Hill Street Blues and An ‘Americanized’ Britain

by Neil Bamforth

Recovering from a knee operation, I have had to spend quite some time sitting in my armchair. Boredom arrives early. To relieve the boredom I have been watching my box set of Hill Street Blues—all seven series. As I have mentioned before, I consider it the greatest TV show ever. Add to that a few beers and the boredom vanishes. The knee is also well on the mend.

What I have realized, for the first time, are the remarkable similarities between Hill Street Blues and the Britain of today.

Yes, of course, the show is ‘of its time’—the 1980’s to be precise—and yes, clearly, Britain is no more stuck in the 1980’s than anywhere else. It is the social commentary in the show that suddenly sprang out and hit me. Much of the social commentary in the show actually applies to Britain today.

Initially my realization puzzled me given that, as I just said, it is very much a 1980’s show. Finally it dawned on me. Britain has for some time been more and more ‘Americanized’ for want of a better description.

It possibly began during WWII when American GI’s were said to be ‘overpaid, oversexed and over here’. Those saying that were generally British military somewhat jealous of the quality of uniform and, indeed, life the Americans had by comparison to their own.

If it did start then nobody really noticed. I’m more inclined to think it began in the 1970’s. Certainly music influences such as Elvis were earlier but it was the advent of American TV shows that really started the Americanization ball rolling, swiftly followed by ‘fast food’ outlets such as McDonalds (and I’ve never entirely forgiven America for that) and the Americanization gathered pace.

What has taken considerably longer to arrive are the very things that Hill Street Blues so often deals with: racism, street gangs and rampant political corruption.

Racism has always been around of course. The ‘Windrush generation’ of African Caribbeans found that out in the 1950’s as did the mass migrants from India and Pakistan in the 1960’s. Today, however, the racism we see and hear about is far more akin to what you see in Hill Street Blues back then.

Color prejudice, anti-semitism, dislike and distrust of the Hispanic community, black criminals referring to white people as ‘grey meat’. Replace the Hispanic community with eastern European, particularly Romanian and Albanian and you are pretty much there.

Street gangs existed before today of course but, it was generally Mods and rockers in the 60’s and football hooligans in the 70’s and 80’s. Today it is more likely to be young black or Asian men usually involved in drugs and so forth. Even gang ‘colors’ are starting to emerge.

Political corruption has clearly always existed but, today, for some reason – possibly due to the internet and instant news availability – it seems to be more rife than it has ever been. In Britain at least, political corruption was thought, naively, to be rare. Today it’s every other day.

All of the above are Hill Street Blues incarnate. I assume, when the show was made, it did reflect American society, at least in the locations similar to those it portrayed.

It now seems to be reflecting British society in many areas. Extraordinary for a thoroughly American show focusing on much of the darker side of American society in the 1980’s.

I really should give more detail than I am doing but, frankly, it would be an article of gigantic proportions if I did so, to some extent, I suppose you will have to take my word for it.

It can only be the continuing Americanization of Britain. We tend to be anything from ten to thirty or so years behind in the terms of our society for certain things that we emulate from America but, ultimately, we do seem to often find ourselves behaving like Americans some years or even decades ago. Strange perhaps, but true.

Mind you, some of the dark humor of Hill Street Blues wouldn’t be acceptable today. Detective Henry Goldblume is having marital difficulties and Detective John La Rue asks “Have you tried hitting her?”. Goldblume is suitably shocked at the statement as La Rue adds “I know my women”.

Certain sections would be up in arms over that now. The fact it was merely reflecting attitudes of the day notwithstanding. My wife, who wasn’t an aficionado and, in fact, never watched it, has watched much of it with me and has surprised herself at how much she is enjoying it. She found that particular line hysterically funny by the way. Being five feet tall, half Scottish and a quarter Irish it is far more likely she would hit me around the head if I misbehaved too much.

Thirty years after Hill Street Blues we in Britain now see a huge rise in gang related crime and gun crime along with drug crime verging on epidemic proportions.

So, if you liked the 80’s over in America and yearn for them, by all means pop over here for a while. It might not be the good part of the 80’s in many ways but, watching the show and then listening to the evening news we seem to be where America was back then in some parts of the country.

Perhaps, if you do pop over to see, you could bring Hill and Renko with you? They’d know how to sort it all out. Perhaps Howard Hunter and his EATER team?

Anyway, back to Series Three and my armchair. I may have to return to hospital shortly. Nothing to do with my knee. My wife has advised me that if I ring my ‘beer bell’ one more time it will need to be surgically removed from some orifice or other.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous and happy New Year.

And HEY! – Let’s be careful out there.

In Case You Missed It: A Very British Take On American News Headlines

Happy

0 0 %

Sad

0 0 %

Excited

0 0 %

Sleepy

0 0 %

Angry

0 0 %

Surprise

0 0 %