Abstract
ABSTRACTBlue Murder (ABC, 1995) was one of a quartet of docudramas about official corruption broadcast in the 1990s in Australia. Unlike the other three, it retained currency until 2017. One of its lead characters, the disgraced former detective Roger Rogerson, used his portrayal in the program by the actor Richard Roxburgh in his later career as an ‘underworld exhibitionist’ (Penfold-Mounce). News and current affairs programs also used excerpts from Blue Murder to illustrate stories about Rogerson’s and his associates’ criminal activities. The article examines how the docudrama made it possible to grasp a coherent picture of Rogerson, otherwise dispersed across short-lived and often very partial news and current affairs items. It also explores how this use complicates the concepts of the ‘body too much’ (Comolli) and ‘body too many’ (Nichols). After Rogerson was convicted of murder in 2016, a melodramatic sequel Blue Murder: Killer Cop (Seven Network, 2017), again starring Roxburgh as Rogerson, was screened, restoring the ‘body too much’. With Rogerson aged and incarcerated for life, the unusual persistence of the docudrama Blue Murder has ended.
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