Police Woman: Tigress (1978) Laraine Stephens Guest Stars

"POLICEWOMAN - Series 4 - Episode 11 - "Tigress"

Originally broadcast 11th January 1978

MOPPY-KUN TV now screens on both Dailymotion & you tube - episodes not here are definitely on Dailymotion.

Angie Dickinson as POLICE WOMAN was the first American Police Drama to feature a woman in the title role inspiring many women to join the force. POLICE WOMAN ran on NBCTV for four seasons from 13th September 1974 to 29th March 1978 consisting of 91 episodes.

Story synopsis: - A special team of undercover Police Officers work for the Criminal Conspiracy Unit at the Los Angeles Police Department." 

Source: MOPPY-KUN TV- left to right: Laraine Stephens as Los Angeles City Council candidate Amelia Boyer & Angie Dickinson as LAPD Detective Sergeant Pepper Anderson.

From MOPPY-KUN TV

"Pepper resents her assignment to protect an unscrupulous former classmate who is now a political candidate." 

Source:IMDB- Laraine Stephens as Amelia Boyer.

From IMDB

"At a public hearing in Dade County, Florida, parents were enraged. The nation, they said, was in peril and children were at risk. A recent ordinance had granted gay people housing and employment protections, and that meant teachers couldn’t be fired because of their sexuality. Florida classrooms quickly became a battleground, and opponents of the ordinance said the state’s support of civil rights for homosexuals was infringing on their rights as parents. 

Action had to be taken, and a campaign to limit the legal rights of LGBTQ people — all in the name of protecting children — was enacted. A woman who spoke at this hearing said it was her right to control “the moral atmosphere in which my children grow up.” That woman was Anita Bryant, formerly Miss Oklahoma and a white, telegenic, Top 40 singer who was well known for her Florida orange juice commercials (“A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine!” she’d say). Bryant spearheaded an anti-LGBTQ campaign of such impact that its echoes can be heard in today’s rhetoric. The year was 1977.

Last month, nearly half a century after Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its opponents. The measure, which takes effect July 1, prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in “kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Similar bills are being considered in 19 other states, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank that has been tracking the bills... 

“In the present environment, you can’t go after homosexual teachers anymore,” Faderman said. “We have too many allies. And so Florida has found another way to do it by this ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which doesn’t go after homosexual teachers precisely. But the idea is the same. That is, that homosexuality is a pariah status, and it shouldn’t be discussed in the public schools.”

Source:NBC News: "Singer-turned-political activist Anita Bryant speaks at a news conference in Miami Beach, Fla. on June 7, 1977."

From NBC News

"She came to national attention when millions of copies of her self-published book A Choice Not an Echo were distributed in support of Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, especially in California's hotly fought winner-take-all-delegates GOP primary.[23] In it, Schlafly denounced the Rockefeller Republicans in the Northeast, accusing them of corruption and globalism. Critics called the book a conspiracy theory about "secret kingmakers" controlling the Republican Party.[24] Schlafly had previously been a member of the John Birch Society; founder Robert Welch Jr. referred to her as a "very loyal" member.[25] She later quit and denied she had been a member because she feared her association with the organization would damage her book's reputation. By mutual agreement her books were not mentioned in the John Birch Society's magazine, and the distribution of her books by the society was handled so as to mask their involvement. The society was able to dispense 300,000 copies of A Choice Not an Echo in California prior to the June 2, 1964, GOP primary.[26] Gardiner Johnson, Republican National Committee for California, stated that the distribution of her book in California was a major factor in Goldwater's winning the nomination.

American feminists made their greatest bid for national attention at the 1977 National Women's Conference in Houston; however, historian Marjorie J. Spruill argues that the anti-feminists led by Schlafly organized a highly successful counter-conference, the Pro-Life, Pro-Family Rally, to protest the National Women's Conference and make it clear that feminists did not speak for them. At their rally at the Astro Arena they had an overflow of over 15,000 people,[30] and announced the beginning of a pro-family movement to oppose politicians who had been supporting feminism and liberalism, and to promote "family values" in American politics, and so moved the Republican Party to the right and defeated the ratification of the ERA.

Schlafly became an outspoken opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) during the 1970s as the organizer of the "STOP ERA" campaign. STOP was a backronym for "Stop Taking Our Privileges". She argued that the ERA would take away gender-specific privileges enjoyed by women, including "dependent wife" benefits under Social Security, separate restrooms for males and females, and exemption from Selective Service (the military draft).[32][33] She was opposed by groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the ERAmerica coalition. The Homemakers' Equal Rights Association was formed to counter Schlafly's campaign...

In 1972, when Schlafly began her campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment, the ERA had already been ratified by 28 of the required 38 states.[35] Seven more states ratified the amendment after Schlafly began organizing opposition, but another five states rescinded their ratifications. The last state to ratify the ERA was Indiana, where State Senator Wayne Townsend cast the tie-breaking vote in January 1977.[36] (Nevada, Illinois and Virginia ratified the ERA between 2017 and 2020, many years after the deadline to do so.)[37]

The Equal Rights Amendment was narrowly defeated, having only achieved ratification in a total 35 states.[7] Political scientist Jane J. Mansbridge concluded in her history of the ERA:

Many people who followed the struggle over the ERA believed—rightly in my view—that the Amendment would have been ratified by 1975 or 1976 had it not been for Phyllis Schlafly's early and effective effort to organize potential opponents.[38]

Joan Williams argues, "ERA was defeated when Schlafly turned it into a war among women over gender roles."[39] Historian Judith Glazer-Raymo argues:

As moderates, we thought we represented the forces of reason and goodwill but failed to take seriously the power of the family values argument and the single-mindedness of Schlafly and her followers. The ERA's defeat seriously damaged the women's movement, destroying its momentum and its potential to foment social change ... Eventually, this resulted in feminist dissatisfaction with the Republican Party, giving the Democrats a new source of strength that when combined with overwhelming minority support, helped elect Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992 and again in 1996.[40]

Critics of Schlafly pointed out that she was not a typical housewife, as she was heavily involved in political causes." 

Source:Wikipedia with a profile of far-right political activist Phyllis Schlafly.

From Wikipedia

I give you all this background information about Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly because I wanted to see how many people I could get to run to the nearest and highest bridge to jump off from, to escape from having to do all this reading. Actually, I have another reason for this. Even better than the first 1. 

With all this background info of Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly, I'm trying to give you an idea of what American political culture was like in the mid and late 1970s on the Right. And I'm sure as hell not talking about the center-right. 

And of course I'm not a mindreader. I'm also not a brain surgeon, or astronaut, or a murder 1 defense lawyer specializing in death penalty cases. (Just in case the jury is still out on any of that) I'm just saying that I believe that's what this Police Woman episode is based on. At least the political background of the of Amelia Boyer, (played by Laraine Stephens) the woman that the fictional Criminal Conspiracy Unit in LAPD is assigned to protect in this episode.

If you are familiar with the Ann Coulter's, the Mercedes Schlapp's, Marjorie T. Greene's and Lauren Boebert's in the U.S. House of Representatives, these women from today... that's who the Amelia Boyer (played by Laraine Stephens) character is like ideologically and culturally. 

These far-right, female culture warriors, argue that America is essentially being taken over by independent, educated, Caucasian women, and at least to a certain extent racial and ethnic minorities. And that homosexuality and personal freedom in general, is "poisoning and blood of America" and that it's time for the "real Americans" (meaning Anglo-Saxon-Protestants) to step up, fight back, and "take back America". 

And that's who Anita Bryant was when it came to homosexuality and perhaps other culture war issues in Miami and San Francisco in the late 1970s. And that's who Phyllis Schlafly was when it came to all these cultural war battles on the far-right in America, for really the 2nd half of her adult life starting in the mid 1960s and up until she died in 2016. 

I saw the Tigress episode last night, knowing that I would be writing about it today. And I believe Laraine Stephens plays that Phyllis Schlafly like character beautifully (in more ways than 1) and perfectly. And LAPD Detective Sergeant Pepper Anderson (played by Angie Dickinson) plays the independent woman, who hates Amelia Boyer's (played Laraine Stephens) politics and who represents the contrarian point of view to Miss Boyer's politics, beautifully (in more ways than 1) and plays that role perfectly as well.

You can follow me on Threads, Blue Sky, and Twitter.

You can also see this post on WordPress.