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The Thin Blue Line
1995 · TV series · 29 min episodes · 2 seasons
Created by Ben Elton
The Thin Blue Line is a British sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson set in a police station that ran for two series on the BBC from 1995 to 1996. It was written by Ben Elton.
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Thirty years ago there was The Thin Blue Line, a sitcom set in a police station in the UK, starring Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean, Blackadder) and written by Ben Elton (writer on Mr Bean and Blackadder). I suspect it wouldn’t stand up to much rewatching today, but it was a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(British_TV_series)
Law review articles are largely written by students. They are not authoritative.
Do you think that Rowan Atkinson was dogwhistling about undemocratic, racist, bigoted police violence when he named his police sitcom "The Thin Blue Line" or do you think perhaps your dislike of the police has led to you associating negative attributes with anyone that happens to use any phrase related to the police?
Where I am from, the police is a respected, largely unarmed institution. Imperfect, as all institutions are. American left-political dislike of law enforcement isn't universal and most people don't have instant negative mental associations with everything police-related...
That is a very strange take. The phrase isn't American and has no negative connotation. It has nothing to do with "extrajudicial punishment". It simply refers to the (obvious) fact that what separates societies from anarchy is the "thin blue line" of law enforcement.
Rowan Atkinson had a sitcom set in a London police station in the 90s called "The Thin Blue Line". Are you under the impression he was dogwhistling about extrajudicial violence?
I have vague memories of a scene from the UK comedy show "The Thin Blue Line" where a bunch of bad -isms were followed by counter-examples of good -isms, but despite the episode itself being easy to find (the episode is called "Ism Ism Ism"), I can't easily find the scene within the episode.
I always have mixed feelings on if art influences society ... or it is just a representation of it.
Particularly when it comes to getting eyeballs on TV, or a movie. People making that content are thinking about what people will want to watch.
Does someone "glorified 'The Thin Blue Line'" (just picking a random bit from this article) because they saw it on TV... or is TV responding to what that person already thinks / wants to watch?
It's super easy to think about other people who we don't share the same views with as: "Oh those people are just misinformed because X influence." But I'm not sure that's always the case.
Cool. I hadn't known the exact provenance of that. There's also "thin blue line" meaning police force[0] (separating decent folk from criminals and chaos) as opposed to a military force[1] which is a red line.
I would add that red lines are topical with Brexit[2] negotiations in the media, lines beyond which this British government is unwilling to step.
[0] Movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(1988_film) and TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(TV_series)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_(1998_film) – one of the best films about war ever in my opinion
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/05/theresa-may-brexit-red-lines-reckless-hostage-dup-promises-cant-keep