Hello again! Today, I will be discussing representation in one of my favorite shows, Brooklyn-99. Brooklyn-99 is a show that stretched 8 long seasons from 2013 until 2021. The time in which it premiered saw many different social movements rise and enter the public sphere like the #metoo movement, the Black Lives Matter movement twice, and the Obergerfell v. Hodges decision, legalizing gay marriage in the United States in 2015. As a show with a tremendous public following, and one covering the always divisive topic of the American law enforcement system, it did its best to represent different groups in its cast of characters and the stories it told.
The cast of Brooklyn-99
Brooklyn 99's pilot episode is standard stuff for your average workplace comedy, but sets itself apart as the pilot draws to a close. In a serious conversation with their new superior officer Captain Raymond Holt, detectives Jake Peralta and Rosa Diaz learn their captain is gay. The powerful scene reveals the motive behind Holt's strict policies. He tells the pair he's afraid of making a mistake, as he feels a man of his identity, someone who is not only gay, but black, two historically underrepresented groups, does not have the same luxury of slipping-up as others do. He's served a lifetime in law enforcement, and only now, later in life, does he get to lead a precinct of his own, While other sitcoms of a time in which gay marriage had yet to be legalized in the United States might've strayed away from this topic or made fun of the character, Brooklyn-99 sticks to its morals, portraying the characters excepting Holt into their family, and embracing his identity. It's thanks to majority rule this scene was able to happen at all. Twenty years prior, a leading character in a popular show being a gay black man was unthinkable, but thanks to weakening social stigmas, the show was able to tell the story they wanted to tell, one that was as entertaining as it was important.
The show also makes a point to not tokenize its characters, including multiple actors of the same ethnicity in the show. A prime example of this is the "Sleuth Sisters" Amy Santiago and Rosa Diaz, both Latina women serving as detectives within the precinct. After the show concluded, Stephanie Beatriz who portrays Diaz on the show, revealed she thought either she or her co-star, Melissa Fumero, who plays Santiago, were going to be fired after the pilot episode wrapped filming, saying in an interview with Entertainment Weekly "Well, there's no way that they're going to keep both of us. We're going to shoot the pilot. Somebody somewhere is going to say, 'Well, why do we need both of them? We have one. Let's slot somebody in this other slot.'" As opposed to looking at us for our abilities as actresses. You would never look at a show and go, "Well, we've got one white actress — we don't really need two." You wouldn't do that. But there was a time when you would do that with actors of color. I really did think that." The pair stayed together, and dominated screens for eight years.
A lone protestor confronts a line of police in Baton Rouge (2016)
After a series of violent killings by police, including the murder of Alton Sterling at the hands of the Baton Rouge Police Department, nationwide protests in opposition to the police erupted. As a show centering around police and their everyday activities, the showrunners of Brooklyn-99 felt it was not only important, but necessary to construct a storyline that acknowledges these protester's feelings, not offering the solution, but recognizing the problem, and promising to do better. In the episode, Sergent Terry Jeffords is stopped by a cop in his own neighborhood while searching for his daughter's lost stuffed animal. The cop reasons that Jeffords looks like a suspect from a crime he's investigating, generalizing him, and detaining him after Jeffords is rightfully apprehensive about the cop's attempted arrest. It's only after the cop is made aware of Jeffords position within the NYPD that he lets him go. The incident causes Jeffords to take action, filing a complaint against the officer. The comlplaint drives a rift between him and Captain Holt, who firmly believes in changing the system from the inside, telling Jeffords that doing anything that could put his current position at risk may render him unable to affect change. The two argue, but after Jeffords revealed he became a cop because he wanted to be a superhero, and a hero wouldn't let a bad guy get away without reprimand, Holt comes to the realization that he worked so hard to earn his position so he could help people like Jeffords in a meaningful way, so they file the complaint. Jeffords loses out on a job opportunity because of the incident, and while not explicitly stated to be the complaints doing, the experience shows that while fighting injustice comes at a cost, the product is a more just world in which racist officers like the one that stopped Jeffords would think twice before generalizing a group again.
After seven seasons of wacky hijinks and important conversations, Brooklyn 99 returned after an extended COVID-19-related hiatus for its 8th, and final season. However, fans were shocked to find the precinct wasn't the same as when they had last left it. Series favorite Rosa Diaz, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020 and the nationwide reckoning of police violence, leaves the force to become a private detective. She reasons that her talents would be better served in a space not responsible for the killing of innocents. The move sparks an intriguing storyline in the show, one that posits the question of how cops with no ill intentions are supposed to go about their duties under an institution as historically racist, violent, volatile, and discriminatory as the American law enforcement system. The season sees the squad trying to affect change from within as now Seargent Santiago and Captain Holt propose a reform program that reduces instances of armed officers interacting with civilians, saving lives in the process. The storyline in the final season is indicative of the series as a whole, one that doesn't punch down in its comedy, but lifts up while pointing at the injustices we face. The show serves as a blunt reminder of the issues we face as a country, issues people from all backgrounds deal with daily, and the show doesn't shy away. It faces these problems head-on, showing them to an audience who may not be aware. By highlighting these versatile issues and representing all kinds of people, it creates an atmosphere in which we can have a meaningful discussion about our problems, and work towards a future where we can live peacefully, and where understanding each other is not a rarity, but the norm.
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