Noncore Post - Brooklyn 99 as Cultural Forum

Inspired by Dan’s observation that The Good Place (which I also recently caught up on) packages philosophical debates into pithy morsels and thus opens up space for a cultural forum, I decided to revisit Newcomb, Hirsch, and Hendershot to examine Brooklyn 99, another Michael Schur project. Despite revolving around cops and largely skirting issues of police brutality, the show often engages with social questions in surprisingly nuanced ways, and creates a cultural forum in line with Hendershot’s contemporary conception thereof. I'm thinking in particular of "Moo Moo," an episode in season 4 in which Terry is stopped-and-frisked by a white officer while looking for his daughter's lost blanket outside of his home. The fallout from this incident opens up space for a multiplicity of perspectives; Terry wants to file a complaint against the white officer, but Holt discourages him from doing so, concerned that Terry's career aspirations will suffer. Terry files the complaint, and he does lose out on a job, but Holt admits that his advice was misguided. Simultaneously, Jake and Amy struggle to explain institutionalized racism to Terry's young daughters. The episode does not offer a neat, utopian conclusion, valuing the space opened up by these conversations over a singular message. I'm straying dangerously close to the pitfalls of Hendershot's analysis, so I'll end my adulation of Brooklyn 99 here.

Is Michael Schur single-handedly revitalizing television as a cultural forum? He does seem uniquely capable of writing comfort-food television (my favorite flavor of TV), and perhaps there's something to be said for the affective register of shows that could be considered cultural forums. Brooklyn 99, The Good Place, and Parks & Rec fit into a certain strain of saccharine, wholesome television (basically, my Netflix "Continue Watching" list), that soothes as it dips a toe into controversial topics. Or perhaps Gitlin is more useful here – the “warm embrace” of these shows softens thorny issues and permits their sublimation within the hegemonic system.

Prepare yourselves for my forthcoming Chidi-esque treatise on comfort-food TV as cultural forum.