Opinion: Shut down all police movies and TV shows. Now.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This strikes me as a bit extreme. I love "Monk."

InvadeAmericaHat Retweeted

Somehow, not parody. https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/04/shut-down-all-police-movies-tv-shows-now/?arc404=true

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Act Four • Opinion

Shut down all police movies and TV shows. Now.

By Alyssa Rosenberg
JUNE 4, 2020

Like many other industries, entertainment companies have issued statements of support for the protests against racism and police brutality now filling America’s streets. But there’s something Hollywood can do to put its money where its social media posts are: immediately halt production on cop shows and movies and rethink the stories it tells about policing in America.

For a century, Hollywood has been collaborating with police departments, telling stories that whitewash police shootings and valorizing an action-hero style of policing over the harder, less dramatic work of building relationships with the communities cops are meant to serve and protect. There’s a reason for that beyond a reactionary streak hiding below the industry’s surface liberalism. Purely from a dramatic perspective, crime makes a story seem consequential, investigating crime generates action, and solving crime provides for a morally and emotionally satisfying conclusion.

The result is an addiction to stories that portray police departments as more effective than they actually are; crime as more prevalent than it actually is; and police use of force as consistently justified. There are always gaps between reality and fiction, but given what policing in America has too often become, Hollywood’s version of it looks less like fantasy and more like complicity.

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[Renew Deal]

1. There will be a riot if anyone messes with Brooklyn nine nine

[Coleman]

2. Chicago PD is really bad

Actually a good TV show, but very bad propaganda. The head of the intelligence unit has killed a person (not in the line of duty), covered up crimes of his underlings, faked evidence, and so on. They have a secret holding area with no cameras where they frequently beat information out of suspects.

[BaileyBill]

3. Worked in law enforcement for 20 years and

retired without a single civilian complaint or agency reprimand. Had only one role model. Andy Griffith. It can be done.

[SledDriver]

4. Movies like Lethal Weapon

Pretty much glorifying vigilante cop justice.

[Blue_Tires]

5. She's trolling, right?

[Nitram]

6. A strong case could be made that the relationship between a detective like Monk and

the cops is an adversarial one. No matter how many times Monk is right and they are wrong, they still don't trust him. The same goes for most detective shows. In many cases the cops do not hide their efforts to discredit and indict a detective who keeps showing them up. A good example is the old 50s show Perry Mason, where the Police Lieutenant, Tragg, and the District Attorney, Burger, constantly try to find evidence to charge Mason with a crime. Detectives shows have always been subversive in that they expose police incompetence and are themselves targeted and sometimes brutalized by the police. Occasionally there is a police character who helps a detective secretly because they are not down with the police brotherhood.

[marie999]

7. There are movies about good cops

and there are movies about bad cops. I watch both. If you ask enough people about what types of TV shows and movies should not be made, there would not be any TV shows or movies.