■ Guan Shan yuan
Recently, the topic of police has attracted much attention. According to authoritative interpretation, "police" refers to "a state official of an armed nature who maintains national security and social order, exercises police functions and powers in police organs, and performs police duties", and its focus is on state public officials and one on the armed nature. But common sense tells us that words and actions are often very far apart. Therefore, many policemen are bitter: now they don't know how to do cops...
There are many police heroes in history, and there are many police scum. This article is not about the real police, but about people's virtual imagination of the police - of course, all virtual is based on reality.
One
The first policeman, to talk about Zhan Zhao. Zhan Zhao is a character in "Three Heroes and Five Righteousness", but he is popular with the masses, through He Jiajin's interpretation, sword eyebrows, starry eyes, heroic, standing next to Jin Chaoqun, who has smeared his face and forehead and strangely embedded a crescent, although he is the second male, he has grabbed the limelight.
In China, the term "police" began in the Song Dynasty. Historical records do not record a high-level policeman named Zhan Zhao in the Song Dynasty who was close to Bao Qingtian, who lived more in folklore and film and television art. People like Zhan Zhao because he can be called a "perfect person", not only is he skilled in martial arts, he is heroic and righteous, but also humble and peaceful, gentle and elegant, and has the style of a gentleman. It can be said that he was a figure who was highly recognized in the official arena, in the jianghu, inside and outside the system, and even Bai Yutang, who began to despise Zhan Zhao and disobeyed in various ways, later regarded Zhan Zhao as a brother.
The second policeman, let's talk about Javert. Javert is a famous character in the world-famous book Les Misérables, a super dedicated sheriff, a tool labeled "defender of the law". His lifelong pursuit was to send all the criminals in his eyes—rogues, thieves, murderers, prostitutes, and the like—to prison, so he pursued Valjean, the man, for a decade, and even though the subject of his hunt became the mayor, Javert still did not believe that he would "get better." He was cold, stubborn, and selfless.
Such a villain, of course, is not as good as Zhan Zhao's jade tree. In the movie "Les Misérables", Javert is played by the handsome uncle Russell Crowe, and Hugo knows it underground and must be very dissatisfied. In the original work, Wen Hao described Savoy's dignity as follows: "A collapsed nose, two deep nostrils, two large beards growing all the way to the nostrils, and people who see the two forests and the two deep caves for the first time will feel unhappy." Javert didn't often laugh, but when he laughed, he was hideous, and his two thin lips were open, revealing not only the flesh of his gums, but also a flattened round and thick wrinkle like the mouth of a beast around his nose. Savoy is a hound when solemn, and Savoy is a tiger when laughing..." The author's malice towards Sensen jumped out of the paper.
The third cop, let's talk about Murphy. Murphy's situation is even more special than Showa and Sawa: he is a "half-man, half-machine" policeman, who first appeared in the 1987 film Robocop (also translated as "Ironclad Veyron"), which has since been filmed in a series that has taken the film by storm today. The film is about an ordinary policeman in the United States, Murphy, who was beaten to death by a gang of thugs while on a mission, and the scientists failed to save his body, but perfectly combined his mind and machinery, so the first mechanical policeman with a human mind and a mechanical body in history was born.
In the series, Murphy impresses not by his super firepower and ability to resist gunshots, but by his face: a polished helmet covers most of his face, revealing only a pair of thin tight lips, and his whole body is wrapped in steel, only these are human lips. It is said that the actor peter Weller of the first "Robocop" was this expressionful lip that was favored by director Paul Verhoeven.
Two
In the eyes of most people, Zhan Zhao is a good policeman, because he is defending Lord Bao, and Lord Bao is the embodiment of justice -- not afraid of the powerful, just and upright, law enforcement like a mountain, especially insisting that "the prince breaks the law and the common people are guilty of the same crime", and his reputation is in history.
Yes, there are also people who question: Zhan Zhao, as a "southern hero" in the hall, actually condescended to sell himself to the official field, and was even given an insulting title by the emperor as "Royal Cat", not ashamed, but proud, in order to blend into the system, don't say "chivalrous", even personality is not wanted - but is this kind of statement a little too demanding of the ancients Zhan Zhao? And a bit like the tone of a Pang taishi or a Khitan?
For most people, Murphy is a good cop. In a city where criminals do nothing evil and their combat effectiveness exceeds that of the police, how much Murphy is needed for a super policeman who walks up to the rain of bullets, calmly shoots the enemy. In fact, in the movie, after Murphy showed a few hands, his reputation was shocked, the villains who made a small fuss fled, the criminals who committed big crimes also smelled discolored, and the American masses in the city, of course, felt a lot stronger.
Yes, there are also people who question: a half-human, half-machine monster like Murphy, the law enforcement is very strict, the marksmanship is very accurate, but the function is too single, only know how to shoot and kill, but there is no human touch, for example, do not know how to kiss the face of a little girl, or help a black old mother cross the street or something. In fact, although Murphy is a steel body, his humanity is not completely destroyed, and occasionally he will have self-doubts about "who am I" and become dysfunctional. This plot made some viewers quite sympathetic, and some viewers were indignant: how can a machine do this job of the police? Dealing with people still depends on people!
Compared with Zhan Zhao and Murphy, The image of The Policeman, Javert, is more controversial. Some people think that he is a "perfect man", while others think that he is just an "eagle dog". Javert was loyal to the law – some of the provisions of the law were indeed problematic, but it was not Javert's job to amend or repeal certain legal provisions, and he was loyal to the old law until new legislation was introduced. This kind of instrumental rationality, or mechanical rationality, is actually very similar to Murphy, who controls his behavior by program input, while Javert is purely a tool of law, and his world is black and white.
Javert is disgusting because of his unforgiving coldness towards Valjean, and Jean Valjean, in Hugo's pen, is a saint-like figure, born poor, unremitting efforts, arduous, step by step to success, but is chased by Javert like a maggot attached to the bone, to beat Valjean back to the original form, the majority of readers are naturally unwilling.
But Javert finally changed - Jean Valjean saved him, and after being shocked, he fell into the predicament of law and love, and finally chose to give up the idea of bringing Jean Valjean to justice, and also gave up his life and committed suicide by throwing himself into the Seine. Hugo wrote: "Only Hades knows the hidden secret of this dark shadow upheaval that disappeared into the water."
Javert's death was indeed a surprising ending. Many readers are wondering: Why did he commit suicide? Perhaps, with his own standards of conduct, he abided by the dogmas and rules of the social order and never thought of changing. He is a man who regards principles as life, but he has to violate them, and he cannot forgive himself because of this, and can only choose to die.
Three
In the Japanese anime les Misérables Cosette, based on the original les Misérables, Javert does not commit suicide because he recognizes that people change. But this Javert is no longer Hugo's Javert.
Javert is annoying, fearsome, and impressive, because he will not be flexible and rigidly enforce the law, and even more because he has no sympathy for the poor people who have broken the law because of livelihood problems, as long as you break the law, no matter what the reason, resolutely arrest it - or rigidly enforce the law.
For example, Jean Valjean once smashed the glass window of a bakery and stole a loaf of bread in order to save his children from starvation, and was sentenced to five years in prison. He had to get out of jail because he still had to raise his sister's children, and he had to go out and earn money. However, he escaped from prison several times and was arrested, and he was sentenced to higher sentences, and finally spent 19 years in prison. Javert never cared about the reason for Jean Valjean's crime, he was only bent on getting him arrested, and even when Jean Valjean had to pick up a child to let her meet her dying mother for the last time, Javert did not give up the opportunity to hunt down his prey...
It's inhuman! While people scolded Javert, they didn't think about it at a deeper level: As a policeman, was Javert wrong?
Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread and was sentenced to five years, which is indeed unreasonable, but it is a matter of legislation. Will Javert give up respect for the law because he feels that the legislation is unfair? When he hunts down fugitives, will he only kill the murderous murderers and turn a blind eye to the poor man who steals bread?
This is the plight of the police – a profession that would otherwise be a single function, but is imposed as an "all-powerful requirement". Just think, if Zhan Zhao was asked to protect Bao Zheng and assist in handling the case, he was also asked to receive Qin Xianglian, eavesdrop on Chen Shimei, infiltrate the Taishi Mansion, and beat each other up after drinking, he also had to face patient mediation, be a confidant big brother, so that Zhan Zhao or Zhan Zhao? When encountering an assassin who comes to assassinate Bao Qingtian, we must first find out whether the assassin was deceived, whether he wanted to vent his emotions because he had no way to appeal to his grievances, or whether he was a lackey under corrupt officials and corrupt officials... After judging clearly, make another multiple choice question: the first kind of person, stabbing the leg; the second kind of person, slapping the stun; the third kind of person, a sword to seal the throat. But in this way, is Zhan Zhao still Zhan Zhao?
Murphy does not have this kind of trouble, the program given to him is to predict the degree of crime of the other party through the intelligent program, first lock the other party, draw the gun, warn, the other party does not obey, and then shoot - anyway, the other party shoots first, Murphy does not care. His function is very simple, that is, to stop crime on the spot.
A healthy society is a society with a clear division of labor: solving employment, social security, helping the poor, stopping crime... Only by performing their duties can they operate healthily, and no one can cover the world, nor can they let anyone cover the world.
Four
In Robocop 2, Murphy was once so miserable that he fell into a trap while tracking down the drug lord's drug trafficking organization, dismembered, and thrown to the door of the police station. The scientists put him together again and changed the procedure to a priest-type machine policeman who did not use force and tried to persuade criminals with language. He preached everywhere that there should be no violence, no peace, no love for one another. These words are spoken through a blunt machine voice, becoming the object of ridicule by the other party, and even the children who do bad things despise him and do not take him seriously. He failed, but thanks to the fact that the procedure was later changed, he was restored to a feared normal policeman, the legitimate violent machine of the state.
Yes, police abuse is a serious problem, but it's not a reason to despise the police. A person, a group, or a society, losing fear of the police is undoubtedly very frightening. So when I saw news such as the lazy man calling 110 and asking the police to deliver breakfast, I shook my head and sighed.
"Les Misérables" writes: Javert was born in prison, his mother was a fortune teller with cards, and his father was a slave. This was undoubtedly a tragic childhood, which left him with psychological trauma, he hated people who had broken the law, did not want to repeat his father's mistakes, and chose to become a policeman when he grew up to defend society. In the movie "New Police Story" starring Jackie Chan and Nicholas Tse, there is a similar plot:
Nicholas Tse helped Jackie Chan defeat the bandits as a fake policeman, and at the end of the movie, he explained the background of Tse Tingfeng: Many years ago, the teenager Tse Tingfeng and his father (played by Wu Bai) smuggled into Hong Kong, penniless, his son was hungry, his father went to the convenience store to grab bread, and as a result, he was chased by the police, and he was hit by a car in a hurry, and the police who chased him also punched and kicked him, at this time another policeman Jackie Chan appeared, stopped his colleagues, and said: "Thieves, also dignified." Orphan Nicholas Tse remembered the scene. When he grew up, he could not become a policeman for family reasons, but pretended to be a policeman to help Jackie Chan get out of decadence and eventually won.
The police he encountered were good and bad, but he always firmly believed that justice still needed to be maintained by the police.