The Justified Lawman: Cowboy Killings in the Modern Era

<p>Stereotypes advanced by the popular media, do not necessarily have the power to directly determine an individual's ways of thinking, but do help frame and reinforce already existing cultural beliefs, particularly within the context of the seemingly innocuous narrative fictions of cable television. These narratives not only simplify complex ideas, but also can further entrench or justify harmful social relations. My contention here, is that the popular television program <em>Justified</em> does precisely this by normalizing police violence and the ways that the police underpin and reproduce profoundly disparate class and racialized social order. While in many ways a typical police procedural, <em>Justified</em> is a particularly unique and hence useful case for analysis because its setting and subject matter focuses almost wholly upon the transgressions of the mostly white, rural poor as opposed to other popular examples from the genre such as <em>The Wire</em> which are routinely set in so-called urban ghettos. The justified violence of police in this particular context then, offers insight into a unique cultural script depicting how largely white rural poor are swept up in a moral and spatial purge deemed altogether necessary because of their cultural and perhaps biological failings. </p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Justice Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Eastern Kentucky University

Year

2017

Author dc:creator

• Harman, Joel Franklin

• Police Power
• Rurality
• Whiteness
• Criminology
• Film and Media Studies
• Law Enforcement and Corrections

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2017 Joel Franklin Harman

Repository record dc:identifier

https://encompass.eku.edu/etd/530

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:encompass.eku.edu:etd-1528