In 2020, police killings of George Floyd and other blacks have caused many Americans to closely monitor police. Including television police.
Two ride-along reality shows aired, including the decades-old ‘Cops’. The police comedy “Brooklyn Nine Nine” has reimagined its final season.as a critic called for the radical re-examination Actors, writers and directors of what is called the ‘Copaganda’ show Issa Rae told The Hollywood Reporter “Hopefully,” she said, “the dull, uninteresting show will be cancelled.”
Two years later, it’s clear that rumors of the cop show’s demise were greatly exaggerated. It’s currently on the Fox Nation streaming service. Eighteen crime shows are scheduled for prime time slots on major broadcast networks. Last season, three of the five most-watched network shows featured law enforcement (the fourth was about firefighters). The industry’s stance was summed up at September’s Emmy Awards ceremony when comedian Sam Jay introduced the “Law & Order” series star as “his two cops who no one wants an excuse for.” maybe.
But beneath the surface, there are signs that the genre is evolving in response to the current state of public trust in law enforcement reaching a record low two years ago. Defund the Police” began to form.
The new hour-long police drama called “East New York,” which premiered Sunday night on CBS, is part of a series of crime shows that have been developed or reimagined since Floyd’s death. It aims to explore the world of law enforcement in a more nuanced way, and also includes a plot line on Community He Policing. One of his stars, Jimmy Smits, who starred in the more daring “NYPD Blue” in the 1990s, said he was drawn to “East He’s New York” for the chance to tell a different kind of police story. Told.
“The whole idea of law enforcement’s role in terms of ‘protecting and serving’, being a protector rather than a warrior, that law enforcement should be in the community to protect it, I think. “I’m estranged,” said Smits, who grew up in the real-life East New York, Brooklyn neighborhood and plays a police chief on the show.
Just as the collapse of the Soviet Union did not mark the end of history, and the attacks of September 11 did not end the irony, the police murder of George Floyd may doom the traditional cop show. Any suggestions not to have been exaggerated. But a series like “East New York” raises questions about whether cop shows can meet the demands of reforms in both police and television portrayals without losing the audiences that remain popular. I will raise
“Cop shows have been around since the Flood — it’s always been part of TV shows,” said William Finkelstein, co-creator and executive producer of “East New York.” NYPD Blue. “But in the wake of George Floyd and the great outrage it aroused, especially because it was against cops and police policy, the question was: ‘How do you do a cop show?’ mosquito?””
In cable and streaming, sometimes one answer stands out. Same as before. ‘Cops’ has aired since his 1989, first on Fox and then on the Paramount Network, before airing in June 2020. It’s now a favorite of Fox Nation viewers who saw the start of the new season on Friday night.
The popular ride-along show “Live PD” aired on A&E in June 2020, and a similar show by the same production team is now airing on Reelz. A&E sues Reelz and its producers over new show ‘On Patrol: Live’, claiming that A&E interrupted ‘Live PD’ “at a key moment in our country’s history” but reserved the rights to the show. . “We believe this lawsuit has no merit and we are continuing to work on ‘On Patrol: Live,'” said spokesperson Aaron Martinez.
According to proponents, the vehicle genre can still find an audience. Gerard Rivera, a Fox News co-host whose crime specials in the 1980s helped pave the way for “cops,” said, “There was a backlash to the sweep: ‘Defend the police, the cops are bad, The police are the enemy,'” he said. He said he felt the program had changed since the day it was criticized for portraying alleged perpetrators who were disproportionately black.
Police procedures date back to the dawn of television. In 1951, Los Angeles Sergeant Joe Friday’s “Dragnet” made the leap from radio to his NBC, featuring “just the facts.”
Over the decades, cop shows have included Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blues, and Homicide: Life on the Streets, based on David Simon’s non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on Killing Street. It became more radical in dramas such as. Baltimore police. “Law & Order” added the prosecutor to the mix with its headline-ripped approach. ‘The Wire’ took crime drama to new heights. And for two decades, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its many spin-offs and imitators have showcased the use of cutting-edge forensic technology by cold-hearted crime solvers.
Nancy Tellem, former president of CBS Television Entertainment, said, “Criminal proceedings series are self-contained episodes with formulaic stories that are ideal for viewers to watch repeatedly, so they can be repeated at any time.” It is an ideal program in terms of being able to group.
Critics argue that the themes and storylines of these shows have normalized the police’s vicious or illegal work. In early 2020, prior to Floyd’s murder, Color of Change, a group promoting racial justice, published the report Television programs often depict police officers conducting illegal searches, falsifying witnesses, and racially profiling suspects, and have called such behavior reprehensible. They are often not assembled.
However, over the past two years, some cop shows have occasionally acknowledged their criticism. On an episode of CBS’ “SWAT,” a black sergeant was asked to do outreach to the black community. A black cop butts heads with a racist white cop on NBC’s “Chicago PD.” The final season of “Brooklyn His Nine-Nine” aired on NBC, kicking off with an episode in which a police officer resigns following Floyd’s murder. In ABC’s “The Rookie,” the protagonist becomes a union representative, offering a different perspective on policing.
“The ambitious quality of the first two seasons corresponded to the realities of policing today,” said Alexi Hawley, creator and showrunner of “The Rookie,” referring to the reimagining that will follow summer 2020. Did.
But critics argue that the limitations that made good TV shows limit their ability to react to the moment in ways that are more than superficial.
“They are working on these issues now,” says George Pelecanos, a detective novelist who has written for HBO crime shows like “The Wire” and “We Own This City.” I was. “But it’s all in the context of episodic television. There’s a cop planting evidence and abusing it, but by the end of that time the guy’s out of the police force. That was one bad apple.”
Produced by Warner Bros. Television, ‘East New York’ retains the traditional aspects of procedurals, such as cops and robbers, interrogations and shootouts, while prominently introducing other elements.
In the first episode, a black sub-inspector, played by Amanda Warren, finds herself in East New York, a low-income, predominantly black and Latino neighborhood in the early 1990s where more than 100 murders a year were a regular occurrence. responsible for the fictitious 74th Precinct of But where crime has since declined. She promised to see if some of the ideas she developed when she was a patrol cop actually worked, accused detectives of not pausing interrogations when a suspect asked for a lawyer, and at some point Suggest that the police should be moved to public housing on the precinct.According to executive producer and co-creator Mike Flynn, the storyline for the home is 2018’s New Republic article About the Rockford, Illinois Regional Police.
Flynn said he was intrigued by the article’s depiction of the day-to-day interactions between police officers and members of the community. .
In the show, Smits played a high-ranking chieftain named Jon Suarez, demonstrating his desire to give Warren’s character space to experiment with her ideas, as well as his personal in a system accustomed to the old ways. I try to strike a balance with my ambitions.
On a Brooklyn street corner on a recent afternoon, Smits and actor and playwright Ruben Santiago Hudson filmed scenes for their next episode in front of a 100-year-old Roman Catholic church. With a boom mic hovering overhead, the chief lamented that a young plainclothes policeman had been pulled over for driving while he was essentially black.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m not making any progress at all,” he says.
“Many of us have seen you stand up — the star on your collar,” responds the veteran, played by Santiago Hudson, who is black.
“But I don’t live my life in uniform,” Smits’ character sternly responds.
Jonathan Nichols-Pesick, a professor of media studies at DePauw University who studies cop shows, said “East New York” sounds promising, but the audience will be the ultimate judge. “The history of television is full of shows with amazing sensibilities that asked the toughest questions and were canceled due to lack of viewers,” he said.
From inside the writer’s room on “The Rookie,” Hawley made a similar point. “We’re proud to have a show that feels like our show, even though it has more depth,” he said. “If people turn us off, we won’t help anyone.”