Week 1 Assignment: Gig

Even though I have no interest in ever working for any segment of the police force, I chose the homicide detective story to write about because when I was very young I romanticized the idea of being a detective. I read many of detective books and watched some detective animes. I was interested to know if a typical American homicide detective was as clever as the mystery detectives that I thought were so cool as a child.

The protagonist in this particular story from Gig is a female homicide detective named Monica. I hated the reasoning she gives for joining the police. She says that when she was young she thought all police were confrontational, condescending, “gangs of hoodlums” (Gig 531)… and yet she joined because she wanted to somehow change the system from the inside. Monica declared, “…you can’t complain about a system, a group of people, and then not try to do somethin’ about it… I never advocated burning down a system or blowing up a system” (Gig 531). I am not inspired by small-minded thinking.

Monica goes on to describe her vulgar behavior as a member of the “morality crew”. After detailing the underhanded tactics she used to lure people into traps and arrest them, she snidely comments, “Man, we had good times on vice” (Gig 533).
It seems that Monica quickly became the type of cop she once hated.

Monica always wanted to work on homicide cases because to her, pursuing a murderer is “just like an emotional high” (Gig 532). She then attempts to justify her bizarre obsession with murder by claiming she does what she does to “give closure to a family who’s lost someone” (Gig 532). The old Monica would have found such a statement ironic and cruel coming from a cop.

Monica says her passion in detective work lies in “interrogations”. She goes on to describe the mind games she uses to manipulate suspects into giving “confessions”. Monica boasts, “It’s an [sic] art form… [and ]I got the psychological edge” (Gig 533). Monica truly enjoys toying with people’s lives like a game. She also describes conversations with suspects in which she spoke condescending. Given power, she acts just like the cops she hated when she was younger.

After I read the next paragraph about Monica’s experience solving a murder case, I realized that detectives are not like Sherlock Holmes or Conan Edogawa. They are mechanical and vulgar, rather than heroic and romantic. They are people who can nonchalantly walk into a room full of blood and bullets, crack a joke about the crime or suspect, laugh, and arrest the criminal without a second thought. There is nothing romantic about this occupation. Despite her naïve attempt to uphold some notion of “justice” in the workplace, Monica failed to differentiate herself from the police she used to hate.

I think it is great that Monica has a passion for her work, but my conception of a detective is much different from reality. While I no longer have any interest in mystery detectives, this story was intriguing because it allowed me to see the reality behind one of my childhood dreams.