1018: Good Cop, Dadaist Cop

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Good Cop, Dadaist Cop

Title text: NOW INVENT AN IMPOSSIBLE-TO-TRANSLATE LANGUAGE AND USE IT TO TELL US WHERE THE MONEY IS.

Explanation

This comic is a play on the well known Good Cop/Bad Cop police interrogation strategy and the artistic movement Dadaism.

Dadaism is an artistic movement which by its definition is irrational. The movement embraces the free flow of unreasoned thought and prizes nonsense and rejection of established norms.

"Good Cop/Bad Cop" is a psychological tactic that may be employed during joint questioning or interrogation, whereby one interrogator acts in an aggressive, abusive and threatening manner (Bad Cop), and the other is compassionate, kind and reasonable in comparison (Good Cop). If successful, the suspect feels he can trust and co-operate with the good cop, or merely complies out of fear of the bad cop.

The comic starts with the "Good Cop", Cueball, and the "Dadaist Cop", Ponytail, working out their plan to interrogate the suspect, Hairy. After Cueball makes a few statements, intended to build trust with Hairy, and leaves to get coffee, Ponytail enters the interrogation and starts asking Hairy absurd questions. Hairy quickly becomes agitated, and questions what is wrong with Ponytail.

Where Good Cop/Bad Cop hinges on the suspect's fear and distrust of the intentions of the bad cop, Good Cop/Dadaist Cop instead uses the suspect's fear and distrust of the irrationality of the dadaist cop.

The title text builds on the joke as by asking a suspect to give the whereabouts of the money in a dadaist manner, which would be completely useless in finding it.

Irrationality

• See this? It's Mark Zuckerberg's Mortgage. So why is it written in CHURCH LATIN?
  • Mark Zuckerberg (the co-founder of Facebook) was renting in 2011[1] and therefore did not have a mortgage.
    • Even if Mark Zuckerberg had bought a property, it is unlikely (given his financial status) that he would have take out a mortgage.
  • No mortgage would be written in a sacred language like Church Latin.
• “WHY ARE MY BONES SO SMALL?”, “What's wrong with ART?”
  • These are non sequiturs and therefore have no place in an investigation.
• The title text: NOW INVENT AN IMPOSSIBLE-TO-TRANSLATE LANGUAGE AND USE IT TO TELL US WHERE THE MONEY IS.
  • The location of the money cannot be conveyed to Ponytail if the information were expressed in a newly-invented language that cannot be translated, and there would be useless to an investigation.

Transcript

[Two cops look through a window into an interrogation chamber holding a handcuffed suspect.]

Good Cop: All right, let's try good cop, dadaist cop

[Good Cop is seated in front of the suspect.]

Good Cop: Look, you're a good guy. We can work this out. Hey, lemme get us some coffee.

[CHANGE PLACES.]

[Dadaist Cop holds up a document of indeterminate contents and threatens the suspect with it.]

Dadaist Cop: See this? It's Mark Zuckerberg's Mortgage. So why is it written in CHURCH LATIN?

[Dadaist cop physically rattles the suspect.]

Dadaist Cop: WHY ARE MY BONES SO SMALL?

Suspect: What's WRONG with you!?

Dadaist Cop: What's wrong with ART?

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Discussion

A comment from the blog that is quite on and off (you'll get the joke) the topic:

I took a class in college, in French, and we studied (insofar as one can) dadaism, surrealism, and existentialism.

One day, the girl next to me raised her hand and started out, “This is off the subject, but..”… Professor La Charité interrupted immediately, with, “It’s *never* off the subject. Continue.”

We all felt we learned something that day. Giraffe. - E

Hope that explains some things. lcarsos (talk) 17:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Explanation

I think the above explanation is lacking. What's bones got to do with it? How about the language stuff? AND A Mexican bandit robbed a bank. The sheriff and his bilingual deputy captured him, and the sheriff, who couldn't speak Spanish, asked him where he'd hidden the money. "No se nada," said the bandit. The sheriff put a gun to the bandit's head and said to his deputy: "Tell him, if he doesn't tell us where the money is, I'll blow his brains out." Upon receiving the translation, the bandit became very animated. "Ya me acuerdo! Tienen que caminar tres cuadradas hasta ese gran arbol. Debajo del arbol, alli esta el dinero." The sheriff leaned forward. "Yeah? Well..?" The deputy replied: "He says he wants to die like a man." 122.61.61.161 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It's Dadaism. It means unrelated random stuff. AND nice story =) 108.162.212.206 19:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

What's incomplete about this? 0100011101100001011011010110010101011010011011110110111001100101 (talk page) 05:37, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

If you twisted my arm, I'd have to guess that my phone is ringing off the salmon. That's all I can remember at this indication, though. -- Brettpeirce (talk) 11:48, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

This is why we can't have giraffes. 172.68.10.83 09:40, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Has Mark Zuckerberg ever HAD a mortgage?108.162.219.164, 27 Dec 1014

Well interesting fact about ponytail then, her bones are small! --Dalonacueball (talk) 12:48, 24 March 2015 (UTC) 13:35 3/24/2015

The implication, in the explanation text, that wealthy individuals, such as Zukerberg, wouldn't take a mortgage is flawed. Wealthy individuals usually do take out mortgages because they have the ability to generate a higher rate of return from the freed capital than the cost of the interest on the mortgage. Mountain Hikes (talk) 22:17, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Would the gibberish produced in response to the title text actually count as a valid confession? Even assuming the suspect was trying to do what was asked, which I don’t think is a legally valid assumption, they could be saying “I don’t know; I didn’t take it!”. --162.158.255.142 18:59, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

to quote UK law: 'a confession includes any statement wholly or partly adverse to the person who made it, whether made to a person in authority or not and whether made in words or otherwise.' The action of writing gibberish would probably count as otherwise and be partially adverse to him, as it suggests that he knows where the money is hidden 172.69.43.242 (talk) 11:56, 17 November 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)