Hill Street Blues, Essay Example

In watching “Hill Street Blues”, I was greatly struck by the police response, which seemed to me rather blithe and blasé, almost as if they did not really care. From their response, or lack thereof, it seemed to me that the prevalent views of the time were remarkably patriarchal and chauvinist: the house was the demesne of the father or husband, and domestic violence was a purely domestic affair. It put me in mind of how Buzawa, Buzawa, and Stark (2012) explained that in domestic violence situations where the wife is dependent upon the (abusive) husband, she typically has few prospects for a better life (pp. 120-121). Overall, the clip from the “Hill Street Blues” was immensely saddening, because of what it told me about how little law enforcement personnel and the wider society of the time actually cared about domestic violence situations, and the degree to which such situations were seen as purely private affairs.