Police as local authority
The construction of police as authority figures, legitimate in their use of power and assumed to be in a leadership position, was the most frequent depiction of police in Paw Patrol, as well as Bubble Guppies. This representation is most evident through the character of Chase in Paw Patrol, a German Shepard police dog, whose role is primarily that of the default leader when their human leader, Ryder, is unavailable. In S5, E2 “Ultimate Rescue: Pups Save the Royal Kitties” (2018), Chase serves as an escort and special security for a priceless treasure gifted to their town. Once the royal kittens, en route from their home in Barkingham, are catnapped from a train, the Paw Patrol turn in to the Ultimate Rescue team, all wearing police uniforms and acting with the assumption that such a uniform gives them the power to solve this mystery and find the missing kittens. Even within this larger trope of police coming to the rescue, where authority and expertise is assumed with just a police uniform, Chase is still constructed as the leader. As Ryder says, “Chase you’re the police pup, so I need you to lead this operation and help the others be police pups too.” Evidence is reported to Chase, and the team is led by Chase in a new advanced police van (replacing their normal Paw Patroller). Police here, and Chase as the top dog (pun intended) within this police force, are constructed in relation to the ordinary citizens of Adventure Bay. With the uniform and the designation as police comes power and control, capacities that are not evenly distributed and privilege the position of Chase over his puppy police comrades.
This association—of police with naturalized authority and capability—is repeated in the “Ultimate Rescue” episodes of Paw Patrol: in S6 E2, the Paw Patrol are police officers once again and Chase leads the team in an operation to find a phone thief; in S7 E10 the team are police in an Ultimate Rescue, hunting down the perpetrators who stole vehicles and are terrorizing the town. In these episodes, Chase is always the presumed leader. He gives orders to his team, and they follow him without hesitation (or as one fellow pup says, “On it, Chief!”). It is Chase who uses his sense of smell to track the perpetrators, despite the entirety of the Paw Patrol being dogs. “Chase-style” replaces the motto “Police-style” as the Ultimate Rescue episodes continue, making police synonymous with Chase, and making it clear there is no Chase separate from “Police Chase.” His two catch phrases, “Chase is on the case” and “These paws uphold the laws,” make clear his identity is inextricably linked to his being police. And this authority and legitimacy is not just given to Chase by Ryder (the cisgender, white boy who of course was the previously established authority); it is the other pups who turn to Chase and see him as the legitimate figure of power. Importantly, Police Chase retains this authority even when he is not wearing his uniform. For instance, Chase is the director for the pups’ movie (S3, E14), giving the other dogs jobs, taking responsibility when they mess up, and using his quick reflexes to save the victim with his net. Even opposing pup crews (S7 E24) listen to Chase when they get in trouble, heeding his instructions to extricate themselves from danger.
The construction of police as authoritative and trustworthy is even more overt in Bubble Guppies, where Officer Miranda (a lobster) teaches Gil (the main fish/child character) and his friends that police officers use laws to keep people safe (S3 E2). In what is an absurd tautology, the authority and power of Officer Miranda (as a cop) to educate kids about the police is because of the authority and power of the police. And the children-fish mirror back these claims to expertise, force, and authority. As one of them sings in a song, “Call the Police:”
“Stop the traffic/Drivers know you're the boss/While we're working hard at school/Please help folks obey the rules. We're really really glad you're out there.
Because/With your badge/Or sheriff's star/You'll keep us safe/That's who you are!
Call the police! Call a cop!/Anyone doing something wrong,/Won't be doing it for long! Hey police! Hey deputy! Call the law and you'll see!
It's great to see you on the way, To help folks out and save the day.
If something's wrong, you'll make it turn out right.”
In what is a call-and-response with the other children-fish, involving and thus implicating the kids watching at home, “Call the Cops” enthusiastically and explicitly names police as the enforcers of rules, the champions of safety, and the guardians of children and morals alike. Inherent in these poppy, light-hearted lyrics is the rationale for police to be obeyed and the justification for their using that power. And even more so, the song works to engender trust—the presumption of a shared moral framework and an inclination towards virtuousness—that allows for their legitimacy.[2] [open endnotes in new window]
This authority as/and legitimacy is reiterated by the inhabitation of the police persona by the children-fish themselves. In “Something Fishy Going On” (S6 E11), Molly and Gil (who were singing “Call the Police” in seasons past) are the police officers, shown as detectives tracking down mysterious lights emerging throughout town. While Officers Molly and Gil originally believed these lights were aliens, with clues and evidence they discover the lights are actually angler fish. Despite being shown as being wrong in their original assumption, the construction of the police as those who havethe authority to find the real “truth” is clear. It is their authority as police that legitimizes their search and validates their findings. Likewise, later in Season 6 (E23), Nonny acts as a detective in “Mystery on the Guppy Express,” searching for a missing kitty. Paralleling the famous book and movie Murder on the Orient Express, which celebrates the legendary Detective Poirot and his prowess at solving cases, Detective Nonny tirelessly works to solve the case and is ultimately successful in following the clues and recovering the kitty. This “mysticism of police expertise,” shown in both Bubble Guppies and Paw Patrol acts to strengthen and reinforce “claims of professional expertise [and] accumulate a legitimating aura that supports their own essentially identity-based bid for deference” (Lvovsky, 2021, 486, 482). Children see police as not onlyexperts in solving crimes but the only people that can do so, which is why the characters in these shows turn into police in order to solve these mysteries. Their success on the show, and the power they evoke while solving those crimes, is implicated in the character of the police officer who will “save the day” and make everything “turn out right.”
Role model/model of citizenship
A part of, and antecedent to, legitimacy and authority of the police is the construction of these officers as role models and good citizens. Being exemplary is often based on virtues of duty and responsibility, particularly as they relate to protection and safety. In S4, E25, “Sea Patrol: Pups Save Puplantis” (2018) Chase is in yet another leadership role, that of a lifeguard. As the magical Mer-Moon emerges as everyone heads home from the beach, all the pups have the opportunity to turn into “merpups.” While Chase was eager to join his fellow pups in merpup transformation he forgoes it, instead volunteering to remain on the beach when a ship shows up. “I'm also on duty, so I need to stay here," he tells his friends. Head hung low, Chase is clearly disappointed to be missing out, but his “duty” to report back to Ryder comes before his own pleasure. Later in the episode, when there is yet another chance to join the group to go to Puplantis, Chase once again says he will stay behind: “I really want to go with you, but nope, it's my responsibility.” Chase’s position as the police dog entails sacrifice, a social practice ascribed to good citizenship. It is the because of Chase’s notions of duty, responsibility, and public participation as a police officer that he is awarded with cultural authority (ie. leadership).
In “Pups Save the Butterflies” (S5, E15, 2018), Chase continues to uphold his authority through duties and responsibilities, even when he is less explicit about such behaviors. In this episode, Chase is out of uniform, yet he still teaches and watches over the kids of the town when they are learning to fly drones. And when a swarm of runaway butterflies causes a malfunction in the drones, it is Chase who warns the towns peoples and clears the streets, acting as de facto crowd control. His identity as a police pup remains when he’s out of uniform (evoking a sort of “blue lives” conceptualization) and extends to his behaviors and attitudes in everyday life. This construct is of the idealized citizen: ordered, responsible, accountable.
This police-as-ideal-citizen trope is simultaneously expanded on and narrowed in Peppa Pig by the character of Police Officer Panda. In “The Panda Twins” (S8 E1, 2019) PO Panda is primarily understood as the father to his two daughters. He drops them off at school and reminds them to “keep their ears and eyes open." The twins, Peggi and Pandora, like to solve mysteries because their “daddy is a policeman,” and they receive glowing accolades from daddy when they find their teacher’s lost phone. While less overt than that of Paw Patrol and Chase, PO Panda is the “virtuous citizen” who “uphold[s] dominant social norms…and [is] are seen by state and societal actors as law-abiding, upstanding contributors to society” (Gonzalez & Mayka, 2023, 266). This virtuous citizen is synonymous with being a man (panda), being a father, and being a police officer—this triad is constructed as inexorably linked. To be “law-abiding, upstanding contributors to society” is to be a police officer. And that virtuousness, that good citizenry, is conflated with fatherhood—reproducing the dominant (patriarchal heteronormative) social values. In this way, both Chase and PO Panda act as the ideal citizen, bound by honor, responsibility, and sociocultural values, thus legitimizing their power and authority to patrol, monitor, and control the rest of the citizenry.
Accessible/personal
Police as both figures of authority and as ideal citizens are made more relatable and conceivably more kid-friendly by their construction as approachable, amicable, and responsive. In Blaze and the Monster Machine’s(S4 E14) “Officer Blaze,” a police officer monster truck shows up suddenly in a time of crisis to help save the runaway chicken train caboose. As she tells the monster trucks, “Police officers are always there to help and keep everyone safe.” When Blaze and his driver, AJ, also want to be “amazing” police officers, Officer Anna gives them sirens, search lights, and an official police badge and tells them, “Let’s get out there and start helping people.” Just like that, they are police, both monster truck and driver, riding around the streets to an upbeat, happy pop police song, assisting kids because as “Officer Blaze” says, “That's what police officers do.” Grateful citizens tell Police AJ and Blaze to “keep up the good work” as they help children find their family, serve as an escort for delivery, and find a missing dog. Officer Anna makes clear she is there whenever she is needed (responsive), and to be a police officer is to cater to the needs to the public, whatever those may be (accommodating). Moreover, the ease with which Blaze and AJ become police themselves speaks to the accessibility and effortlessness of the police.
This same trope is used in “The Treat Thief” (S5 E19), when Blaze tells the audience, “Police officers are always there to help and keep everyone safe.” Officer Anna reappears, hanging out with Blaze and AJ to solve the crime of treat thief. Blaze and AJ call her their friend, making the police—even with their differential power and authority—a figure that kids can relate to, associate with, and even befriend. Catching the thief, Officer Anna ultimately reforms the monster truck perpetrator, talking to him about the binary of right and wrong and making him see the error of his ways. Interestingly, in Blaze the police officer is a woman; this gendering, as it relates to police, does double sociocultural duty. First, it reinforces the stereotype of women as approachable, relatable, and gentle—her focus on rehabilitation rather than punitive justice speaks to the hegemonic construction of women as nurturers. Secondly, it posits Officer Anna as representative of all police, offering the model of police-as-friend. But while Officer Anna may seemingly undercut the aggressive, violent, and menacing image of the cop, the gendered nature of this police construction (of an inanimate monster truck) merely fortifies gendered representations in an effort to soften the image of police for children.
Accessibility and relatability of police are also featured in The Adventures of Paddington. In “Paddington Meets a Police Officer” (S1 E19), the titular bear decides he will be a police officer after meeting one at a neighborhood watch meeting. Much like Blaze, Paddington is simply given a bobby hat (he is, of course, a British bear), and is told all he needs is “a trusty notebook, a shiny whistle, and [to] know the difference between right and wrong.” After catching the bad guy, in this case a litterbug, Paddington is given the title of “honorary deputy.” More than simply (over)simplifying and ignoring the real and psychological violence of police, these constructions extend police’s authority beyond the behavioral and physical realm and instead enter an individual’s subjectivity—how they understand themselves in relation to the police. Indeed, when Blaze and Paddington “become” police, it is in order to understand themselves as “good” (vs. the “bad” of the criminals) and justified in their use of power. To be a police officer is something anyone can (and should want to) do; with it comes control and power, as well as the rationalization of “good” for the use of that control and power.
