze...) - but ordinarily, no.
There's no point. There's no justification. It's pure titillation, and everyone knows it. No point in the BBC pretending it's anything other than that, or trying to claim it's some kind of 'unique insight' into how the traffic police do their jobs. Well, er, I imagine they go round driving cars and arresting people - oh look, I'm right! How's about that then? I got it in one! Oh and look, that's what it looks like when a car crashes. Yes, not particularly pleasant, but then I had kind of guessed that already as well.
And for the BBC to pretend that a puff piece for its forthcoming Cops n Cars series is anything remotely approaching a news item is complete shite. I'm not a BBC basher: I've written recently about good things on the BBC website; this isn't one of them. This is utter bullshit dressed up as news, and it drags down the integrity of those useful, intelligent and insightful pieces elsewhere.
Related posts:
Buy my book, it’s great
Switch site
Donate
Recent Posts
- The power of publicity
- Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio…
- Children died
- The letters you never get around to sending
- Applying again
Most Commented On
Recent Comments
- emmaspen on Children died
- emma on The letters you never get around to sending
- Iain on Applying again
- Roger on The letters you never get around to sending
- Dave Hodgkinson on The letters you never get around to sending
About Me
Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
If you're struggling to read the site please use the drop down box below to increase the text size.
September 26th, 2008 - 09:32
“He ran from from the police. So they shot him.”
The thing that really annoys me about these series is they don’t question, at all, the legitimacy of the police. Not just in America, where being a black man facing brutal, armed and racist police, the life long de-citizenship (more or less) of a drugs convictions (smoke a bit off puff=loss of social security and voting rights, and a lifetime in low paid, low security jobs; pop some vicodin=welcome to the middle-class), and the horrifying ‘three strikes’ laws, all are pretty good reasons for trying to get away from the police.
Not just in America, but in states with far less call on the label of democracy. On those shows we’re encouraged to glory in the brutality of police from all over the world. I mean, wtf was Ross Kemp’s show on Colombia about – they police are hand-in-hand with death squads. Would he be having hard-man orgasms over the fucking Gestapo?
Well, we’re already meant to whoop with excitement watching ‘our boys’ kick in doors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Baudrillard didn’t know the half of it. Right-wing, racist oppression as light entertainment.