Nouveau projet multimedia The Marshall project.
A fascinating dive into the history of “Cops” and how it shapes/reflects perspectives on policing.
Bad Boys- How “Cops” became the most polarizing reality TV show in America.
▻https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/01/22/bad-boys
To Stephen Chao, the former Fox executive who helped launch the show, its unvarnished simplicity remains one of the most radical things he’s ever seen on television. To Steve Dye, the police chief of the Grand Prairie Police Department in Texas, where the show was recently filmed, “Cops” is a powerful marketing and recruitment tool amid historically challenging times for law enforcement.
“Cops,” of course, is no longer the Fox behemoth it was in the ’90s, when it topped more than 8 million viewers an episode and was often the most watched reality show. Robinson proudly attributes this to Color of Change: In May 2013, a few months after the group launched a campaign to oust “Cops" from Fox, the show moved to Spike. There, it flourished, becoming one of the channel’s most watched shows with an average of 1.1 million viewers per episode last year. This season featured its 1,000th episode, while a Hollywood adaptation, possibly directed by Ruben Fleischer, of “Zombieland” and “Gangster Squad,” is expected to be released this year.
And yet, “Cops” almost never happened. This is the story of how it did—and the polarizing, influential thing it became.
