Plan B Forum

As thousands throughout the world continue to take to the streets to protest police brutality, anti-police sentiment has already led to the cancellation of long-running law-enforcement reality TV shows “Cops” and “Live P.D.”.

Another police-themed television show is also getting hit with backlash, and it’s an unlikely one: “Paw Patrol”, the adorable animated series about a team of canine public servants, led by a German Shepherd police dog named Chase.

On June 2, the “Paw Patrol” Twitter account issued a tweet declaring the children’s show would “be muting our content until June 7th to give access for Black voices to be heard so we can continue to listen and further our learning.”

However, a tweet linking to an article in comedy-news site The Onion muddied the waters, with some not realizing the story about a “Paw Patrol” writer defending an episode in which the “German Shepherd cop shoots unarmed black lab 17 times in back” was clearly a joke.

As a result, #PawPatrol began trending on Twitter, as some called for the show’s cancellation, othersdefended its positive mess, and still others simply mocked the whole controversy.

Meanwhile, an op-ed in the New York Times takes the position that “Paw Patrol” can be seen as problematic, as it promotes the “good cop” archetype to children at a time when social media is bursting at the seams with video footage of police brutalizing unarmed, peaceful protesters.

“Cops can dance, they can hug, they can kneel on the ground, but their individual acts of kindness can no longer obscure the violence of a system,” the op-ed notes, adding, “The good-cop act is wearing thin.”

https://etcanada.com/news/655753/paw-pa ... _o-gIG6gWc