Blue Bloods is the Worst Cop Show Copaganda Episode 2

It's 10pm on a Friday night. Do you know what your parents are watching? Well, I'm Mr. Rogers. This is my neighborhood. Yeah, today we're talking about Blue Bloods. And look, I don't want to talk about Blue Bloods. I didn't even really want to watch it, but I did it, so you don't have to. If we're going to talk about copaganda on television, there's no way to avoid talking about Blue Bloods. For those of you who don't know, and I'm assuming that's anyone who doesn't still live with their grandparents, Blue Bloods is a CBS police procedural set around a family Tom Selleck's sexy mustache stars as the police commissioner, like his father before him, and his children are in the force, too. One's a detective, one's an officer just getting his start, and the family's daughter is a prosecutor in the district attorney's office. Blue Bloods was the 7th most-watched program on television this past season, with nearly 13 million viewers tuning in every week, and the show has ranked in the top 15 every year since 2012. You may be asking yourself, how is a show I've never heard of so popular? Well, the fact that you're watching this video almost definitely ages you out of Blue Bloods' target demo. According to AdAge, the median age for a viewer of Blue Bloods in 2019 was 70 years old, the oldest mark I've been able to find. It might also explain this scene from a 2012 episode where the writers felt the need to explain what a selfie was. Okay, one more time in English. A selfie? It's a sexy picture you take of yourself. Your next question is probably, why should I care about this show if nobody I know watches it? Well, besides the fact that I can almost guarantee you that someone in the older age bracket of your family does, it's also a favorite show of cops themselves. Tom Selleck has told more than one outlet about the glowing reviews police have given the show, telling CBS58, "...we get a lot of positive responses from police officers, my heroes, and I think that's a wonderful compliment." He also told TV Insider that sometimes he gets salutes on the street from real cops. So, old people and cops watch Blue Bloods. Why should we care? Why should anyone care? Well, as conversations rage on the internet about radically reforming and reimagining the role police play in American society, it's important to remember that not everybody is seeing the same world. In part one of this series on how TV has shaped American understanding of the police, we talked about the history of the genre and the deals early shows made with law enforcement, trading independence for access in the sheen of authenticity and realism. But as we've seen throughout the nationwide protests against police brutality, TV isn't the only media in town depicting the police. Cellphone footage has spread like wildfire across the internet, and with it, conversations about reforming and reimagining the role police should play. And that's what this series is about, reassessing the image of police we've gotten from television. And if that sounds interesting to you, check out my Patreon. While cellphone footage has ignited conversations about the police, there are still a lot of people who aren't looking at those videos. They're watching things like Blue Bloods. Damn internet's a blessing and a curse. Can I quote you on that? See your living is hounding me for a soundbite. If we're going to have a conversation about how to improve or change our police system in America, we have to understand what reality and assumptions everyone is operating on. And that's why we have to talk about Blue Bloods. It's a cop's cop show. Perhaps this is most apparent in the very title of the show. Blue Bloods is about the Reagan family. I know, it's not exactly subtle in its conservative politics. The Reagans have a long history with the police, and with law enforcement. Which is where the title comes from. Blue Bloods. Get it? They get that thin blue line in their blood. But it's also worth noting the complete irony of this title. The term Blue Blood actually dates back to medieval Spain, to separate the white Spanish royals from dark-skinned Muslim Moors. Over time, it became a term for aristocracy at large. Those who didn't have to work in the fields would have skin so pale you could see their blue veins. Others have used the term to represent the inbreeding and blood disorders like hemophilia in the royal families like the Habsburgs. Most people in this situation would be angry with their family for the centuries of inbreeding, but not Gerhard. He's too busy trying to stave off infection. No matter which explanation you prefer, the term Blue Blood is either explicitly racist, or refers to a generational ruling class of people who have become disconnected from their subjects. And that's just hilariously on the nose. It's also what makes the show's portrayal of the police so damaging. Blue Bloods paints an unreflective, pro-police world through oversimplification of difficult problems, discrediting critics, and pushing a partisan worldview. And it does all of this while claiming to be about a virtuous group of people that exist above the dirty game of politics. You might expect Blue Bloods to steer clear of touchy political issues, to just stick to the police work in a way Law and Order might, but you'd be very, very wrong. Blue Bloods loves to address the real and complicated issues that face the police, with storylines that feel like they've been ripped from the headlines. They've tackled the blue wall of silence, police brutality, racism, free speech, and a bunch of other things that feel very topical. Good, right? Well, not so much. You see, these topics are only brought up so that Blue Bloods can oversimplify them and solve them far too easily. Take for example the idea of oversight from the district attorney's office. This is a common critique of the American justice system. There have been a number of high-profile police brutality cases, like Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, that have failed to produce indictments for the police officers involved, despite grand juries having a 99% indictment rate at the federal level. Grand juries almost always do what the prosecutor wants. So maybe we need to look at, when it comes to the police, if prosecutors really don't want to indict them because they work with them and they need them and they're on the same show. He's right. On Blue Bloods, this idea is highlighted in one season four episode, where Aaron Reagan is assigned to review an officer's use of excessive force that led to the death of a person in custody. Aaron Reagan is the daughter of the police commissioner himself, which makes this a clear conflict of interest. So this is a powerful metaphor, right? Blue Bloods is using an actual family to highlight the familial nature of the NYPD and how it can get in the way of justice. It highlights the systemic flaws in our justice system's police oversight by making the prosecutor a literal member of the police family. So how does Blue Bloods solve this real-world dilemma that it's pointed out? Well, it's just not really a problem. Aaron bristles when she's told that it might be a conflict of interest. Are you saying I should have gotten your permission before taking this case? As does her father. Of course I think she can be objective. Her family badgers her to drop the case, seemingly hammering home the idea that this is a clear conflict of interest. Christopher Collins was unarmed too and your officer used deadly force. If it were me or Danny or Jamie, we might have done the same thing. But Aaron conducts herself as a consummate professional throughout, totally unbothered. In fact, she eventually sways her family to her side, implying that keeping everything in-house isn't a flaw in the system, but actually its greatest strength. According to the Reagans, no outsider should have any say in this process. So let me get this straight, you're ready to throw down with those two knuckleheads even though they agree with everything you just said about Aaron? Reagan family rule number one, Reagans can talk smack all night long, outsiders talk smack, there's gonna be a fight. This is especially troubling when the show ties the NYPD so closely to that idea of family. On Blue Bloods, you could substitute Reagan in that speech with cops. Reagan family rule number one, Reagans can talk smack all night long, outsiders talk smack, there's gonna be a fight. Blue Bloods actually does a great job of highlighting that there is a problem, but when it comes time to talk about how to fix that problem, the issue just magically disappears and everyone just does the right thing. Police oversight is often addressed this way on Blue Bloods, even when the show pays lip service to challenges. In a season five episode, a cop named Kara Walsh returns to the force after having testified against her partner, who killed a suspect in custody with an illegal chokehold. Partner killed a suspect in custody? It was self-defense, even the grand jury refused to indict him. Now, a good cop's out of a job while the one that put him there is still in the street. In both the episodes showing the killing and the follow-up, Blue Bloods illustrates how difficult police oversight is. Okay, I get that cops need to protect themselves, but there have to be some regulations as to how far they can go, right? We have guidelines. But no matter what the regulations say, a cop should never rat on their partner, ever. So then the regulations don't really mean much, right? Smart kid. This is another real dilemma. Good job, Blue Bloods. Decorated Baltimore detective Joe Crystal was driven from the Baltimore police after he reported police brutality, as fellow officers tried to intimidate him and left a dead rat on his windshield. Buffalo officer Cariel Horn was fired in 2008 for reporting an illegal chokehold, while the offending officer would stay on the force and rack up at least three more incidents. This year, a Massachusetts detective was fired for a social media post supporting her niece attending a Black Lives Matter rally. Hell, in July, an NYPD chief told cops not to be afraid to use illegal chokeholds and assured them that they wouldn't be prosecuted if they did. It is a systemic issue that creates a culture that's known as the Blue Wall of Silence, where reporting on a cop is worse than anything the cop might have actually done that's worth reporting on. So how does Blue Bloods address this complicated issue they've brought up? It's something a spunky speech from the good ol' Reagan boys can't fix. Carowalls took a bullet for a fellow officer. That makes her twice the cop you'll ever be. And if you've got a problem with her, then you've got a problem with me. And that goes for everyone else in here. And that speech just works. Somehow. Miraculously. See, look, now they're buying her a beer. Did they refuse to answer a call for backup that got Carowalls shot? Yes. Is there a system that incentivizes the behavior of these cops to retaliate against Carowalls' testimony? Also yes. But police reform? Nah. Let's just get the golden boy to give them a good talking to. And if you've got a problem with her, then you've got a problem with me. The same approach of walking up to complicated issues and drastically oversimplifying them is taken to a number of other topics in Blue Bloods. In the third season finale, the police take on a gang that runs the Bitterman Projects, nicknamed the Bitter End. The DA has enacted a policy where they won't try cases without full cooperation and testimony from victims. Okay, so again, Blue Bloods has outlined a complicated and interesting dilemma. Victims need to testify in order to get justice, but if they do come forward, they face retribution because they still have to live in the same projects as the gang that hurt them. There's no easy solution here. The show actually goes out of its way to talk about the systemic issues that have made policing the Bitterman Projects so difficult. Frank's dad even goes so far as to suggest that maybe the solution isn't something that can come from the police. We're talking about generations of bad blood between the community and the NYPD. And generations on both sides who have used that as an excuse to let it fester instead of taking action. But what action? Cops aren't missionaries. They're cops. So how does Blue Bloods, a show about cops, resolve this issue? Do they look into the socioeconomic conditions that led to the rise of gangs in the Bitter End? Do they look at programs to shield the residents from retribution? No, of course not. They just arrest the entire gang and everything's fine. These arrests were made with information given by the residents of the Bitterman Projects at their own risk, with no promise of reward. No attention is paid to the conditions that caused the gang to rise, or how another might easily take its place. Despite explaining how bad blood exists between the community and the NYPD, by the end of the episode, all of that bad blood evaporates. The entirety of the Bitter End collectively informs on the leader of the gang, and in a massive police crackdown, they arrest everyone and dust off their hands. Mission accomplished. There's no look into how the police got everyone in the Bitter End to brush off decades of bad blood, or how the police are planning to protect those who do testify. Everyone just miraculously does the right thing. With no promise of reward, other than full NYPD cooperation. It's hard to say whether this is lazy or just optimistic, and it might be unrealistic to expect a show to examine every issue from every possible angle. But this oversimplification of very topical critiques serves to explain away the real problems facing our police system. And that's just in the cases where Blue Bloods actually acknowledges that there is a problem. So we've seen how Blue Bloods can bring up real and complex social issues, and then just yada yada the solution, making it seem as though these are easy problems for the police to handle. In these cases, Blue Bloods makes its argument for a solution, and then leaves the counterargument just blank. But that's Blue Bloods at its best. At its worst, it actively discredits anyone who makes those counterarguments. Let's start with police brutality. Which Blue Bloods returns to again, and again, and again. Sometimes police brutality just happens, and is ignored or allowed. Donnie Wahlberg's character Danny has a reputation as a rough-and-tumble cop who beats suspects. I don't care what color you are, what race you are, if you break the law, I'm breaking your head. Danny. Oh Danny, you rascal. More perniciously though, Blue Bloods sometimes comes up with elaborate explanations to hand waive any kind of police brutality criticism. These aren't the bad apples you're looking for. One of the most absurd examples comes in a season 5 episode, where Danny chases a suspect into an apartment building, draws his gun, and threatens to throw him out a window. We see the revelation spring across the suspect's eyes. I know, I can frame him for police brutality. A crowd of black people gathers below, led by a community leader named Reverend Potter, who Blue Bloods will bring in from time to time to play the villain. The crowd is angry, and I think it's easy to see why, considering all they can see is a man on the ground with broken legs. But the show disagrees. Throughout the rest of the episode, the show keeps painting Potter as someone who's just trying to score political points, suggesting he knows no police brutality occurred, and that he's just arguing in bad faith. When Potter knows you didn't do it, that doesn't matter to him. Give me a break, Grab, there's no cameras or microphones in here. What's worse, that's exactly what happens in the episode. Not only is the actual police brutality a hoax, but Reverend Potter is exposed all the same. It's revealed that there actually was a witness to this framed job, an illegal immigrant family next door worried about deportation. Reverend Potter found them, and tried to buy their silence. I got your signature, I want a check and a lease, and they both trace back to your shelter corporation. Ugh, shadow liberal money strikes again. This is just not a thing that happens. And the message that Blue Bloods is sending is both clear and troubling. That somehow the police are the ones who are the victims here. That the only people complaining about police brutality are either blowing it out of proportion or straight up lying. Now you might be saying, come on, that's just a wacky, over-the-top TV episode. And you'd be right. But what's especially dangerous about this story is how similarly it could have played out if Danny had actually done what he threatened to do. It would have been his word against the suspect. The eyewitness would have stayed silent under the threat of deportation. Or could have simply been deported. So you can deliver him and his family to immigration and put him on the first boat back to Mexico? In the closing moments of the episode, Commissioner Mustache even points out what kind of united power the justice system has in standing behind cops. You can't promise no charges, you don't have the power they're not yours to bring. No grand jury. You can't promise that either, that's up to the district attorney. But despite how easy it is to picture that parallel story, Blue Bloods discredits the people criticizing the police as simply trying to score political points. In fact, any opposition to the police department on Blue Bloods is usually made out to be purely political. Potter plays this role in all eight episodes he appears in over the course of the series. But he is one in a long line that thinks of the police as an occupying force and fancies Of course, the NYPD does have a long and tense history with racial minorities. In 2013, a judge ruled that the city's stop and frisk policy, quote, violated the constitutional rights of people of color. In 2020, a half-dozen police officers from a South Brooklyn police station testified in sworn statements that they were told by a commanding officer, quote, you should write more Black and Hispanic people, and, quote, you are stopping too many Russian and Chinese. But sure, it's crazy for Potter to think of the police as an occupying force. Under the protective mustache of Frank Reagan, the NYPD in Blue Bloods is clean, and those issues are in the distant past, man. Anyone trying to drum that up now is just looking for political capital. The same logic is applied whenever Frank and the mayor disagree. The show almost always portrays what the mayor is doing as simply the most politically expedient, rather than admit that a liberal policy might have some merits. The gun buyback program does some good. Oh, half the guns we pay $200 for are barely functioning relics. In another episode, our beloved mayor is shot, and the public advocate Grace Newsom takes over as acting mayor. She has butted heads with Tom Selleck's formidable mustache before, when she stabbed him in the back on a policy decision. Now that she's mayor, her first act is to threaten to fire that mustache if he doesn't get results and make her look good. The whole world is watching. Whether or not you keep your job will be judged by how you handle the next few days. Now, I'm not saying that people don't play politics with the police in the real world or on other TV shows. They absolutely do. My favorite cop show, The Wire, spends a ton of time looking at how the police are part of bigger political institutions. But on Blue Bloods, everyone is playing politics except for the police. Frank even scoffs at the idea that he might have any political savvy. But that's a lot of political capital you're asking me to spend. I really don't know those metrics. Again and again, Blue Bloods police are attacked from all angles by politicians looking for a quick score. This is another place where the family themes of Blue Bloods rear their head. The NYPD is a family, and they won't be questioned by outside agitators. Reagan family rule number one. Reagan's gonna talk smack all night long. Outsiders talk smack. There's gonna be a fight. In the world of Blue Bloods, the police should be allowed to police themselves, which creates a paradox. On the one hand, loyalty is prized above all else. And on the other, it's only cops that can keep cops in check. But we're talking about humiliating a great cop a few months short of retirement. No one ever laid on their deathbed thinking they should have been tougher on their friends for their missteps. For the show, being a cop is the number one thing. When Frank catches a corrupt fraternity of cops who were dealing drugs and killed his son, he doesn't say, arrest them. He says, Take their shield. As a representation of the real world, this is as depressing as it is accurate. Of nearly 2,000 closed complaints of NYPD racial profiling since 2014, the department's inspector general found no wrongdoing. And until June 2020, a law in New York City called 50A made it illegal to disclose police disciplinary records. But Blue Bloods isn't depicting this world to point out flaws in the system. It's actively justifying them, painting the police as an institution beyond reproach, beyond criticism, beyond politics. They are a pure institution, the only one capable of cleansing itself. Not only are the police the only thing standing between civil society and violent chaos, but they're the only thing standing in the way of politicians and political awareness. So we've looked at how Blue Bloods silences critics of the police, and how it oversimplifies complicated issues. But why? Why do we care about Blue Bloods, or how much bias it has? Well, I think that Blue Bloods knows its audience really, really well. They're old, they're predominantly white, and they're conservative. There is a ton of signaling to the political right that this is the show for them. I already mentioned that the family is named Reagan, right? On top of that, Frank has a big portrait of Teddy Roosevelt in his office. And as I'm writing this, Washington D.C. has announced it will remove a statue of him due to his dark history of racism and colonialism. But don't take my word for it, take it from Teddy himself. I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe that nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. Spot on Teddy Roosevelt impression. Race is a big talking point in Blue Bloods, just like police brutality. And the Reagan family subscribes deeply to the idea of colorblindness. Remember this, white, black, blue, purple. We're all the same color on the inside. Colorblindness is a popular American belief, because it allows white people to believe that we got to where we are purely based on merit. And those that haven't just haven't tried hard enough. We've all had struggles, right? White people have risen from poverty. Why can't people of color? Of course, this idea is divorced from reality. As Laura Hudson from Slate writes, The convenient myth of a colorblind world persists despite all evidence to the contrary, that blacks experience a staggering disparity in arrest rates, that black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated than the national average, and that black male teens are 21 times more likely to be killed by the police than whites. Just try to put yourself in his position. See things from his perspective. A bunch of white cops surrounded his church. Stop right there. It was a bunch of cops surrounding his church. White, black, Hispanic, female. Anyone who wants to paint my department as being all white, all male, all the time had better check their facts. Okay, Frank, I'll check those facts. There are 218 episodes of Blue Bloods, and just two black characters appear in more than eight. One is the mayor, who appears in 20 episodes, and the other is a reporter who appears in 21, although she is unnamed for the first 15. For reference, 25% of New York City is black. It's very easy for the Reagan family to claim they don't see race, because everyone on the show is white. This low representation makes the portrayal of Reverend Potter from earlier even more troubling. He's one of the only recurring black characters on the show, and Mr. Stash has this to say about him. How did this guy get all this power? Some he grabbed, some he earned. Some we gave him, and it's like over the years, a silver platter. Big yikes. Don't get me wrong. The Reagans hate actual races, although when they're portrayed, they're cartoonishly evil. A ham sandwich in the hands of a white person is a weapon in a hate crime. Easily silenced when Frank protects their free speech with cops of color. Is this some kind of joke? On the contrary. This is a full compliment of my finest officers in service to your rights to peaceful assembly and free speech in our fair city. You dug up every mutt, mongrel, and half-breed to do it. Take that, racism. But it's hard to argue that the line we just watched isn't racist. Some we gave him, and it's like over the years, a silver platter. His like? We gave on a silver platter? These are obvious dog whistles. We, as white people, have been ceding too much power to these black people. I'd give my right arm to stick my left foot in your mouth, pal. Blue Bloods isn't just reinforcing white conservative beliefs about race to its audience, though. It's happy to demonize anything liberal that might remotely challenge that conservative worldview. In one episode, there was a serial sniper taking out drivers of gas-guzzling cars on the highway, and they caught him by finding his favorite organic food place in the East Village. Better start talking right now before I put my carbon footprint down your ugly head! In another episode, Danny Sargent goes on a speech about the good old days of policing. Now you got guys with master's degrees in tactical police strategies, PhDs in restorative justice, in urban policing. Your point. I like this department the way it used to be. Blue Bloods even finds time to take a shot at MSNBC. At the end of the day, his vision of the promised land is his own show on MSNBC. Okay, that is harsh. And all of this brings me back to where we started this video far too long ago. The image of the police being sold to the 13 million people watching Blue Bloods every week is simply not the same one we're seeing in real footage from cell phones. It is a wild amount of whiplash to toggle between these worlds. One minute, you're watching police pepper spray protesters, drive their cars into crowds of them, and kneel on a man's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. And then in the next minute, you're seeing a show push the idea that police brutality is simply a hoax to make the police look bad. There's almost no overlap in the audiences watching these two things. But if you want change, you have to understand what people think the police are doing and how that portrayal doesn't reflect reality. Blue Bloods is all about putting forward a cohesive reality that feels more comfortable and presenting it as fact. It pretends that complicated issues like systemic poverty and conflicts of interest just need a good old dose of good cops. It pretends that police brutality and generational racism are just political talking points. And then it ties it all together under a conservative bow, grouping these beliefs with anti-elite, anti-organic talking points. Before I put my carbon footprint down your ugly head! This isn't all in the past, either. Even in 2019, with Tom Selleck's mustache gaining a little gray around the edges, he's still lamenting the fall of the good old days. But if he's using his authority to seduce a young cop, I can't just look the other way, right? Not in this day and age. In that episode, a judge recommends termination for a detective with a number of excessive force complaints against him, a decision that everyone immediately assumes is purely political. After all, three other investigations clear the detective of any criminal wrongdoing. You think our own guy would hammer McKenzie? If our own guy is now maybe his own guy. They... they literally sound like the mob here. The detective is harassed by protesters, and even though Commissioner Mustache won't fire him, the detective quits in anger that the court of public opinion has found him guilty. And my children see me on TV every step I take like a perp walk. It's the detective that's the victim. And Tommy Sells goes so far as to openly wonder if we should investigate any cops, if the consequences are that they have to face a perp walk, something that the police routinely do to people who have not been convicted of any crime. Notifying IAB was the right thing to do. The complaints had to be investigated. I'm not so sure. It was by the book, Dad. What good's a book if no one else is reading it? Yeah, let's just get rid of investigating any excessive force complaints at all. That's the solution we need. In this one storyline, we can see all three prongs of the Blue Bloods' approach to copaganda. First, the counter-argument is left blank. We don't get to see the claims of excessive force, or pay any mind to how the system is meant to check police brutality. Because on Blue Bloods, police brutality is rare if it's even real. It's like Sasquatch. It might exist, but there's like one or two of them out there. Tops. More importantly, it oversimplifies a complicated issue. Citizen review boards in New York are at the complete mercy of the NYPD themselves. According to ProPublica editor Eric Umansky, Citizen reviews require evidence to be supplied, approved, and filtered by the NYPD, something that is obviously a bottleneck for justice. There are currently thousands of unfilled requests. The Civilian Oversight Board, the way it gets that footage, is it has to send an email request to the NYPD that can decide to fulfill it however it wants, can redact stuff, can say it's not relevant, can do whatever it wants. Second, the show silences its critics by saying the only reason the judge recommended termination was because he was trying to score political points. And finally, it's all wrapped up in other right-wing talking points. Namely, that PC culture is ruining this country. Remember when you could date your female subordinates? Not in this day and age. And all this brings us back to where we started. The older, white audience that watches Blue Bloods in droves. Blue Bloods is likely the most common interaction the show's audience has with the police, considering white people are pulled over by police at lower rates nationwide, and interaction with police in suburbs is much more likely to be in traffic stops. The Blue Bloods audience isn't interacting with the police in the same way that protesters or minorities at large are, which gives the show a monopoly of message. And that message is not only inaccurate, but dangerous. Blue Bloods is here to tell you that these stories about the police, those aren't real issues. You remember the police. Police are good. There's nothing to see here. Move along. There is a ton more to talk about with Cops on TV, and that's what this series of videos is all about. I think it's a really important time to reflect on our image of the police, and how TV has shaped it. And if you think that's important too, maybe consider supporting this project on Patreon. You can get access to my notes, and my reading lists, and my watch lists, and I do live Q&As every month, and you can also get more immediate reviews of TV in blog format. There's even still some time to get one of my promotional stickers, which are awesome. They stick to things, they're super cool, they're awesome. Thanks again everybody, and I hope you stick around for the next episode. It's about those wacky cops over on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I know a lot of people have been talking about Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and its approach to copaganda, but mine's gonna be a little different. It's also gonna be about the larger Michael Schur universe of The Office, Parks and Rec, and even The Good Place. So yeah, get ready for that.