Hacker Cinema
Blue Bloods
2010 · TV series · 14 seasons
Created by Robin Green, Mitchell Burgess
A drama about a multi-generational family of cops dedicated to New York City law enforcement. Frank Reagan is the New York Police Commissioner and heads both the police force and the Reagan brood. He runs his department as diplomatically as he runs his family, even when dealing with the politics that plagued his unapologetically bold father, Henry, during his stint as Chief.
3 negative4 neutralfrom 7 commenters
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9 comments on Hacker News
It's definitely. Notice how after the 1994 Crime Bill was put into effect you had a large wave of shows and movies that increasingly depicted police as tools of the state rather than as protectors of the public. The fact that police-centered media exploded in ever larger shockwaves after that, the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park Bombing, 9/11, and the deaths of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd was no coincidence. Law & Order, NYPD Blue, NCIS, Chicago PD, and Blue Bloods each correspond to each of those periods. The shows and movies are designed to make the abusive and destructive actions of the police look gallant. The police themselves actually advocate on many of them in order to sensationalize depictions or manipulate points of view so that they can then take them and use them as emotional appeals when the public criticizes policing.
The name "Law & Order" is a blatant example of this, as it's a phrase used by Richard Nixon during his campaign in 1968, and was widely repeated when he created justifications for starting the War On Drugs in 1970. This same phrase was later used by Reagan and H.W. Bush when they planted their positions of wanting to wield state violence against countercultures that arose. The '90s was full of change as Gen-X started to become adults and formed their own powerful countercultures, and the title of the show was an emotional appeal to conservative older people who hated that change and wanted the state to shape society instead of the other way around.
Many might do better to focus on advocacy rather than ignorance. Not sure why secret cat experiments should matter that much in the stark reality of:
"Overall, 48% say there are some circumstances under which the use of torture is acceptable in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts; about as many (49%) say there are no circumstances under which the use of torture is acceptable." (2017)
This stuff is completely mainstream. The first episode of Blue Bloods (2010) had Tom Selleck correcting his DA daughters portrayal of police torture of a subject as thoughtful "enhanced interrogation". I can turn on the TV anytime and see this sort of stuff. It's as normal as apple pie.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/01/26/americans-divided-in-views-of-use-of-torture-in-u-s-anti-terror-efforts/
I also have a funny story about a film set. When I lived in New York they were filming an episode of Blue Bloods. I had a 12-year-old French bulldog. When the guy with the walkie-talkie told the crowd it was okay to walk down the block, we started walking. 5 minutes later everyone else was gone and the scene was clear except for me and Elvis. Security started hassling me to make him walk faster and I told them that they were idiots. And then Tom Selleck stuck his head out of his trailer and said what's the holdup. I yelled they're trying to make me rush my elderly dog. And he yelled guys leave that old dog alone we can film in another 2 minutes and went back into his trailer.
So I have it on pretty good authority that you can social engineer any situation with an elderly dog.
The police have been made good by decades of "good cop" "bad guy" TV dramas.
I mean look at Law and Order, or Chicago PD, or Blue Bloods. There's a token episode about police brutality or corruption that is "solved" by the "good apple" standing up to them.
Not even spy shows. It’s weird to see Blue Bloods (an NYPD show) celebrating their 10th anniversary season. I stopped watching after the first episode where a cop tortures a suspect and his father (the police commissioner) lectures his daughter (a district attorney) about the differences between torture and enhanced interrogation.
And the commissioners whole schtick is principled, conservative law-and-order...
I agree with you. There was a really good episode of Blue Bloods about this issue. And the writers of Blue Bloods got it completely wrong. The problem is they portrayed the pro-encryption side of the argument negatively, and didn't do it any kind of justice. In the end the Police Commissioner guilted a tech executive to lend him "an engineer" to unlock a smartphone containing sensitive data.
That is how this argument is portrayed to the public. "Well if you aren't hiding anything then you have nothing to worry about!"
It's funny because you can you can usually tell a non-tech-savvy person who has had their identity compromised from a non-tech-savvy person who hasn't, simply because they have a healthy dose of paranoia. I feel like if more of society were trivially hacked (and embarrassed by it) that they would take the issue more seriously. But by then it could be too late.
They show up in several episodes of "Blue Bloods." The daughter-in-law of the Police Commissioner uses one to expedite a gun purchase. A guy uses one to when he gets pulled over for speeding and the find a gun in his car. The beat cop son gives one to a girl. There are several other times, too.
It's not just the military/IC.
The first episode (2010) of Blue Bloods (NYPD show) has Donnie Wahlberg torturing a guy in a ticking-time-bomb-like scenario and then his Capt. father (Tom Selleck) correcting his DA daughters reference to "torture" by seriously saying "you mean Enhanced Interrogation" and how awful it is they can't convict the guy without some other "legal" break in the case.
Even years after Bush & Cheney are gone, "liberal" Hollywood filled with this stuff.
Actually, Manhattan Valley is just to the south of Columbia. The area to the north where we are is called Manhattanville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattanville), though most won't know that name.
Another tip for prospective New Yorkers: find out where filming permits are being issued. Film crews will stay away from the overly expensive (stuck-up-ish, NIMBY-ish) neighborhoods, but they also won't go anywhere overly risky. As a nice added bonus, typically the area will be picturesque (though not always).
For example: "Person of Interest" was filming in front of our building on Monday, episodes of "Blue Bloods" and "Gossip Girl" have filmed within a couple blocks, and the outdoor scenes at the end of Lady Gaga's video for "Marry the Night" were shot right by the Fairway 3 blocks away.