the advanced capitalist countries that the television channels are becoming increasingly obsessed with 'law and order'. Of late the small screen las been virtually flooded with series glorifying policemen and private investigators.
British police, Dutch CID and American private dicks have become the staple diet on which the masses are fed at least four days a week. And there is also Police 5, where viewers are encouraged to heip trace criminals (how long before political "criminals' are added to the list?).
As television began to revolutonise the field of mass communications the ruling class immediately perceived its importance in shaping conciousness. Bourgeois ideology (thie ideas and institutions used by the capitalist class to maintain its control over society) had a field day.
It is particularly in the sphere of publicising and glorifying the police force that the approach can be seen in its crudest and most biatant Tatm. The policeman has become the modern hero of the TV channels.
FROM DIXON...
The moralising, holier than thou Set. Dixon of Dock Green has disappeared. This completely unreal character (an adull version ole Mr Hod ol Eni Hiyton's books) became a cause of gen etal memiment, and the satirists finaily drove him off the screen.
Z Carr was the direct opposite of Dixon of Dock Green: we were now given coppers who lived in the real world, covered the villains at the same time. Lynch and Fancy Smith. The moral of the Z Car copper was that in a nasty world a cop couldn't be nice all the time.
The success of 7. Cars and its offspring such as Softly, Softly are symbolised by the fact that their charscters became overnight celebrities. They pertormed opening ceremonies to open new supermarkets and theatres, and were invited to school prize-givings Thur even in Leir roal lives Licy characters. Of course even in the world of BUTE TENED TELECILET CEVISI take believe, rank and hierarch nose: it is not the police constahle whic is the celebrity but the Chief Superintend ent!
... TO KOJAK Even more insidious is the private army approach of most of the American equivalents: Cannon and Hanacek are private investigators, Ironside is both private and public; while Sergeant Columbo and Lieutenant Kojak are hoth 'honest cops' in a sea of corrup Lou aE bo that such American proprimes are sowen to lognen coe Weish poles delin anything the. British police does or else.
What is the function of these prograced Eleyn Jones - who wrote most of the scripts - is perfeclly honest. His aim is "to proserve law and ander' Since those who de this are essentially the police, they have lo be built up into demi-gods and herces The repressive made totally accentable to the mass Ir is not an accident that the police Red Weekly 7 November 1974 Page 10 omplay a number of special PR advisers with the scriptwriters and producers of nese programmes and over taem all available "assistance", Any script which is not totally adulatory and attempts to take reality into account is carefully vetted and, if the police so desire, suitably modified.
Increasingly the policemen complaint about the restraints' and limits" under which they have to opurato while the 'villains" are their pen masters. Numerous programmes have painted in glowing colours the special Instincts of individual policomen who drag suspocts in on nothing more than an instinctive suspicion, and aro then rewanded by discovering that they are guilty of some crime or other or can be made to confess that they are. The brave copper has uncovered a potential hacker, bomber or murderer. The public can sleep that night in peace This continuous cover-up job for e police is never criticised in the capitaliat press, which operates under real constraints and limits! A accent TV revion: programine, In Vision, saw Williams Hardcastle (tho cold warrior from Le World ar One) chairing a discussion on the TV copper, but naturally all that the guests present did was to indulge in an orgy of sell-congratulations. No repres entalive of the groups which regularly suffer at the hands of the police was present.
HARASSMENT
Not a singie programme has shown the harassment suffered by blacks and I would like to make three oints about Red Weekiy and the Working Women's Charter (WWCI campaign.
1. was surprised to see the SEl sett out fasturnd in Red Weekly 73 at the expense of ans but a passino comment on the suocessful Wingrove & Hoger's form of action by the SEl women and the support the WiN was able to mount are very important to publiciss, but that the Wingrove & Roger's women won be Cause the men came out too was also important.
The point I'm making is that Ran Weekly often lapses into the quite right but comperatively easy job of slagging off the bureaucracy at the expense of expounding what scome to me the most distinctive and attractive feature of the IMG, in, to generalise key successful ac tiors and ways of omnisation, which are winning struggles now and will be essential if the working class is to win the huge struggles to come.
of and hostility to the IMG that whistle of what the IMG was, would be temspel, out in the context of accus strug gles. Which is not to say I'm shouting I how things rally are Fortunately Tower and fewer people de..... C. Howard search in British universities -currently 65 agreements worth $562,000 - is arranged and mon itored from here.
Red Weekly and the Charter "Join IMG'. Quite the opoosite.)
for the Charter campeign, when in several cities there are already crises in Charter groups and doubes whether the Charter is any ase at all, Red Weekly must try to change its coverage on the Charter, I'd like to bring your atrention to action around the recent sexist Wills strike in Bristol, which resulted in 4,000 women being laid off. tory; because two Wills stewards were involved in the Charter, three ather Isid off. Well ever 150 came and the Charter (especially nurseries/ was dis cussed, among other things. But the dispute had been settled and Wills was sible to coordinate any further action.
Nothing much, but an important exampio la) that it's feasible for a WWC graup to prient to a factory struggle; (bl That the connection between work and home was made; and that one way from every corner, ohen beeed on a view to overcome the problem of ranching women at horne is to raise the Charte with the inore accessible women, Le trade unionists. They are also women at home, they know other women in the area: and often women from a factory