Barney Miller: The Election

I was not going to write about this one.

Episode 5 of Season 3, "The Election" is set on Election Day 1976, when Americans chose Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford. The episode aired (and was filmed) before the election, so the results were unknown. 

They focus instead on voting. 

One shoplifter still needs to get to the polls. He slips out of custody from the voting booth, but takes that time to pay for the stolen items before returning himself to the precinct. 

Wojo has proudly voted, and wants to know how others are voting. He is unable to get a satisfactory answer. Harris does admit to being a Republican, though he does not specify support for Ford. Dietrich does not discuss politics, Yemana is regarding the election mainly in terms of bets placed, and the secrecy of the ballot -- and a probable desire to avoid influencing the men he leads -- keeps Barney from being willing to answer.

Barney also acknowledges there are other races, though most people are focusing on the presidential one.

Luger is focusing on a local race, encouraging others to vote for the candidate he knows, a name familiar to the people he talks to for some corruption allegations while over sanitation.

I am fine with their desire to not commit further. It would be reasonable to guard against exerting undue influence. It also avoids alienating viewers who disagree, and having fictional characters back a real candidate with a chance of losing.

My issue is with the way they explored voting in the other plot.

A call comes into the precinct because a man was hit in the head with a toilet seat that appeared to have come from a third floor window. It had "HELP" written on it.

The seat was thrown by Edna Relkie (Brett Somers), whose husband locked her in the bathroom to prevent her from voting. 

The detectives take it very seriously as a violation of civil rights, which is good. 

Her husband is arrested and claims it was to prevent her vote from canceling out his, and that he has studied the issues and she is ignorant. That would be a typical attitude in a case like this.

There may be three ways in which they get it wrong.

First, they make him a Democrat, locking her up because she said she was going to vote Republican. There is a reason why that might work, but in general, locking women up so they can't vote and ruin things would be more of a Republican move.

Second, he then casts everything as her dominating him; he was considerate to lock her in the bathroom instead of the closet. His parting shot is that he used to be taller than her.

If she was the dominating one, it seems unlikely that he would have been inclined or able to lock her up. 

There is another aspect to that which makes it more important, but the part I initially hated was that then she was asking everyone how to vote, decided not to vote when no one would tell her, and Barney's solution was to close her eyes while choosing.

I suppose the backstory you could add is that the whole thing shook her confidence, causing her to doubt her initial inclination to vote Republican. I feel what they are really doing is playing into feminine stereotypes and giving into backlash against feminism. I do not appreciate it.

When I was writing about when Barney Miller gets women wrong specifically, I did not cite this episode, but I did think of it. Still, I hadn't thought it required any additional comment.

I just finished Survivor Injustice by Kylie Cheung Wednesday. 

It covers many types of interpersonal violence and abuse, but interfering with voting is a pretty common one and how it starts. However, it is generally only one part of the abuse. 

Where they may have gotten it right is that it is not limited to one party. The book did acknowledge that as a matter of policy support, there is some similarity to Republican policies, but there are abusers on both sides.

There were stories of canvassers coming upon women who were scared to talk, or not allowed to talk when their partner intruded on the conversation. There were women who could not register to vote so as not to allow their abusive ex to locate their new address. There was a woman whose husband accompanied her into the voting booth, telling the workers that she was slow and needed help. There was the woman who didn't vote because she was afraid of running into her abusive ex again.

While going to polling places does not affect us here in Oregon, if you live with someone who is abusive and controlling, they may not let you fill out your ballot and mail it as desired.

As I was reading that, I kept thinking of this episode and getting mad.

I understand they are trying to make it funny; they probably were not thinking about how terrible some women do have it, because again, there were the occasional wife-beating jokes. I don't think they really would think a woman getting beaten up is funny, probably, but it's that paternalism, where women don't really have it that bad, bless their hearts.

The episode bothered me -- despite my love for the series -- and now it bothers me more.