Brooklyn Nine-Nine Star Calls for Police to Be Portrayed More Realistically in Movies and TV

The social unrest related to issues of racial injustice and police brutality have prompted changes not just in municipalities across the country, but in entertainment as well, especially when it comes to shows about or depicting law enforcement. For NBC's hit series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, that's meant restarting development on its upcoming eight season entirely from scratch, but for series star Andre Braugher a lot more needs to change and not just for Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The actor says the way police officers are presented on television needs to change overall.

According to Braugher, police need to be portrayed more realistically and he gave Entertainment Weekly's The Awardist podcast a pretty specific example about the idea of breaking the law for the greater good as a myth that needs to be "destroyed".

"It's a very complicated subject, but I think they have to be portrayed much more realistically, in terms of this: The convention... that police breaking the law is okay because somehow it's in the service of some greater good, is a myth that needs to be destroyed," Braugher said.

He went on to explain that Brooklyn Nine-Nine will itself need to deal with its own presentation of the police going forward as well.

"We're going into an eighth season with a new challenge which is that everyone's knowledge and feelings about police... have been profoundly affected," he said. "What we have from [creator] Dan [Goor] is a commitment to write a smart show that will not attempt to hide itself in a fantasy. So the Nine-Nine is going to have to deal with what we know about the New York Police Department."

Earlier this year, Braugher's co-star Terry Crews also spoke about how the series would address things, noting that the four episodes for the eighth season that had been ready to go were scrapped.

"We've had a lot of somber talks about it and deep conversations and we hope through this we're going to make something that will be truly groundbreaking this year," Crews said at the time. "We have an opportunity and we plan to use it in the best way possible. Our showrunner Dan Goor, they had four episodes ready to go and they just threw them in the trash. We have to start over. Right now, we don't know which direction it's going to go in."

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