I think Columbo represents a kind of masculinity that is very attractive to a lot of queer people. I see a lot of love from trans men in particular, myself included. First of all, I think you can start with Peter Falk himself—He’s a short guy, he has a higher voice, and a lot of trans men can probably identify with these or other traits of his.
Falk characterizes Columbo as undeniably masculine, but unconventionally so for his time. He has no issue being openly affectionate with other men. He likes sports, beer, and Westerns, but he also likes flowers, cooking, and shopping. He is logical yet intuitive, strong yet yielding, stoic but never emotionless. He does not adhere to gender norms, he dictates his own.
Because he works alone, and because we know the killers are guilty before he’s even on the case, the show doesn’t even register as copaganda. “This was not a show for blazing firefights and heart-racing chases made to glorify policing as an institution,”
It’s on the more innocuous end of the copaganda spectrum, but it does still make me uncomfortable to admire a character on the LA fucking PD. The show bears little resemblance to reality—Columbo is always targeting rich people in Beverly Hills. Politically literate chads like us know that’s not what real cops do, but people like my mom may not.
Columbo is propaganda because it gives the impressions that cops do anything more than paint the crime on whatever minority was currently in the area where it occurred. That or let it go unsolved until someone confesses. Cops suck at their job and the only reason most murderers are caught is because of confession or just being plain dumb.
