This book analyzes Hollywood storytelling that features an American crimefighter—whether cop, detective, or agent—who must safeguard society and the nation by any means necessary. That often means going “rogue” and breaking the rules, even deploying ugly violence, but excused as self-defense or to serve the greater good. This ends-justifies-means approach dates back to gunfighters taming the western frontier to urban cowboy cops battling urban savagery—first personified by “Dirty” Harry Callahan—and later dispatched in global interventions to vanquish threats to national security. America as the world’s “policeman often means controlling the Other at home and abroad, which also extends American hegemony from the Cold War through the War on Terror. This book also examines pioneering portrayals by males of color and female crimefighters to embody such a social or national defender, which are frustrated by their existence as threats the white knight exists to defeat.

Introduction -- Frontier ambitions and cowboy narratives -- Dirty Harry and the urban frontier -- Black crimefighters : portraits in blue -- Female crimefighters defending the homefront -- Becoming American : ethnic others as crimefighting heroes -- Globocops, la frontera, and America's war on drugs -- The war on terror, homegrown racism, and the white knight -- Recruiting the other as globocop -- Policing the world : the last 9white) American standing.