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Cuffs Context

Gender:

  • Women are not always the damsel in shows anymore - juxtaposes The Avengers

  • Masculinity is now flexible and people don’t have fixed/extreme opinions

Sexuality:

  • Equality Act 2010 made discriminated against queer people illegal

  • Same-sex marriage was made legal in 2014 (a year before the show aired)

  • Homophobia is not as prevalent

Ethnicity:

  • Shows now have more diverse casts

Police:

  • Police are not well liked due to brutality

  • They are often seen as a joke

  • The episode reinforces and contradicts this

Application:

Gender:

  • DS Jo Moffat is an atypical female character with high status in the police force.

  • PC Jake Vickers is not stereotypically masculine and is portrayed as slightly weak in the episode

  • PC Ryan Draper is stereotypically male mostly in the episode but in the first scene (nudist beach) he is portrayed as weak as he cannot even control a petty crime; this also presents the police as a joke.

Sexuality:

  • PC Jake Vickers is homosexual. It is not made a big deal of and his romantic journey is treated the same as a heterosexual one.

Diversity:

  • PC Ryan Draper - Black

  • PC Donna Prager - Half Japanese, Lesbian

  • PC Lino Moretti - Half Italian

  • PC Mischa Baig - Indian

  • PC Jake Vickers - Gay

Racism:

  • The episode included a hate crime against someone who was Indian

  • The show is comedic and addresses serious issues like this

Police:

  • Nudist beach scene - police is presented as a joke and the serious job is used for a comedic scene

  • Jake’s lack of experience and weakness presents the police negatively

  • Ryan addresses police brutality and makes an effort to make sure that the police isn’t portrayed worse than they already are - ‘no respect from the public, press printing lies’

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Cuffs Context

Gender:

  • Women are not always the damsel in shows anymore - juxtaposes The Avengers

  • Masculinity is now flexible and people don’t have fixed/extreme opinions

Sexuality:

  • Equality Act 2010 made discriminated against queer people illegal

  • Same-sex marriage was made legal in 2014 (a year before the show aired)

  • Homophobia is not as prevalent

Ethnicity:

  • Shows now have more diverse casts

Police:

  • Police are not well liked due to brutality

  • They are often seen as a joke

  • The episode reinforces and contradicts this

Application:

Gender:

  • DS Jo Moffat is an atypical female character with high status in the police force.

  • PC Jake Vickers is not stereotypically masculine and is portrayed as slightly weak in the episode

  • PC Ryan Draper is stereotypically male mostly in the episode but in the first scene (nudist beach) he is portrayed as weak as he cannot even control a petty crime; this also presents the police as a joke.

Sexuality:

  • PC Jake Vickers is homosexual. It is not made a big deal of and his romantic journey is treated the same as a heterosexual one.

Diversity:

  • PC Ryan Draper - Black

  • PC Donna Prager - Half Japanese, Lesbian

  • PC Lino Moretti - Half Italian

  • PC Mischa Baig - Indian

  • PC Jake Vickers - Gay

Racism:

  • The episode included a hate crime against someone who was Indian

  • The show is comedic and addresses serious issues like this

Police:

  • Nudist beach scene - police is presented as a joke and the serious job is used for a comedic scene

  • Jake’s lack of experience and weakness presents the police negatively

  • Ryan addresses police brutality and makes an effort to make sure that the police isn’t portrayed worse than they already are - ‘no respect from the public, press printing lies’