White women were first hired by American police departments as early as 1905, even before they earned the right to vote. Mary E. Hamilton , one of the NYPD ’s first female officers, explains in her memoir that females served in custodial positions, tending to other females and juveniles, as well as being tapped for their feminine “virtues.”1 Venessa Garcia explains that women at the time were not “to replace men in their occupation but to aid and assist them, quietly and unassumingly.”2 That approach endured until the women’s movement of the late 1960s, among other pressures, that eventually impacted hiring practices.3 With white women reductively equated with “moral virtue, the domestic realm, social service, formal rules, administration …and emotions,” it is no surprise that male-dominated departments at the time resisted the idea of hiring more female cops.4 Moreover, if a female adopts the profession’s masculinist norms, “she is criticized for not acting like a woman”; in turn, if she relies on traditional feminine approaches, she is considered “unsuitable for the job.”5 In actuality and for the most part, women of all races and ethnicities, as collective “outsiders,” utilize a variety of strategies to usually conform to rather than to reform institutions, including “capitalizing on stereotypical femininity” or adopting macho methods as their own.6
Despite the initial surge in the numbers of women hired in the 1970s, their percentage of the total police force today remains roughly at 12 percent, with advancement slow and the rate of turnover persistently high.7 Although it remains difficult for a society that deploys police to comprehend putting women so directly in harm’s way, women have long been the victims of violence despite society’s professed commitment to protecting them. Moreover, given the cultural training about female “gifts,” there is evidence that female cops “tend to defuse volatile situations and provoke less hostility.”8 The reality is that primarily about 20 percent of a police officer’s time is linked to dangerous duties, while 80 percent is spent on “social-work-type jobs” and administrative duties.9 Hollywood representations of police culture, though, foster the impression that police work is “action-filled, exciting, [and] adventurous,” promoting an image on and off screen of cops as urban warriors—roles best suited to males.10
Female Crimefighters on Screen: Battling to be Blue
For most of Hollywood history, a female presence in crime films was reduced to serving as the wives, girlfriends, or victims of both cops and criminals. In the wake of changes described above, female crimefighters began to appear onscreen to contest the boundaries of traditional female behavior. Rather than cinema, it was the medium of television that first featured stand-out female crimefighters, including Decoy (1957–1958), showcasing Officer Casey Jones (Beverly Garland ) who explains that she is just one of 249 such female officers in the NYPD , “who pose as hostesses, society girls, models, anything and everything the department wants us to be.”11 A decade later came Officer Julie Barnes (Peggy Lipton ) in the ABC television series, The Mod Squad (1968–1973); she was a runaway from San Francisco recruited to be part of the LAPD’s experimental “youth squad.” Also with the LAPD was Sgt. Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson ) in the NBC show, Police Woman (1974–1978). Anderson too posed in a variety of stereotypical roles to entrap criminals but at least presented the rare image of a white female putting herself in harm’s way on behalf of the public’s safety.
Probably the more memorable crime-fighting females of the era appeared in Charlie’s Angels (1976–1981), an ABC show that announced its intentions in the opening voiceover: “Once upon a time there were three little girls who went to the police academy … but I took them away from all that. My name is Charlie.”12 In each episode, his disembodied voice dispatched the women to perform “severely under-costumed undercover work … as prostitutes, sexy nurses or exercise instructors.”13 Such undercover roles —or ability to “masquerade,” as Philippa Gates notes14—is perhaps a more palatable way to imagine women doing dangerous work, especially if their physical attractiveness is still on view.
As discussed earlier, for males, the most iconic crimefighter characters usually appear in plain clothes, but for a female, the uniform may provide her with a signifier of empowerment because of its connections to formal, state power. By covering up her body, traditionally representing a site of vulnerability, the uniform lends her its associative authority, helping to override the limitations that her gender customarily poses. This also may help explain why having a female in uniform is particularly disconcerting; and why female cops, like women in the military, initially wore skirts to differentiate them.
One such exemplar appears in Hill Street Blues , discussed in Chap. 3, in which Officer Lucy Bates had a small but significant role, earning Betty Thomas an Emmy , although her six-foot, one-inch frame was already atypical by Hollywood standards. Given her physique, Bates ’s character is shown helping to wrestle suspects to the ground, and in one instance after such a tussle, sarcastically accuses one of her colleagues of having “copped a feel” during the melee. Bates is also among the first female cops to be framed as a trusted friend to her male partner, who vow to have each other’s “backs” without the usual romantic overtones. The arc of her character, though, also includes traditional female associations, including her shedding a tear after shooting a suspect and growing more maternal as the series progressed, later adopting the child of a drug-addicted mother who lost custody.
While Bates was depicted as a no-nonsense cop doing her job, a return to glamor was showcased by the uniformed Officer Stacy Sheridan , portrayed by the more glamorous Heather Locklear in T.J. Hooker (1982–1986), first aired on NBC then on ABC for its last season. However, it is Tyne Daly , Dirty Harry’s female partner in The Enforcer , who offered a more expanded portrait of a female cop during the era. In the CBS television series, Cagney & Lacey (1982–1988), Daly co-stars as Det. Mary Beth Lacey with Det. Chris Cagney , portrayed by Sharon Gless . Lacey represented the more grounded, married-with-children type, while Cagney was presented as the attractive but tough-talking blond who followed in the footsteps of her hard-drinking Irish cop father, and with hopes of making chief someday. Despite the limitations of their biographies, the show featured the two detectives competently working cases, chasing down suspects, and participating in the occasional shoot-out. Lacey ’s style of interrogation was to be well-prepared and rooted in being a good listener, patiently asking follow-up questions to encourage victims to remember details and suspects to share more than they intend. In contrast, Cagney relied on her gut instincts to catch a suspect in a lie and emotional outbursts that could unnerve a reluctant witness. Given their gender (and race), the series also investigated the obstacles facing two white female cops from different perspectives, and—novel for its time—committed to each other as friends and partners. As Caryn James notes, “No other female cops [since] have been as down to earth and psychologically complex as those characters.”15 At the series’ end, Lacey had survived breast cancer but was now recovering from a gunshot, while Cagney was still looking for her soul mate along with struggling to stay sober.
An earlier 1981 made-for-TV film, whose stellar ratings inspired the subsequent series, had earned the cover of Ms. Magazine for its progressive presentation of two hard-working female cops. Barbara Corday and Barbara Avedon , who wrote the film and series, credit the women’s movement for inspiring these female cop characters .16 The series, which faced two cancellation scares during its run, survived to win two Emmys as a drama series and earn Daly four Emmys and Gless two for their respective characters.
Uncovering Female Agency and Nurturing Violence
When the era’s films began to include more female crimefighters, these roles were mainly a return to undercover work, where such characters could masquerade behind more conventional roles. One example is Black Widow (1987), in which Debra Winger portrays a government agent working undercover to get close to a young woman (Theresa Russell ) suspected of killing consecutive husbands for their money. Their cat-and-mouse game is intriguing but more akin to the trappings of film noir, with its intentional moral fog—one that hampers the customary crimefighter’s focus on justice.
Betrayed (1988) is another undercover role for Winger in which she is an FBI agent posing as an itinerant “combine girl” who works the American heartland during harvest time, but also becomes involved with the target of her investigation, Gary Simmons (Tom Berenger ). After confirming that Simmons is a white supremacist planning a crime in which her participation is crucial, she becomes imperiled, emotionally and physically. Although she eventually kills Simmons in the line of duty, their unorthodox love story overpowers the focus on her crimefighting skills, and, again, has little to do with justice or to expose the racism at the heart of the story. When convinced that she has been recklessly exploited by the bureau, she sidelines her career, choosing to reconnect one last time with her dead lover’s children—even if it means risking retaliation from the white supremacists who remain at large.
Another female undercover cop appears in Impulse (1990), directed by Sondra Locke (Dirty Harry’s “rescue” in Sudden Impact ), with Theresa Russell as a prostitute who busts an illicit drug operation, but also becomes fascinated by the sexualized trappings of her alter ego. Moreover, she must rebuke the sexual advances of her boss while consenting to sex with the prosecutor who is directing the task force employing her. Locke explains that the psychological pressure on this cop is what drew her to the story, yet the role is deemed “a male fantasy” by one reviewer who adds that no “lustful male director could have paid more attention to Ms. Russell’s sex appeal than Ms. Locke does.”17
Finally, there is A Stranger Among Us (1992), which places NYPD Det. Emily Eden (Melanie Griffith ) among an orthodox Jewish community to crack a theft-murder mystery. Eden , whom her partner calls a cowboy, solves the case and kills a few criminals, but the action takes a back seat to her forbidden romance with the rabbi’s son.
Despite the new conservatism ushered in by the Reagan presidency, the era charted some improvements toward stronger on-screen female agency, moving beyond mimicking male behavior and stressing intellectual over physical power.18 Such female characters are included in Silence of the Lambs (1991), Copycat (1995), and Fargo (1996). The first two of these performances slide into the dictates of a slasher film, with the criminal’s evil as meaningful as, if not more so, as the cop’s persona as a force for good. Silence of the Lambs is the story of FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster ) who must stop a serial killer by enlisting the help of the imprisoned Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins ). Starling ’s dependence on the mesmeric Lector , though, draws the viewer into his horrific orbit at the expense of her crimefighting perspective.
Copycat is another film that depends on the trappings of the horror genre, but also features a capable homicide detective, M. J. Monahan (Holly Hunter), who is progressively “buddied” with another female, a notable criminal profiler played by Sigourney Weaver . Monahan , though, is steeped in man troubles, which somewhat diminishes her representation of strength.
Lastly, in Fargo , the discovery of a series of murders in the North Dakota city enables Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand , winning an Academy Award for her role) to utilize her crack crime-solving skills, despite being in the last few months of pregnancy. Although the film aptly contests several stereotypes about women, especially to supplement her “nurturing” side with a no-nonsense approach usually reserved for male crimefighters , Gunderson is “neither maverick nor lone agent,”19 which makes her quirky but not likely to supplant the hegemonic white male who otherwise dominates such roles.
When female characters do start participating in the “action,” similar to black males, they are usually relegated to serving as the white male’s support system. Such a female buddy was featured in Internal Affairs (1990). Sgt. Amy Wallace (Laurie Metcalf ) is further marginalized as a lesbian whose personal life is virtually ignored and whose relationship with the lead male, although respectful, is strictly contained, which enables the heterosexual male lead, Raymond Avilla (Andy Garcia), to focus on his troubled marriage. During the film’s final showdown between cops and criminal (another cop, in this case), Wallace is seriously wounded, leaving the males to shoot it out—a fate similar to that of Daly ’s character in The Enforcer .
Rather than demonstrate their crime-solving prowess, the evolution of the era’s female characters also shows them muscling up and brandishing the same exaggerated weapons as the male action heroes . Acting tough—a basic tenet of the male crimefighter —is a complicated task for females as it frequently means adopting the same performance of masculinity , already a hyperbolic version of what it means to be male. Even wielding a weapon can appear inappropriate for a female, as it evokes long-standing phallic connotations20 and runs counter to her supposed nurturing nature. If weapons are perceived as an unnatural fit, this further undermines her ability to perform the action-oriented authority that they accord, whether on behalf of the nation-state or rooted in individual discretion—a hallmark of the male archetype’s winning formula.
In addition, portraying a rogue version of a crimefighter requires a character to think for himself or herself, to act on behalf of the greater good rather than for personal concerns. Yet, most female crimefighters have to be awakened by some threat to those with whom they have personal or emotional attachments. The female crimefighter’s motives are most often rooted in a maternal or nurturing instinct, which can include abused and endangered children, family members, and anyone with whom she has intimate connections. There is also the scorned woman scenario, as in Kill Bill ’s jilted bride, who then becomes a ruthless killing machine. Despite inroads made by women muscling and shooting their way into more action films ,21 they still act on behalf of intimate concerns, matters traditionally rooted in the private rather than public sphere. “The maternal recurs as a motivating factor, with female heroes acting to protect their children, whether biological or adoptive (Terminator 2, Aliens , Strange Days ) or in memory of them (Fatal Beauty ).”22
Even the more daring heroine in The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) is split in two, emphasized “through the codes of costume and behaviour”: the tough, crossdressing Charly Baltimore (Geena Davis) who kicks ass, and her alter ego, the “feminine” Samantha Caine who is “defined by her motherhood , community role, and hence by the needs of others.”23 Baltimore is a CIA assassin who loses her memory and becomes the unassuming mom, Caine , who lives with her daughter in a quiet New England town. Once she recovers her memory, she struggles to balance work and motherhood , which, in this case, means killing in cold blood (on behalf of the nation).
Besides the acceptable motivation to protect loved ones and homesteads, female characters are usually permitted more aggressive behavior when rape is involved. However, acting preemptively or out of revenge is customarily the dirty work males must do. In this manner, Sondra Locke ’s character in Sudden Impact , discussed in Chap. 3, represents a novel approach in trying to settle the score herself, but Callahan ’s protection of her vigilantism also restores male control and dominion over her actions.
The muscular, gun-toting Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and the feckless Lt. Ripley in Alien (1979 and sequels in 1986, 1993, and 1997) become soldiers not on behalf of the nation’s defense, but primarily to protect loved ones and themselves. As such, they do not chase the same goals as male avengers who seek restorative justice on behalf of society as a whole. Even if the male character perceives his duties as personal—which in essence he often must as the personification of self-determination—his role reads, circulates, and sparks discussions as though it represents something larger and more profound, enabling his story to garner greater cultural acceptance and become part of the “national bloodstream.”24 In other words, given the male’s ability to act as a universal agent, his mission is positioned to speak for the collective, while hers remains insular and isolated.25
Having witnessed the handful of female defenders and action hero ines who first emerge in the 1990s,26 observers began to ask: “Will female shoot ’em-ups help or hurt women?”27 A few scholars argue that having women act as aggressively as men is hardly progress.28 They charge that female masculinity in cinema comes at the expense of redefining female participation; and to have female characters mimic the prevailing masculinist norms does little to realign the gendered assumptions about the role of a hero.29 I would argue that Hollywood action films similarly fail to address the reality of most men’s lives, but by specifically discouraging women from performing such fantastic, violent, incongruous, exhilarating onscreen behaviors also denies female characters the full range of human expression—good, bad, and preposterous.30 More importantly, such a view reiterates essentialisms that frame violence as inherently male and non-violence as “natural” to females. Considering America’s embrace of aggressive action—in my view, the more serious problem—it stands to reason that American women too have absorbed the nation’s macho mindset. To bar them from participating in its expression on screen, given Hollywood’s cultural ubiquity and global influence, helps to maintain males as the only legitimate agents who can perform the nation. Thus, my argument is not with females intruding on action films or their depiction of violence—the gist of much film scholarship, especially in the 1980s and 1990s—it is having a particular hyper-masculinized version (whether performed by males or females) as the only viable and appropriate expression of American heroism.
Case of the Blues: Female Cops on the Small Screen
Despite the proliferation of crime shows on television starting in the 1990s, female crimefighters were still kept largely on the sidelines. NYPD Blue , discussed in Chap. 3, features one multifaceted uniformed officer, Janice Licalsi (Amy Brenneman ), who kills a mobster she had been forced to work for to protect her disgraced cop father and to save the life of her lover, the show’s lead character. Starting in season two (through season seven), Det. Diane Russell (Kim Delaney ), who also serves as the girlfriend (later wife) of another male detective, is plagued by personal problems—haunted by a father who sexually abused her and shown struggling with alcoholism. Other female characters who arrive later in the series remain run-of-the-mill supporting players who do little to expand representations of female crimefighters.
The early twenty-first century debuted more female characters but most merely replicate existing limitations. The Division (2001–2004) showcases the perspectives of five female cops in the San Francisco police, including Capt. Kate McCafferty , portrayed by Bonnie Bedelia . The show was produced for the Lifetime network, originally launched in 1984 as a cable channel targeting female audiences.31 To its credit, the show includes a diverse cast with several black female and Latina detectives , along with exploring issues related to sexual orientation . However, as Amanda D. Lotz notes, the series privileges their private lives at the expense of their crimefighting, with “minimal chase scenes or action sequences,”32 along with being relegated to what may be derisively called the “pink ghetto” of niche cable channels targeting female viewers.
Without a Trace (2002–2009), dealing with missing persons, features an effective female character, Det. Samantha “Sam” Spade (Poppy Montgomery ) but mostly serves as a supportive partner for the show’s male lead. Cold Case (2003–2010) offers Philadelphia detective Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris ), but the show rarely rises above the routines of a typical police procedural . Castle (2009–2016), whose title refers to the name of the mystery writer who insists on tagging along on murder investigations with homicide detective Stana Katic (Kate Becket ), is as much about their budding romance as their crimefighting partnership.
Other shows emerged that put a female crimefighter at centerstage, including The Closer (2005–2012), with CIA-trained, Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick ), who runs the Homicide Division of the LAPD. She is described as a “tough investigator” and often compared to the extraordinary British inspector in Prime Suspect,33 but her “action” is mostly confined to interrogations. An unorthodox female detective is also embodied by Holly Hunter as Grace Hanadarko in Saving Grace (2007–2010), a uniquely flawed, reckless, and gifted cop but who gets aid from a recurring vision of an angel.
Rizzoli & Isles (2010–2016) stars Det. Jane Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) who is paired with a female medical examiner, Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander ), but Rizzoli is undermined by flashbacks of her kidnapping and torture, which also roots her passion for police work in the realm of the personal. Before the series ends, she is attacked again while on the job, which also results in a lost pregnancy.
The Chicago Code (2011), starring Jennifer Beals as Teresa Colvin , Chicago’s first female (and youngest ever) police superintendent, proves to be more a vehicle for her former partner, the white male rogue, Jarek Wysocki (Jason Clarke); he routinely ignores nearly every directive she gives him, doing things his own extralegal way.
The Law & Order franchise made its debut on NBC in 1990, with the original show (ending in 2010) bifurcating its storytelling—the first part about investigating a crime and the back half about what happens to the accused in the courtroom. As its creator Dick Wolf noted, “the prosecution would be the hero,” making it more procedural than an investigation of cops’ motivations and links to the larger social context being explored in this book.34 In one of the two spinoffs, Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001–2011), Det. Alexandra Eames (Kathryn Erbe ) is impressive but too often eclipsed by her volatile and senior partner, Det. Robert Goren (Vincent D’Onofrio ). Although the duo tackle serious crimes, as one reviewer notes, “you can’t get past the fact that you’ve seen this all before, just assembled differently.”35
The other spin-off, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (later changed to simply SVU), started in 1999 as a male and female detective partnership and evolved into a starring turn for the female detective , Olivia Benson , earning Mariska Hargitay an Emmy in 2006 for the role. Despite its longevity, as it is still in production, its focus is primarily on sexual offenders, with most victims being female, having long earned the label of “women’s work” with police departments. No doubt focusing on such crimes is vital and absent from most mainstream crime shows, but by depicting them as primarily the concern of female officers, cordons them off and further compounds their “special” or marginalized status.
Benson also falls prey to some well-worn tropes, prompting one reviewer to note how the character is already a child of rape, is nearly raped more than once during the series’ run, and finally kidnapped and tortured, “breaking her down in the most brutal ways.”36 Rather than do so to further develop the character’s arc, this treatment serves to chip away at her embodiment of a cop hero. Other studies similarly note the show’s “increasingly visual representations of victims’ traumatic experiences,” including those of the lead character, which merely exacerbate its culture of victimization.37 For all the steps forward the show is given credit for, this trend seems both regressive and dangerous.
Another of the show’s clichés is having Benson become a mother to an orphaned boy (much like Hill Street Blues ’ Bates ), with the new role prompting Benson to vow she will start shifting her priorities at work to accommodate motherhood . Although admirable, given the realities of her position, especially in a Hollywood crime story, it also represents the antithesis of the male crimefighter ’s all-in devotion to his profound raison d’être. For sure, male crimefighters often have loved ones to worry about, but it is also clear that their families must grasp their sacrifices are on behalf of the greater good among the larger community (or nation)—much like how military service is viewed. For Benson , it is her dedication to work at the expense of her family that seems to be framed as “unnatural” and negligent. This adherence to such a double-standard is another reason SVU creates little new terrain for a female crimefighter, despite its star being one of the executive producers with some influence over the show’s direction.
One exception among television shows featuring female cop characterizations is Third Watch (1999–2005), showcasing the uniformed officer, Faith Yokas (Molly Price ), an impressive amalgam of all the progressive female cops who came before her, but with added depth only limited by her inclusion in a large ensemble cast. Several scenes reveal almost a banal quality to her life as a cop, capturing the abrupt shifts from the everyday routines of a working mom suddenly interrupted by the call to duty. In one instance, after going off duty and stopping at a store for groceries, she notices the strange behavior of two men and springs into action, with her gun drawn and eventually foiling an attempted robbery.38 On another occasion, she carefully grabs a suspicious backpack that may contain a bomb, walking it away from a crowd of school children and ignoring the possible danger to her own life.
Yokas ’s relationship with her partner, Maurice Boscarelli (Jason Wiles )—the resident white male rogue—is a study in contrasts, with her playing the mature, practical one, dispensing tough love and barbed wisecracks; but she also pushes back when he crosses her, rarely yielding to him at the expense of her agency. In turn, even as the precinct cowboy, Boscarelli is capable of introspection and able to serve as her support system when it counts most—more a nod to police partnerships than to gender politics, on or off screen.
At the same time, Yokas is saddled with the usual domestic stress of balancing her job with the demands of a husband and two kids at home. How Yokas handles her private life is what is novel, as her husband stays home with the kids while she works the evening “third” shift. Over the course of the series, she pays an emotional price for this arrangement, with her 11-year-old daughter giving her as much grief as her husband, as he struggles to find steady work along with combating alcoholism. While Yokas is shown to be the breadwinner, the family is still unable to make ends meet; this in part prompts her to end an unexpected pregnancy with an abortion, drawing sharp rebukes from both male partners in her life.
Despite such stressors that usually overwhelm most female cop characters , they serve to humanize rather than to subjugate Yokas , lending authenticity and dimension to her depiction of a cop. In the last season, after divorcing her husband but regaining the respect of her daughter (who has grown to admire her mother as a flawed but formidable role model), Yokas earns her detective shield, providing appropriate validation and closure for such a rare female cop hero . Such a multifaceted character has yet to be repeated in films or on TV, despite the expanded venues provided by pay cable and Internet-based platforms.
Out of Sight: Black Female Crimefighters
While white females enjoy some inclusion as Hollywood crime fighters, black females—doubly marginalized on the basis of gender and race—remain far more invisible. For most of the 1970s, the career of Pam Grier , although largely a product of independent cinema , was a notable exception and a rare example of an avenging female character who seeks justice, not just for herself, but also on behalf of a community as a whole.39 In 1980s Hollywood, Whoopi Goldberg offered a more mainstream portrait of a black female star, but her cop film, Fatal Beauty (1987), and her character, Rita Rizzoli , merely reinscribe a maternal instinct as she acts aggressively on behalf of the memory of her dead child. It is Goldberg ’s comic persona, much like Eddie Murphy’s, though, that most limits her ability to disrupt Hollywood norms about the gender (and race) of an effective cop hero.
Television in the 1990s offered Angel Street (1992), with black and white female “buddy ” detectives from Chicago. The show was novel for its reversal of stereotypes , making the black female, Det. Anita Hill (Robin Givens), the well-heeled and educated one, and the white Det. Dorothy Paretsky (Pamela Gidley) the more grounded, working class cop. Unfortunately, it was canceled after only three episodes. Another offering of the era was the 1974 TV movie, Get Christie Love , which fostered a short-lived series on ABC (1974–1975) starring Teresa Graves , whose character—inspired by Pam Grier —lacked the original’s audacity, having been tamed and contained for a television audience.
Third Watch , discussed above, also included a black female cop , Sasha Monroe (Nia Long ), but who spent most of the series as an outcast Internal Affairs agent, then shot while pregnant, eventually marrying fellow officer Ty Davis (Coby Bell ). As the series came to a close, Monroe leaves police work entirely to pursue a career in politics.
In Southland (2009–2013), although dominated by its male leads (discussed in the final chapter), the black female detective , Lydia Adams (Regina King ), has her turn in the spotlight. The series was created by Ann Biderman who had already earned an Emmy for writing an episode of NYPD Blue ; she now partnered with John Wells , the executive producer of Third Watch , and together created Southland , which one reviewer described as less about the moral failings of criminals and more about “cops who are in need of intervention.” Adams , too, struggles to deal with an aging mother (who dies during the series) and a pregnancy that she is not sure she wants to see through (but does).
Similar to Yokas , such factors do not cripple Adams but get absorbed into her already layered contradictions. The character displays compassion and callousness toward victims, witnesses, and more than a few colleagues, as well as proving to be as cautious as she is confrontational. In other words, she is a fully rounded character not so easily defined by any one factor of her identity, but an evocative synthesis of her race, gender, and profession. Adams represents a remarkable character whose run was cut short by the show’s cancelation, having already been shuttled from NBC to TNT to get a second life. Some reviewers speculated that the show’s already bleak outlook had nowhere else to go and simply ran its course. Although the show earned a measure of critical acclaim for its gritty realism , it also had its fair share of detractors,40 with one critic observing that the show’s cop characters are “very, very white,” with King’s Adams being the exception, “and the perps are very, very nonwhite—a lack of diversity that undercuts its realism .”41
This is not to say that white male producers and writers are not capable of creating strong female cop characters (black or white), as producer Barney Rosenzweig was the hands-on, co-creator of Cagney & Lacey , and John Wells was the driving force behind many shows under study here. As these producers themselves have acknowledged in interviews, though, there is no better way to achieve a more organic understanding of the perspectives of females and people of color than to strengthen their inclusion in the creative and production processes.42
Shots Fired
Two African American writer-producers, Reggie Rock Bythewood and Gina Prince-Bythewood , accomplished the feat outlined above with their 10-episode limited series, Shots Fired, which aired on the Fox Network in 2017. The husband and wife co-creators assert that the series was inspired by the galvanizing tragedies of Michael Brown in 2014 (that set off an uprising in Ferguson, Missouri), and before him, among others, Trayvon Martin in 2012. Rather than a polemical exercise, they hoped to create both empathic black and white characters whose experiences could provide a “key for understanding” how race is embedded in the nation’s justice systems, especially as experienced by the two lead African American characters who hold intersecting but divergent points of view.43 A more comprehensive analysis of this particular series is warranted, given its depiction of the crucial interplay of gender and race and their combined impact on public perceptions of criminal and police behaviors on either side of the thin blue line.
The series opens with the shooting of unarmed college student, Jesse Carr (Jacob Leinbach ), by Deputy Joshua Beck (Tristan Mack Wilds ), in the small, fictional town of Gate Station, North Carolina. The anomaly, the film asserts, is that in this case the cop is black, and the victim is white. Given the racialized nature of the incident, the governor asks the Department of Justice to take over the investigation and requests a black prosecutor from its civil rights division. Also assigned is Ashe Akino (Sanaa Lathan ), a former cop and DEA agent , who is paired with Preston Terry (Stephan James ), the DOJ’s rising star with far more faith in the system’s ability to be color-blind than Akino . They soon discover that the shooting by Beck was not “clean” as the local sheriff’s department claims, also learning that the town’s beleaguered black community claims the predominantly white department is blatantly ignoring a suspicious death of a black youth.
DOJ investigator Ashe Akino (Sanaa Latham), with Deputy Caleb Brooks (Beau Kapp), probes a race-based homicide in the South. Screen shot from Shots Fired, Fox Network Season 1, “Hour Two: Betrayal of Trust.”
Like female crimefighters before her, Akino is depicted as a competent cop but crippled by a fractured personal life. It stems from a tough childhood following her mother death and father’s illness, which landed her in foster care. Her current troubles are rooted in a nasty custody battle with her daughter’s father, Javier (Angel Bonanni ), who claims Akino is a reckless, unfit mother. During court-ordered counseling, she is found to be suffering from job-related PTSD. Despite the usual gendered burdens, Akino is a highly respected investigator who began her law enforcement career as a cop before working as a DEA agent in Mexico for six years—now choosing to be an investigator for hire. More importantly, while Akino was a rookie cop, she too shot and killed an unarmed youth. Although it was ruled justifiable, Akino tells Terry she thinks about the dead boy every day; as her custody battle drags on, she fears she may not be deserving of her daughter, having once killed someone else’s child.
Akino ’s competency is rooted in the familiar street cop’s learned toughness . When she tracks down a suspect that turns out to be a witness hiding from police, she and the youth have a physical fight that she eventually wins. On another occasion she chases down a college student selling drugs, tackling him then cuffing him with little trouble. It is her face-offs with the crooked Lt. Breeland (Stephen Moyer ), though, that most tests her mettle, especially after he arranges for another cop to pull her over, rough her up and threaten her. Later, she and Breeland have a showdown in which he knocks her to the ground, calls her “a relentless bitch,” but eventually loses ground to Akino who nearly chokes him to death until Terry intervenes. Akino is so committed to solving both cases that she also approaches Javier, still in the DEA, and asks him to check out the ownership of the murder weapon—the ID having been filed off. Despite their personal animosity, Akino appeals to his sense of duty to help her catch the killers.
Shortly after her first meeting with Terry , he too tries to curb her swagger, reminding her that he is charge despite his lack of experience, drawing Akino ’s salty response, “It only took you two hours to start swinging your junk, most guys at least wait a day.”44 She dismissively refers to Terry as the “black Jesus,” thinking him both righteous and naïve, telling their bosses that he may be in over his head on this case. She tries to contain his enthusiasm, and echoing the Hollywood cop’s mantra, warns, “You got to know the rules in order to break them.”45 Her jaded demeanor even prompts Terry ’s brother Maceo, a cocky professional football player (with whom she has sex), to ask, “So, what you dig cuffing brothers?” to which Akino dryly replies: “I dig cuffing bad guys. They come in all shades.”46 Other male characters also offer her compliments about her defiance of gendered norms, including Cox who tells her she has “balls,” prompting her to merely offer a curt “thank you.” She also understands the value of bonding with other cops, initially sitting down with Breeland and his deputies, who offer her a shot of Prairie Fire, a mix of Wild Turkey and Tabasco; after she swigs it down, she gasps, “I think I just grew a testicle.”47
The series features other potent and complex female characters, including the two grieving mothers, the governor, and a fiery local pastor. Race for them too is treated in both blunt and subtle ways, including revelatory rifts between black characters as well as those across the black-white divide. Each of the victim’s mothers—one black and one white—are given moments that showcase their grief, but also their ability to use their racial identities to pivot toward activism in the search for racial justice . The white female governor, Patricia Eamons (Helen Hunt), who is already coping with the media storm behind the racialized murders, also spars with her daughter who at one point reminds Eamons that white “liberals can be racists too.”48 Her daughter also criticizes her mother’s education initiative, meant to address long-standing systemic racism , charging her mother with hypocrisy for sending her to an expensive private school after concluding the public ones are “too dangerous.”
Pastor Janae James (Aisha Hinds ) is another stand-out character, more of a match for Akino than Terry , as she puts her community-based effort against Akino ’s law enforcement approach. The pastor has her own demons, including running a vigilante squad that bullies would-be drug dealers “by any means necessary.” James’s strengths include her ability to bring black and white together as she does so with the two grieving mothers. Her ambition is also on display along with her disdain for a respected black reverend whom she accuses of befriending monied white townspeople who are doing little to stop black children from dying. Her rhetoric is often inflammatory, as she hints that she wants another Ferguson-type eruption that might force more radical change; at one point, she cites Martin Luther King’s words that a riot is the language of the unheard. After James witnesses the riot’s destruction of a restaurant owned by a local veteran of the civil rights movement , she tempers her approach. Akino has several telling interactions with James , including visiting her in prison after the police frame James for Campbell’s murder. She asks James to “keep the faith,” with James , in turn, asking Akino if she has lost hers, offering, “We’re both incarcerated in our own ways.”49
In the final episode, Akino is shown having a supervised visitation with her daughter, having lost the custody fight, with no mention of any professional reward for having been key to solving both cases. It was her unauthorized visit to Cox that broke open one of them, as she convinced Cox to confess to Campbell’s shooting, which Cox does but only to blame the department for failing to properly train him in firearms, thus sidestepping murder charges. Terry is shown to have matured, not only professionally, but also in terms of his identity as a black male, especially revealed in exchanges with his father and brother as well as with Beck .50 The moments between Terry and Beck touch on issues of class as well as race, as each tries to grasp how they fit into the justice system—one a federal prosecutor, the other a local deputy. When Beck finally realizes his superiors are only protecting themselves, he vows he is “done being blue” and agrees to provide evidence to expose the department’s corruption. In the end, Terry is saddened to jail “another brother,” but, as a prosecutor, vows to make the system live up to its color-blind ideals, even if the larger society has yet to do so.51
At the start of the series, Terry announced at a press conference, “I am here because we are creating a generation of American who are becoming quickly disillusioned with the postracial America we like to tout.”52 In the final scenes, he is shown compiling a list of civil rights violations he intends to pursue against Cox . The closing moments, though, belong to James and several supporting characters, including Beck ’s white deputy friend, the black and white mothers at the center of the media storm, and the governor’s former aide. They gather to propose a grassroots effort, one rooted in a diverse community united by a common fate; it presents a far different ending than the usual violent epitaph for a crime drama.
Although the series presents a more comprehensive portrait of the impact of race and gender in policing and matters of justice, its central female cop character —however complex—is still plagued by familiar limitations that curtail her ability to represent a more significant challenge to the hegemony of the white male archetype. While this chapter has made clear that such pioneering female characters have made inroads into his protected turf, portraying brave, gutsy and multidimensional crimefighters, they remain contained by persistent stereotypes . These handicaps continue to restrict their motives to the realm of the personal rather than their competencies and toughness applied on behalf of the greater good. They also still fall far short of being able to perform the nation and successfully embody—as their male counterparts do—many vital and long-standing American mythologies .