It started with Jane Tennison (played by Helen Mirren) in Prime Suspect who was every bit as tough as the men who called her Governor. The latest example is the cult French T.V. drama Spiral. Laure Berthaud is a feminist anti hero leading a team of male cops. Set in Paris and inspired by real cases the emphasis is on gritty realism from mutilated bodies dumped in the back streets of the rat infested inner city to the desolate tower blocks of the suburbs where boy racers torch stolen cars whilst the drivers are still in them, a practise they humorously refer to as “barbecues”.
The young lawyers are disillusioned, the politicians are interfering and the police are over whelmed. There are good cops and bad cops but none of the characters, villains, lawyers or politicians are all bad or all good. The script is co- written by a serving police officer and police officers on set advice on authenticity. The gritty cop drama showing the short comings of the legal system and the frustration of those who work with in it is nothing new but having a woman in charge in this macho environment is. So is art mirroring life or just dramatising it?
Other parts of the public sector may be less macho than the police but they to have their feminist anti heroes who rebel against convention in their private lives, who refuse to be subservient in they work lives, who can out drink, out manoeuvre and outperform the” boys” much like Jane and Laure.
Blair McPherson author of An Elephant in the Room-an equality and diversity training manual and Equipping managers for an uncertain future both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk