So says Det. Steve Crosetti. And as Dorothy says in The Wizard of Oz, we're not in Kansas anymore--nor the world of Brooklyn South or The Closer or CSI or NCIS, or any of the sources you all mentioned in class today. Look at the scene we didn't get a chance to see today (but will tomorrow):
So our question is: how does what you saw in Homicide make it different than what we saw in Brooklyn South and another cop show that you watch regularly--or semi-regularly? What distinguishes it from these other shows? Think of the narrative action itself--the plot and story. Think of the characters and how they are portrayed: how they act; how they dress; how they look. Think about the universe the show takes place in: the squad room itself; the city itself; the people in the city. Write about 200 words. Be grammatical. Have this done by the time school begins tomorrow. Feel free to respond to what your classmates say.
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Hi! I don't really know how to use this site so I'm going to post my response here. I hope that's okay.
ReplyDeleteHomicide is more realistic than many cop shows. Many shows portray law enforcement as a very exciting job, with excessive action and back-and-forth shooting. The officers in the shows say very scripted and witty things, and people are either good or bad. The suspects are often one-sided. The sets are overly set up, with simple squad rooms and perfectly dirty cities that don’t vary much. Finding the killer is complicated, and there are often many twists. However, in Homicide, nothing very exciting or violent happened, which might be expected in homicide investigation. The dialogs were realistic. People teased each other, but not in exceptionally funny ways. There weren’t specific heroes or villians; the investigator who solved the most cases didn’t like people, and the nice guy was naive. The strangler was young, scared, and rather innocent, while the strangled man was a kind of gross seeming person. The sets weren’t particularly simple or interesting either. The homicide room was crowded and cluttered. However, the city varied from one place to another. The dead girl’s parents’ house, the killer’s porch, and the strangled man’s hotel room all looked very different. Finding the killers was fairly straightforward. Homicide’s plot more closely resembled what might happen in real life.
The first thing I want to point out is that the skill the cop uses in the clip to get the murderer to confess is brilliant. Yes, he plays a little dirty but the young man was completely guilty.
ReplyDeleteTo answer the question, I pretty much agree with what Shannon said. The show, Homicide: Life on the Streets was much more accurate than Brooklyn South. It especially seemed, sense we were watching the pilot of Brooklyn South,that they started off with such a unrealistic and overacted bang to scoop in high rating. And I don't believe their tactic's worked because neither of my parents had heard of Brooklyn South, but they had both heard of Homicide: Life of the Streets.
Another cop show that I didn't think of until the end of class was Monk. I watched every episode of that show, and one of the reasons was it was so amazingly written and not over dramatic. Monk, and what I have now seen from Homicide: Life of the Streets shows the reality of men and women in the police. These two shows have cops acting stressed out not admitting defeat ( ie. the cop looking for his car in the parking garage). I also think the shows casting directors didn't hire "model" cops, which is pretty good sign that the show won't be overworked and seem desperate.
In my mind, the factor that sets Homicide apart from most other typical cop shows is the dialogue and relationships between the cops/detectives. The episode that we saw part of in class already has given us a fair look at the development of the characters -- how they act and interact with the other characters in the show. The dialogue between the characters shows so much about their characters, individually and in a group. Whether it’s "Detective Munch" and his partner verbally bouncing off of each other or Pembleton chewing out the rookie to teach him a lesson about experience, it feels real. The characters are developed to the point where they seem less and less like the typical crime-drama cop. Instead, they feel like real people who have real life experience. For example, when Munch talks, you can tell that he has a somewhat weary, worn element to him. As a cop, it can almost make him more effective – he’s seen it all. Another example is Pembleton -- he may be arrogant, but he backs it up with results. You can tell that from his point of view, he isn’t bragging so much as telling it the way it is, especially when he is making it clear that he doesn’t want a partner. The multiple dimensions that the characters bring to the table give shows like Homicide the edge over shows like Brooklyn South.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Jocelyn, Shannon, and Cameron. I think like Cameron some of the cop dramas on T.V. are overdeveloped wherein the characters in Homicide seem more human and helps the audience connect with the characters more than the super hero type of cop that we see in the other shows. In Homicide you see that the cops are more human and not as Cameron pointed out “less and less like the typical crime-drama cop.” Also I agree with Shannon some that the rooms and people in the shows such as Brooklyn South seem scripted and too clean cut to the point where it doesn’t seem real. I feel that shows such as Brooklyn South really make the cops inhuman in a way where one cannot identify with them and the cops become unreal although it can be fun to watch the actors seem that they are plastic and fake and not truly representing the real cops in the world today.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the other people’s opinions on this question. I found Homicide to be more realistic. It seemed like it portrayed being a cop as less of a glorified job. They seemed to be normal people who could have a life outside of the police force. When comparing Homicide to Brooklyn South there are so many small details in Brooklyn South that made the show seem unrealistic. All the cops on Brooklyn South had there uniforms perfectly fitted, tucked in, and all the cops looked identical to each other. This is much different to Homicide where none of the cops had on the same outfit and didn't looked perfectly manicured. The head of the department, I believe, even made a comment to one of the detectives about him not wearing a tie, which was part of uniform code. In Brooklyn South everything seemed organized inside the office building. There was order. In Homicide the officer’s desk were filled with papers and it looked like the way people actually work. Not many people are perfectly organized and keep everything neat in the way that was portrayed in Brooklyn South. Also the interactions between people were shown more realistically in Homicide. In Homicide certain detectives didn’t want to work with other people. The dynamic seemed like it could be a true work environment. Brooklyn South from what I saw all the officers liked each other, which is not a situation that appears often.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Shannon. The sets the clothes the dialogue and the actors were all very real simple. Nothing was overplayed or overdone in any of the scenes and the dialogue wasn’t created just to make people laugh. The detectives office and how people in the office worked with each other, were a lot more realistic then some of the other shows. The office in Homicide Life on the Streets was very messy and people were smoking and everyone was very separated from everyone else except their partners. In other shows however, the offices are always very clean and organized and everyone works together and everyone gets along. I think the sets in Homicide Life on the Streets was very down played and they were not supposed to be the main part of the scene, the characters were. The characters really stood out, and they focused on the scene at hand not on where the scene takes place. In other shows such as The Closer the characters are important but they don’t seem as important as the place the scene is taking place. The dialogue also seems very simple; they don’t make anything confusing they focus on the main points and they don’t try and make it sound to witty. The Homicide Life on the Streets episode we watched seemed like it was the most realistic criminal investigation show I have watched.
ReplyDeleteHomicide was much less dramatic than shows like CSI or Law and Order. The murders themselves were not shown, which in other shows is usually the part meant to engage the most. As well as not being shown, the murders themselves were not as dramatic. None of the murders were out of the realm of possibility, and they seemed more commonplace compared to murders viewers see on other shows. There was no fancy technology, and there weren’t any gimmicks. Also, the assembly of officers was more diverse than and not as perfect as in other shows. Some characters were portrayed as not purely good cops. Also, the investigations of the murders were not long and drawn out, with numerous twists and turns. They were mostly pretty straight forward, and they also had no highly charged, life threatening moments. Overall, the show was more toned down than crime shows that play today. It was more similar to cops than a show like CSI in the sense of how realistic it is.
ReplyDeleteHomicide: Life on the Street more accurately portrays aspects of real life, especially the ugly truth of police officers’ moot methods. The interrogating officer’s means of getting a confession in Homicide were unorthodox. Although questionable, these methods led to the arrest if a dangerous felon. Compared to other shows that glamorize police officers top to bottom, Homicide scrutinizes certain aspects of the “police way”. Just like in the show, officers in reality often have the right intention but far from perfect means of getting things done.
ReplyDeleteCompared to other police shows such as Brooklyn South and Walker Texas Ranger that provide the heroic, moral police hero, Homicide shows power struggles between officers, racism, and unconventional methods. These negative aspects will show themselves in real life in such instances as Rodney King (as an extreme example). Homicide chooses to capture the viewer with drama and social struggles, whereas Brooklyn South would not be so successful if it didn’t use blood and violence to season a what-would-be bland show.
The show Homicide is very different from Brooklyn South because there are two opposite sides to law enforcement that are portrayed in each television show. In Brooklyn South you are showed the action and the drama that police officers go through on the job. Homicide shows what goes on with the detectives involved with crimes.
ReplyDeleteBrooklyn South is also a falsely illustrated to the viewer. The clip of Brooklyn South was over dramatic for a typical day for police when being compared to the clip from the show Cops. In Cops there was a man with a knife and even when the police shot the man the wound was so unnoticeable that the police wasn’t even sure if he shot the man. The scene in Brooklyn South could have happened in real life but, scene was portrayed as a regular days job. As if that level of a shootout happens every day, which made it seem somewhat over dramatic.
The actors in the two shows appearance were very different. In Brooklyn South everyone was in uniform except when off duty when they wore casual clothing. In Homicide the detectives wore suits and ties and were nicely dressed. This shows that detectives have a very different style of work than cops do. Cops bring in the subject and the Detectives interrogate the subject. In this sense the police do all of the dirty work and the detectives get to wear suits and ties and take credit for it.
The cops in Homicide were portrayed differently than the cops in Brooklyn South. The cops in Brooklyn South were more dramatic and stereotypical “heroes” rather than the professional homicide detectives in Homicide. They obviously dressed differently. On Brooklyn South they were cops in uniforms and on Homicide they were homicide detectives wearing suits or regular clothes. The detectives on Homicide were portrayed as more intimidating than the cops on Brooklyn south. The detectives on Homicide were as intimidating as the lawyers and detectives on other shows like NCIS, CSI and Law and Order. I thought that the relationship between the characters was more realistic on homicide because they were interacting like normal people rather than overly dramatic actors. The characters were laughing, making fun of each other and so on. I liked homicide a lot better than Brooklyn south because the interrogation was a lot more intimidating in homicide than I could imagine in Brooklyn south. To compare to cops which documented real things, to the two TV shows- since they are fiction- had a lot more violence and blood all over the place. I thought it was strange how much more blood I saw on the terrible cop show of Brooklyn south. Compared to cops, which was real, when they shot someone there was barely any blood.
ReplyDeleteAs many people have said already, the cops on Homicide were more realistic, and because of that I feel that it portrayed the jobs of cops more accurately. One factor that made them more realistic to me was the way they interacted with each other and also people outside their office. As someone mentioned, the way they joke and kid with each other makes it much more realistic. Watching Homicide, I felt like I was watching the recordings of real cops (not as much as COPS, but more than NCIS or CSI), as opposed to a written out script. The cases in the CSI and NCIS episodes are more dramatic, seem more complicated, but also don’t seem real. Homicide made me feel like I was watching something more reasonable. As for the portrayal of the characters and the universe the show takes place in, that also seems more plausible than many current TV shows. Like we said in class earlier, the people in Homicide weren’t as ideally beautiful and attractive, they weren’t all the stereotypical cops or investigators that we saw in the pilot of the other show (I’m blanking on the name). The squad room is also very different from the ones on CSI or NCIS. There are stacks of paper everywhere, it’s crowded, and it’s not the glass walled, expensive office that one sees on CSI. All of these are factors that play into the overall portrayal that comes from the show, one that seems more real to me. As I said before, one of the biggest differences has to do with the interactions between the characters on the show. The sarcastic comments, the bickering (especially), and the reaction to “the new guy.” I think Homicide represents cops more accurately than many of the other TV shows today (except for COPS of course).
ReplyDeleteWith the first two shows the plot seemed based mainly around crimes committed. Both had cops in situations where they were dealing with a crime being committed in front of them, but that is all that we saw. With Homicide we saw the lives of the cops themselves. The cases where mentioned but they were not the focus of the story at all. It was a much more dramatic experience and less of a bang bang shoot bad guys thing. The cops seemed like normally people dealing with a job that can get pretty bad. There was a degree of cynicism in the characters, but they had to numb themselves to the dead bodies or the could never actually do there job. In short i found that Homicide was a much more interesting and realistic experience, especially more than Brooklyn South.
ReplyDeleteI agree with other people’s views on this question. Homicide: Life on the Streets is much more similar to what actually happens in the day-to-day life of a cop or detective. And I think one of the main reasons that it is more real is because of the line between good and bad. In Homicide: Life on the Streets that line is very blurred. For example, detective Pembleton gets the confession of the killer, but in very immoral ways. He has good intentions, but bad methods. But in other cop shows, such as CSI, Law and Order or NCIS, the line between good and bad is very distinct, and very clear. The cops in these shows are the ideal perfect cop, which in actuality no cop is. I think Homicide: Life on the Streets is closer to real life because of how flawed the 'good guys' are.
ReplyDeleteI would also agree with what a lot of people have said. I think Homicide is more realistic because it's not all about adrenaline and heroism like most cop shows and movies. The point of the show is that the victims is already dead before one of the homicide detectives has a role.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, without that same action that gets viewers hooked, the show has to have a level of drama with relationships in order to have a successful tv series. It's hard as someone without experience to judge if this is a stretch from reality or not, but I definitely think this is possible. While Brooklyn South may be unrealistic action and adrenaline, Homicide may be unrealistic in a more subtle way.
I have not seen either Homicide or Brooklyn South yet but from watching other shows and movies about cops, it seems like they portray them unrealistically most of the time. As other people have said the point of TV shows is to capture your attention and engage you so you keep watching it. However, this may not always account for the most realistic scenarios. The beginning of Brooklyn South is a good example of this because all the cops are perfectly dressed and I do not think the whole situation would likely happen. The excerpt about from Homicide above seems more realistic. This is because the two cops are not dressed perfectly and fight with one another. Also, I got the impression that Homicide was more real than other cop shows from reading what other people were saying about it. From the comments made about Homicide I got the sense that it was not as drama filled and violent as most cop shows. I am excited to watch it tomorrow to see how Homicide engages people without using the violence and drama of the actual killing that is shown in most other TV shows.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Emma that Homicide is much less dramatic than Brooklyn South. In Homicide, we see no shooting, no gushing wounds and no true action scenes, while in Brooklyn South, we witness murders, guns being fired and lots of blood shed. Also, I agree with Danielle, that each show represents a different part of law enforcement. In Brooklyn South, we experience the action, drama, and danger at the scene of the crime. But in Homicide, we discover what happens during the process of the investigation. The characters in both shows are distinctive because they practice different types of law enforcement work. The cops in Brooklyn South are dressed in uniform because they are the ones doing the dirty work. They are the ones catching the criminals and putting themselves at risk. The detectives on Homicide are nicely dressed in suits and ties because they do the investigating and interrogating. On Homicide, the detective also appeared much more intimidating than the cops on Brooklyn South. The detectives are depicted as men and women with years of experience. And as we see in the interrogation scene, they know their methods of getting their way. On the other hand, some of the cops in Brooklyn South seemed frantic and unstable. For example, when the woman cop saw that her fellow cop had been shot, she totally broke down, couldn’t focus on her job, and was forced to leave the scene. Overall, Homicide appeared less dramatic than Brooklyn South because the shows illustrated different sides of law enforcement and portrayed the characters in different ways.
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