It's A Love Story Between Two Men Who Happen To Be Cops

Meta
Title:	It's A Love Story Between Two Men Who Happen To Be Cops
Creator:	KimberlyFDR
Date(s):	September 1, 2004
Medium:	online
Fandom:	Starsky & Hutch
Topic:
External Links:	It's A Love Story Between Two Men Who Happen To Be Cops; archive link with expanded comments, page 1, archive link with expanded comments, page 2
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

It's A Love Story Between Two Men Who Happen To Be Cops is a 2004 essay by KimberlyFDR at The Shipper's Manifesto.

In 2006 in the comments, the author mentions the essay was published in an issue of the SHareCon zine.

The subject is Starsky/Hutch.

The title of this essay is a quote by David Soul, the actor who portrayed Kenneth Hutchinson.

Some Excerpts

The canonical evidence of the pairing is almost too easy to point out. The series began with the first words out of Starsky’s mouth saying that Hutch’s boxing actions [are] beautiful and the series ended with them in bed together while Starsky was recovering from being shot. That’s a vital scene to sum up the series. Hutch is in bed with his partner and their captain doesn’t bat an eye.

[snipped]

They touch each other all the time, as if they are each other’s touchstones in the middle of a storm. They eat off each other’s plates, drink after one another, hold hands in the squad-room, pat each other down, end up at each other’s apartments almost by default, take vacations with one another, spend 75% of their time with one another, and even bought a house together (a dump, but still a house!)

The straight-out text of their relationship is what drew me in. There are many fandoms where there’s subtext, where the relationships are drawn from certain glances and actions, making you ponder “after the show ended, they were together.” In Starsky and Hutch, it’s a completely different mode of partnership. This is a fandom of happy every after. This is a pairing that can and has survived everything from addiction to loss to even death (technically, Starsky died in the last episode and his heart only started beating again when Hutch hit the hospital doors). This is a show where there was no “first meeting.” The pilot episode has them already established as partners, as friends, as two halves to the same person. They went through the Academy together, they spend countless hours together, they are each other’s one constant no matter what happens. This is a relationship that could be sexual at any point in canon and it fits. After Hutch’s heroin addiction? Yep, works there. After tarsky’s almost-fiancé died? Works there. After one of their countless near-death experiences? Perfectly plausible. After the final episode? Works there, too. You pick a point and they could be lovers.

And I think the most special thing about the Starsky and Hutch relationship is that it was not just Starsky and Hutch. The love and admiration that shines between these two characters is a direct result of the relationship between Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky) and David Soul (Hutch). They were and have continued to be best friends, creating a strong friendship that has last over thirty years and through both bad times and good. There are many scenes in the show where it ceased to be Starsky and Hutch and became Paul and David. To bear witness to that is what makes the fandom special.