“I’m only interested in making it on my own terms”: Reading The Bill ’s Inspector Christine Frazer as Sara Ahmed’s Feminist Killjoy

To promote the 1990 series of the police procedural drama The Bill (ITV, 1984-2010), which focused on the goings-on of the uniformed officers and detectives at Sun Hill Police Station in the fictional London Borough of Canley, its producer Thames Television ran a series of advertisements in the national press. The title, “Writing for ‘The Bill’. It’s almost as tough as being in the Bill” (Thames Television, 1990, p.2), and accompanying copy accentuated the programme’s commitment to realism, with its writers expected to observe serving police officers and their scripts scrutinised by former ones. It would seem this extended to the programme’s representation of the occupation as a “primarily masculine domain” (Young, 1990, p.191): of the fifteen regular speaking characters in the first series, only two were female and both were police constables, or PCs. This remained so until the departure of Inspector Brian Kite at the end of series three, who was succeeded by Inspector Christine Frazer in the opening episode of the fourth series (McQueen, 1988). By analysing a selection of episodes from across her two-year career through the lens of Sara Ahmed’s feminist killjoy, this essay seeks to advance a reading of Frazer’s character as an example of how the feminist killjoy operates within police culture to disrupt this “cult of masculinity” (Young, 1991, p.192).

As previously stated, the feminist killjoy is a concept coined by the affect scholar Sara Ahmed and is one of the subjects of her 2010 monograph The Promise of Happiness. In the introductory chapter, she posits that society has orientated happiness as “the object of human desire, as being what we aim for” (Ahmed, 2010, p.1), and that realising this end is contingent upon our proximity to certain culturally determined objects. Put plainly, “if you have this or have that, or if you do this or do that, then happiness is what follows” (p.29). These “happy” objects as she brands them are not necessarily physical; the term also encompasses the abstract concepts of “values, practices, styles […] aspirations” (p.29). Those for whom happiness is not forthcoming despite their propinquity towards these happy objects, or those who find happiness is aroused by objects other than those designated happy (p.42) pose a challenge “to the assumption that happiness follows relative proximity to a social ideal” (p.53). In her refusal to tolerate misogynistic attitudes and behaviours, the feminist killjoy “gets in the way of the happiness of others” (p.60). She is what Ahmed terms an “affect alien” (p.42).

Ahmed writes that it is not necessary for the feminist killjoy to vocalise her disagreement to be perceived as a threat to the public mood (2010, p.65). Indeed, it shall be contended that she is not even required to be physically present; the knowledge of her existence is sufficient to disturb. In the episode ‘Light Duties’ (McQueen, 1988), the subject of Frazer’s appointment as uniformed inspector is the subject of canteen gossip, though this detail is initially unclear to the viewer. “I reckon it’s all just a PR job myself,” shares PC Reg Hollis to his audience of fellow constables Robin Franks, June Ackland and Viv Martella. Franks voices his assent: “For once, I think you’re right, Reg. It’s nothing but a PR job” (McQueen, 1988, 01:34). Whatever the subject under discussion, it has succeeded in promoting a solidarity of feeling between the two men where it is implied there is usually discord. The source of Hollis and Franks’ mutual feeling is attributed to Frazer, even though her name is not mentioned in the context of the conversation: “Well, I ain’t never worked under a woman before,” says Hollis (McQueen, 1988, 04:06). Within this scene, McQueen juxtaposes their response to the appointment of a female uniformed inspector with their response to the departure of Detective Inspector Roy Galloway, which was also announced in the episode. The former evokes feelings of discontent: they’re dismissive of Frazer’s appointment as based solely on her sex, not on her qualification for the role. In contrast, the latter becomes an occasion for merriment through the taking and placing of bets on the identity of Galloway’s replacement (McQueen, 1988, 04:25). Perhaps this difference in response can be attributed to the position itself. As uniformed officers, the identity of the next detective inspector will have little bearing on their day-to-day operational duties as they do not fall under the detective inspector’s direct command. However, it cannot be ignored that all the listed candidates for the posting are male. If, as Young observes, “masculinity has historically held the prime position” (1990, p.192) within police culture, then the appointment of a male officer to the rank would serve only to perpetuate this culture. When Franks says “Come back, Inspector Kite! All is forgiven,” his tone is light-hearted, but the sentiment is clear: he is asking for the maintenance of the status quo. Reminiscent of how a mutual feeling of discomfort towards a female inspector bonds Hollis and Franks, male solidarity eclipses Franks’ personal feelings towards his former male supervising officer. The presence of a female inspector, then, presents a significant disruption to “the fragility of peace” (Ahmed, 2010, p.65).

The perceived challenge that Inspector Frazer’s appointment poses to the “cult of masculinity” (Young, 1991, p.192) is realised in the episode ‘Officers and Gentlemen’ (Trafford, 1990), when she assigns two female constables to attend to a report of a drunken disturbance at a pub. She later learns that this decision violates what Chief Inspector Derek Conway terms “a gentlemen’s agreement” that “the girls shouldn’t be exposed to this kind of situation” (Trafford, 1990, 16:20). This is another example of the programme’s dedication to a truthful portrayal of policing in the latter half of the twentieth century. The view that female officers are unable to physically cope with violence (Young, 1991, pp.228-29) restricted them to the blunt end of operational duties, even after the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (pp.227-28). Thus, certain duties, such as missing persons cases, taking statements on incidents of sexual assault and responding to domestic disputes — crimes that typically involve women and children — garnered a reputation as “women’s work” (Wertsch, 1998, p.24; Young, 1991, pp.227-28). The repeated assignment of female officers to such duties only “perpetuates the perceives stereotype of activities ‘female officers should do’” (Wertsch, 1998, p.34). Indeed, Ackland complains about her role being confined to such tasks as “looking after snotty-nosed kids” and “searching poxy women” in the series one episode ‘It’s Not Such a Bad Job After All’ (Appleton, 1984, 23:43). Six years into the series and this prejudice continues to exert its influence when duties are assigned to officers.

Inspector Frazer’s response to Chief Inspector Conway is that the gentlemen’s agreement is not something that she has consented to (Trafford, 1990, 16:27). Furthermore, she quotes the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 to remind him and Chief Superintendent Charles Brownlow of their legal obligation to provide equal opportunities for officers of both sexes (Trafford, 1990, 16:37). In her 1980 study of female police officers in the United States, Susan Martin distinguishes between the two role choices open to women in policing: the police woman (emphasis on police), who forfeits her femininity by adopting traditionally masculine attributes to be perceived as professional, and the police woman (emphasis on woman), who retains her femininity at the expense of being “deprofessionalized” (p.185). As “one of the boys” (Heidensohn & Brown, 2011, p.120), the police woman, “accept[s] the system, avoid[s] complaints, and play[s] by the rules of the game — however unfair they might be” (Martin, 1980, p.189). Thus, the police woman, as Ahmed observes, recognises that “in order to get along, you have to participate in certain forms of solidarity: you have to laugh at the right points” (2010, p.65). The police woman, then, acknowledges occupational bias, yet “approximat[es] the signs of being happy […] in order to keep things in the right place” (p.59). In her refusal to harmonise her opinion with that of her male colleagues, Inspector Frazer affirms her position as the feminist killjoy. She has no desire to “[pass] as happy” (p.59) and play the game by the established set of rules. However, it does not follow that she is aligned with the alternative role that Martin outlines, that of the police woman . The police woman ’s prioritisation of her femininity means that she is less likely to seek promotion, so avoids “competing with the men on “the men’s turf”” (Martin, 1980, p.198). Frazer’s decision to send two female officers to respond to the incident at the pub infringes upon the male officers’ domain of violent offences (Wertsch, 1998, p.31), which attests that she possesses no such apprehensions about encroaching on what is perceived to be the men’s turf. Martin concludes that no officer is wholly one or the other, combining attributes of both (1980, p.186), but it appears that in whatever measure, the police woman and police woman both maintain a culture of male dominance. Frazer, as a feminist killjoy in policing, occupies a space outside of these recognised and approved, albeit within limitations, roles.

As exemplified in the analysis of the episode ‘Officers and Gentlemen’, Frazer repudiates the occupation’s male-dominated culture and the conditions imposed upon the female officer to exist within it, or, to appropriate Ahmed’s terminology, its “happiness script” (2010, p.59). In broad terms, happiness scripts stipulate a series of directions which promise to orientate those who follow it towards happiness. To “get along”, one must express a willingness to go along with the terms of the happiness script (p.59). For refusing to adhere to the happiness script promoted within police culture, she is punished accordingly. In the episode ‘Speaking Freely’ (Lyons, 1989), she is the recipient of a poor performance review from Conway, her immediate superior, which in turn impacts detrimentally upon her prospect of promotion. She declines to go along; consequently, she is denied the opportunity to get along in her career. It is Detective Inspector Frank Burnside who attributes it to her failure to comply rather than her competence within the role: “Conway couldn’t pick out a good copper in an ID parade full of ballet dancers. You know what that’s all about, don’t you? You’re a threat. You’re on the way up, he’s stuck between floors” (Lyons, 1989, 02:56). In this context, what Burnside deems her a threat to is Conway’s career specifically, but she can also be read as a threat to the culture he embodies. This culture exhibits a resistance to change through a maintenance of “assumptions of male supremacy and female ‘place’” (Young, 1991, p.203), where the female ‘place’ is occupying the lower rungs of the career ladder. Indeed, a 1984 report by the Greater London Council (GLC) on the Metropolitan Police noted that “just four women are Chief Superintendents out of 211” (quoted in Young, 1991, p.203). This, then, is the female officer’s dilemma: her failure to follow the prescribed happiness script is what hinders the progress of her career, yet even when she did not diverge from it, she still encounters opposition. Happiness is promised by adherence to the script, but it is a promise that is not always kept.

When she later questions Conway’s basis for her performance review, like the feminist that Ahmed describes seated at the dinner table who voices her disapproval of a problematic statement, she is not viewed as “causing the argument” (2010, p.65) as in Ahmed’s example, but Brownlow does dismiss her concerns as a “a personality clash” (Lyons, 1989, 15:13). His response does not recognise “the violence of provocation” (Ahmed, 2010, p.65), that this performance review represents a continuation of a campaign against her. However, in an earlier scene, Brownlow does insinuate that he is cognisant of the existence of such a campaign, or at least of Conway’s dislike of her: “If I got an appraisal like that, I’d be putting in for a transfer,” Brownlow says (Lyons, 1989, 05:27). In her final episode, ‘I Thought You’d Gone’ (Wilsher, 1990), Brownlow is franker about the subject when it arises in conversation:

Ch. Insp. Conway: You know, we’ve had a lot of attitude from her about this whole business. She may be harbouring a grudge.

Ch. Supt. Brownlow: Well, you’re the one with a down on her, aren’t you, Derek? (Wilsher, 1990, 10:45)

When amongst all-male company, Brownlow displays a willingness to challenge his colleague. In the presence of Frazer, he maintains the party line, so to speak, of male solidarity by endorsing Conway’s assessment of her character, therefore preserving what Frazer herself calls the image of “all boys together” (Wilsher, 1990, 22:13). If it is Conway’s intention to force Frazer from her role, then he succeeds in doing so. She announces in ‘I Thought You’d Gone’ that she is to leave Sun Hill to pen a thesis on women’s career patterns in the police force (Wilsher, 1990, 02:25). When she explains the reasoning for her departure to Burnside, she pronounces her rejection of the occupational happiness script and lends this essay its titular quotation: “I’m only interested in making it on my own terms, in my own right” (Wilsher, 1990, 03:16). Like Maggie Tulliver in George Eliot’s 1860 novel The Mill on the Floss , a character Ahmed presents as embodying the figure of the feminist killjoy, Frazer “has chosen between happiness and life” (2010, p.63). In pursuing a life lived on her own terms, Frazer has rejected happiness, that is, advancing within her selected vocation.

Marianne Colbran, who wrote twelve episodes of The Bill over an eleven-year period, once levelled the following criticism against the series:

The fact that characters were so interchangeable meant that although writers were able to tell stories about the business of policing, the format militated against their being able to tell stories for example about issues such as gender, race and sexual politics (cited by Heidensohn & Brown, 2011, p.122; emphasis in original).

While this essay does not seek to repudiate the veracity of this statement, in particular the second item Colbran lists, race, which falls beyond the scope of this analysis, it does contest its blanket application to the series as a whole. During its formative years, The Bill , through the character of Inspector Christine Frazer, explored the challenges faced by a high-ranking female police officer within a male-dominated occupation, as well as the challenges posed to a male-dominated occupation by a high-ranking female police officer. In her denunciation of a culture which has “always allocated priority and respect to male categories and symbols” (Young, 1991, p.192), this essay has contended that Inspector Frazer exemplifies Sara Ahmed’s figure of the feminist killjoy. Her existence alone is adequate to produce feelings of discomfort amongst her male subordinates and superiors alike, as she represents an affront to a society where men have always populated the top strata (p.203). When she refuses to accept a gentlemen’s agreement that maintains stereotypes of what duties female officers can perform, she rejects the occupational happiness script, thus positioning her character as a threat to police culture, a troublemaker. For failing to go along with this happiness script, Frazer is penalised with a negative appraisal, quashing any hopes she possessed for promotion. The capacity for the feminist killjoy in the police to disturb the culture is limited both by rank and her male superiors closing ranks. Yet, like Maggie, the protagonist of Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860), Frazer is ultimately liberated “from the unhappy consequences of causing trouble” (2010, p.64) when she chooses to leave active policing to pursue an academic career.

References:

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Martin, S. (1980). Breaking and Entering: Policewomen on Patrol. University of California Press.

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Trafford, S. (Writer). (1990, 04 January). Officers and Gentlemen (Series 6, Episode 2) [TV series episode]. In G. McQueen (Creator), The Bill . Thames Television.

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