Many people don’t realize that the television show “Cops” is the longest running series on television. That’s quite an achievement, especially considering that the content of the show is never planned and it is just recordings of officers and their arrests.
Why has this show been so successful?
Theirs just something about hearing an officers story of his childhood and then moments later see him punching a crack head in the face while screaming ‘Stop Resisting!” and the crack head is yelling “stop hitting me! I didn’t do nothing!”
Maybe somehow watching these criminals and police officers perform their jobs allows us, the audience, to live vicariously through them.
Maybe we’ve always wanted to be in a car chase. Sure, sounds exciting and after watching a Cops episode on car chases somehow it invigorates us, even though we know we would never actually go out there and do what these criminals do for us on film. Maybe we imagine ourselves as the police officer, the knight in shining armor, protecting the rest of civil society from the wildly unpredictable, and irrational behavior of criminals.
Or rather, maybe it’s just the thrill of watching real life. It’s 100% unplanned, 100% spontaneous, and 100% raw. Sure, they blur out the genitalia of the massive trucker, naked, and on PCP – whom is walking around a neighborhood vandalizing various things but its still raw- it’s still real life and the American audience just can’t get enough of it.
It’s no secret the American audience loves reality T.V. How else would someone explain “The flavor of love”, or better yet “I love New York”. These shows have their moments but they just don’t compare. We don’t honestly believe that any one of those men really wants to marry New York. They are just using the show as a springboard for a career.
The criminals on “Cops” we see, they aren’t using the show as a career springboard-
They are not performing premeditated tasks intended to provide maximum exposure and opportunities, instead we are seeing them at their lowest point, when they have no real fore-thought into their actions and they don’t know what is going to happen next.
The police officers on “Cops” we see, they aren’t using the show as a career springboard either, and they are just doing the daily routine for them. Everyday they go out and do what you see on T.V., to them it’s not reality T.V., and to them its real life and maybe we like to watch these heroic figures. These men put their lives on the line day-in and day-out for our safety.
That’s why American loves “Cops”, it’s the most real T.V. Can get.
Theirs no actors- just people.
