Dirty Harriet

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"I know what you're thinking. Did she serve up six bottles or only five as part of her lap dances? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a 1944 Magnum, the most expensive wine in the joint, and will blow my bikini clean off if we have it in stock, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, hunk?"

A Dirty Harriet scenario is when a female law enforcement officer goes undercover in a role only a woman can take, like stripper or prostitute This allows for the natural tensions of undercover work and of course allows a reason for her to wear few clothes. There is a good deal of variation in the trope, allowing for non law enforcement characters, non sex work infiltration, and occasionally non females (but still able to pass as one or serving in the role.)

Note that while this does happen in reality, it's very controversial, and legally and morally delicate. It has a very high chance of going spectacularly wrong and can easily turn into the sort of situation where a would-be arrestee is suing the city or the state or the feds for entrapment or worse.

This also appears in Spy Fiction. See also Fair Cop. Absolutely not to be confused with Harriet the Spy.

Examples of Dirty Harriet include:

Anime and Manga

• Code Geass: In season two, Action Girl Kallen is forced to work as a bunny-girl at an upscale casino as part of the Black Knights' plan to recover the amnesiac Lelouch/Zero. She's almost dragged off for a "bunny hunt", but Lelouch intervenes.
• Episode 15 of Samurai Champloo.
• Minnie May in Gunsmith Cats filled this role as she had experience as the real thing, and easily passed the "audition" because of it.
• Nina in Monster resorts to this in order to find her brother.
• In Cat's Eye, police officer Mitsuko Asatani was once disguised as a bartneder wearing Playboy Bunny suit.
• Trinity Blood has a fleeting scene where Catholic nun Esther is used as a bait to catch a criminal. Blatant fanservice, that.

Comic Books

• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Mina Murray goes under cover as a Parisian demi-mondaine to lure out Mr. Hyde.
• In the G.I. Joe: Cobra miniseries, Jinx went undercover at a strip club in order to make contact with Chuckles.
• Lt. Bliss poses as a hooker in The Maze Agency Annual story that was a homage to The Spirit.
• Ruse has a story in which Emma goes undercover as a Streetwalker to find a Jack the Ripper-type killer.
• Birds of Prey: One of Black Canary's conditions for joining Oracle's operation was that she would never have to impersonate a stripper. (The other was never having to use a computer.)
• Sin City: Silent Night has an inversion. Marv goes undercover as a "customer" in order to infiltrate a sex ring and rescue a little girl.

Film

• Tomcats: When Michael first meets Natalie, he's a bit surprised that she's a prostitute. He's even more surprised when he gets his face slammed against a wall, put in handcuffs, and finds out she's really a cop.
• In Miss Congeniality the titular character is an FBI agent that infiltrates Miss America to find out who's threatening it.
• Averted in Stir Crazy. When a paralegal goes undercover at a strip joint, she does so as a waitress.
• Pam Grier's character in Coffy goes undercover as a call girl for a local drug dealer/pimp in order to infiltrate the criminal underworld, although she's a vigilante, not a police officer.
• Banlieue 13: Ultimatum opens with one of the leads going undercover as a dancing girl in order to stage a major sting against a series of crime bosses. The twist? Both the movie's leads are male. But it must be said that Cyril Raffaelli looks stunning in a dress.
• CIA agent Moira McTaggart in X-Men First Class.
• Undercover Heat. Police officer Cindy Hannen (Athena Massey) goes undercover in a high class whorehouse to catch a murderer. She discovers that she's very good as a prostitute.
• In Khalnayak Ganga (Madhuri Dixit) goes undercover as a dancer to try to catch Ballu (Sanjay Dutt) and save her boyfriend's reputation. She gets in waaay over her head, however, when Ballu develops feelings for her.

Literature

• Discworld: Nobby Nobbs. Yes, he's a man, or at least male. It's complex. In fact, Nobby's looks are so astounding that a footnote made sure to point out that although narrative law would normally demand a Attractive Bent Gender moment, the trope withered and died in the face of Nobby Nobbs.
• Subverted in one of Stuart Macbride's Aberdeen detective novels, where the officers posing as streetwalkers are plain and unattractive, because an attractive street-corner prostitute would make people suspicious.
• Holly Lisle's Last Girl Dancing is a textbook example of this trope: the protagonist is a female cop who goes undercover as a stripper to find a serial killer.
• In Shatterglass, part of Tamora Pierce's The Circle Opens Quartet, a serial killer stalks the female yaskedasi, or members of the entertainment class. Quite a few police officers (of both genders, but mostly women) go undercover as yaskedasi, but this is played straight when someone else comments that the grimly staring few who can't dance, juggle, or sing really stick out.
• Dexter's sister Deb did this at the start of the first book, when she was working in vice. The tone of the books being much more negative than that of the show, Dexter as narrator spends some time on how incredibly unattractive Deb, a beautiful woman, managed to make herself look in such skimpy clothing. She wasn't trying, either, she just has no fashion sense. By contrast, Deb in the show has a perfectly good fashion sense.

Live Action TV

• Without a Trace: Elena. Samantha, the obvious choice, has already been to the club as an FBI agent, so can't do it. If you can't have a voluptuous blonde, a Latina does the job just as well.
• The Bill: Cathy Bradford, but there are other examples.
• Ashes to Ashes: Alex Drake arrives in 1981 dressed as a prostitute. Later, in 1.05, she pretends to be one again - unfortunately for her, she isn't the mark's type.
• Dexter
  • When we first meet Deb, she's been assigned to a prostitution sting operation and is desperate to get assigned out of it. Especially when she ends up helping out at a murder scene... still in her disguise.
  • In season 3, Angel's new girlfriend is also undercover as a prostitute. Which he learns when he tries to hire her.
• The pilot episode of Airwolf features the F.I.R.M. getting an American agent employed as a belly dancer in Libya. Her cover is blown and she is killed later. They then decide to send in another belly dancer, who gets kidnapped by the Evil Dr. Moffett, tortured (possibly raped as well—I wouldn't put it past him) and ends up dying from dehydration in the Sahara.
• Angel: In the original plan for the second episode, Kate Lockley was to be introduced as a police officer infiltrating a prostitution ring. In the version that made it to air, she was investigating disappearances from (or maybe just hanging out at) a popular singles bar.
• Lois Lane in Smallville, although technically not as a cop but as a reporter. Not that anyone cared what her motivation was.
• In Lois and Clark she did this as a showgirl to get inside info on a crime ring. She was pretty good at it. Lex Luthor was highly amused when she appeared on stage. Clark fretted a lot.
• Law and Order SVU: Happens often with Olivia Benson.
  • Averted in the episode "Ballerina", as it's stated when describing the murderer's 40-year (and five-marriage) killing spree, but otherwise not following the trope:

Fin Tutuola: From little orphan ballerina to Dirty Harriet in five easy steps.

• Played with in The Shield, when a detective has to go undercover to catch a mob that's beating up prostitutes. Male prostitutes. Shane is very upset when he's forced into the role.

Shane has no luck with this kind of thing. On another episode, the Strike Team had to find out which stripper at a club was luring johns into the alley and then robbing them with her boyfriend. When Vic tries it, he gets a blow job. When Shane tries it, he gets a tire iron to the head.

• Miami Vice: Practically the only thing Gina and Trudy ever seem to do is go undercover as prostitutes.
• Hunter: Dee Dee McCall poses as a street walker all the time in the TV series (from the very first moment we see her, actually) on the pretext of 'gathering information'. How a police officer is supposed to do this without blowing her cover the first time she refuses to jump into a car with a middle-aged pervert is beyond me.
• On 21 Jump Street, Judy joined the Jump Street program because it was the only way she'd be able to get any other type of assignment. Of course, this didn't mean that she didn't still get just such an assignment occasionally.
• Happens all the time on Reno 911!!, with a few different outcomes.
  • Deputy Weigel, the squad Butt Monkey, scares off the johns.
  • Deputy Williams winds up knowing her young client from her old neighborhood and starts off giving him an angry lecture, before commenting on how well he's grown up and shutting off the recording equipment.
  • At one point, the other deputies roust the prostitute hangout, only to find Deputy (Jim) Dangle among them, dressed as one. He tries to invoke the trope and convince them that he's undercover, but the others slowly catch on to the fact he is moonlighting as a gay prostitute as they leave.

Dep. Junior: "Doesn't he have Fridays off?"

• Angie Dickinson's character in Police Woman spent a lot of time doing this.
• Detective Shraeger in The Unusuals starts out in vice, dressed as a hooker. She's soon transferred to homicide, though.
• In Robin Hood Kate pretends to be a drunken tavern wench in order to distract one of the outlaws' targets, a job that includes a low-cut dress and lots of makeup. She hooks up with Robin in the very next episode. Hmmm...
• Third Watch: Maritza Cruz, the tough-as-nails female cop (played by Tia Texada). The very first time we see her, working on a prostitution sting, she's wearing "six inch heels with a postage stamp of polyester stuck up my ass."
• The first episode of Southland briefly features a female vice cop undercover as a Streetwalker.
• White Collar has FBI agent Diana undercover as a prostitute in an episode of the second season as part of an operation to bring down a corrupt politician.
• Lost has a Show Within a Show called Exposé about a group of secret agents undercover as strippers.
• One episode of Two and A Half Men has Charlie getting busted by one of these. This clues him in that his sexual life is getting out of hand (not that sleeping with many women is news to him, but in this episode, he was so unhinged that he literally broke his balls after sleeping with six or seven girls in the same day).
• In the reality series Armed And Famous, both female celebrities (Trish Stratus and LaToya Jackson) went undercover during a prostitution sting. In contrast to typical portrayals, this wasn't played for Fanservice, and both were dress very casually.

Tabletop Games

• The New World of Darkness sourcebook Tales from the 13th Precinct features a vice cop who gets sent on this type of assignment by default.

Video Games

• Anachronox: Stiletto Anyways makes her first appearance as a stripper before it turns out she's undercover as an assassin, killing three mobsters halfway through the performance. Afterwards, the bar owner thinks it's a great act and wants to hire her full-time.
• Dead or Alive: Likewise Christie went undercover as an erotic dancer in order to get close enough to assassinate her target in her Dead or Alive 4 ending.
• A T-rated variation in Jak II: The Underground is allied with local crime lord Krew, but since Torn doesn't trust him, so he sends Tess to work at his saloon as a barmaid (and nothing else) to pass his secrets along.
• Inverted in Lula 3 D: Lula is a porn producer and prostitute who goes undercover at a strip bar to track down kidnapped actresses.
• In Final Fantasy 7 Tifa Lockhart does so to get data from Don Corleo, then Cloud and Aerith do it too to free Tifa.
• Played with by Mass Effect. One of the early Citadel missions involves a young woman working in Chora's Den, a sleazy, mobster-owned strip club in the Wards (The heavily populated, urban sections of the Citdael). She is working at the club to pass on information to the local police, and she very specifically points out that she only serves drinks on the bar. of course, she then complains that she could be earning more money by dancing.....
• Mother 3: While she wasn't necessarily hired as a stripper, Kumatora worked as a waitress at a night club in order to locate and rescue the amnesiac Duster.
• In Deus Ex Human Revolution, one of Jensen's old partners will be undercover as a prostitute.

Webcomics

• In Too Much Information, Officer Friendly ends up undercover as a streetwalker, which both provides her with an excellent opportunity to get closer to Ace - by stating that it would really help her cover if she was seen getting into the sleek sports-car of an attractive young man - and provides Betty and Veronica with a good opportunity to see Ace drive around with a scantly-clad girl in his car.
• Parodied in the Gurren Lagann fan webcomic Double K, in which Simon is sent in as the Dirty Harriet. Repeatedly.
• Megatokyo: Piroko in this Omake.

Western Animation

• Parodied in South Park, when a (male) police detective goes undercover as a (female) streetwalker to bust a prostitution ring... and gets a bit too deep into the role. To the point of marrying the (also male) leader of the ring and only revealing that he's a cop after the honeymoon.
  • Cartman goes undercover as a hooker when deputized by Barbrady so he can learn to read.
• Catwoman poses as a stripper in order to get close to Rough Cut in DC Showcase: Catwoman.