Balko bitchslaps 'Police Women of Broward County'

Remember those horrible ads for that horrible Police Women show? It's the focus of Radley Balko's latest column on Reason Online – and he's not happy with it. Nor should you be.

"There's always a good time to use a Taser."

So says Andrea, attractive single mom and one of the four stars of the new TLC reality show, The Police Women of Broward County. The trailer with the Taser quip then cuts to the show's stars tackling suspects, putting knees into various backs, and pointing guns. Browse other clips on the TLC website, and it seems the network can't make up its mind whether these women are sexpots with handcuffs or girls who want to be taken seriously for kicking just as much ass as the boys. A smug poster ad campaign for the show takes the the show's identity problem to yet crasser heights. One ad reads, "Taser Time." Another, "Cavity Search, Anyone?"

Of course, there isn't "always a good time to use a Taser," as the multitude of viral web videos depicting taserings of grandmothers, pregnant women, and children will attest. TLC's ad campaign is offensive, though merely the latest iteration of a genre of television that trivializes the state's use of force and makes a mockery of the criminal justice system.

He then talks about the plethora of SWAT shows and other "reality TV" cop shows that basically showcase cops' work as being nothing more than a suite of shootouts, chases, raids and assaults, a procession of shit slowly but steadily leading down to the pits of today with Police Women of Broward County.

Police Women is yet another show geared for the couch-potatoes at home who actually enjoy watching police women's work be trivialized (and sexualized) as merely a routine of stand-offs and drug raids, leaving out all that "boring" cop work (you know, like 90% of it?). I don't know about you, but this is one show that'll never be attracting my viewership – unless I need something to sneer and get riled at.

(via The Agitator)