*The long-running TV reality series “Cops” has been cancelled at Paramount Network following a nearly seven-year run.
The show debuted on Fox in 1989 and aired for 25 seasons. In 2013, Spike TV ordered new episodes, and rebranded as Paramount Network in 2018. As noted by TV Line, altogether, 32 seasons and more than 1,100 episodes of “Cops” have aired.
“Cops is not on the Paramount Network, and we don’t have any current or future plans for it to return,” a network spokesperson said in a statement.
Cancellation of the docuseries comes amid national protests over police brutality.
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Hattie McDaniel, Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind – 1939
*HBO Max has reversed its decision to remove “Gone With the Wind” from the platform following criticism over the film’s depiction of slavery.
The platform previously announced that it would temporarily pull the iconic drama after “12 Years a Slave” screenwriter John Ridley published an op-ed in the Los Angeles calling for the removal of the title because it depicts slavery in a positive light.
Ridley writes, in part:
Let me be real clear: I don’t believe in censorship. I don’t think “Gone With the Wind” should be relegated to a vault in Burbank. I would just ask, after a respectful amount of time has passed, that the film be re-introduced to the HBO Max platform along with other films that give a more broad-based and complete picture of what slavery and the Confederacy truly were. Or, perhaps it could be paired with conversations about narratives and why it’s important to have many voices sharing stories from different perspectives rather than merely those reinforcing the views of the prevailing culture.
Currently, there is not even a warning or disclaimer preceding the film.
I know taking down a film — particularly a classic Hollywood film — seems like a big request. But it’s not nearly as big a demand as when your children ask whether they can join protests in the streets against racial intolerance, or when they come to you wanting to know what you did to make the world a better place.
At a moment when we are all considering what more we can do to fight bigotry and intolerance, I would ask that all content providers look at their libraries and make a good-faith effort to separate programming that might be lacking in its representation from that which is blatant in its demonization.
Following outcry from cinephiles and fans of the classic, the streaming service said the original film would be brought back but “with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement” of racist scenes and the depictions of slavery, per TMZ.
HBO Max added, “‘Gone With The Wind’ is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society.” When the movie returns, it’ll be “presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”
Read Ridley’s full article here.
