Homicide: Life on the Street

By Lisa Doris Alexander

Renowned for its unique visual style, Homicide: Life on the Street fundamentally changed the police procedural genre. The show broke records, featured memorable characters, and launched careers--most notably that of David Simon, whose own nonfiction book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, inspired the series, and who went on to create both The Wire and Treme. Homicide was an anomaly in the 1990s for its honest and open portrayals and discussions of race, and in this TV Milestone, Lisa Doris Alexander uses Critical Race Theory as a lens to highlight how the show illustrated the impacts that racial politics can have on policing.

Homicide is one in a long line of police procedurals that date back to the early days of broadcast television, with series such as Dragnet (NBC 1951–59), Hawaii Five-O (CBS 1968–80), and Columbo (NBC 1971–78). But because Homicide takes place and was filmed in the majority-Black city of Baltimore, it makes sense that many of the main and supporting cast are Black. This differentiated it from the other shows of its genre and time. Chapter 1 discusses the Black-starring roles on Homicide in terms of being non-stereotypical and both written and performed as well-rounded, complex characters. Chapter 2 focuses on issues of race and racism and their impact on policing. Chapter 3 looks at other power dynamics, such as class, political clout, and social standing, and how those dynamics intersect with race and the criminal justice system’s perceived neutrality.

In many regards, Homicide was ahead of its time. Alexander argues that Homicide reflects the politics of the Black Lives Matter movement, which in turn highlights the fact that the issues brought up by the movement are long-standing and that the series affirms the critiques BLM activists make about the criminal justice system. This book shows that the series’ oftentimes unflinching commentary on the systemic flaws within the criminal justice system not only feels more at home in today’s television and political landscape than it did in the 1990s but is just as relevant. Fans of the works of David Simon, as well as students and scholars of television studies and Critical Race Theory, will enjoy this enlightening book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Release date: Sep 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9780814348680

Lisa Doris Alexander

Lisa Doris Alexander is associate professor in Wayne State University’s Department of African American Studies. She is author of the books Expanding the Black Film Canon: Race and Genre Across Six Decades and When Baseball Isn’t White, Straight, and Male: The Media and Difference in the National Pastime. Her work has appeared in Black Ball: A Journal of the Negro Leagues; NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture; the Journal of American History; and the Journal of Popular Film and Television.

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Cover Page for Homicide: Life on the Street

Homicide: Life on the Street

TV Milestones Series

Series Editor

Barry Keith Grant, Brock University

TV Milestones is part of the Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series

A complete listing of the books in this series can be found online at wsupress.wayne.edu

Homicide: Life on the Street

Title Page Image

Lisa Doris Alexander

TV Milestones Series

Wayne State University Press Detroit

© 2021 by Wayne State University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America.

ISBN 978-0-8143-4867-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-0-8143-4868-0 (e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021930023

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: In Search of Crimes Past

1. Full Court Press: Homicide as a Racially Progressive Police Procedural

2. Black and Blue: How Race Impacts Policing

3. Law and Disorder: Homicide as a Response to Black Lives Matter

Conclusion: The City That Bleeds

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Iwould like to thank my mom, Doris Alexander, for always being supportive, Heather Surface for correcting my comma splices, Tony Avruch for his technical wizardry, Travis McClain and The Waterfront: Homicide: LOTS Facebook group for the lively virtual debates, and my cat, Mittens, for the furry indifference she shows toward all of my work.

Introduction

In Search of Crimes Past

In the October 16, 2013, episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC 1999–) titled Wonderland Story, Sergeant John Munch (Richard Belzer) retires from the New York Police Department after fifteen years of service. In the final moments of the episode, Munch places his belongings into a box and reminisces about his time as a police officer. The audience witnesses a grainy video flashback with a washed-out color palette. The scene shows a younger Munch talking to himself and furiously flipping through identification photos. Returning to the present, Munch answers the phone saying, Homicide . . . I mean, SVU. Police procedural connoisseurs already knew that the character John Munch did not originate on SVU fifteen years prior but rather on Homicide: Life on the Street (henceforth Homicide) in 1993 and that the flashback is from that show’s pilot episode, Gone for Goode. Munch holds the unofficial record for appearing in more television series than any other character in history: The X-Files (FOX 1993–99, 2018), The Wire (HBO 2002–8), 30 Rock (NBC 2006–13), Law & Order (NBC 1990–2010), Law & Order: Trial by Jury (NBC 2005–6), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix 2015–19), and Arrested Development (FOX 2003–6; Netflix 2013–19) (John Munch). Munch’s long, post-Homicide career shows just how influential the series is and why the series should be considered a television milestone.

One record-breaking character is not the only reason why Homicide is a television milestone; thankfully, Belzer is not the only actor whose career owes a debt of gratitude to the critically acclaimed drama. Homicide also helped bolster the careers of Emmy-winner Andre Braugher (Frank Pembleton), Oscar-winner Melissa Leo (Kay Howard), and Clark Johnson (Meldrick Lewis), who directed episodes of Orange Is the New Black (Netflix 2013–19), Homeland (Showtime 2011–20), The Walking Dead (USA 2011–22), The Shield (FX 2002–8), The Wire, and The West Wing (NBC 1999–2006). Arguably, the biggest name to come out of Homicide is that of writer David Simon. While working as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, Simon took a one-year sabbatical to follow members of Baltimore’s Homicide Unit, and that sabbatical led to the publication of his first book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), which formed the basis for the series. Though Simon turned down the opportunity to write the pilot, he joined the writing staff in season 4 and remained for the subsequent three seasons. Without Homicide, Simon might not have created The Wire, The Corner (HBO 2007), Treme (HBO 2010–13), The Deuce (HBO 2017–19), and The Plot Against America (Amazon 2020). This legacy is the second reason Homicide is a television milestone.

The third reason Homicide should be considered a television milestone is because of the way the series changed the police procedural genre. In 2018, the Paley Center for Media hosted a Homicide reunion, and in the press release for the event, the Center proclaims, "Along with NYPD Blue (ABC 1993–2005) and Law & Order, [Homicide] defined the sophisticated police drama for the nineties but distinguished itself with fearless formal innovation and a predilection for excavating the doubts and vulnerabilities simmering beneath the surface of its characters." Homicide is just one in a long line of police procedurals that date back to the early days of broadcast television with series such as Dragnet (NBC 1951–59), Hawaii Five-O (CBS 1968–80), and Columbo (NBC 1971–78). Like American society during the 1950s, most television series were segregated, with Black actors relegated to Amos ’n Andy (CBS 1951–53), Beulah (ABC 1950–53), and The Nat King Cole Show (NBC 1956). The 1960s integrated law enforcement ranks with Linc (Clarence Williams III) on The Mod Squad (ABC 1968–73). A character pulled into police work in the aftermath of the Watts uprisings, Linc "had neither the suave, debonair sophistication of Bill Cosby in I Spy nor the tame and easy-to-integrate comic sweetness of Diahann Carroll’s Julia and was for many the small tube’s first African American political symbol" (Bodroghkozy 193; Bogle 159). The 1970s saw even greater numbers of Black characters in police procedurals, including Georg Stanford Brown on The Rookies (ABC 1972–76), Rod Perry on S.W.A.T. (ABC 1975–76), Ron Glass on Barney Miller (ABC 1975–82), and Teresa Graves on Get Chrissy Love! (ABC 1974–75), which marked the first time a Black woman headlined an hour-long drama on network television. Most of these series were short-lived, except for Barney Miller, and provided Black characters with varying degrees of development. Donald Bogle argues that the inclusion of Black characters in these series was to counter any complaints about all the African American criminals that proliferated on cop shows then and later (222). If race and racism were dealt with at all, it was typically in a very special episode context and did not critique systemic racism within law enforcement or the justice system.

Police procedurals airing in the 1980s added a few more Black characters and sometimes featured discussions of racism and other social issues. Hill Street Blues (NBC 1981–87) is considered one of the genre’s pinnacles and has the distinction of helping to usher in what Robert J. Thompson calls the second golden age of television (30). According to Ronald Wilson, When the series premiered in the fall of 1981, it set a new aesthetic standard for commercial television as well as for the genre-driven cop show. It presented a microcosm of a police world beleaguered by organizational, social, and personal conflicts and relationships (90). Taking place in an unspecified urban environment that was a cross between New York and Chicago, Hill Street Blues featured a large main cast, including Michael Warren as Officer Bobby Hill and Taurean Blacque as Detective Neal Washington. Blues spent a fair amount of time showing the officers’ personal lives and how their time away from work affected their jobs. Gone were the days of the superhero cop who could do no wrong. Hill Street Blues featured characters struggling with addiction, sexual harassment, post-traumatic stress, depression, and suicide. Discussions on the intersections of race and policing rarely delved into systemic issues, and the number of starring Black characters also remained relatively small. In the end, Hill Street Blues provided a new template for prime-time drama. Its style, ensemble playing, and multi-threaded construction were borrowed by cop shows for years to come (Wilson 96). Homicide took the template Hill Street Blues provided and further diversified it.

Because Homicide takes place and was filmed in the majority-Black city of Baltimore, it makes sense that many of the main and supporting cast members are Black actors. Thomas Mascaro argues that Homicide presents Black people not in positive or negative lights but as textured individuals and that African American culture and history are infused throughout the series (Men 10, 16). In fact, as Bogle remarks, "so many African American faces appeared that some critics mistakenly considered Homicide a Black show" (440). Yaphet Kotto plays the commander of the homicide unit, Lieutenant Al Giardello, who is characterized as part Black and part Italian; Andre Braugher plays the classically educated and meticulous detective Frank Pembleton; Clark Johnson portrays Meldrick Lewis, a detective who always has a funny quip ready; Toni Lewis plays Terri Stivers, a detective who starts in narcotics but eventually moves to homicide; Michael Michelle joins the cast during the final season as Detective Rene Sheppard, a woman whose competence is challenged because she is attractive; Giancarlo Esposito, playing Mike Giardello, the lieutenant’s son and an FBI special agent, also joins in