A Cop Drama Does Feminism & Gender Reversal Well
Watching a cop drama. Two of the cops have gotten married and had a baby (and since left the force).
Just saw a scene with a wonderful twist:
The woman leaves the baby with the man to go into the other room to get something for the baby. We hear a small crash from the other room and the music changes. He calls out her name and she doesn't respond. We know something bad has happened. The father goes into the other room, calling for the mom, and gets distracted by finding the thing for the baby. Suddenly, an armed assailant appears with a shotgun and fires, while the dad's cop instinct takes over and he ducks.
Here's the twist - the dad, unarmed, is the one running through the house and hiding, protecting the baby, eyes wide with fear. Meanwhile, the mom pops out from around the corner with her gun drawn and has a gunfight with the assailant, scaring him off, while the man huddles in the pantry, shushing the the baby.
It would have been SO easy to have this scene with the characters reversed. Someone would have had to consciously thought to make this scene play out the way it did.
And it helps that the man's character has been building up as the nurturing, father-figure type. There have been several scenes in earlier seasons, when he had a baby with another character, that highlight his growth from naive rookie with daddy issues from his gangbanger dad to responsible father who makes very different decisions now that he has children to raise. So this role reversal isn't out of the blue, it's totally within the character arcs of these characters.
But even still, I was pleasantly surprised to see this scene.
This post was originally posted at https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/401255.html.
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