Female Cops in Flim and Television: Why are Women Always the Rookies?

It’s certainly not a new trend.

Take, for example, The Silence of the Lambs from 1991, in which Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is pulled from the FBI Academy at Quantico to interview the infamous, cannibal serial killer Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) in hopes he will offer insight that might help her boss track down a new killer called Buffalo Bill. 

tarling is sent under the pretense that her lack of agenda and experience will intrigue Dr. Lector, and thus, make him more willing to divulge information than he might be with a more seasoned agent.

It’s arguably one of the greatest movies ever, with a rare “Big Five” Oscar category sweep to prove it. However, throughout The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling is constantly subject to harassment because of her gender and her age. 

It tracks for the nineties, both the harassment and the aha, what a shock, women are capable vibes—but flash forward a few decades and not much has changed. 

Movies like Sicario (2015) quite literally do the same almost thirty years later. In Sicario, we follow Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), a young and idealistic FBI Agent, who is brought on to a joint task force hoping to take down a cartel boss.

However, it doesn’t take long for her to realize that she’s nothing more than a pawn in her teammates' game. They’ve brought her on intending to use her for the jurisdiction she offers as a member of the FBI, with which they plan to do a rash of illegal things.

What’s different about Sicario, and a credit to its writer and director, Taylor Sheridan, is that Kate doesn’t sit back and take it the way that Clarice did years before. She bucks back against the men who want to use her, and ultimately, this struggle for power and autonomy is what makes the film. 

But the bigger question is: where are the movies with career-established and seasoned female characters like Blunt’s counterparts Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin? 

It’s not to say these movies based on young, female cops aren’t good. Female rookies have become a mainstay in the genre because it works. Idealism is an easy way to infuse tension and conflict into this kind of story. 

Other recent crime thrillers that use female rookies like Wind River (2017) (also written and directed by Sheridan), in which rookie agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) is brought to an Indigenous reservation in Wyoming to investigate a rape-murder alongside a wildlife officer (Jeremy Renner), and To Catch a Killer (2023), in which a rookie Baltimore PD officer named Eleanor (Shailene Woodley) is brought on to track down an elusive misanthrope who’s responsible for a series of mass shootings, are fantastic films.

(These two do a marginally better job in their treatment of women because Jane and Eleanor, fortunately, are not used as pawns in addition to being infantilized).

But they still leave you wondering why, decades later after movies like The Bone Collector (1999) and Blue Steel (1989), the idealistic rookies are always women. 

Marge Gunderson from Fargo (1996), the seven-month pregnant police chief of Brainerd, Minnesota who cracks the case on a triple-homicide, while a legend in her own right, can’t be our only hope.

Television, on the other hand, is making strides for the better. Law & Order: SVU’s (1999-) Olivia Benson, a nuanced and career-driven officer of the law, who is both flawed and completely human, marks serious progress.

And Tyler Sheridan redeemed himself recently with a limited series on Paramount+ called Special Ops: Lioness (2023), in which Zoe Saldana is a CIA operative at the height of her career, running a program in which she trains women to embed themselves with the wives and daughters of high-value targets in the Middle East.

Even Jodie Foster recently got her redemption as Liz Danvers, the police chief of Ennis, Alaska, in Issa Lopez’s highly-praised fourth installment of True Detective (2024). 

For the record, TD: Night Country also offers a fantastic portrayal of a complex and mid-career female law officer by way of Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), and it just so happens, in this season, the rookie of the office, Peter Prior (Finn Bennett) is, for once, a guy. 

But where are the movies about cops who are young and unestablished men? Where’s the Peter Prior for the silver screen? Or better yet—where are the movies about bad women, women who abuse the law for their own gain regardless of their age?

There are some. Destroyer (2018), directed by Karyn Kusama, one of the minds behind Yellowjackets and the director Jennifer’s Body (2009) is a good example.

In it, Nicole Kidman stars as Erin Bell, a grizzled detective who embarks on an obsessive self-redemption mission during which she hopes to right wrongs from the early stages of her career. 

The case can be made for Kidman, again, along with Julia Roberts for their roles in the 2015 adaptation of the Spanish film The Secrets in Their Eyes.

In this one, three cops who are close friends find their lives unraveling after a cold case that killed one of their daughters is brought back into the light. They’ve each bent the law in pursuit of justice, some more than others, and each must work to reconcile with what they’ve done. 

But movies like this hardly get similar attention as the likes of The Departed (2006), No Country for Old Men (2007), and so many more. And more importantly, the women don’t really get the chance to be unabashedly bad. 

We’re slowly making progress, but there’s much to be desired when it comes to capturing the full scope of the feminine experience within law enforcement on the silver screen.