Policing the World on Screen : American Mythologies and Hollywood's Rogue Crimefighters

This book analyzes Hollywood storytelling that features an American crimefighter--whether cop, detective, or agent--who must safeguard society and the nation by any means necessary. That often means going "rogue" and breaking the rules, even deploying ugly violence, but excused as self-defense or to serve the greater good. This ends-justifies-means approach dates back to gunfighters taming the western frontier to urban cowboy cops battling urban savagery--first personified by "Dirty" Harry Callahan--and later dispatched in global interventions to vanquish threats to national security. America as the world's "policeman often means controlling the Other at home and abroad, which also extends American hegemony from the Cold War through the War on Terror. This book also examines pioneering portrayals by males of color and female crimefighters to embody such a social or national defender, which are frustrated by their existence as threats the white knight exists to defeat Acknowledgments 6 Contents 8 List of Figures 11 1: Introduction 13 American Exceptionalism and Stories of Ascendency 15 The Frontier Thesis and the Gunfighter 17 Policing the World, On and Off Screen 19 Not All Crimefighters are Created Equal 21 To Police and “Eat the Other” 22 Interdisciplinary Threads and Border Breaches 24 Chapter Previews 30 2: Frontier Ambitions and Cowboy Narratives 37 The American Adam as Western Cowboy 40 The Classical Western’s Last Stand 46 Lawlessness and the Crime Film 49 The Pessimism and Critical Promise of Film Noir 53 3: Dirty Harry and the Urban Frontier 58 Dirty Harry: A Wild West Cure for Urban Savagery 60 The Reagan Era and the Global Frontier 68 White Heroes as Lethal Weapons 70 Die Hard Cowboys 72 Precinct Life and Community Policing 76 4: Black Crimefighters: Portraits in Blue 84 Sidney Poitier: A Model of Restraint 86 Black Power, Blaxploitation, and the Hood 88 Denzel Washington: The Superstar Black Crimefighter 93 5: Female Crimefighters Defending the Homefront 103 Female Crimefighters on Screen: Battling to be Blue 104 Uncovering Female Agency and Nurturing Violence 107 Case of the Blues: Female Cops on the Small Screen 111 Out of Sight: Black Female Crimefighters 115 Shots Fired 117 6: Becoming American: Ethnic Others as Crimefighting Heroes 129 Looking for a Contemporary Charlie Chan 132 Native Blue: Transforming America’s Original Frontier Other 134 Latinos: America’s Largest Invisible Other 137 Jennifer Lopez: In and Out of Uniform 143 Shades of Blue’s Male Others 148 7: Globocops, La Frontera, and America’s War on Drugs 155 Working an Expanded World Beat 156 America’s Troubles at La Frontera 158 Narcos: The War on Drugs 162 Sicario: Descent into Darkness 169 Global Trafficking: Comparing Performances of Nation 174 8: The War on Terror, Homegrown Racism, and the White Knight 182 Jack Bauer: The Post-9/11 Rogue Hero 183 24’s Homegrown Enemies and Domestic Threats 185 America Asks: What Would Jack Do? 189 Racism in America: Police and Homegrown Terrorism 193 Dark Blue’s White Knight 195 Training Day’s Black Menace 198 The Shield’s Unredeemable Rogue 200 9: Recruiting the Other as Globocop 208 Vin Diesel: The Multicultural Globocop 209 Female Spies as Globocops 211 Kathryn Bigelow’s Action Films 212 Zero Dark Thirty 213 Maya: A Portrait of American Obsession 216 Carrie Mathison: Protecting the Homeland 218 Spy Games: Sex, Motherhood, and Mental Illness 220 Homeland’s Muslim Problem 225 Mathison Performing the Nation 227 10: Policing the World: The Last (White) American Standing 235 Arabs, Persians, and Muslims as Crimefighter Heroes 237 The Looming Tower Looks Back (and Forward) 240 White Males Still Take the Lead 242 Pay Cable and Quality TV Experiments 245 And the Jacks Keep Coming 248 Jack Ryan: The CIA’s Captain America 250 What Jack is Telling America (and the World) 255 Superheroes for a Superpower 256 The Last Rogue Standing 260 Selected Bibliography 267 Index 299 This book analyzes Hollywood storytelling that features an American crimefighter - whether cop, detective, or agent - who must safeguard society and the nation by any means necessary. That often means going?rogue? and breaking the rules, even deploying ugly violence, but excused as self-defense or to serve the greater good. This ends-justifies-means approach dates back to gunfighters taming the western frontier to urban cowboy cops battling urban savagery - first personified by?Dirty? Harry Callahan - and later dispatched in global interventions to vanquish threats to national security. America as the world?s?policeman often means controlling the Other at home and abroad, which also extends American hegemony from the Cold War through the War on Terror. This book also examines pioneering portrayals by males of color and female crimefighters to embody such a social or national defender, which are frustrated by their existence as threats the white knight exists to defeat