eBook - ePub

Only the Names Have Been Changed

Name: Only the Names Have Been Changed
ISBN: 9781477325414

Dragnet, the Police Procedural, and Postwar Culture

Claudia Calhoun,

English
ePUB (mobile friendly)
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - ePub

Only the Names Have Been Changed

Dragnet, the Police Procedural, and Postwar Culture

Claudia Calhoun,

About this book

2022 Peter C. Rollins Book Award, Northeast Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Associations (NEPCA)

In the postwar era, the police procedural series Dragnet informed Americans on the workings of the criminal justice system and instructed them in their responsibilities as citizens.

Among shifting politics, tastes, and technology in television history, one genre has been remarkably persistent: the cop show. Claudia Calhoun returns to Dragnet, the pioneering police procedural and an early transmedia franchise, appearing on radio in 1949, on TV and in film in the 1950s, and in later revivals. More than a popular entertainment, Dragnet was a signifier of America's postwar confidence in government institutions—and a publicity vehicle for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Only the Names Have Been Changed shows how Dragnet's "realistic" storytelling resonated across postwar culture. Calhoun traces Dragnet's "semi-documentary" predecessors, and shows how Jack Webb, Dragnet's creator, worked directly with the LAPD as he produced a series that would likewise inspire public trust by presenting day-to-day procedural justice, rather than shootouts and wild capers. Yet this realism also set aside the seething racial tensions of Los Angeles as it was. Dragnet emerges as a foundational text, one that taught audiences to see police as everyday heroes not only on TV but also in daily life, a lesson that has come under scrutiny as Americans increasingly seek to redefine the relationship between policing and public safety.

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Yes, you can access Only the Names Have Been Changed by Claudia Calhoun in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Media & Performing Arts & Performing Arts. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.