ABC's 'The Rookie' Smears Police Character as 'A Paid Bully for the City'
Adding to what has become a common theme of anti-police plots on cable and network dramas and sitcoms, ABC’s The Rookie featured a mother who tells her police officer daughter that she is “not proud” of her because she is a “paid bully for the city.”
The April 11 episode “Man of Honor,” featured the confrontation between newly graduated police officer Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil) and her mother Mrs. Chen (Lauren Tom) in which Mrs. Chen says in no uncertain terms that police work is not an honorable profession.
In the scene, Mrs. Chen rails against her daughter for becoming a police officer instead of going to college to earn an advanced degree. Mrs. Chen informs her daughter that she did not meet her to celebrate her achievement of becoming a full-time police officer. In the scene, the officer’s mother says that she and her father want their daughter to do something “meaningful” with her life, and that does not include being a police officer.
Mrs. Chen: Actually, I’m not here to celebrate. We need to talk about this whole police officer thing.
Lucy: What? Mom…
Mrs. Chen: Look, you gave it a year, proved you could do it. Brava. It’s time for you to do something meaningful with your life.
Lucy: “Something meaningful”?
Mrs. Chen: Yeah. Go back to school. Get your master’s. Have a profession.
Lucy: Being a cop is my profession.
Mrs. Chen: As a paid bully for the city?
Lucy: Is that how you see me?
Mrs. Chen: It’s how a lot of people see you. Especially now. I want to be proud of you, instead of hoping people don’t ask me what you do for a living.
Mrs. Chen goes on to scold her cop daughter, saying, “…you are risking your life for a thankless job, and we cannot be supportive of this any longer.”
Watch below via MRC:
The Rookie has featured woke plots all season and has joined a growing list of TV dramas and sitcoms pushing an anti-police message.
Network TV series includingMagnum P.I., This is Us, Law & Order: SVU, Chicago PD, SWAT, The Good Doctor, and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, all kicked off their respective seasons with woke plots featuring police racism and violence.
Law & Order: SVU, for instance, started its season with series star Ice-T speaking about how blacks can’t trust the police. On NBC, Chicago PD depicted a black cop framed by dozens of racist white cops. On S.W.A.T., star Shemar Moore’s character was shown being lectured about bad cops in L.A. And on the CBS sitcom The Neighborhood, police in America were portrayed as “the same system as slavery.”
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