Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.law-enforcement,talk.politics.drugs
From: [lee p] at [mailhub.scf.lmsc.lockheed.com] (Lee Pollack)
Subject: Re: Harper's article on "reality TV" (Like COPS)
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 19:56:21 GMT
In article <[CG 46 Ho I 6 B] at [pofbbs.chi.il.us]> [doctor 1] at [pofbbs.chi.il.us] (Patrick B. Hailey) writes:
>The November Harper's has an article called "Tales From the Cutting-Room
>Floor" by Debra Seagal. Debra got herself a job as a "story analyst" for
>"American Detective", one of the zillions of "reality-based" programs out
>there (this one was canceled over the summer).
>Internally, the "story analysts" are actually called "loggers". They go
>through the hours of video tape the camera crews send in, looking for
>suitable material.
>Some excerpts follow:
>May 18
>[ ... ]
>... We are to hope for a naturally dramatic climax. But if it doesn't
>happen, I understand, we'll "work one out".
>May 26
>... Among other tasks, we're responsible for compiling stock-footage
>books... This compendium is used to embellish stories when certain images or
>sounds have not been picked up... ...[most] frequently, the shouts of the cops
>on a raid ("POLICE! Open the door! Now!") in an otherwise unexciting ramrod
>affair. Evidently the "reality" of a given episode is subject to enhancement.
>... Searching for the scraps of usable footage was like combing a beach for
>a lost contact lens. The actual bust - a sad affair that featured an
>accountant getting arrested for buying pot in an empty shoe-store parking
>lot - was perhaps 1 percent of everything I watched.
>June 10
>... While an undercover pal negotiates with a drug dealer across the
>street, the three detectives survey an unsuspecting woman from behind their
>van's tinted windows. It begins like this:
> [Interior of van. Mid-range shot of Commander Brooks, Special Agent
> Gravitt, and Detective Cooper]
> COOPER: Check out those volumptuous [sic] breasts and that vulumptuous
> [sic] ass.
> BROOKS: Think she takes it in the butt?
> COOPER: Yep. It sticks out just enough so you can pull the cheeks
> apart and really plummet it. [Long pause] I believe she's not beyond
> fellatio either.
> [Zoom to close-up of Cooper]
> COOPER: You don't have true domination over a woman until you can spit
> on 'em and they don't say nothing.
> [Zoom to close-up of Gravitt]
> GRAVITT: I know a hooker who will let you spit on her for twenty
> bucks...[Direct appeal to camera] Can one of you guys edit this thing and
> make a big lump in my pants for me?
> [ ... ]
>June 15
> [ ... ]
> ... Within a few weeks the finished videos emerge from the editing room
>with "problems" fixed, chronologies reshuffled, and, when necessary, images
>and sound bites clipped and replaced by old filler footage from unrelated
>cases.
>By the time our 9 million viewers flip on their tubes, we've reduced fifty
>or sixty hours of mundane and compromising video into short, action-packed
>segments of tantalizing, crack-filled, dope-dealing, junkie-busting cop
>culture. How easily we downplay the pathos of the suspect; how cleverly we
>breeze past the complexities that cast doubt on the very system that has
>produced the criminality in the first place... [The detectives] ambush one
>downtrodden suspect after another in search of marijuana, and then, after a
>long Sisyphean day, retire into red-vinyl bars where they guzzle down beers
>among clientele that, to no small degree, resembles the very people they
>have just ambushed.
>June 23
> [ ... ]
> ... One of my colleagues has a photograph of our executive producer and
>Lieutenent Bunnel with their arms around a topless go-go dancer somewhere
>in Las Vegas; underneath it is a handwritten caption that reads, "The
>Unbearable Lightness of Being a Cop."
>June 29
> [ ... ]
> ... They seem to become pals with the C.I.'s [confidential informants].
>Sometimes, however, they have to muscle the guy. The tape I saw today
>involves a soft-spoken, thirtysomething white male named Michael who gets
>busted for selling pot out of his ramshackle abode in the Santa Cruz
>mountains. He's been set up by a friend who himself was originally
>resistant to cooperating with the detectives. Michael has never been
>arrested and doesn't understand the mechanics of becoming a C.I. He has
>only one request: to see a lawyer. By law, after such a request the
>detectives are required to stop any form of interrogation immediately and
>make a lawyer available. In this case, however, Commander Brooks knows
>that if he can get Michael to flip, they'll be able to keep busting up the
>ladder and, of course, we'll be able to crank out a good show.
>So what happens? Hunched in front of my equipment in the office in Malibu,
>this is what I see, in minute after minute of raw footage:
> [Michael is pulled out of bed after midnight. Two of our cameras are
> rolling and a group of cops surround him. He is entirely confused when
> Brooks explains how to work with them and become a confidential
> informant.]
> MICHAEL: Can I have a lawyer? I don't know what's going on. I'd
> really rather talk to a lawyer. This is not my expertise at all, as it is
> yours. I feel way out numbered. I don't know what's going on.
> BROOKS: Here's where we're at. You've got a lot of marijuana.
> Marijuana's still a felony in the state of California, despite whatever you
> may think about it.
> MICHAEL: I understand.
> BROOKS: The amount of marijuana you have here is gonna send you to
> state prison... That's our job, to try to put you in state prison, quite
> frankly, unless you do something to help yourself. Unless you do something
> to assist us...
> MICHAEL: I'm innocent until proven guilty, correct?
> BROOKS: I'm telling you the way it is in the real world... What we're
> asking you to do is cooperate... to act as our agent and help us buy larger
> amounts of marijuana. Tell us where you get your marijuana..
> MICHAEL: I don't understand. You know, you guys could have me do
> something and I could get in even more trouble.
> BROOKS: Obviously, if you're acting as our agent, you can't get into
> trouble...
> MICHAEL: I'm taking your word for that?...
> BROOKS: Here's what I'm telling you. If you don't want to cooperate,
> you're going to prison.
> MICHAEL: Sir, I do want to cooperate-
> BROOKS: Now, I'm saying if you don't cooperate right now, here, this
> minute, you're going to prison. We're gonna asset-seize your property.
> We're gonna asset-seize your vehicles. We're gonna asset-seize your money.
> We're gonna send your girlfriend to prison and we're gonna send your kid to
> the Child Protective Services. That's what I'm saying.
> MICHAEL: If I get a lawyer, all that stuff happens to me?
> BROOKS: If you get a lawyer, we're not in a position to wanna
> cooperate with you tomorrow. We're in a position to cooperate with you
> right now. Today. Right now. Today...
> MICHAEL: I'm under too much stress to make a decision like that. I
> want to talk to a lawyer. I really do. That's the bottom line.
>
> [Commander Brooks continues to push Michael but doesn't get far.]
> [ ... ]
> BROOKS: How old is your child?
> MICHAEL: She'll be three on Tuesday.
> BROOKS: Well, children need a father at home. You can't be much of a
> father when you're in jail.
> MICHAEL: Sir!
> BROOKS: That's not a scare tactic, that's reality.
> [ ... ]
> BROOKS: How much money did you put down on this property?...Do you own
> that truck over there?
> [ ... ]
> BROOKS: I hope so, 'cause I'd look good in that truck.
> MICHAEL: Is this Mexico?
> BROOKS: No. I'll just take it. Asset-seizure. And you know what?
> The county would look good taking the equity out of this house.
> [ ... ]
> [Brooks huffs off, mission unaccomplished. He walks over to his pals
> and shakes his head.]
> BROOKS: That's the first white guy I ever felt like beating the
> fucking shit out of.
>If Michael's case ever becomes an episode of the show, Michael will be
>made a part of a criminal element that stalks backyards and threatens
>children. Commander Brooks will become a gentle, persuasive cop who's
>keeping our streets safe at night.
>October 1
>[ ... ]
> ... Maybe the undercover cops ask the girls to do a little dancing before
>getting down to real business. They sit back and enjoy the show.
>Sometimes they even strip, get into the motel's vibrating, king-size bed,
>and wait for just the right incriminating moment before the closet door
>bursts open and the unsuspecting woman is overwhelmed by a swarm of
>detectives and cameramen.
> [ ... ]
> ... And what I see, what the viewer will never see, is the women -
>disheveled, shocked, their clothes still scattered on musty hotel carpets -
>telling their stories to the amused officers and producers. Some of them
>sob uncontrollably. Three kids at home. An ex who hasn't paid child
>support in five years. Welfare. Food stamps. Some are so entrenched in
>the world of poverty and pimps that they are completely numb, fearing only
>the retribution they'll suffer if their pimps get busted ... Others work a
>nine-to-five job during the day that barely pays the rent and then become
>prostitutes at night to put food on the table. Though their faces are
>fatigued, they still manage a certain dignity. They look, in fact, very
>much like the the girl next store.
> [ ... ]
>------------------------------------------------------
>There's much, much more. Gratuitous brutality on the part of the cops.
>Camera people carrying guns and badges, and the cops not seeming to care
>about the blurring of roles. Cops making fortunes by making sure they
>create good TV.
>That's the November "Harper's", folks. I highly recommend it.
> Thanks awfully,
> Patrick "that's our job, to try to put you in state prison" Hailey
>(and to enjoy prostitutes, steal property and money, all that fun stuff
>that lands regular people in prison)
My #@$!%$# editor isn`t working. Anyway, what happened to" American
Detective" and Lt Bunnel? I don`t see it in the tv listings anymore. I
thought the show was interesting and funny at times. Is he back walking a
beat in downtown Eugene?