b99 doesn’t address it.. literally just has 1 (one) episode where racial profiling happens and that’s it. It doesn’t bring up anything substantive about racism or the police as an institution, only barely manages to say “sometimes cops can be bad (BUT MOST COPS ARE FUNNY AND RELATABLE HAHA BACK TO THE GOOFS)”
i dont rly care much about b99, it’s funny sometimes, not funny and forced a lot of the time. but the counterargument to the hate it gets from the left that it actually addresses the problems with policing is just not even slightly true.
i rly dont think a comedy could do that. imagine portraying the atmosphere that led christopher dorner to do what he did while keepin it comedic. there is a culture of racism, sexism, ablism, and violence pervasive in american and canadian policing that isn’t conducive to bein funny (im assuming it’s a problem everywhere but i have only read about am and can). anything that glosses over that shit is propaganda whether u think the gloss is intentional or not. when terry hurts his wife, or jake mocks holt or rosa for their sexuality, or boyle assaults a woman he’s questioning, and the show consistently discusses that shit within the context of the institution theyre apart of, then it will stop bein propaganda. one ep about racial profiling, passing references to 80s racism and homophobia, and one ep about a cop planting drugs aren’t enough.
and anyway, the idea that cops do good things AT ALL is propaganda. cops enforce laws crafted and imposed on us, and unevenly applied, by rich jackasses, inspired largely by a legal system designed by one of the most violent and unethical civilizations to ever exist ie rome. and cops dont do ‘good work’ when they traumatize civilians, toss ppl into sensory deprivation, overcrowd them, where theyre often denied medical services, their labor exploited, left to the mercy of unscrupulous guards and prison wardens.
the idea that tossing ppl in cells to rot will help them ‘reform’ has religious roots btw interesting aside: ‘penitent’>penitentiary ie criminality can be cured by imposing monklike conditions of asceticism on ppl that will make them penitent. the idea that prisons help the criminals reform by depriving them of everything they care about and subjecting them to circumstances where their every move is controlled or monitored is complete bullshit.
any show that acts like police and the prison system are anything but a tool of terror and repressive social control is essentially propaganda. police and prisons don’t reduce or control crime, if anything their violent presence, the revengeful sentiment at the root of our notion of justice, and the absurd idea that deprivation somehow magically purifies the ‘crime’ outta ppl, all that does is exaggerrate the issues of antisocial and violent behavior in society.
if yr show don’t talk about shit like that and has cops playin center stage, yr makin propaganda. the fact that it goes so far outta its way to be woke honestly just makes it feel like more intelligent propaganda than yr usual cop/fbi/etc show.
A shop that honestly portrayed the police wouldn’t be allowed to air anywhere. They’d ban that shit so fast.
QueerAnarchism 