COPS and why you owe it your life
This could be the last blog post I write, at least for my class. This is the eleventh post under the category Pop Culture, which means I have officially written one blog a week for every week of this semester. Time seems to have flown by, and I’m not going to lie, a lot of shit has gone on in my life since I started this blog, but I think I might keep writing it just to see what happens. We’ll see.
I’m not really sure what to write about for the last post of the semester, which seems to be a problem a lot lately. I seriously have not seen anything interesting in my culture as of recent, at least not something I can relate to this blog by any stretch of the imagination. Here’s what I’m thinking, I’m going to turn on my TV and whatever channel comes on first, I will surf up three channels, and whatever is on, I will analyze the hell out of it… So here goes:
Alright well the channel I end up on if I do this honestly is a French so that really doesn’t work, so I’m skipping the French channels and only counting English ones, because I don’t speak French. I end up on CityTV, currently they’re playing an hour of Judge Judy. I haven’t watched this show in a long time, but I used to watch it from time to time… Mostly before the internet.
Currently on the show Judy is dealing with a man and wife. The man cheated on the wife and the wife is now suing the husband because he abandoned the wife and left the wife with a house that she cannot afford. Anyways that’s besides the point, what I’m thinking here is how the hell did shows, and shows like this, become popular? Why on Earth would anyone want their trial to be broadcasted to the entire world?
Well, from what I understand, they became popular in the late 80’s and early 90’s, which is I’ll mention again, before the internet was what it is today. Court television is one of the original reality shows. People are being filmed in unscripted and entertaining settings.
Now I know I said I was going to analyze Judge Judy, but to be quite honest I can’t stand to watch these rednecks yell at each other over something most people can sort out for themselves in a domestic setting. Which leads me to want to discuss something with a bit more class. That something being, what I consider, the REAL first reality show ever produced:
I have an obsession with COPS, some would say it’s an addiction. My argument is that COPS is the original reality TV show, because it started in 1989, which was, as far as I can tell, before anything like a reality TV show. Unless you count all of the 1950’s and 60’s candid camera shows, but I would argue that those were partially scripted, because they use real actors and actresses on those shows. Plus it’s my blog, and we all know it is by no means scholarly, so let’s just go with this ok?
COPS made TV real. Now whether you love reality TV or hate it, you have to admit that inspiring something that has given us so much over the last few decades is pretty impressive. And as for COPS, they’ve had 23 seasons, so they must be doing something right. Reality TV has shaped channels like MTV (which apparently used to have music associated with it’s channel?) and Much Music, TLC, the list goes on and on. But the point is that COPS is the reason teenagers and bored housewives have managed to survive as long as they have. COPS, and in turn all the other reality TV shows that sprouted from COPS, bridged the gap between the end of good MTV and the internet. I think we all need to give COPS a round of applause for saving countless lives, and that’s all I really have to say about that.