From: Jasper
Date: 11/13/00
Time: 7:19:10 PM
JoJo,
I wrote about this in chapter 29 of Iago, Fuhrman at the Movies. For legal reason's I couldn't quote more than a sentence or two from Fuhrman's book Murder in Brentwood without prior approval of his publisher. But I can quote him here.
The Choirboys was a Joseph Wambaugh novel made into a 1977 movie. The c-word and the n-word are used by the same character-one that Wambaugh clearly despises. This character ALWAYS wears leather gloves. In one scene he loses his hat and ends up at the bottom of a flight of stairs on his left side, just like Nicole. There is nothing cool about him. Wambaugh uses him as the worst example of a cop that none of his fellow officers respect. Page 280 of Fuhrman's Murder in Brentwood (explaining his use of the n-word on the McKinny tapes):
"Rereading The Choirboys, I discovered countless examples of characters describing African Americans and others in extremely crude and racist terms. Taken out of context-by someone like Johnnie Cochran, perhaps-they are the words of Joseph Wambaugh, RACIST. But within the structure of the novel, they are the words of Joseph Wambaugh, AUTHOR, and are necessary for the tone, theme, and character development of the book.
"The Choirboys was the first novel Joseph Wambaugh wrote after leaving the department. Joe was drawing on his own experience, no doubt embellishing them; but he also did research, including interviews, and most probably tapes of several personalities, different imaginations, and different abilities to expound on humorous and dangerous situations. In some ways I think Joe Wambaugh was an unconscious mentor of my novice attempt at writing a work of fiction. In writing The Choirboys, one can only imagine what he left out. In the research material Laura and I worked on, there are forty-one references to the "N" word. In the published edition of The Choirboys, there are fourteen references to the "N" word. Does that mean Joseph Wambaugh is a racist?
"The similarities are not mere coincidence…."
You can take it from there. I did. -Jasper