America Should Be Watching ‘Columbo’

We see cops every day — on campus, in the street and, increasingly, in our media. Whether it’s a grizzled detective or a rookie cop learning the ropes for the first time, TV cops are everywhere, staking out cases, hunting for clues and catching the bad guys just in time for the episode’s end.

Like their real-life counterparts, TV cops run the full spectrum of personality and ability, from the quirky-but-competent NYPD officers of “Brooklyn 99,” to the gritty crime fighters of shows like “Law & Order SVU” and “Longmire.” And these shows aren’t just popular — they’re inescapable. At any given moment since 2010, around a quarter of all scripted TV has focused on the thousands of police departments throughout the country.

“Columbo,” an unassuming detective show first airing in 1968, arrived on the crowded police-procedural scene at a prime time to be forgotten. While the 50’s witnessed a wave of police drama shows like “Dragnet” and the 70’s saw a resurgence in movies centered on drugs and organized crime, Columbo, focused on a mild mannered detective, broke the mold — carrying the detective genre through the crime-obsessed 20th century.

After all, Lt. Columbo, the titular investigator, seems at first glance to be just another cop in the long, long line of cop shows. He ticks all the classic boxes: a frumpy overcoat, a New York accent and a series of unsolved murders — hardly a groundbreaking depiction. But where Lt. Columbo resembles other TV cops in appearance, the show represents a strong departure in substance.

Almost every police show airing in the last century has fallen under the banner of what critics label “Copaganda” — valorizing and glorifying police officers while looking at their jobs as cut-and-dry and more or less consequence-free.

Taken together, scripted procedurals like “CSI” and real-life ride along shows like “Cops” — which has now run for 36 seasons — shape public opinion on the police, highlighting every moment of their arrests, shootouts and high-speed chases. These shows distort the public’s view of policing, giving cops the same treatment as the dramatic, sexy doctors in modern medical dramas.

Copaganda — especially on TV — normalizes injustice and perpetuates myths about both what crime is and who commits it. These shows not only craft perceptions crime is high or rising, even as it nears all-time lows, but they also vilify minority communities, depicting mostly white officers arresting mostly non-white suspects.

In almost all of these shows, police are played as straightforward protagonists, literally in the driver’s seat of the law. Instead of protecting and serving their communities, TV officers are framed as at their best when allowed to be dangerous loose cannons, unrestricted by civilian red tape, use of force regulations or even a chain of command.

But if Lt. Columbo is in the driver’s seat of anything, it’s his beat-up Peugeot 403, a vehicle only slightly more run down than he is.

The show runs almost opposite from the police genre’s status quo. Where other shows position their officers as all-but-superheroic, a ‘thin blue line’ between everyday life and rampant criminality, Lt. Columbo — portrayed by the late Peter Falk — is just some guy. He’s a good detective, undoubtedly, but policing is his job, not his identity. Watching each episode one gets a sense Lt. Columbo, as good as he is at breaking cases, is more excited to head home to his always-offscreen wife than to even catch the killer.

“Columbo” portrays policing not as a calling, but as a job, pushing back on the propagandistic slant to police portrayals by stripping crime-fighting of its glorification and Hollywood sheen. The LAPD of “Columbo” is one of bureaucracy, paperwork and rigorous police work. Instead of high speed chases and flashy shootouts, “Columbo” avoids violence, never carries a weapon and is rigorously devoted to both his wife and the pursuit of justice.

More than this, the creators of “Columbo” are careful to never punch down, turning their character’s relentless and methodical approach towards justice against the rich and powerful, bringing actual consequences to those made to feel invincible by wealth and power.

“Columbo” exemplifies a totally different approach towards policing and public safety from today’s cop shows, striking at the core disconnect between police perceptions and policing as it should be. In a way, the show dodged modern media’s turn into exclusively positive police depictions, drawing its attitude towards justice from the short decade between the mafia dramas of the 1950’s and the start of the War on Drugs.

While the generic cop drama treats law enforcement as a hybrid of calling and character trait — flattening their officers into paragons of civic virtue — Lt. Columbo is one of us. He may be a bit bumbling, a bit blunt, but for — and because of — his faults, he brings TV cops out of the stratosphere and back down to earth.

The gap between the silver screen and the police patrol may never have been wider, but “Columbo” — and its rejection of flashy drama for serious, impartial, investigation and the pursuit of unbiased truth show exactly what policing should be — if only we can change our own narrative.