Of the numerous television series that have populated our modern viewing experience, a majority pertain to crime/legal drama and police procedurals like Suits, NCIS, and Blue Bloods. Given the rise of the genre, it is not surprising that audiences are more than entertained by the relentless barrage of do-gooders on TV and their representation of episodic justice served up on a silver platter.
Besides the feel-good purpose of these television shows, projects like Law & Order: SVU and Chicago P.D. have no basis or authority in perpetuating a false portrayal of society being constantly served and protected by the finest and bravest. The actual stats are far less damning than what people have now come to believe, courtesy of the increased rate of crime procedurals on TV.
NCIS and Blue Bloods Share a Terrible Connection
Television has come far since the days of I Love Lucy and family sitcoms. Now, the platform is designed to be just as layered in its storytelling and just as premium in its viewing experience as the big screens of cinema. Revolutionary shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Succession, and Game of Thrones have proven that TV is capable of exploring much more than the 90 to 120 minutes offered by film.
However, in the wrong hands, the power of television can be misused and wielded inappropriately, eventually causing more harm than good. Recent statistics have shown that there has been a huge uptake in crime drama and police procedurals since the 1990s and the shows have so far been received favorably by the viewers. But most of these shows perpetuate a major racial stereotype, thus negatively affecting the socio-cultural mindset of the people.
According to a study conducted on 26 series from the 2017-18 session [via Los Angeles Times], results show that 21 of them had white men as showrunners. 20 out of 26 series had no black writers or just one in their writers’ room. Shows like Mark Harmon‘s NCIS and Tom Selleck‘s Blue Bloods have an all-white cast, with 75-80% of them being male.
CBS Procedurals Face a Dark Future
Both Mark Harmon’s NCIS and Tom Selleck’s Blue Bloods are being aired by CBS, making the network complicit in the lack of diversity represented in both these procedurals. The shows have had a major cultural impact on the viewers, considering how the long-running shows are still finding a steady audience base among shifting times.
IMDb ratings confirm that NCIS and Blue Bloods stand at 7.8 and 7.7 respectively, making them still very popular among the masses. As such, the harmful stereotype that NCIS and Blue Bloods are enabling with their 100% white and 80% male cast needs to change promptly in order to move with and adapt to the times.
Other CBS series like Elementary and NCIS: Los Angeles are high on the list as well with 90% and 82% white cast members respectively. While the real world strives to fight against an ever-widening racial divide, shows that fill our evening entertainment slots are fuelling and subconsciously ingraining a damning ideology that promotes white male privilege even as we cross over into the second quarter of the 21st century.