Can Brooklyn Nine-Nine function in a world of police violence?
Emily Graetz writes.
This article includes discussion about Indigenous deaths in custody.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine has an 8-series-long and mostly successful history of balancing social justice issues with light hearted silliness. With the final season debuting this month in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, the cop show comedy has finally made an attempt to seriously reckon with its complicity in police brutality and legal injustice. But can a comedy show about the lives of police officers and their day to day duties effectively critique the role of police?
In the first episode of the season, ‘The Good Ones’, Brooklyn Nine-Nine makes it clear that it won’t ignore the elephant in the room. In the opening scene Rosa Diaz announces she is quitting the force after some serious reflection about her complicity in police brutality. Diaz’s reflection was, as she says, sparked by George Floyd’s murder and her realisation that she could no longer support a system that actively harms civilians, particularly minority groups.
“I did it because I couldn’t ignore what I was a part of anymore. Couldn’t ignore what the police are doing in my community to people who look like me”, she says.
Meanwhile Terry has to remind Charles that his intentions to be a good anti-racist ally are meaningless if he only cares about virtue signalling and platforming his own actions for the sake of others’ approval.
This isn’t the first time Brooklyn Nine-Nine has engaged with the politics around policing, particularly racial profiling. But it is the first time that it’s done so on such a significant level and the first episode of the season indicates that it will be an ongoing theme rather than a throwaway line.
Executive producer Dan Goor said that the decision to reshoot in light of the Black Lives Matter movement came from the characters needing to “examine their roles in the world. They’re going to be forced to look in the mirror and see who they’re complicit with”.
"The challenge is going to be being honest about what is going on in the world and not shying away from the fact that there are serious problems, and also not punishing viewers who like our show and care about our characters”, he explained.
All in all, the introductory episodes make a genuine attempt at acknowledging how the police force actively harms communities and how the legal system itself all too often serves injustice rather than justice, especially for people of colour.
But by nature of its tongue-in-cheek humour the show has necessarily celebrated the role of police in society and centred their stories above all else. In stepping up to this level of self-critique, then, Brooklyn Nine-Nine implicates themself as an out of date and inaccurate representation of policing.
The first episode of the series acknowledges that it's not about the ‘Good’ police officers, but it is the system itself that is deeply problematic. In doing so, Brooklyn Nine-Nine admits that the whole premise of the show is part of the problem. As the character Jake Parolta says, “I’d like to think that I’ve done some good as a detective and I can continue to do that, but… maybe I am part of the problem”.
This is an admission that police violence and brutality isn’t just about a handful of dodgy police but that the force itself is systemically violent and racist. Racism is embedded in all systems including policing, the law, education, the media and so on - it’s not just about an individual’s actions. Racism forms the bedrock of all of our social systems and this is equally applicable to Australia as it is the United States.
As Vanessa Turnball Robert’s says, “Racism is entrenched in this country, from Systemic racism, through to direct everyday practice”.
Maybe then, shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine are part of the problem.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine have platformed some progressive and important stories and have offered racial and queer representation with a level of honesty and complexity when other light-hearted shows have failed to do so.
Captain Raymond Holt’s experience as a black, gay officer in the 70’s and Rosa Diaz’s coming out journey for example, have been handled sensitively and with a great deal of generosity. Brooklyn Nine-Nine have celebrated the complexity of human nature and admitted that sometimes we can be complicated creatures.
Episodes 3 & 4 of this season have also promised some serious attention on police reform, suggesting that the series will continue to explore ways that we can reimagine our society with community-based support and rehabilitation rather than retribution and punishment. This reflects the real world changes that have come out of persistent activism and the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. Reforms in the United States for example, have included bans on tear gas and chokeholds, greater transparency and even a complete overhaul of some police departments in favour of a community-based public safety model.
We can’t pretend that these reforms are enough though. Police violence continues today. In Australia at least 474 First Nations deaths have occured in custody since 1991 and these deaths continue to happen at high rates. That’s evidence enough that the police do more harm than good.
It’s time we all moved on from comedies that primarily celebrate and find humour within these structures of inequality. The end of Brooklyn Nine-Nine comes as an opportunity to take a critical look at all of the popular culture content that profits off the valorisation of systems of injustice and demand that they do better.
It’s important for television shows to acknowledge their role in perpetuating injustice. But sometimes this means realising when to call it a day and move on to something that really does good for our communities.