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CBS is remaking its police shows for the Black Lives Matter era
Source: Washington Post
CBS is remaking its police shows for the Black Lives Matter era
A novel partnership sends police reform advocates into the writers room. Can it work?
By Steven Zeitchik
10/14/2020, 10:00:07 a.m.
On most days, MacGyver is off doing what MacGyver does, detonating pipe bombs with paper clips or scrounging up chocolate to stop a deadly acid leak. He’s Mac, after all, star of the hit CBS reboot and science-based action hero; audiences have been tuning in to see what he’ll literally pull out of his hat since the 1980s.
But this is 2020, and such whiz-bang trickery isn’t enough, not even in the escapist realm of network television. So in an upcoming episode, the character will grapple with a different type of life-or-death consequence: He and a friend will hash out questions of racial justice, police defunding and the long-standing contradictions of being a Black cop in America.
The reason for the pivot: Before the episode, MacGyver (or, the men and women who write him) had an extended conversation with Ron Davis, the former executive director of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing who runs the reform-minded criminal justice organization 21CP Solutions with former D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey.
-snip-
The meeting is part of an ambitious effort by one of the most influential producers of popular entertainment, CBS Studios, to confront the potential influences of its shows in incidents like the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd by police. In what is believed to be a television first, the entertainment firm has hired 21CP to help shape its shows. Normally tasked with remaking police departments, the group has been recruited to change how law enforcement is portrayed on TV.
-snip-
A novel partnership sends police reform advocates into the writers room. Can it work?
By Steven Zeitchik
10/14/2020, 10:00:07 a.m.
On most days, MacGyver is off doing what MacGyver does, detonating pipe bombs with paper clips or scrounging up chocolate to stop a deadly acid leak. He’s Mac, after all, star of the hit CBS reboot and science-based action hero; audiences have been tuning in to see what he’ll literally pull out of his hat since the 1980s.
But this is 2020, and such whiz-bang trickery isn’t enough, not even in the escapist realm of network television. So in an upcoming episode, the character will grapple with a different type of life-or-death consequence: He and a friend will hash out questions of racial justice, police defunding and the long-standing contradictions of being a Black cop in America.
The reason for the pivot: Before the episode, MacGyver (or, the men and women who write him) had an extended conversation with Ron Davis, the former executive director of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing who runs the reform-minded criminal justice organization 21CP Solutions with former D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey.
-snip-
The meeting is part of an ambitious effort by one of the most influential producers of popular entertainment, CBS Studios, to confront the potential influences of its shows in incidents like the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd by police. In what is believed to be a television first, the entertainment firm has hired 21CP to help shape its shows. Normally tasked with remaking police departments, the group has been recruited to change how law enforcement is portrayed on TV.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/14/cbs-police-shows-black-lives-matter/
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