Brooklyn Nine-Nine Stereotypes

Representations of non-dominant identities in broadcast television have been on the rise in recent years. Along with these increased representations, comes the careful navigation of avoiding inaccuracies and making generalizations, sitcoms are no exception to this. Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks and Recreation are the product of showrunner and co-creator Mike Schur (Evans). These two shows do exceptionally well with the inclusion of diverse cast members and main characters, they reflect how diversity can be celebrated on TV without being exploited. However, the quality of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s inclusion of non-dominant identities surpass those of it’s sister show Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec aired on NBC from 2009-2015 and was a workplace sitcom about employees at the Pawnee, Indiana Parks and Recreation Department. Pawnee is portrayed as a small middle American town where everyone knows their neighbors. This show followed the cast not only at work but in their personal lives documentary style. In terms of personal …show more content…
It is a workplace sitcom about New York City police officers in the Brooklyn ninety ninth precinct. This show portrays Brooklyn as an urban community with many diverse people, not unlike the ‘real’ Brooklyn. Like Parks and Rec, this show follows the main characters at their job and in their personal lives, but not documentry style. Brooklyn Nine-Nine does have a smaller main cast, but taking that into account, there are four non-white, and five white main characters. Identities of the non-white characters include Cuban American, African American, and Latina. The main cast of characters is comprised of three females and six males, there are two men and two women who are non-white identified. Unlike it’s predecessor, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has had a main character since the beginning of the show who identifies as gay, and is an integral part of the cast continuing into it’s fourth