This essay will examine the character Detective Vic Mackey from the TV series, "The Shield" (Ryan, 2002) using Freud's personality theory (p.308-309) and the big five-personality theory (Wood, Wood, Wood & Desmarais, 2008, p.318-319). "The Shield" is about an experimental division of the Los Angeles Police Department set up in the fictional Farmington district ("the Farm") of Los Angeles, using a converted church ("the Barn") as their police station, and featuring a group of detectives called the Strike Team, a four-man anti-gang unit based on the LAPD's real-life Rampart Division CRASH unit. According to Freud's personality theory (1923/1961 as in Wood, Wood, Wood & Desmarais, 2008 p 308-309) an individual possesses three structures to their personality, the Id, the Ego and the Superego. .
Throughout most episodes, Detective Vic Mackey shows to have a strong Id. The Id Is the unconscious system of the personality which contains the life and death instincts and operate on the please principle (p309). He always acts in an aggressive and sneaky manner like when he almost beats to death a drug dealer to get information and calls a friend of his which is a cop in Mexico to come bring him back to Mexico, that is very sneaky and aggressive because he could of brought him to The Barn and questioned him there (Ryan, 2002). A other example is when Detective Vic Mackey is accused for killing his own partner Detective Terry Crowley, which he did, because he was getting to much information about how corrupted Detective Vic Mackey's Strike Team was and that's why his own partner had no choice but to kill him (Ryan, 2002). Thankfully enough Detective Vic Mackey had connections higher up in the office that covered for him and the case was dropped.
Although Detective Vic Mackey's Id seems to be the more dominant structure in his personality we also get a sense of a present Superego. The superego is the moral system of the personality, which consists of the conscience and the ego ideal (p.
