Interrogating The Shield

8. Glass Ceilings

145 Glass Ceilings Gender, Sexism, and The Shield Jason P. Vest Criminal Minds The Shield (FX, 2002–2008) offers an unflinching and unnerving portrayal of urban American police work during the twenty-first century’s inaugural decade. The program received critical acclaim throughout its seven seasons for examining the legal, political, and racial complexities of life in Los Angeles’s fictional Farmington District. The protagonist most frequently cited in discussions of The Shield is Detective Vic Mackey, whose extralegal methods of maintaining “order” compose the bulk of the program ’s narrative. Michael Chiklis’s intelligence, charm, and vulnerability in playing Mackey, when combined with the stylish writing of Shawn Ryan and his creative team, make the character’s unethical conduct so fascinating that The Shield’s devoted viewers, despite their better judgment, become complicit in Mackey’s immoral acts. In its depiction of police work’s moral ambiguities, The Shield is heir to several notable American television dramas, including Naked City (ABC, 1958–63), Hill Street Blues (NBC, 1981–87), Wiseguy (CBS, 1987–90), Law & Order (NBC, 1990–2010), NYPD Blue (ABC, 1993–2005), and Homicide: Life on the Street (NBC, 1993–99). The series also recalls the crime fiction of authors as diverse as Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, Patricia Highsmith , Ed McBain, and Richard Price. The Shield, in short, successfully carves its own territory within this fictional lineage by taking the questionable behavior of rogue cops as its premise, then examining how the actions of Mackey and his team affect the people around them. 8 146 | Jason P. Vest The program’s portrayal of policing contrasts with hero-cop programs such as Dragnet (NBC, 1951–59); Hawaii Five-O (CBS, 1968–80 and 2010–); Starsky and Hutch (ABC, 1975–79); Walker, Texas Ranger (CBS, 1993–2001); and Nash Bridges (CBS, 1996–2001, significantly the series on which Shawn Ryan began his television writing career). The Shield, however, continues these series’ androcentric fascination with male police officers’ personal and professional lives. Ryan himself worries about this possibility in audio commentaries for The Shield’s DVD collections,1 attesting to the fact that literary, cinematic, and television crime fiction marginalizes women as subsidiary characters. American television, indeed, has so few police dramas featuring female protagonists that viewers can be forgiven for remembering only Cagney and Lacey (CBS, 1982–88), although Police Woman (NBC, 1974–78), The Division (Lifetime, 2001–2004), Cold Case (CBS, 2003–10), The Closer (TNT, 2005–12), Saving Grace (TNT, 2007–10), Women’s Murder Club (ABC, 2007–2008), In Plain Sight (USA, 2008–), and Rizzoli & Isles (TNT, 2010–) attempt, with varying success, to dramatize the experience of female cops. The Shield, however, does not ignore the importance of women in its fictional rendition of urban Los Angeles. The series features female police officers, detectives, and captains alongside girlfriends, prostitutes, female gang members, female informants, and, in season 6, a female mob boss. These roles resist the tendency of other prime-time crime dramas to portray women as superficial eye candy for The Shield’s male characters and viewers, although female criminals (especially prostitutes) receive insensitive treatment by the men they encounter. Three female characters in particular—Claudette Wyms, Danielle “Danny” Sofer, and Monica Rawling —demonstrate how The Shield both confirms and contests sexist media portrayals of female law enforcement officers. The effectiveness and limitations of these women within the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) hierarchy allows The Shield throughout its seven seasons to traffic in fascinating , problematic, and uncomfortable portrayals of female power within the male-dominated arena of police work. 1. The most significant examples are in the DVD audio commentaries for “The Spread” (1.3), “Carnivores” (1.11), “Homewrecker” (2.6), and “Back in the Hole” (4.10). Glass Ceilings | 147 Pilot Projects Wyms, Sofer, and Rawling occupy different command levels, making issues of rank, promotion, and retention crucial factors in their professional aspirations and personal relationships. Wyms is not only The Shield’s most intriguing principal female character, but also the person whose experience exemplifies the show’s approach to female agency. Her intelligence, integrity, and insight make her a detective whom Mackey respects even as he maintains a wary distance. He cannot charm or cajole Wyms into overlooking his questionable street tactics, so she threatens his professional future at least as much as the machinations of Captain David Aceveda and Internal Affairs detective Jon Kavanaugh. The series pilot (1.1) is essential to...