Cops is cancelled!
That’s right, after 32 seasons and over 1,100 episodes US tv show Cops has been removed from tv schedules as a result of the ongoing protests against police racism and brutality. The show which currently runs on US tv channel Paramount has not been shown since the killing of George Floyd and a network spokesperson confirmed that there are no plans for its return:
"Cops is not on the Paramount Network and we don’t have any current or future plans for it to return."
The show, loved and watched by many, followed real life police officers as they confronted criminality on duty, often getting involved in car chases and taking down suspects in dramatic fashion. The show’s theme tune ‘Bad Boys’ became synonymous with the show.
It is hardly the first time the show has come in for criticism, with pundits claiming it focused overwhelmingly on crime perpetrated by black and ethnic minority individuals and ignored more pressing social issues.
Michael Moore, in his film Bowling for Columbine (2002), asked the show’s executive producer Dick Hurling why the show didn’t attempt to show the cause of crimes or even take on corporate criminals. To which Hurling replied:
"Because it’s harder to do that show, I don’t know what that show would be … [if you look at the ratings] anger does well, hate does well, violence does well"
He went on to say:
"I don’t think we show black and Hispanic people as being criminals, I wouldn’t like to say not more often but they probably are more often, but we are certainly not trying to demonise them"
In a 2018 interview, co-creators John and Morgan Langley said that they had now changed the show to include a racially diverse mix of cops and criminals – this was in response to a number of studies suggesting that the show could be used to justify racial profiling.
When Fox cancelled the series in 2013, the anti-racist pressure group Color of Change spoke to Paramount about attempting to end the show completely, they said:
"For more than 30 years, Cops has miseducated the public and normalized injustice … crime television encourages the public to accept the norms of over-policing and excessive force and reject reform, while supporting the exact behavior that destroys the lives of Black people. Cops led the way, pushing troubling implications for generations of viewers. Now it’s time for other networks to cancel similarly harmful shows. We call on A&E to cancel Live PD next. In a moment when everyone wants to proclaim that Black Lives Matter, we must hold these companies accountable to put actions to words with a complete industry overhaul."
While Cops is unlikely to return on a major cable tv station, a similar show, ‘Live PD’, was due to take to screens soon – on A&E channel. The pilot itself gained 2.4 million viewers. Whether or not the other episodes in the season make it to air, or quite what format the show will take, will be revealed sometime in the future.
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