Depiction in Popular Culture
As Britain's most prominent and controversial Chief Constable combined with his distinctive physical appearance, Anderton was often depicted in fiction, almost universally in a critical fashion. In 1990, the BBC musical satire on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Ten Glorious Years showed actor Ricky Tomlinson portray James Anderton in the style of a US style Moral Majority television evangelist preaching against "Poofs" and "Pinkos". In the same year, the Happy Mondays song "God's Cop" (from their album Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches) lampooned Anderton, who was still in office at the time.
In the same vein, Anderton was also the - sometimes thinly veiled - inspiration of various fictional characters. In 1989, he was caricatured as "James Appleton" in David Britton's satirical novel Lord Horror. The novel recited Anderton's AIDS remark, replacing the word "homosexuals" with "Jews", resulting in the book being banned and Britton imprisoned for four months. In 1990, a "John "Jesus" Wilkinson" featured as a hardline religious minded Chief Constable in the BBC legal drama Blind Justice. In 1993, the BBC police drama Between the Lines depicted a Chief Constable in Northern England (portrayed by Bernard Hill) ranting against "lesbians" and "loony lefties".
Read more about this topic: James Anderton
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“The lowest form of popular culture—lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives—has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is less need of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.”
—Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1689–1755)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)