Cause Nothin' Says Gritty Realism Like Stripper Ass!
At first I thought it was a parody. I mean, Come ON! Al Bundy as a tough guy cop? Re-doing Dragnet, which has become a kitsch staple? It had to be a joke. But then I saw the ads and realized that the studio heads were not only serious about this show, they wanted it to compete with the likes of NYPD Blue and all those other hard-hitting crime dramas. How did I realize this? Because the teasers were full of g-string bedecked stripper cheeks.
When did butt cheeks become the universal symbol for Serious Police Drama? What, it's not enough that you show people getting brutalized by criminals (and cops, for that added dash o' tough-guy cred!) each week, that everything seems to take place in a grimy back alley or flop house, or that your criminal extras sport enough faux dirt to qualify as walking pig wallows--you have to add in naked buttocks to prove that you're serious about realism? On what planet is the strip club the loci of Every Single Crime And Clue To Said Crime In The Entire City? It would be funny if it weren't so annoying, because then, in order to avoid the (logical) accusation that perhaps these shows are only about titillation, the writers throw in the gratuitous Lead Male Character Ass-Baring Scene.
Dear Writers: On behalf of America, please, stop doing that. Love, Big Arm Woman. I was scarred for life when Michael Douglas showed us his flat, droopy, saggy little booty in Basic Instinct, and I will never recover from or understand the cinema's need to go the Full Harvey Keitel, which it has done, unbelievably, more than once. Jimmy Smits? At least he's pretty well-toned. But Dennis Franz? Noooooooo! What, exactly, does that add to an hour of television? Do TV producers get a cut from the optometric surgeries required to repair the post-Franz Ass retinas? It's the only explanation I can come up with that fits.
Do real cops wander through a sea of bare buttocks on a daily basis, solving crimes, bravely angsting around bars and "fighting their inner demons," and then returning home to a softly lit sex scene with women who look like Sharon Stone, when they look like Homer Simpson? I'm thinking not. Note to producers of future "gritty, realistic cop shows": Just because you're pulling these shows out of your asses doesn't mean we need to see your asses, or their Hollywood doppelgangers.
Posted by Big Arm Woman at February 3, 2003 08:15 AM