The Wikipedia page for the NYPD Blue television series claims that the show was controversial in part for its portrayal of alcoholism.
Is this true? Was it something specifically about how alcoholism was portrayed in that show, or was alcoholism taboo subject matter for prime-time TV 15-20 years ago?
Yes.
Sipowicz (one of the two main protagonists) was an alcoholic. He wasn’t recovering. It wasn’t played for laughs. It wasn’t a Very Special Episode (and forgotten the next week). It was an ongoing part of the character.
His drinking also didn’t always have consequences. There were times the character was either drunk or hungover and nothing went wrong - no morality play to emphasize that “alcoholism is bad for you” and/or “only bad people are alcoholics.”
That was unusual, if not unique, at the time when you were more likely to see alcoholism as a punchline or people who either had stopped drinking or were completely non-functional alcoholics.
Note, some spoilers ahead:
This isn’t quite right. Sipowicz got into A.A. at one point in the show. He relapsed after Andy Jr. is shot. Heck, in the article linked in the O.P. it states:
Interestingly, back when I was drinking I’d watch NYPD Blue from time to time and totally understood Sipowicz.
Slee
At one point in the show, yes. But when it started - no.
Otis was an unrepentant drunk* on the Andy Griffith Show many years ago. Nobody seemed to be offended by that. Ditto Foster Brooks on the Dean Martin show.
*Granted some people distinguish between a drunk and an alcoholic. “Alcoholics go to meetings.”
Otis and Foster’s drunkenness was played for laughs. That was one of the “acceptable” ways to portray alcohol use/abuse (the other ways
Sipowicz was a departure from previous depictions of alcohol abusers because his drinking wasn’t funny, but it didn’t cause him to be a horrible, worthless human being. He was a totally believable, functional alcoholic. His alcohol use caused problems for him, but he also held down a job and did okay out. He wasn’t sleeping in the gutter.
The media loves controversy. Hey, Wikipedia gets mentioned here, mentioning the controversy. Was the controversy totally in the mind of the people writing about it?
Yes. Of course.
PS HSB was 30-35 years ago now…
A show with alcoholics 15-20 years ago would be Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012).
NYPD Blue and Hill Street Blues are different shows.
I remember NYPD Blue being controversial because they showed naked ass on network television, albeit in the 3rd hour of prime time.
It was a pioneering force in the quest for body acceptance of full-figured men.
AbFab was played for laughs.
One note of caution about the “history” aspect of this. I’ve been around long enough now, to have directly witnessed a few things which later are mentioned in articles such as the one that triggered this thread, and there has been many a time when I drew back and said “Ah, nope, that is NOT how it happened.”
it’s rather annoying, really. Lots of relatively young people today, will put on their best serious “here’s a shocking tale from the olden days” face, and then talk about some event being extremely significant like this, as though they actually researched the thing. Usually, they didn’t.
One example from a few years back now: someone was doing some sort of retrospective on the eighties, and proclaimed that the fad of going to gyms, women wearing leggings and sweatbands on their heads, was all triggered by a hot music video (Let’s Get Physical) by Aussie singer Olivia newton John. it was utter bullshyst. John’s video was in REACTION to the fad, not the cause of it.
This series of episodes on Hill Street Blues may or may not have been what is claimed (a real first on a major network show), but I’d be cautious about that, since we were getting PUMMELED by producers claiming to be taking big risks with unheard of material in those days, and the number of times they were wildly exaggerating their “brave accomplishments” was HUGE. But they sure did like to go on talk shows, and pat themselves on the back about it.
There were some alcoholic characters that were used for comic relief but it wasn’t a taboo subject. Cheers started in 1982 and a major theme was the bar owner, Sam Malone (Ted Danson), was a recovering alcoholic that destroyed his baseball career with the Boston Red Sox because of it. The John Larroquette show (1993 - 1996) also featured alcoholism as a major theme.
I will say no in general although a few shows like The Man Show in the late 90’s and even the Simpsons treat(ed) very heavy drinking and alcoholism as something to laugh at. It still wasn’t a taboo subject however. Potraying alcoholism on TV goes all the way back to Otis on the Andy Griffith show in the early 1960’s. He eventually cleaned himself up and became an ice-cream truck driver in the 80’s reunion show but that was part of the feel-good joke as well.
Hill Street Blues wasn’t. The two shows bracket NYPD.
Regarding Ab Fab, I was particularly thinking of the character with impaired saccadic eye movements. The people I know who have contacts with alcoholics didn’t find it funny. Some other people do find it funny. Does that mean it was controversial?
As I understand it there’s a multi-decade cycle of how Americans view alcohol and drunkenness; that was at the height of the “drunkenness is funny” part of the cycle, just as Prohibition was at the height of the “it’s evil” part of the cycle. NYPD Blue was much farther into the “alcohol is bad” part of the cycle.
I can understand the confusion, since Dennis Franz was on both.
Franz also starred in a short-lived spinoff of HSB, the only one made.
And he played 2 different characters on HSB!
IIRC, Cagney (Sharon Gless) on Cagney and Lacey was an alcoholic, and it was an ongoing issue for her–she started out as a ‘drinking for fun’ kind of person, but it developed more fully after her father died. Actually, her dad (who appeared several times each season) had always been shown as an alcoholic himself, so by having Cagney develop from ‘heavy drinker’ to ‘alcoholic’ over the years, the show addressed some of the nature/nurture aspects of the disease.
Just checked and Cagney and Lacey ran from 1981 - 1989.
And btw, the mention of Sam on Cheers should count, because while the show was a comedy, his alcoholism wasn’t treated lightly. When he went off the wagon after breaking up with Diane, it was considered a fuck-up, serious enough for Diane to return to help him. Now it’s true that he was “cured” by her return, which was a cop-out, but it was still a sitcom.
At least even from Day #1, Cheers depicted Sam drinking bottled water rather than alcohol, and it wasn’t highlighted as a Special Moment… just you’d see him drink the water now and then. I always appreciated that nice continuity whenever I saw it.
Wow. Ok, I didn’t watch every episode, but I watched a significant amount of Cheers and did not even realise that Sam was an alcoholic. I guess now you’ve pointed it out, he’s never drinking with the regulars, but I just thought he didn’t do such stuff while serving/managing the place…
Alcohol was significant on MASH, in that two of the central characters (Hawkeye and the other guy) had a still in their tent and were fond of martinis. I don’t recall alcohol abuse being discussed, but I could be wrong.