Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andre Braugher said that all cop shows must address the state of policing in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others, adding that as an actor who has played police officers on TV for years, he has fallen prey to the “mythology” of the “heroic cop.”
He also said the Fox sitcom has a responsibility to confront acts of police brutality.
The Emmy-winning actor told Variety that playing cops on Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine and NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street has given him a certain perspective on law enforcement — which the magazine dubbed the “heroic cop” narrative.
“I look up after all these decades of playing these characters, and I say to myself, it’s been so pervasive that I’ve been inside this storytelling, and I, too, have fallen prey to the mythology that’s been built up,” he told Variety.
Andre Braugher, Terry Crews, and Andy Samberg in Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013), FOX
“It’s almost like the air you breathe or the water that you swim in. It’s hard to see. But because there are so many cop shows on television, that’s where the public gets its information about the state of policing. Cops breaking the law to quote, ‘defend the law,’ is a real terrible slippery slope. It has given license to the breaking of law everywhere, justified it and excused it. That’s something that we’re going to have to collectively address — all cop shows.”
The actor said Brooklyn Nine-Nine has an imperative to address acts of police brutality.
“Brooklyn Nine-Nine has to commit itself, as a comedy, to telling the story of how these things happen, and what’s possible to deal with them,” he said.
“I don’t have any easy answers, nor do I have a window into the mind bank of this writing staff… Can you tell the same story? Can anyone in America maintain any kind of innocence about what police departments are capable of?”
The Fox sitcom is planning to air a storyline in the upcoming season that addresses the subject of police brutality, according to Variety.
Braugher is Emmy nominated this year for his supporting role in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
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