Criminal Justice & Popular Culture
They Shot the Sheriff: Part One
How popular culture caricatures Southern law enforcement
For those readers who live in the United States, when I write the words “Southern sheriff” most of you probably have an immediate and likely similar mental image. Almost as long as there have been motion pictures, Southern lawmen have been the target of parody, lampoon, and vilification. To be sure, some of this popular construction is warranted, but the fictional presentation of Southern lawmen reflects a larger social dynamic rooted in rebellion, civil rights and the search for moral clarity. In many regards, these exaggerated characters have been used as a proxy for the overall systemic sins of the South.
Whether in the guise of the swaggering buffoon, Sheriff Buford T. Justice in Smokey and the Bandit, or a sullen and conflicted Chief Bill Gillespie from In the Heat of the Night, American film and television audiences have been given an extraordinary range of reasons to construct a negative image of policing in the American South. For every wise and soft-spoken Sheriff Andy Taylor¹ (The Andy Griffith Show), popular culture has promulgated dozens of bumbling, dull-witted Sheriff Roscoe P. Coletrain (Dukes of Hazard).
