In Die Hard 1, the FBI is shown as incompetent while the LAPD are shown as competent and reliable.
In The Departed, the FBI is shown as corrupt , that they help the main antagonist who’s an organized crime boss.
These are two examples I remember, and I’m sure there are more. Normally, the equivalent of FBI in other countries is reverred/respected, while the local police are considered incompetent due to it being easier to become a local cop than something like a Federal agent.
Why is it the opposite in Hollywood movies, is it propaganda or really true?
26 comments
The examples you are picking are vigilante movies. In vigilante movies, the organizations suck, because we need an excuse for our hero to go rogue.
In cop movies, the cops tend to be more competent, because we want our hero to work with the organization.
It’s less ideological and more “this is what would need to be true for this plot to work”
It’s [the Worf effect](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect). How do you show that the bad guys are super smart and extra dangerous? They’re *smarter than the FBI!*
Yes, zero movies exist where the FBI is competent.
But on the other hand, X-Files.
I feel like they are often portrayed as out of touch Feds who are unfairly taking over for local police
Like, in a lot of cop shows when the FBI shows up they are always super pushy, rash, and end up making mistakes which that the local cops “who know the community” wouldn’t have made and the FBI agent (s) end up almost jeopardizing the case. Until of cores, the local cops save the day and put the feds in their place
If I had to guess pro-cop/anti big federal government aspect of law enforcement shows/movies??
Do you think MI5 and MI6 are full of incompetent boobs who rely on a single rogue womanizing agent to break all the rules and save the queen?
The FBI is generally well respected within the US and plenty of movies and TV shows feature FBI agents as protagonists and hero’s.
That being said the FBI does have a history of being corrupt and shady at times so FBI agents can also make good villains.
Not a complete answer, but *The Departed* is based on the true story of Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, who was an FBI informant who was effectively shielded from prosecution by his FBI handlers for many years.
I just watched Die Hard a couple weeks ago and the LAPD are not shown as competent and reliable – the one dude from Family Matters is competent and reliable. And even he, at first, can’t tell what’s going on. He only believes that something is amiss when Bruce Willis throws a body onto his car. *Everyone else*, both FBI and LAPD, is a bunch of dummies. We need them to be super stupid in order to drive the story of one guy against a whole team of very competent criminals.
Characters and organizations are generally as good/useful as they are needed to be to drive dramatic conflict. It’s not propaganda, it’s just a story. It’s supposed to be entertaining.
If the authorities are competent, we’d expect them to resolve the conflict, and so emotionally there is no suspense or uncertainty.
Good stories require conflict, which requires that there not be some authority who can handle everything as a matter of routine.
There’s three separate FBI tv shows that show them as pretty much perfect.
As for other movies: Point Break, The Siege, Donnie Brasco, Silence of the Lambs, Sicario. I’m sure there’s more. It all depends on the story the director wants to tell.
The FBI regularly targets mentally handicapped people (usually men) and sets them up to “plan” a terrorist attack or a crime. Then they get to arrest and charge the people for it and hold press conferences.
It’s partly done to justify their budget and “usefulness.” They’re scum and should be abolished.
It depends on who the movie wants the heroes to be.
You saw TWO movies and you drew a conclusion about the entire industry. Just wanna point that out.
On the contrary Hollywood vastly exaggerates their competence.
If people truly understood how inadequate their government agencies were they’d become militant libertarians overnight.
Plot device. Why would you need a hero if they weren’t
The FBI along with the ATF have done some very questionable things over the years.
People like the underdog.
The FBI is supposed to be well-funded with the best training and the support of the national government. This makes them easy to portray as arrogant and having no respect for the local cops who just happen to be extremely good despite not having the advantages of high funding and lots of training.
All government is both incompetent and dangerous to your health.
The apogee of this is Trump.
The FBI is not a *police* agency, they are an *Investigative* agency.
The FBI has the authority and responsibility to *investigate specific* crimes assigned to it and to *provide other law enforcement agencies* with cooperative services, such as fingerprint identification, laboratory examinations, and training.*
Anytime you se an FBI agent in the movies doing anything other than assisting, it is hyperbole done for the plot. In Die Hard, a Hostage rescue team may have been deployed, but the “Feds taking over” trope is total fiction, an example of the [jurisdiction friction](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JurisdictionFriction) trope. and the idea that the “feds” is an escalation. They are not.
*Criminal Minds* does a great job (usually) in making this part known. I recall an episode where the team had a line of thinking and investigation, but had to wait for the local jurisdiction to call.
>In The Departed, the FBI is shown as corrupt , that they help the main antagonist who’s an organized crime boss.
The crime boss wasn’t being helped by the FBI, he was an informant, a tool used by the FBI for investigation of organized crime. Information is currency. If you can help me put away an entire drug ring, I may not investigate you. I won’t actively stop anyone else, but I won’t do it myself. And the FBI couldn’t stop it anyway.
*Per FBI.gov
Movie bs. They portray the FBI as incompetent or evil if it fits the movie’s underdog narrative. Let’s put it this way, if you find out the local police are investigating you, you are worried or nervous. If you find out the FBI is investigating you, you sh*t yourself.
Because the FBI can at times, be extremely incompetent.
Waco comes to mind. The government is not insulated from criticism here. I would not want it any other way.
In all honesty, Janet Reno should have been fired. She and the head of the FBI should have been fired.
Sending that kid back to Cuba was another. Not proud of her in the least. She makes the FBI in Dire hard look good.
For a compelling storyline
so you have not bore witness to the competence, prowess, and abilities of FBI Agent Dana Scully. You should be remiss for your oversight.
1 these are films with the purpose to entertainin not to inform. The FBI is usually there to fill a role in a film that drives the film forward, whether it be the organization that employs the hero or the guys who keep the bad guys in a building. Priority is given to utility over realism, most of the time.
2 A majority of Americans do not trust the federal government and federal officers by extension. This is reflected in how they are portrayed in film. It doesn’t help the FBI has a less then steller history with all sides of the political spectrum from Hoover being corrupt as fuck, possible connections to the assassinations of various civil rights leaders in the 60s. Burning 20 children alive in the 90s. There is stuff going on today that people find controversial.
It is very easy for someone to make films depicting them in a bad light to get an audience. They are only outdone by the CIA for being symbols of government authoritarianism.
There are few shows and film that depict them as competent and benevolent, but that is usually for the sake of tone, themes, and the story requiring them to be competent and benevolent.
I’d your looking for a movie that punctuates the competents of the federal government watch American made with Tom Cruise.
I think you’ll find it’s cyclical. If the cops are getting heaps of bad press because of reasons, then media tends to show up 8 months later depicting them as corrupt and violent. If a heroic LEO saves some kids who fell into a well, then 8 months later there will be a movie or two about the good ol policeman who just wants to do good things.
Plus sometmes the agencies in question will help the companies filming the movies or shows in exchange for better depictions therein. Like the US Army in Toy Soldiers, the US Navy in Top Gun, or the USAF in Stargate, etc. Large police departments will do the same sometimes.
>In The Departed, the FBI is shown as corrupt , that they help the main antagonist who’s an organized crime boss.
Not sure if I would necessarily count that as corrupt. They were making a deal to catch some criminals at the expense of granting others immunity. That’s pretty normal cop behavior. The corrupt cop in that movie was Matt damons character who was literally working for Frank without consent from the chain of command.