b99 is more culpable, actually
all cop shows are propoganda, but most cop shows are made for 18-49 white men who’re scared of face masks
b99′s target demographic, however, is young, queer and racially diverse. b99′s target demo is all the people who’re the most vulnerable to police brutality. b99′s target demo is all the folks who absolutely should never be lead to believe the way to view the cops is the way you view jake fuckin peralta.
b99 had a bisexual Latina cop laugh and say she suggests police brutality, later showing interest and excitement over the exact sound weapon we’re now seeing used in retaliation to protests (side note: when i saw that episode, i thought that weapon was made up because it seemed so sci-fi villain-ish).
they have their whole host of cop characters, including the straight-laced official types, regularly treat their job like a game.
yes they had an episode about racial profiling. but what was that episode telling us? that at the end of the day, there are good cops within the system actively fighting corruption and winning. i recently saw someone in exact words say “b99 taught me that not all cops are bad.” that’s copaganda. even if you believe in your heart that some cops are good, they are still people with weapons designed to kill whose job centers on apprehending anyone they deem a trouble-maker, and they are. not. your. friends.
b99 wants you to believe that diversity within the system creates fair treatment, right? that a gay Black captain and a crew of racially and sexually diverse cops are the Good Guys.
in real life, the Seattle chief of police is a Black woman who is AT BEST allowing the people in her command to terrorize their city, and at worst actively commanding it. the tear-gassing in seattle? the little girl who got pepper-sprayed? that happened under the leadership and command of a Black woman. because cops are cops first. the job itself demands that they abandon their communities and their humanity. we joke about being [x thing] first and human second a lot, right? well, cops really are.
b99 talked about the prison industry, right? they talked about guard brutality, retaliation, in-prison violence, right? but think about the fact that within that plotline, the cops were the only characters who we were told didn’t belong there. how cinnamon roll jake peralta, a Good Cop Who Didn’t Belong in Prison, was interacting exclusively with people like a gang leader and an unrepentant cannibal.
b99 is deeply insidious cop propaganda. and i’ve watched it and i’ve enjoyed it! and i don’t believe the creators set out to make copaganda. i think they were trying to do a lighthearted riff on your standard procedural, and they cast a diverse group of actors, and they tried to write socially conscious scripts, and they slowly snowballed their way into copaganda while we were all distracted by andy samberg getting hotter.
i’m not at all saying don’t watch cop shows, if that’s your thing, i guess. hell, i’ve enjoyed more than one of them in my life. but please think critically about their messaging and choose to reject what does not align with your values. think critically about your values, and what influences them. and for the love of god, stop responding to people’s angry, grieving cries over Black people being systematically murdered by cops by defending your favorite fictional cop. real people are dead.
Black lives matter more than fake cops. that’s all.
