A Portland theater was going to screen the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy, ‘Kindergarten Cop,’ but it was pulled for its ‘pro-police’ messaging. On top of missing the point of the film, where does anti-cop sentiment end in fiction?
A normal person would not consider the 1990 film very controversial. Back when it premiered, it was a successful comedy starring the Austrian-American actor that was a good film to see with your family.
It’s been 30 years since then and suddenly it is in the news again. A Portland theater decided to screen the film to celebrate its 30th anniversary and commemorate Oregon filmmaking (it was largely shot in Astoria, a sleepy town in the northwest of the state). That intention fell by the wayside once a local author named Lois Leveen decided to raise a stink about it on social media.
Her rant on Twitter (the account is now protected) comes across as unhinged. She claimed that the film shows police officers traumatizing children and mentions something about a school-to-prison pipeline. Here’s the problem: nothing even close to that actually happens in the film.
Schwarzenegger’s character is very heroic, and by the end of the film goes from a sort of Dirty-Harry-type character to a person who learns to love children. It’s a wholesome story about a good cop making a positive impact on the lives of little kids. And therein lies Ms Leveen’s problem...
It may not be everyone’s type of comedy but you can’t deny that the film has an overall positive message. I suppose that point is moot though, because the author who demanded that this screening should not take place didn’t care about the film anyway. The only thing she cared about was that it was a movie that portrayed a police officer as a positive in society.
Right now, the woke mafia doesn’t want police officers portrayed as a positive no matter what. The current narrative is very simple: all cops are symbolic of supposed white supremacy and are inherently racist, ergo they must be destroyed. Never mind that there are massive numbers of minority police officers all over the country. There is no tolerance whatsoever for anything of the sort. If you are to portray police officers as a positive, your art will be “canceled.” Or at the very least, considered problematic. Personally, I wish these types would simply call these sorts of things what they’re thinking – that it is ‘verboten.’
This isn’t the first time I have seen this. Alyssa Rosenberg at the Washington Post recently stated that all cop shows and movies should be shut down. Two years ago, Heather Alexandra of Kotaku said that the PlayStation 4 Spider-Man game was problematic because it had Spider-Man working with the police. This seems like it’s going to be the beginning of a new trend. Because Derek Chauvin’s actions (or inaction, depending on your perspective) led to the death of George Floyd, suddenly all police officers everywhere are not allowed. Talk about throwing the blue-and-red baby out with the bathwater.
Whether the woke mob likes it or not, there are good cops in this world. Loads of them. I have had the pleasure of meeting many, and the displeasure of meeting a few bad ones. However, a few bad cops does not make all cops inherently evil. Their work has nothing to do with white supremacy, and those who suggest that are not connected to reality in any way, shape, or form. In fiction, a police officer can be written as good or bad as the writer wants them to be. In my own work as a comic writer, I plan on having both. Then again, I couldn’t give half a damn what the mob thinks. That is the benefit of being independent, I suppose.
The question that we are all left with, provided someone is still sensible, is where this all ends. Are we reaching a point where we are not allowed to tell the stories of characters who are morally good if they are police officers? Is the general attitude from here on out in our culture supposed to be that of the extreme political left?
What needs to happen is that anyone involved in the arts should stand up against this sort of nonsense. Whether you like the police or not, this attitude is anti-free-expression on top of being anti-police. This anti-freedom mob will not give up until they have total control over the arts. They will continue this pursuit unless and until the arts and the people in it give them the proverbial finger.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.