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Home , Miami Vice, Philip Michael Thomas, Ricardo Tubbs

VICE JAMES LYONS

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

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99781405178112_1_pretoc.indd781405178112_1_pretoc.indd i 111/4/20091/4/2009 3:26:173:26:17 PMPM Wiley-Blackwell Studies in Film and Television Series Editors: Diane Negra and Yvonne Tasker

Experienced media studies teachers know that real breakthroughs in the classroom are often triggered by texts that an austere notion of the canon would disqualify. Unlike other short book series, Wiley-Blackwell Studies in Film and Television works from a broad field of prospective film and television programs, selected less for their adherence to defi- nitions of “art” than for their resonance with audiences. From Top Hat to Hairspray, from early sitcoms to contemporary forensic dramas, the series encompasses a range of film and television material that reflects diverse , forms, styles and periods. The texts explored here are known and recognized worldwide for their ability to generate discussion and debate about evolving media indus- tries as well as, crucially, representations and conceptualizations of gender, class, citizenship, race, consumerism, and capitalism, and other facets of identity and experience. This series is designed to communi- cate these themes clearly and effectively to media studies students at all levels while also introducing groundbreaking scholarship of the very highest caliber. These are the films and shows we really want to watch, the new “teachable canon” of alternative classics that range from silent film to CSI.

99781405178112_1_pretoc.indd781405178112_1_pretoc.indd iiii 111/4/20091/4/2009 3:26:183:26:18 PMPM MIAMI VICE JAMES LYONS

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

99781405178112_1_pretoc.indd781405178112_1_pretoc.indd iiiiii 111/4/20091/4/2009 3:26:183:26:18 PMPM This edition first published 2010 © 2010 James Lyons Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of James Lyons to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trade- marks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a com- petent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lyons, James. Miami vice / James Lyons. p. cm. – (Wiley-Blackwell studies in film and television) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-7811-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4051-7810-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Miami vice (Television program) I. Title. PN1992.77.M525L96 2010 741.45¢72–dc22 2009033120 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Singapore 001 2010

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Acknowledgments vi

Introduction 1 1. I Want My MTV Cops: Miami Vice as Television Commodity 7 2. Guns, Glitter, and Glamor: Styling the Show 29 3. Losing the Plot? Storytelling in Miami Vice 58 4. Risky Business: The Cultural Politics of Vice 83

Afterword 106 Broadcast Date Notes 108 Notes 109 Bibliography 122 Index 129

99781405178112_2_toc.indd781405178112_2_toc.indd v 110/30/20090/30/2009 11:12:5611:12:56 AMAM Acknowledgments

I would like to thank colleagues in the Department of English, University of Exeter, the Institute of Film Studies, University of Nottingham, and at the Screen Studies Conference in Glasgow for offering receptive audiences and providing generous feedback on many of the ideas for this book. Thanks in particular to Steve Neale, Helen Hanson, Dan North, and Paul Grainge for vital observations and encouragement at different points. I am grateful to the University of Exeter and to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the period of leave required to complete this book. I am indebted to my editors, Diane Negra and Yvonne Tasker, for supporting my initial proposal for the book, and for their numerous perceptive comments on my work. My thanks also to Jayne Fargnoli and Margot Morse at Wiley-Blackwell for their enthusiasm, expertise, and patience. This book has been completed in eventful personal circumstances, and it would not have been possible without the support of my family. A special acknowledgment of gratitude goes to Pam and Melvyn Goldstein, and to Jocelyn Avigad for making the trip out west on numerous occasions, and for cheerfully allowing themselves to be exhausted by Rebecca and, latterly, Austin. My parents, Trevor and Elizabeth Lyons, have also been wonderfully doting grandparents. Above all, I would like to express love and thanks to my wife Karen.

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The Premise

New York cop () travels to Miami to track down Esteban Calderone (Miguel Piñero), the Colombian drug lord responsible for the death of his brother Rafael. Calderone is already under investiga- tion by the Miami-Dade police department’s organized crime bureau vice unit (aka Miami Vice). The lead investigator is James “Sonny” Crockett (), who loses his partner Eddie Rivera () in a car bomb. Tubbs, masquerading initially as his dead brother Rafael, is cajoled into working with Crockett by bureau Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez (). Rodriguez is subsequently shot dead and replaced by Lieutenant Martin Castillo (). In contrast to the sharp-suited Tubbs, Crockett adopts an unshaven, fashionably disheveled appearance, part of his disguise as drug runner Sonny Burnett. A former college football star and a vet, Crockett is recently separated from his wife and child and lives undercover on his boat, The St Vitus Dance, together with his pet alligator, Elvis. The other key members of the vice bureau are detective pairings Gina Calabrese () and Trudy Joplin (Olivia Brown), and Stan Switek (Michael Talbott) and Larry Zito (), who work principally to support investigations led by Crockett and Tubbs. Early episodes also

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include Lester Kosko (Julio Oscar Mechoso) as a surveillance and electronics expert. The major recurring characters are Izzy Moreno (Martin Ferraro) and Neville “Noogie” Lamont (Charlie Barnett) as small-time crooks/conmen/informers. Taking advantage of a law that allows bureau officers to appropriate seized criminal possessions, Crockett and Tubbs (the latter undercover as Rico Cooper) furnish themselves with the fast car and designer attire necessary to mix in wealthy crime circles. “Burnett” and “Cooper,” aided by knowledge gleaned from informants, move through the criminal underworld, working to inveigle traffickers of vice (drugs, arms, prostitution) into incriminating themselves, thus effecting seiz- ures and arrests. Gina and Trudy also undertake undercover work, most typically as prostitutes, gaining the trust of victims and felons.

Miami Vice debuted on US television in September 1984, supported by a trailer boasting that “the cop show has just graduated to the .” Trailers are by design exercises in hubris, but, at least on this occasion, the show lived up to the hype; few shows have updated so radically the look and sound of broadcast television in the way that Miami Vice did in its first season on NBC. Additionally, few shows have been identified more closely with the spirit of the decade; Miami Vice is an iconic product of the 1980s, as much a part of the cultural fabric of the period as the Rubik’s cube, Pac-Man, E.T., or Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Miami Vice caught the popular imagination to become a cultural phenomenon, making stars out of lead actors Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, and exerting a considerable influence on men’s fashion and apparel, as the “Miami Vice look” stretched from couture to mainstream trends in fabrics, cuts, and colors, to the sales of Ray-Ban sunglasses and the sporting of “designer stubble.” The show also impacted upon popular music, with record- breaking best-selling TV soundtrack albums, and with songs featured on the show invariably storming to the top of the charts. Such was the show’s allure that a guest spot in an episode became a coveted way for the rich and famous to showcase their own fashionable status.

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Moreover, thrust into the spotlight, the city of Miami felt the consequences of its identity for the staging of both high glitz and gun battles, and the televised image of the American south in the guise of a chic cosmopolitan city eclipsed the more familiar rural clichés perpetuated by the likes of The Dukes of Hazzard (1979–85). Miami Vice’s emblematic status continues to be evoked in pop cul- ture, lovingly lampooned in more recent shows such as Friends, Will and Grace, and The Simpsons, not to mention meticulously reimag- ined in the popular videogame : Vice City (2002), which takes players back to the ultra-violent, neon-lit streets of Miami circa 1985, guided by Lance Vance, voiced by none other than Philip Michael Thomas. In contrast, its standing as a landmark TV show has been rather neglected. To date, academic work on Miami Vice has tended to locate it within the long history of procedural , as a formative work in the career of , or, reflect- ing critical trends at the time of its original transmission, in relation to theories of postmodernism.1 The show has been sidelined in influ- ential discussions of 1980s “quality television,” due in large part to its apparent lack of adherence to the “serious” and “literary” virtues of counterparts such as and St Elsewhere.2 Where it has been discussed in relation to major changes in industry production, it has played a relatively minor illustrative role, while nevertheless sug- gesting its potential to offer scope for a more thorough and extensive examination.3 Like the capricious 1980s fashions it showcased, Miami Vice has often been regarded as a show whose defining qualities are as fleeting as they are striking. This book offers a wide-ranging study that moves between textual, industrial, and socio-cultural analyses of Miami Vice’s essential fea- tures, in so doing setting out the basis for understanding it as a defin- ing show of its era. The 1980s were a transitional decade for television, as the medium entered a new phase of cable, satellite, and digital broadcasting, and Miami Vice was at the forefront of strategies to adapt to the changing political economy of the entertainment indus- try. New eras open up fresh artistic challenges and possibilities, and Miami Vice bears close scrutiny for its spectacular response to the opportunities of its particular media moment.

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The first chapter sets out the context for Miami Vice’s production, examining the range of creative and commercial influences that shaped its identity as a premium television commodity. Horace Newcomb notes that “television-making [is] a complex process of cultural, industrial, economic, aesthetic, and individual concerns,” and the development of Miami Vice illuminates the dynamics of net- work production at a critical point, as broadcasters sought to adjust to the challenges of an increasingly competitive and fragmenting media marketplace.4 The chapter offers an analysis of the way in which Miami Vice presaged the move to thinking of programming as “content” – as cross-platform audio-visual commodities – which emerged as the industrial-aesthetic logic of this momentous period of reorganization for the broadcasting landscape. Chapters 2 and 3 look at how that logic is made manifest at the level of the show’s formal characteristics, examining in turn Miami Vice’s approach to style and narrative structure. As the chapters make clear, both are best understood through a careful consideration of the com- mercial imperatives that helped to shape their aesthetic organization. John Thornton Caldwell argues persuasively that distinctive changes in the role of style on network television in the 1980s were a result of shifts in “the industry’s mode of production, in programming prac- tice, in the audience and its expectations,” and in Miami Vice’s case not all commentators were convinced that this represented a change for the better.5 Chapter 2 considers the controversy that surrounded Miami Vice’s “excessive” style, and counters such criticism by looking carefully at its strategies for visual expression, demonstrating their general adherence to the norms of television aesthetics, but also pointing out the ways in which the show’s innovations sought to test the limits of the medium’s compositional and chromatic capabilities. Rather than attribute this to “auteurist” extravagance, the chapter points to the commercial sense of such strategies in the context of competing audio-visual technologies. Chapter 3 turns its attention to Miami Vice’s narrative form. If crit- ics have tended to fixate on the show’s style, they have often neglected to detail its approach to plot and story, and the chapter subjects these aspects of the show to their first sustained examination. This carefully

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contextualized assessment of Miami Vice’s storytelling seeks to demonstrate how and why the show changed in ways that are rather at odds with common perceptions of it, as it sought to adapt to wildly fluctuating degrees of commercial and critical success, creative over- haul, and to the variable nature of its competition. Like chapter 2, this chapter offers a sense of the show’s formal evolution across its five seasons, seeking to remedy the tendency of existing work to generate a rather static portrayal of its storyworld. The final chapter considers Miami Vice’s relationship to a series of major preoccupations in 1980s American culture, positioning the show in terms of cultural ideologies. The show’s consistent fascina- tion with performance and sensation and with games and their play- ers comes together in the thrill of the “risk,” which serves as the apposite motif for an era that ushered in the prepotency of the “deal,” cut by traders stretching from Wall Street to Bogotá. Miami Vice as television commodity was wrought from the increasingly frenzied cli- mate of high-stakes corporate takeovers, and the chapter looks at the ways in which the show can be seen to dramatically animate this “risk culture” of free market capitalism, uniting cops and criminals under its governing logic. No other fictional TV show of the era so evoca- tively captured the sensation and sensibility of this ethos of risk. Taken together, these chapters offer a detailed contextualization of Miami Vice, situating the show within an institutional history that extends and complicates existing perceptions of it. In particular, the book departs from work that searches for the stylistic and thematic continuities in the show to affirm it as a manifestation of Michael Mann’s “sensibility” and “vision.” Mann was executive producer on the show, and, as the following chapters indicate, had a major role in its construction. But whereas journalistic auteurism serves largely to isolate works from the complex and often conflicting commercial contexts that determine their production, this book seeks to make apparent their role in the process.6 Indeed, as Richard Maltby points out, “by the 1980s, authorship in Hollywood had become a commer- cially beneficial fiction,” a fact which extended to television production, where “heavyweight film directors now were self-consciously hyped.”7 Mann’s status as Miami Vice’s “auteur” needs to be understood as a

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consequence of, not removed from, the commercial impulses of 1980s broadcast television, while at the same time recognizing, as Maltby cautions, that “the multiple logics and intentions that continue to impinge on the process of production ensure that authorship remains an inadequate explanation.”8 In the pages that follow I seek to demon- strate the confluence of forces involved in creating this pivotal network show, fashioned from the forces reconfiguring the aesthetic, commer- cial, and ideological coordinates of broadcasting in this watershed decade for the medium; one that remade established certainties regarding the “business” of television in ways that are still being felt today.

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