Derek S. Denman, 

Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2023.2265086

Pages 19-34

Published online 10 November 2023

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Abstract

What happens if we interpret representations of policing as a shared cinematic universe? What continuities emerge between stories of the formal institution of the police, vigilantism, and settler and imperial force? What contradictions become evident within logics of policing, and how are these contradictions resolved, cementing the role of police in political order? A cinematic universe suggests a different aesthetic relation than the idea of a genre. The aim is not to establish a common narrative structure, but to detail a condition of order that holds together despite its tangents and tensions. Police films hold together in much the same way, attempting to reconcile the production of racial capitalism with liberal imaginaries. By framing police films as a cinematic universe, I demonstrate how attachments to policing work not only through ideology but also through enchantment. Appeals to police as guarantors of safety, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, rely on immersion in a world in which force and pacification are subsumed by police stories of dramatic tension, humor, and moral triumph. The ideology that sustains policing today works through a process of world-building, whereby sprawling elements of a cinematic universe reveal new details and intrigues of enforcing imperial, capitalist order.

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