so they're still doing copaganda, but like...more thoughtful copaganda?

I love b99 but honestly I don't think there's any good way to do a police procedural right now https://tvline.com/2020/06/23/brooklyn-nine-nine-spoilers-season-8-episodes-police-violence-protests/

b99 is so dangerous precisely because it presents copaganda in a package that's palatable to progressives (diverse cast, occasional big issue episode) in a way that the endless variations of CSI/law and order/etc aren't https://twitter.com/KaiEnixGideon/status/1275662131690704906?s=19

I am a police abolitionist and I love b99, that's the problem

b99 is a pro-cop show for anti-cop people that lets them forget about the cognitive dissonance of loving a cop show whilst hating cops

it presents a fictional version of policing that is honestly not much better than real policing (they still hate defence lawyers, do underhanded things to get evidence, despise internal affairs, etc) but looks better because the people doing the state's work are people like us

progressives aren't, on the whole, watching [generic CBS cop drama] and thinking "wow, that's me!" but find me a bisexual who doesn't love rosa diaz and I'll show you one who hasn't watched the show yet

basically: cops aren't just bigots, they're *just like us*!

lots of us have had to break the pink ceiling (holt) or dealt with racism on the job (holt, terry, santiago, diaz) or faced gendered violence in the workplace (santiago) or have kids we just want to protect (terry, boyle) or stress about money (jake)

and there's something powerful and manipulative and insidious about taking the struggles marginalised people face and saying, look, your oppressors face them too! state actors, who perpetrates violence against you, also suffer from that same violence!

I'm not saying you should stop watching b99 or even cop shows generally, but be aware that propaganda takes many forms and that no demographic, no matter how progressive, is immune

and right now, in this environment, I don't think there's anything pro-cop shows can do to stop being copaganda, because any attempt to humanise the cast or show their flaws just gives us a further false sense of security that what we're watching isn't propaganda when it still is

you can't make a show about likeable cops that isn't, on some level, copaganda

you can go the seinfeld route and make every character unsympathetic, maybe, but that's never what b99 has been and I doubt they're going to change direction now

you could make a show about internal affairs that isn't about them being evil, conniving bastards trying to stop good cops from doing their jobs, but that's also not what b99 is, and you'd have to make the main cast very unsympathetic very quickly to make IA the good guys

elementary - another diverse procedural - did a whole episode (maybe a double episode?) midway through its run where the cops were dragged over the coals for letting holmes and watson flout procedure to help them get convictions, and at the end, the cops were still the good guys

the message is always the same: when it comes to getting the bad guy, it's okay for good cops to do or condone bad things, because the ends justify the means

jake wins his bet with amy in season 1 of b99 by dragging in a bunch of guys for soliciting right before their deadline - which isn't a felony unless you're a repeat offender, which a few of his collars were

he *brags* about arresting guys hiring consenting sex workers

not only does he brag about it, he brags about the fact that he did it *to win a bet*

he arrested a bunch of guys committing most likely non-violent offences so that he could make santiago go on a date with him

how...sweet?

felony arrests and convictions can ruin your life, make you unemployable, homeless, cut you off from your family and support networks, but hey, he won the bet! cute!

in real-life new york, broken windows policing and stop-and-frisk ruin lives every day, but b99 is a show about homicide detectives and neatly avoids that ethical issue by never showing uniforms unless they have to

it's very convenient that the majority of police work shown on this show about good cops doing good cop work is to do with stuff we all agree is bad, like murder and drug cartels, and not stuff that's much more common, like ticketing homeless people for loitering

jake going out of his way to arrest a bunch of men for soliciting so he can win a bet with a coworker is not him being a good cop - it's literally an example of him abusing the system! the 99 aren't good cops, they're just not *the worst* cops https://twitter.com/KaiEnixGideon/status/1275681996648386560?s=19

like, this is literally my point - if you watch b99 and think "these are good cops!" then you are still endorsing and condoning a corrupt and abusive arm of a violent state, just presented to you in a form you find slightly more palatable

every hallowe'en heist episode features at least one instance of a cop abusing their power to *win a game*

even holt, the most principled member of the team, makes a deal with wunch, whom he hates *partly because he thinks she's not a good cop*, to get what he wants

there's a great tumblr thread about an episode where the team abuses the "48 hour rule" to get enough evidence to convict someone they were (at that point) holding without evidence, which is *against the law*, and they are painted as the good guys for doing it

on cop shows, the ends always justify the means, even when the means involve breaking the law or abusing process, as long as the bad guy gets it

that is *exactly* the kind of thinking that gave us stop-and-frisk

the 99 are *less bad cops*, which is not the same thing as *good cops* because in our current system - as the show itself takes pains to demonstrate when holt goes up against the commissioner - you cannot be a good cop without being either driven out, burnt out or punished

a g a i n, if "this is what cops could be" is still a group of people who abuse their power to win games and ignore the law when it gets in the way of what they want, *that is still not what we should want cops to be* https://twitter.com/RealFDuke/status/1275909772823400449?s=19

also, just as an aside, how incredibly...sure of yourself do you have to be to respond to my long thread with in-text examples with, "well, I've never seen the show myself, but here's why you're wrong"

like???

it is also worth noting, btw, that b99 is neither satire nor parody - it's a sitcom and plays its characters entirely straight

I...didn't tell anyone they have to stop watching? one tweet literally says "I'm not saying you should stop watching"??? https://twitter.com/thisisnttatum/status/1276376051132837889?s=19