Cop TV

Scott Hardie | June 14, 2020
What do you think of Cops getting canceled and Live PD getting canceled and cop shows in general being rethought?

Chris Lemler | June 14, 2020
Scott I think this whole thing is ridiculous because they are making cops look like the bad guys. I think people are blowing this whole thing out of proportion. If things were reversed do you think that they would cancel cops shows no I don't think so. I think this is a racist thing against cops. Not all are bad. You have more of them helping then being bad and crooked cops.

Erik Bates | June 18, 2020
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | July 2, 2020
Trevor Noah did a pretty good job at demonstrating the problems with cop shows as they're currently made. I agree with his points. I've watched many hundreds of episodes of law enforcement shows over the years, and I'm disturbed by the frequency with which they portray the good guys ignoring the constitutional rights of citizens. It's not just about beating confessions out of suspects; it's a whole mindset that the rules only exist to slow us down and should be ignored, and the enforcers of those rules (Internal Affairs) are the worst because their investigations can lead to sanctions or termination. I don't know how accurately that captures the mindset of real cops, but I believe that it very much affects public perception of the police, and it should change. There's no need to take cops show off of the air*, but it is time to reconsider some of their perspectives about good and evil.

*Except Cops and Live PD which were basically advertisements made by the police who controlled every second of footage (the "live" show was on a half-hour delay, production contracts gave police departments creative control of the editing, etc). Those can disappear completely as far as I'm concerned.

I too enjoy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, even if the writing has gotten awfully repetitive in its later years. It hasn't always been thoughtful about its message, but more recently it really does try hard to do the right thing, with episodes about racial profiling and abuse of power, and the cast donating a large sum of money to BLM-aligned causes last month, and now the news that they've thrown out four scripts for next season and are rewriting the show to address everything going on in our culture since George Floyd's murder. Good for them for trying to do better.