Spooky Cops: From Buffy to The X-Files | Copaganda Episode 7

[@SkipIntroYT]

I've added a video on Paw Patrol as a Patreon goal 👀

[@SkipIntroYT]

Correction: at 31:15 these shots are from Grimm not from Buffy, my tag got all messed up :(

[@Huntracony]

Can't wait! A video about how we portray cops to kids sounds really interesting and it's definitely not an excuse for me to stare at cute animated dogs for a while.

[@Lincoln_Bio]

I can't wait to see how you take us from Paw Patrol to existential terror

[@Tacom4ster]

Darn that's that episode I been waiting for

[@Tacom4ster]

I just join your Patreon just for Paw Patrol

[@radithya6594]

One more metaphor in Buffy that makes it very distinct from copaganda shows: Buffy is portrayed as the first Slayer who actually took help from her friends (Graduation Day Part 2) instead of isolating herself and acting as a lone wolf judge, jury and executioner.

[@radithya6594]

Taking help from friends being a stand-in for working with the community (imho). Remember the season 6 finale where Xander "talking" saved the world. Powerful metaphor.

[@whitketchum]

Best comment

[@gateauxq4604]

Also Faith doesn’t just break bad, she does so while letting authorities become her father figure. That was extra creepy and excellent foreshadowing but yeah Buffy took many opportunities to paint law and law-aligned groups as the bads.

[@anishinaabae]

the career day where buffy gets "cop" as her most suitable job choice always gets a chuckle from me, because her reaction is very on point for her. buffy said ACAB and that's that!

[@lorehammer40k4]

I mean, if you think about it Buffy is a perfect candidate on paper. She has generally poor grades and a history of violence. They want people who aren't smart enough to question orders and are willing and able to hurt people. She's perfect (on paper, at least).

[@pn2294]

Which is hilarious because she solves most of her problems with violence.

[@jeremycanning7058]

​@@pn2294somewhat more justified when dealing with literal demons from hell as opposed to brown people (understatement)

[@Thor-Orion]

Rustin Cohle and Marty Hart are alright with me!

[@pn2294]

@@Thor-Orion they’re assholes.

[@LOC-Ness]

THIS is why a lot of modern Urban Fantasy and even some Dark Fantasy rubs me the wrong way! Lots of nuance and empathy gets cut out in place of "cool authority defeats always chaotic evil others with no moral dilemmas ever"

[@Talisguy]

The early RPG series Ultima has a great take on this kind of plotline. In Ultima IV, your character, the Avatar, has to retrieve the sacred Codex from the depths of the underworld, so you descend into the abyss, find the Codex, kill the demons guarding it and take it back to the surface. Yay! Happy ending! Fast-forward to Ultima VI, and the land is invaded by a massive army of demonic-looking Gargoyles, hell-bent on killing the Avatar. Initially, it seems like standard fantasy fare, but when you do a little digging you find out that the Gargoyles are only invading because they're desperate. They were happily minding their own business until some asshole broke into their most sacred temple, killed all the worshippers inside and stole their holy book. Now their species is dying, and the only way to save themselves is to fulfill a prophecy by retrieving the Codex and sacrificing the person who stole it. It's a great bait and switch. The "always chaotic evil others" weren't all chaotic evil at all, and you accidentally started a devastating religious war by treating them like they were.

[@Lincoln_Bio]

This started fun and got terrifying, it was like watching an episode of Buffy backwards. Bravo.

[@BillZoeker]

Angel actually features the police in some interesting ways. In the early seasons there is a prominent detective character. After learning about vampires and demons, she is eventually ostracized and expelled by the force essentially because she was looking deeper into the root of crime (demons) and trying to do the job right. There's also an episode where a police captain raises a bunch of dead cops as zombies and has them patrolling and beating the shit out of anyone a cop would generally go after

[@ArlanKels]

Always irritated me that Supernatural never delved into the cops/government dealing with the supernatural stuff. Instead of just...being super oblivious or dying to them.

[@TerrellThomas1971]

good view

[@galactic85]

Problem with the zombie episode you mentioned is that it tries to end on some sort of "morally ambiguous" note by being like "well the zombies were bad....but crime went down!" Like... wtf? It really didn't if you count all the assaults the zombies were committing at random. It could have been a strong episode but they botched it big time. EDIT: Spelling

[@BillZoeker]

@@galactic85 yeah, that was definitely some nonsense devil's advocate shit. I think the episode's relevance is more than was intended from a very white show in the early 00's

[@mattgilbert7347]

Yeah...then Kate tried to kill herself. Hurmm

[@Taquinqua]

So glad this video didn’t ruin Buffy for me hell yeah. Also, i feel like having many of the “bad guys” be transformed versions of everyday people, and having the pilot (not that it’s a great pilot lol) include a friend of Buffy becoming a vampire she has to slay is….if not unambiguously humanizing at least interesting food for thought imo

[@guy-sl3kr]

It's literally the wolf/sheep/sheepdog worldview that Dave Grossman professes. Did the writers of these cop shows attend killology sermons too??

[@galactic85]

@@guy-sl3kr fiction is great. The problem comes when people take it too literally and start thinking the same rules apply in real life. "If I kill people it's OK because I'm just like Buffy and I'm killing subhuman monsters!" The fact that people are seemingly unable to distinguish between a fictional evil like vampires and real life criminals is just disgusting.

[@spacelem]

I've just found this channel, and I've seen the videos on Brooklyn 99 and Veronica Mars. I'm glad you said it didn't ruin Buffy, because as my all-time favourite show ever, and one that's got me through some tough times (e.g. heavy relation to S6), I would have skipped this video if I thought it was just going to end up trashing it.

[@bdm483]

I kind of appreciated how Buffy explored brutal incarceration, too? I'm getting very tired of villains in superhero shows getting locked up in teeny isolation pods, without any social interaction, or anything to do, on far away islands, without any due process. And if anyone ever tries to challenge the conditions, they're just a bleeding heart and hopelessly naïve. And the villains will definitely escape if allowed to read a book, or go outside, or whatever.

[@BarginsGalore]

Or how that’s good. So many show are like “some spooky cops kill the monsters but we only look them in a cell with standing room only that they’ll be in forever see we’re good spooky cops”.

[@GruntKF]

Indeed, and I've seen the obsessively punitive approach become increasingly popular over time too, despite y'know the scientific evidence that there are much better ways to handle justice.

[@PeterParker-ff7ub]

it is tv

[@mysteriiis]

This goes along with superhero media constantly asserting that killing the bad guys, in any situation, is wrong. And then regularly dishing out literal fates worse than death. Their whole concept of morality is based on justifying the endless reuse of villain characters. No matter how absurdly unrealistic it gets. The Joker would have been, legally, gunned down by the GCPD years ago.

[@austinreed7343]

Sometimes the monster escapes and gets killed anyway.

[@BunkPhD]

As a fan of Buffy and Supernatural a lot of my foreign internet friends recommended Grimm to me. I never got past the first episode though, because as a German watching the original dub, the overuse of incomprehensible German gibberish as their lore was impossible for me to get past. Like, when they first used "Wesen" I was like "That's a bit odd, but pretty cool they are using German words." Now "Wesen" can make sense in context, so it was more the odd pronounciation that threw me off. But then came "Blutbad". Which is German for "Bloodbath". I was puzzled, but still rolled with it. But then he said "The plural is Blutbaden not Blutbads!". Now, the plural to Blutbad aka Bloodbath would be Blutbäder aka Bloodbaths. Instead they used Blutbaden which is a nonexisting word which would translate to Bloodbathing. As in the act of bathing in blood. As the plural of a species. What? So when you say "Everything is vaguely German" that was precisely the reason I had to stop watching. Couldn't the show named after the German Brothers Grimm find a single German person that could proofread their German lore to make it fit to actual correct German language? I guess not.

[@Kay_McKay]

Americans in a nutshell. Everything outside their small world, which contains only the United States, is either hostile or unimportant.

[@bortsimpson9308]

to elaborate on the Wesen pronounciation: If its pronounced like in the video they're putting the stress on the wong syllable. its kinda like pronouncing taco tuh-COE. Anglos are weird about grimm tales in general tho, thank god they only ruined the most basic ones ( we have gez sponsored modern fairytales to ruin more obscure ones on our home turf)

[@dayegilharno4988]

@@bortsimpson9308 Leave GEZ alone. It's the cllosest thing we have to content creators getting financed without the biggest spender calling the shots.

[@dirgniflesuoh7950]

I found the words weird and the pronounciation ... but I imagined that a) the word were very old archaic forms and b) they had been mangled by people living in the US (and elsewhere) a couple of generations.

[@SapphWolf]

This is reminding me of the episode of Supernatural that dealt with the "pagan deity Sam Hain" it hurt so much.

[@rorylynch1203]

It feels like Obama’s election influenced a show like Fringe a lot as well. A sort of sigh of relief, “we can trust the government again!” When really the police state was just given a polite face to show the world as grew ever larger.

[@guy-sl3kr]

You can see the same thing happening now as people are quick to defend our police state because we have a polite fascist in office instead of a rude fascist

[@sjbrooksy45]

@@guy-sl3kr Sometimes it feels the two parties came together and decided to run the country like a wrestling show. Right now the GOP is the heel but it might switch in a decade or 2.

[@Shadewaltz]

@@sjbrooksy45 "Hey this one side is literally trying to kill all of your friends while the other isn't" "AHA THEY ARE BOTH EQUALLY BAD I AM SO SMART"

[@guy-sl3kr]

@@Shadewaltz Dumping money into the police and military while ignoring healthcare, worker's rights, and wealth disparity is completely bipartisan. If you think democrats are substantially different from republicans then please look at how much we're currently spending on war as compared to literally anything else.

[@thebasedgodmax1163]

​@@Shadewaltz if you dug a bit deeper than twitter and infographics you'd understand how your libshit take is laughable. but sure Biden is a super super good guy who doesn't harbour any bad beliefs and will singlehandedly save every minority.

[@edjavas]

Grimm was the most entertaining crappy show I've watched in a long time. Both a 9/10 and a 2/10 at the same time.

[@robbiesmith8055]

Agreed. I can't tell if the decline in quality as the seasons stretched on was really that intense, or if I was simply getting too old to take it seriously anymore, but god I loved this show when I was in high school.

[@edjavas]

​@@robbiesmith8055 I'm with you. I stopped caring about the crappy SFX very early on. It's a show that easily suspends disbelief.

[@logansmith2703]

@@robbiesmith8055 honestly the monster of the week slowly becoming less prominent is probably the cause. The actual overarching plot was pretty terrible.

[@robbiesmith8055]

@@logansmith2703 I actually felt that the further it went, the less I cared about the monster of the week and the more I just wanted the plot to move faster. It's just that once I got to season 5 and it was suddenly clear how dumb the plot was getting, the more duped I felt.

[@VoIcanoman]

Yeah. It was a paradox, wasn't it? Like...the lore was so idiotic, and also so compelling. It baffles me to this day.

[@musicalnotextr]

A shame that you don’t talk about Angel. That show was even more explicit than Buffy about demons not being inherently evil. One of them opens a karaoke sanctuary to provide prophetic therapy....

[@Eightsixseven23224]

To be fair though Angel's cover of Mandy is the stuff of true evil

[@ninino86]

Yeah, Angel even talks to Kate (the cop) about how all bad things (demons) are bad things. Some are just a different species than you, living completely assimilated in the world. Later in the show they even devote a whole episode to that point

[@zenkim6709]

​@caitlyncarvalho7637 ... my take is "all spooky cop shows are urban fantasy, but not all urban fantasy is spooky cop shows". So "Bewitched" & "Sabrina The Teenage Witch" are arguably urban fantasy, but wouldn't fall under the perview of videos like this re. "spooky cop" shows as copaganda.

[@noatrope]

@caitlyncarvalho7637There are plenty of urban fantasy stories that aren't spooky cops. (Granted, spooky cops predominate in live-action television, but urban fantasy is multimedia.) - American Gods - Good Omens - The Magicians - Brand New Cherry Flavor - Baccano!/Durarara!! - Scott Pilgrim - Hilda - etc - Honorary mention to Doctor Who who is or isn't a spooky cop depending on the episode

[@skynyrdjesus]

Yeah, I think Angel is really being slept on, particularly for its influence on "Spooky Cop Shows TM" going forward. Buffy borders on being a slice of life show for a lot of its run time because its about a person given an incredible, life changing ability and primarily struggling with just how to grow up and be an adult and make life work. Angel opens a detective agency and is repeatedly the lynchpin to saving society because he's a good monster with the best intentions. Also, not related, but Lorne is best boy and must be protected and preserved at all costs.

[@musicalnotextr]

The evolution from The X-Files to Buffy to Grimm can honestly be traced through the writers as well. A fair amount of the writers for Buffy & Angel we’re former X-Files writers. And Grimm was created by Angel’s original showrunner (who also briefly wrote for X-Files).

[@mattgilbert7347]

Angel improved when he left

[@damianstarks3338]

@@mattgilbert7347 agreed.

[@maxkproductions]

Greenwalt never wrote for the X Files, he was a co-executive producer.

[@musicalnotextr]

@@maxkproductions Um, you know IMDB exists, right? Greenwalt co-wrote “Synchrony” (Season 4, Episode 19) with Howard Gordon.

[@maxkproductions]

@@musicalnotextr i checked on imdb, i didn’t see him credited as a writer. that/ both my bad and the site’s PC interface!!

[@rodericktrinity4708]

I believe that the Sleepy Hollow show on Fox is the epitome of this trope. It’s literally about a cop and time displaced military officer chosen by destiny to investigate demonic activities, typically strange deaths and/or murders, in a small colonial town to kill the threat in whatever way they can. Its a magical cop procedural show.

[@tariqthomas9090]

Buffy’s annoyance with police and their portrayal in BTVS has always been one of my favorite details. The show is very much anti-institutional power in a way and, despite it’s flaws, I’ve always love the show for that. It’s also interesting because Angel almost takes the opposite route. Now I could be wrong but I heard that Buffy becomes a cop in the comics and…it’s gonna be a no from me, dawg. Buffy Summers would never. ✋🏾🙄

[@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502]

You did not hear wrong, sadly.

[@jaguarking2892]

Buffyverse comics are terrible all around. I'd like to think they don't exist

[@eamonndeane587]

@@jaguarking2892 Making Dawn and Xander a couple was such a stupid idea. I actually liked Dawn. She didn't DESERVE THIS!!!!

[@beckyginger3432]

​@@eamonndeane587no one deserves xander

[@katharineeavan9705]

I mean, the whole overarching plot of Angel is them drifting further into moral greyness as they pursue rewards from the system for saving people. They're literally a paid PI service charging people - even if they often wave or reduce their fees, and Angel is pretty invested for awhile in the idea that if he's a Good Enough Boy he'll make up for all the murder and crimes against humanity and get made into a Real Boy and have his vampirism cured by divine intervention. Later on, they're directly contrasted to the Scoobies who have to work day jobs on top of the world saving and do it because it's right rather than for a reward. It then finishes up by going reallllly hard on criticizing the idea of reforming corrupt systems of power instead of destroying them, making the whole final season a lesson on how if you try to change corrupt systems for the better by participating in them, then it's you that will end up being changed for the worse.

[@carysmartin1765]

The TVA on Loki is very interesting because it’s not just Space time cops it’s ALSO an allegory for faith so it’s not just cops it’s also talking about institutionalized religion and the level of control the space cops spend their time ensuring is interesting as is the fact that this is God’s will or something very close to it that these people are imposing on innocent bystanders who have no say sounds a lot like Christian colonialism

[@soulstealer5625]

Interesting take, but subject to change if and when the show delivers more info (also at time of comment haven’t seen episode 4 so no spoilers there please).

[@noatrope]

Comment aged pretty well post-S2

[@RealLukeWilson]

The main villains for the entire series of The X-Files are a small cabal of powerful old white dudes who agreed to end all human life on Earth just so they could save their own hides when the extraterrestrial invasion happens. Like, replace “extraterrestrial invasion” with “climate apocalypse” and it’s basically reality.

[@iwanttobelieve2]

If you watched the revival seasons, it turns out it was just one white dude on an ego trip

[@TerrellThomas1971]

so damn true

[@blairbrown4812]

Although in light of recent Revelations by the US military to the Congress, the Extra-Terrestrial Invasion scenario is looking just as credible.

[@stuck_around]

@@iwanttobelieve2 revival never happened u must of dreamed that. xfiles ended season 6 and thats where it definitely ended and nothing after that

[@iwanttobelieve2]

@@stuck_around I wish

[@qwellen7521]

Since your an American, I understand you probably missed TORCHWOOD, the Dr Who spin-off. It was flawed but one thing that really stood out to me when I was younger was how anti-establish it was; especially how it took aim at its parent show’s occasional moral flippancy.

[@austinreed7343]

The three police themed Sentai would have been nice to cover.

[@ianisimo]

yes! actually one of my fav shows as cheesy as it can be i really loved that jack completely changed the system so although his task was similar to the organizations he ran things completely different even trying to get that one alien home yk i feel like they really did martha dirty having her work for that other place

[@B2M2948]

​@ergonorm9960 Martha, as a character, never gets the respect her character deserves from both the fanbase and the writers.

[@mothturtle7897]

​​​@@ianisimoyeah, after seeing UNIT imprison Tosh without trial in solitary confinement indefinitely in Torchwood, it's really jarring to see them often represented as the good guys in Doctor Who. I enjoyed The Giggle but I couldn't help thinking... Kate Lethbridge Stewart could probably be put on trial for crimes against humanity or something, and here she is hugging the Doctor. But then the Doctor was also friends with Churchill and apparently Stalin(?!), I guess when you're travelling through space and time morality is always going to be relative.

[@TheHorrorGuru]

I would argue Supernatural actually does challenge Dean's black and white world view constantly though I get that it'd be a long ass video if you covered everything that went on during those 15 seasons.

[@kauswekazilimani3736]

He'd need an hour lol

[@SkipIntroYT]

I definitely couldn't give Supernatural the time it probably deserved, considering how much ground it covers, and I do think that it's closer to Buffy than to Grimm, but I do think it represents a step in that direction

[@katherinemorelle7115]

@@SkipIntroYT eh, I’d argue that given the major thrust of the show is choosing free will over following authority (heaven, archangels, God himself), that it’s not even a step in that direction. It’s very anti authoritarian, and it’s also nowhere near black and white, with there being grey demons who do the right thing at least sometimes (like Crowley and Meg), Rowena turns out to be an ally, Garth the werewolf is a friend, as was Benny the vampire. But God, who is portrayed as the ultimate good in religious myths in our world, is an arsehole and a shitty writer, and the big bad. I’m actually rather surprised that I didn’t hear much uproar from the fundy Christians about Supernatural. Not only for playing around with Christian myths, and making God the bad guy, but making God canonically bisexual! I for sure would have thought they’d have an aneurism over that.

[@blinkfilms1]

I'd watch that full video tho

[@blessedistheflame3813]

Dean's black and white worldview is often the source of tension between Sam and Dean. Which I think the show also demonstrates well. And when Dean does some of his darkest shit it's because of that black and white worldview.

[@bamzolino]

Amazing stuff, can’t wait to finish and also see your takes on Lucifer and Criminal Minds

[@grammerincorrect]

Like many things on SPN, they would introduce criticism of the good vs evil binary but they never knew what they wanted to say. They dipped their toes into the grey area with characters like Sheriff Jody & Donna being "good cops" pulled into the supernatural world by tragedy, but they never went as far to show that they themselves were interrogating their roles as cops and just kind of had them use it to their advantage when possible ie getting Claire out of trouble. On the other side, they introduce good monsters like Garth and his werewolf wife and children, but then never address the fact that they would go to Purgatory with all the other monsters when they die despite living normal human lives. You'd think they'd have time with 327 episodes but alas (love the show still but)

[@lunova6165]

They do go into it kinda. They actually kinda blame it all on God and Christianity. He was the one who put them there. When they meet god, they actually hate them and ask how he could let all of this shit happen, and not doing a thing. God is shown to be wildly incompetent, a coward who is afraid of his own mistakes, and is really pretty selfish, and self-righteous. He really only liked Sam and Dean and helped them because he saw them as characters in a story he liked. God was gonna let all of humanity die and suffer because he got in a fight with his sister, and didn't want to stop her from ending the world. Dean even ends up in purgatory and meets someone who helps him and realizes it was really him that was the monster, as all the stuff he hunted was out hunt him like a mark, just like he had done in the past. Most angels in the show in general are pompous douchebags who see anyone especially monsters as subhuman. The show has like an entire season dedicated to it.

[@insertfunnynamehere1673]

Showed this to my mom and had to explain why Twin Peaks was supernatural. “I wasn’t paying that close attention”

[@naomi.s1799]

One of the main antagonists of the X-files is the FBI, they're acknowledged as the villains too

[@cherusiderea1330]

Actually, the plural form of Blutblad is Blutbäder, but I guess no one on or watching the show would care. Blutbaden would be a verb literally meaning "to bathe in blood"

[@mimimurlough]

Speaking of migrants, Supernatural got into offing or disappearing uncomfortable characters because they didn't feel like they "belong" in our word after all, and ended up going back to theirs. As the show got progressively more conservative (abandoming the working class perspective and free will themes and the grey scales of the first few seasons) that got all the more uncomfortable

[@gateauxq4604]

‘Supernatural isn’t misogynist’ LOOK AT THE BODY COUNT 🤦

[@nerdandnerdier887]

Something I liked about supernatural was they would have a few episodes where they go to investigate for monsters and it’s just humans being awful and we see monsters just living day to day life and not causing harm and Sam and dean have gone out of their way to defend such monsters and call out hunters who go far and dedicated a whole season where the bad guys were a group called the men of letters a group who were crazy extremist who had a kill on sight rule for anything no 100% human, also Meg could be argued to be a good demon at least she becomes kinda good

[@YouCallThataKnife253]

I live in the PNW where we just experienced temperatures 30-40 degrees above average for this time of year. Can't nobody tell me climate change ain't real

[@ToruKun1]

I'm in southern Oregon and it's so unseasonably hot by June standards that I've been having panic attacks because I Know Why That Is. I miss our freak weather being blizzards in mid-April.

[@milesd3147]

stay safe, dudes! i have a lot of experience with heat cause i’m from southern california recommend getting towels wet and then freezing them and also lie on a tile floor to cool down and make sure to learn the signs of heatstroke vs heat exhaustion. i know it’s not really the point of your comment but please stay safe!

[@plottwisted172]

The state department is clearly team Riley

[@deadman746]

When I was at MIT, the Hancock Building was famous for swinging back and forth in the wind and it's gold windows plummeting to crush pedestrians below. Perhaps there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

[@Itcouldbebunnies]

I'm so happy I have the original Buffy dvd box set, the HD remaster is the true definition of horror.😱

[@StickWithTrigger]

oh god what did they do?

[@Itcouldbebunnies]

@@StickWithTrigger The colours look different, everyone's face looks like a wax mask, night seems like day...basically, they did a fast, cheap remaster just to make a quick buck. There's a video on the channel Passion of the Nerd called 'The great tragedy of the Buffy HD remaster' which explains everything in detail: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYu6f3qnbJWCr9E

[@mattgilbert7347]

I sold my OG DVD set I'm old now but if I had the energy of a yoof I'd weep

[@renaigh]

it's what I call the "Paladin Dilemma" we see what the Law thinks of itself rather than the reality of their actions.

[@fallapataurius]

"Happy place; Spooky cops." - the best quote of 2021

[@charlieni645]

Wow... This goes to places I didn't expect.

[@theleakypen8662]

Whoof. I described Fringe to friends as X-Files for the modern age, without having seen much X-Files, and it never occurred to me when I was saying that "the modern age" in this case is specifically the post-9/11 War on Terror world, but of course it is. Also the connection you draw between fantastical existential threats and the very real threat of climate collapse really took me out. This series continues to be fantastic

[@emilyadair8380]

Another brilliant video, and I loved the discussion of Buffy. I wondered if you had any thoughts about the final season, which was produced after 9/11 and during the lead-up to the Iraq War. There's a lot of discussion in that season about "war" and "soldiers", with Buffy explicitly being put in the role of General. There's even an iconic speech where, just like that Fringe example, Buffy declares that they're done waiting, and they're going to take the fight to the enemy. I find it very interesting that this show that was previously very anti-establishment takes a very sudden turn into positioning their Hero as a military figure in the final season, right in the wake of 9/11.

[@GermanLeftist]

That gets even worse in the comics, in which Buffy ends up being a cop - and Faith as well. Personally, I blame Joss Asshead Whedon.

[@emilyadair8380]

@@GermanLeftist "Personally I blame Joss Whedon" Honestly that's always a solid choice

[@nsb144]

To be fair, that season also ends with a very anti-establishment message in which buffy deconstructs the traditional power structures behind the show's mythos. Instead of maintaining her position as general, the solution she finds is ultimately to literally redistribute her power to the community. While I agree that season 7 was absolutely inspired by 9/11, I think the show is actually quite critical of American militirarism (though this criticism is admittedly not very well constructed, because season 7 kind of sucks). That being said, fuck the comics. We don't acknowledge the comics.

[@emilyadair8380]

@@nsb144 You're totally right. S7 is very confused in its own messaging a lot of the time and it contradicts itself a lot. I think there is an intended anti-establishment message there, given how it ends, but then there's also moments where Buffy is very harsh and re-enacts the actions of the establishment (e.g. one episode where she sets a vampire on some unpowered Potentials, which is what happened to her in S3 and was shown to be traumatic for her) and it's justified as "they're at war", and the show doesn't explicitly challenge that.

[@nsb144]

@@emilyadair8380 Yeah, I think season 7, is probably the worst season of the show for a lot of reasons, but the theming is particularly problematic, especially considering how good the show had previously been about theme. I will say that Buffy's harshness and her repeating the Council's patterns is eventually called out and criticized (in a really stupid, infuriating, ooc way, but still) and I think what the writers were going for is that Buffy initially thinks that the only way to win is to adopt the council's militarism, before realizing that that's actually bullshit and destroying the system that created this whole mess in the first place. Once again, I'm by no means a season 7 defender, and I certainly don't think it imparts these ideas very well, but I do think that's the intended point of that mess of a season.

[@purpunknat]

Really impressed with the direction that this took. Hadn't realized just how much the culture of these shows could infiltrate our viewpoints. And also, I apparently have a type - Spooky Cops TM - I've watched almost every show mentioned here.

[@KelseyRodriguez]

This video (like the rest of this series so far), was fascinating. It's so weird to look back on all of these shows that I grew up with and realize how pro-police they were. One thing that would really interest me would be a deep dive into why people are so interested in content about crime/policing in the first place, from true crime podcasts to shows about lone-wolf de-facto cops like Buffy.

[@SkipIntroYT]

I touched on this a little in my video about Mindhunter (which is kind of a prelude to the Copaganda series). It's a bit more focused on style/form, but the end is mostly about why we're so fascinated in understanding true crime/serial killers: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nmiVaKCnbJ6ghc0

[@BH-wh2vo]

@@SkipIntroYT I mean, I think there's a pretty easy Ockham/Hanlon combo razor set here: Cops are one of the very few, and most prominent, occupation that is enabled with legal investigative powers. It's most likely just an easy choice for a writer when they want a character that's allowed to investigate in a contemporary society. It's a problem I run into with tabletop RPGs frequently.

[@NoxDefensor]

@@BH-wh2vo They are also pretty much the only occupation, apart from the military, that is allowed to engage in morally permissible* violence! For middle-class white America, the target audience of most TV, most of those folks simply do not engage in or encounter violence in their everyday lives. So if you want your good guy to be able to wave a gun at bad guys, even if you throw a layer of fantasy or sci-fi over top, by default you are going to end up with some flavor of Cop. *actual moral permissibility of the violence may vary depending on your stances on ACAB, as should be obvious to anyone watching this series

[@finecommathanks]

The Brothers Grimm were German and a lot of their stories took place in the Black Forest. That's prob why there was a bunch of vague german-ness in Grimm. Also prob served to separate it a bit from Once Upon a Time.

[@birchwwolf]

It hit me 11 min into this vid that a whole episode could be dedicated to Ghost in the Shell (particularly STAND ALONE COMPLEX) and Psycho-Pass. The former is credited as a "post-cyberpunk" work, "post-cyberpunk" basically defined as "stories from the cyberpunk world that cast an empathetic lens on those working within the system(s) of control". If not already planned, this would definitely get me onboard as a Patreon...patron(? is that the term for it?)

[@RealLukeWilson]

I discovered Psycho-Pass earlier this year and it’s such an amazing series. The complex system of government portrayed is just chilling in all the best ways.

[@mephisto2872]

"stories from the cyberpunk world that cast an empathetic lens on those working within the system(s) of control" From where is this part of your comment from?

[@ivyallie3688]

I second the motion. 😉 Both make for fascinating discussion.

[@Wiklina616]

I think soner or later we are in for copaganda anime episode.

[@WorldGovernmentGeoInstitut]

Be great if he also could talk about one piece and the marines being a complete reference to both the police and the military. I really doubt he watches/reads one piece though. It would be interesting if he could talk about cops in other media (video games, manga/anime, etc).

[@davidsrq]

Will you cover the TVA from Loki? (if you’re even watching it) They’re like space-time continuum cops!

[@galactic85]

I'm a patron. He considered talking falcon and winter soldier because of how pro cop it was but ultimately decided against it so that he could finish this video. Maybe after loki wraps we may get MCU part 2. We'll see.

[@G-LukeJA]

I think we should get Space Cops in general

[@josephkrafczynski774]

@@G-LukeJA leave Rich Evans out of this.

[@Ilikefrogs..]

I feel like that show is EXTREMELY anti-cop. It starts out showing the TVA as this benevolent group protecting the world from chaos and then ends with revealing that the TVA are actually kidnapping and brainwashing people into their cause. For having such a short first season that show was crazy.

[@astral_haze]

i remember grimm having a death penalty episode where it really bothered me how it was like "oh look he proved the guy acted in self defense everything is fine i guess" totally ignoring the fact that the government would've literally murdered that person if not for the chance event of a rogue cop with supernatural powers proving him innocent

[@Philemaphobia]

Trust me, if you‘re German, you were interested in the Grimm Origins AND were terribly disappointed. There was so much potential. (Wesen also means the core‘ or ‚spirit‘ of (sentient) beings, as well as it means ‚being‘ ‚beast‘ and ‚nature of something‘ so it was the most intelligent choice of the hole show) They could have questioned the Wesen of the Grimm, but never really got around to that, always only scratched it on the surface before it went to seventh season quality from season two on. I took that one personal. XD

[@ToruKun1]

Gritty cops, silly cops, conservative cops, liberal cops, quirky cops, serial killer cops, serial killer-serial killer cops, spooky cops...but will you ever do a video essay about....GIANT ROBOT COPS (i.e. Patlabor)?

[@xiolanobody8199]

Optimus Prime/ the entire transformers series

[@lulucool45]

Brave Police J-Decker is RIPE for critical analysis

[@kostajovanovic3711]

@@lulucool45 yep

[@galactic85]

I'm hoping he does power rangers.

[@gateauxq4604]

Also Ghost in the Shell. Tachikomas are pretty explicitly giant robots but the Major is also about as strong as one. Bonus points for Shirow also making straight up copaganda with a giant ‘robot’ (Appleseed)

[@diegobustos6206]

This video inspired me to finally go back and watch every episode of the X-Files. Ironically this led me to discover what can only be described as a "Blue Bloods" moment at the climax of season 1 episode 16. The moral of the story is that Mulder should disregard proper police protocol and be more trigger happy.

[@ChrisMM65]

ACABEFM (All Cops Are Bastards Except Fox Mulder)

[@cyikes8271]

Thank you for talking about this. Fringe is my favorite show and I always struggled to find a way to best discuss it in regards to copaganda. You did a great job.

[@southofzero2510]

I loved Fringe as a teenager, but it always fell flat compared to The X-Files. You explained why. Awesome video!

[@parkgeonhees]

only 5 mins in but i REALLY appreciate that you're gonna try and keep the buffy spoilers to the minimum !!! it's been Hard Work avoiding them watching it for the first time in 2020/2021 but ... you're right, it's the only one i care about getting spoilers for

[@EuphoricPentagram]

11:34 as someone who only knows 911 as history, i find it helpful when people do explicitly mention it. it helps kinda solidify it and its outcomes, even without going through it personally.

[@WTFPr0m]

The U.S. is full of goofball centrists in the bottom 99% who think the uber-rich are gonna let us into their lifeboats while the world drowns... Like, if you can't be bothered to care about the death of innocent people outside our borders, could you at least not delude yourself into thinking you have any kind of shared community with billionaires? (Also, excellent video & series! 💖)

[@kaleeshsynth9994]

They don't really care even if There own citizens die.

[@itcouldbelupus2842]

@@kaleeshsynth9994 They'll start to in the next ten years when it's them and their neighbors who start dying.

[@phatnana2379]

@@itcouldbelupus2842 exactly! Unfortunately, it will be too late by then! Idk exactly when it happened but at some point between 1870s (or 1 generation after the civil war) and 1950/60s (1 generation after WWII) people started to trust the government/powerful people of the country more than their neighbors! There was a time when the people in a community (aka: neighbors) counted on each other and all did their part to make sure everybody had enough of what they needed to survive so if the community came under attack or was stricken by some kind of catastrophe, EVERYONE was capable of defending, rebuilding, etc. Now look at the relationship between most neighbors... A lot of people don't even know their neighbors names (let alone their story), people calling the police/town officials on their neighbors for loud music or like a flower bed that encroaches onto an unused piece of their property by 2 inches, or they see their neighbors suffering somehow and offer no help, even if it wouldn't cost them a dime! When this is the situation within most communities, when that metaphorical flood comes, neighbors become enemies, fighting for a spot on the life boat... rather than coming together, helping each other, thus not relying on government life boats... Sorry for the rant... I'm pretty high rn 😂

[@itcouldbelupus2842]

@@phatnana2379 All good, I usually am high on KZbin as well. People definitely used to know and rely on their neighbors more but trust in the govt was always quite high until around the 70s when corporations started pushing anti politics propoganda, saying all forms of govt are bad and inept, eroding trust and muddying the water so much most people don't even know the purpose of government. Capitalism is the reason for our reliance on systems rather than each other, we are better consumers when we are all isolated individuals, people who have a sense of community don't need to buy as many things to make themselves feel good. A system that prioritizes profits over people is always going to have negative societal effects. Remember that Government holds the possibility of being democratic, corporations are tyrannys. We need to rebuild our local communities and build trust in each other and then reform or form new governments that actually represent us, not corporate interests.

[@CowMaster9001]

Unlike Marxists, who will declare the boats a bourgeois counter revolutionary crime and demand we build a giant tower for BIPOC only (only for it to collapse because architecture is a white supremacist patriarchal construct)

[@devincigirl]

I’m so excited about this! This series is probably my favorite thing on KZbin and deserves so many more views.

[@sweetyft]

Agreed

[@thegreataspie8675]

When you scripted, shot, and edited this you had no idea the sky in Canada and the sea in the Gulf would catch fire like a dang ol' Hellmouth.

[@bellakagamine]

God I remember Grimm, it shot in my city and was my mom's favorite show for years. I went back and watched the first episode again recently and it's kind of horrifying, like the main cop just absolutely attacks an innocent man thinking he must be the killer because his spooky sight powers that he didn't understand went off. And the dude is just like "Aw that's okay buddy let's be friends! I don't mind that you broke into my house and arrested me without any evidence or cause!" I mostly remember that show because my mom was infatuated with the actor who played the police chief, and he lived in the same condo building as us, so she'd always get grumpy when she saw his girlfriend's car in the parking garage.

[@soulstealer5625]

I used to want to go into law enforcement, and being English, I hoped the system in my own country would be better. However I really doubt I could help the way I would like to, especially after hearing how whistleblowers and such are treated in the US.

[@AlwaysSomeone]

Could still go for it. Be the change you want to see.

[@tavislea9104]

Speaking of policing pipeline protests, I was thinking of this copaganda series while we watched North of Sixty the other day, and I caught a few episodes of a new show called Tribal, that deal with policing indigenous communities in Canada. It is a complex can of worms but would be really interesting to analyze as copaganda.

[@Arosukir6]

Ah dang! I don't know if you do animated shows, but this makes me think about another type of Spooky Cops: The Men In Black. I'd love to hear your take on it as a show pretty much directly about policing immigrants. Criminalizing folks who come from other places for various reasons, treating them like nuisances, many of whom come "over here" to cause trouble.

[@alexandredesbiens-brassard9109]

Hmm, have you seen the first movie recently? Because it pretty much does the exact opposite of what you describe. First scene of the movie is a truck full of illegal border crossers getting stopped by cops. (ICE didn't exist then). Then the MiB comes in, pick out the one potentially dangerous person in the group, then put the others back into the truck and send them on their merry way with a "Welcome to America". When the cops protest because he let illegal immigrants in, K coldly puts him back in his place. Then the MiB start talking with Mikey - keyword talking. They don't threaten him in any way, they just talk. They don't even pull out their gun until Mikey starts attacking. In the rest of the movie, you'll notice that the MiB never get violent or menacing with any alien except the Bug. In fact, the one time J draws his gun and fires unprompted at the Bug, K chews him out royally for it. And K does mention a couple times that their job is as much to keep the humans safe from the aliens than it is to keep the aliens safe from the humans. And then there is the magnificent scene where J and a bunch of othe cops and military types are being tested. An alarm rings and light goes off and a bunch of alien-shaped targets come out. All of the other guys start shooting like crazy, but J waits, gun lowered, evaluate things, and then fires one shot...on the white girl. When asked to explain his reasoning, he basically tells the same story 2-3 times: he thought about shooting an alien that looked scary, but then looked closer and saw they were doing something mundane. He's basically saying that he was racially profiling, but then stopped himself. That's right, MiB is a movie were the hero shows himself as heroic by refusing to do racial profiling. So yeah, MIB is actually a pretty progressive movie, and focuses a lot on how the MIBs are there to protect everyone, aliens and humans alike, rather than hunt down a specific enemy. Now the rest of the franchise kinda downplay this aspect, but not by much.

[@veronicaaccouche1478]

@@alexandredesbiens-brassard9109 I remember the alien doing the mundane thing was blowing their nose, another was exercising. The girl however was walking the streets 'alone' and holding a physics book.

[@andrewtran8442]

@@alexandredesbiens-brassard9109 There is a scene in the third movie I recall where a young K disapproves of his superior's nonchalant and flippant attitude towards killing aliens; in fact his respect for aliens is what convinces a young K to not wipe J's memories, because an alien that the main bad guy killed was K's friend and so he did it out of respect for the memory of his dead friend, and a desire to avenge him.

[@selalewis9189]

So glad you're keeping this series going. I recommended to some of my local organizers and want to continue donating when I can. I'm really invested in continuing to defund the police because of the word "fund." It forces us to say, rich or poor -- but especially poor -- we all pay taxes: sales tax, income tax, property tax. And that our taxes fund city, state, and federal budgets. We should know where our money is going, and have some say over where we want it to go. Yes, I want fewer people roaming the streets armed and above the law assaulting and harassing people in my community. And in exchange for that, I want more trees planted, more public bathrooms, more safe roads and bridges, more public housing, child psychologists and art classes in public schools. All those things are underfunded or nonexistent.

[@Wiklina616]

I haven't been thinking about coming climate apocalypse for like 5 minutes. Thanks Skip Intro!

[@asterisktrash]

EXCELLENT video and now I'm just going to think of how Supernatural is so complicated re: its position as copaganda

[@DubiousConsumption]

I started watching Supernatural after watching the first ep of Grimm. Grimm reminds me of Dean Koontz's Twilight Eyes, which has a similar thing about being the only person able to see Goblins who masquerade as humans.

[@unclegumbald989]

Skip Intro gonna talk about the X-Files?! Gimme gimme numnumnumnumnumnumnum

[@Replica_Rabbit]

Man, this video bums me out for the future. Wish, we could put our country's resources into helping people. I wouldn't mind if robots take over, they probably would do a better job

[@coldfrost3]

Always remember that robots are made by people and will be programed with the biases they currently have.

[@galactic85]

Dude this episode was amazing. Didn't expect you to talk about climate change but once I realized you were going there I was like "oh shit! He's gonna do it!" Also I'm sorry to say I watched grimm as a kid for about 3 seasons as it aired. I have family in the pacific northwest and since it was set in Portland, it was kind of exciting watch a TV show and be like "hey! Voodoo donuts! Hey....more Portland stuff! Portland is cool!" When you started describing the premise of the show I was going to respond with "well the vessen world is portrayed more as a hidden world that is parallel to our own world and not an "evil world." We see plenty of vessen just living their day to day lives and making ends meet like normal people. I always thought they were coded as immigrants! Plus they are critical of the grimms of the past and how violent they were!" Then I realized that actually makes it worse because it means that nick is running around like the punisher with no accountability and he is targeting minority groups that don't fit his definition if "human." He's becomes basically a man committing hate crimes. Like....wow grimm was such a fucked up show and I never realized it when I was younger. I'm glad I eventually lost interest I it and quit watching.

[@StNick119]

Ooh there's climate change in this one?!

[@yunggreen215]

I watched Grimm for the the first 2 season and by the time the third came around something clicked inside me and I realized just how bad (boring) it really was.

[@galactic85]

@@yunggreen215 yeah that pretty much what happened with me. I suddenly realized how little I cared.

[@kaitlynmarie5545]

Fringe is one of my favorite shows! Love that it got so much attention in this video, even if a lot of that wasn't positive. But I will say the "other world" and "the bad guys" in Fringe are not one and the same. There are bad and good on every "side" (blue verse, red verse and the observers) and the other world is ultimately not evil - in fact, it was someone from our world kidnapping a child from their world that started the chain reaction of events. Its fair to call Fringe copaganda especially when compared to the X-Files but lumping it in with other copaganda shows that portray the otherworld as "bad" does a disservice to the themes of Fringe. Loved the video, though, and agree with a lot of what you said 😄

[@metamaus5701]

What Angel as a show did differently is that the black and white "all demons are evil" gets turned on its head various times, there is So Much Greyness in everyone's choices, S5 turns the establishment on its head. I'd be very interested in exploring that show through the lens of copaganda.

[@shannon1958]

As a person from and living in the Caribbean, the end of this video really hit me hard.

[@eriklonnrot3578]

Thanks for doing this deep dive series on copaganda! There is just so much of it everywhere once one begins to take note. And there’s definitely a lot to analyze and think about. Recently read several really good essays about Mare of Easttown and copaganda.

[@donsample1002]

The ur example might be _Kolchak: The Night Stalker_ In that instance it was a reporter investigating supernatural phenomena

[@coolgreenbug7551]

But the biggest obstacle was always the police or the government who just wanted to brush it under the rug and go home

[@christophersmith3005]

I was surprised that you didn't mention _Millennium_ a TV series created by Chris Carter, creator of _The X Files_ It certainly fits all of the elements of a "spooky cop" show.

[@Ponybloodismycoffee]

Great episode. Your Copaganda series is one of my favourite things happening on youtube right now, and I'm pretty glad to be able to see these as they come out and not five year later by stumbling upon them as you're done with the format. Now that I have a bit of extra cash, I'll head to your Patreon page!

[@Volvagia1927]

5:31: Since you said that about Grimm? I'm assuming that's a "Gets its own episode(s)" show.

[@Kyprioth071]

Omg! Can't forget about Sleepy Hollow tv series! Totally fits in with the Spooky Cops genre. 🥺🥺

[@numinousnihil3804]

This channel is criminally underrated

[@alphabettical1]

It's a bit different but Sense8 also has a version of a spooky cop. He doesn't fit the video's criteria but is certainly supposed to be a hero in a way that the rest of the gang aren't, influenced by 'cop' being a magical personality trait akin to 'captain america'.

[@oliverbrauning1586]

Ivan Illich's characterization of institutions on a spectrum from "convivial" to "manipulative" is a helpful framework for understanding the progression of spooky copaganda. Manipulative institutions are those that make people psychologically addicted to them, that force people to use them involuntarily. Simultaneously, they oppose any possibile alternative institutions. Convivial institutions are ones that people want to use based on their inherent usefulness rather than because they were persuaded or because that institution has a monopoly on its particular function. The hallmark of convivial institutions then, is freedom to opt in or out according to your needs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a really good example of the difference between the two in season 4. The "Scooby gang" (what a stupid name, season 4 was the worst season) operated on a principle of spontaneity and participation while the Initiative was obviously about controlling people to create a super weapon. Unsurprisingly Illich also notes that manipulative institutions "tend to develop effects contrary to their aims as the scope of their operations increases." The initiative tries to create a monster to fight wars for the government, but instead causes more harm when John breaks loose. Manipulative institutions achieve goals opposite what they intend. For a fuller discussion see Deschooling Society ch. 4.

[@figsandoranges]

This is incredibly depressing thank you

[@jonathonsexton4668]

I feel like Grimm almost had something with the distrust of grimms wesen show. If only THAT had been the central premise. Still have an appreciation for Grimm actually knowing and understanding what a golem is though.

[@sch4891]

oh my god i just noticed how big your channel is getting. it may sound dorky but i just wanna say that i was a subscriber before it was cool and im so proud now! great vid!

[@rampion1228]

The "failure of imagination" catch phrase is so insidious. Who could have possibly imagined that years of the US military reaking havoc in these countries would give rise to a counter attack?

[@willkersey7340]

This is one of my favorite running series on KZbin. You are *criminally* undersubscribed. Consider me "patron"ized.

[@3dartxsi]

I can't believe you missed the single most significant spooky cop show of the nineties: season 2 of Baywatch Nights.

[@PaulRWorthington]

This is an excellent video essay - both the production value and the content. Thought provoking.... I'm writing a paranormal suspense series that could be dismissed as "Spooky Cops" (™!) and your primary point is one to keep in mind. Although mine is much more Twin Peaks and X-Files than anything >9/11.

[@drygonfyre]

Holy shit, the "reformed Blutbad" scene made me remember that I had actually watched Grimm with my family back in the day. I had apparently put memories of this show into the recesses of my mind, because before that I was convinced I had never seen it.

[@jaredgibson6624]

Damn this hits pretty heavy. I still like Fringe but it's a lot more of a bummer

[@arnoldfreeman2885]

Holy shit you’re still uploading these copaganda videos. I wasn’t even waiting for a new one. Thank you!

[@Islandswamp]

Law enforcement should be saved for the times where it's absolutely necessary to have someone who is prepared to use force.

[@WereInHell]

I cannot overstate how much I NEED your Twin Peaks video!

[@Vampirech1ck]

Dude! I was heavy in to xfiles and lone gunnman and I felt so crazy trying to tell people how this show no one watched producteded 9/11 and no one else ever talks about it 😅

[@AB-nb2ic]

WOW. I'm sending money. Just discovered your channel Today via a conversation you had with FD Signifier. This Copaganda series is So important and SO well done. Happy to pay for it voluntarily

[@VehpuS]

“In a Semisonic kind of way” 😂

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

Buffy was such a good show. Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight, never running from a real fight.

[@sudopod]

Looking forward to Lucifer and such. I'm also interested in "The Rookie" which technically takes place in 2019 even in the most recent episodes and seems to do something similar to "Blue Bloods" with pointing out the problems, but never making meaningful change. The latest season has a lot to unpack I think.

[@cbeaudry4646]

14:58 another note about the building is it looks a lot more modern than those smaller around it. Like the FBI and it's knowledge of the other world are more advanced than the ignorance of the layperson

[@kat8559]

Really excellent iteration of this series imo

[@spacemarine6212]

Hearing Lance Reddick's voice hit me with a burst of joy, until i remembered what happened. I miss him.

[@Salsmachev]

This is great. I'd love to see a discussion of Sense 8's decline into copaganda if you do more "What if cops but also speculative fiction" copaganda episodes.

[@sigh824]

God, yeah when they compared the n word to the word pig. I literally had to pause and process that, I was so disappointed

[@Salsmachev]

@@sigh824 Yeah they set up the cop's character in the beginning as though he was the one good apple in the rotten system and he would get kicked off the force, realise that the police were wrong all along, and seek justice outside that system... and then they just did a full 180 and not only made all the Chicago cops good guys, but also made the Korean cop good too because "the system works if you trust it". I couldn't believe that the people who made the Matrix where "the people we're trying to save could literally turn into cops and murder you at any moment" were the same people who made such blatant copaganda.

[@hilemonpie]

Honestly the best explanation of why defunding the police is vital, great video.

[@WorldGovernmentGeoInstitut]

Finished watching. I'd definitely love to see your take on other types of entertainment and copaganda. Manga/anime, comics (other than the MCU) and video games specially. There's so much types of media you can tackle.

[@Purple_Lilith]

This video took a really depressing turn.

[@piotrczuchowski1080]

Oh fuck, watercolor painter from Vienna was a supernatural being... Now I understand why you called "Grimm" bad.

[@zhitchcresttail3387]

Ohh, THAT watercolor painter?

I haven't seen any of the shows reviewed in your Copaganda series but you are that interesting!! Thank you so much for your effort and time, I'm enjoying so freaking much your takes and thoughts about things that really need to addressed!! ♥️♥️♥️