Abolition: For Your Consideration

pop justice takes on the 2022 74th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards

pop justice is Scalawag's newsletter exploring the intersection of popular culture and justice—namely through abolition. Sign up here.

Scalawag launched pop justice to reckon with the way copaganda distorts our understanding of our criminal-legal system and ultimately stalls abolition. The slate of television shows up for nomination at the 2022 74th Primetime Emmy Awards are no exception. In this special edition of pop justice, we've invited writers to call out potentially award-winning copaganda of the last year—and to highlight abolitionist storylines lurking in our favorite shows.

Watch this space during and after TV's biggest night of the year for even more reviews and critiques of the nominees.

How to do away with copaganda: Three Emmy-nominated shows to watch with an abolitionist lens

As we wind down from the 2022 Emmys, we're examining how Barry, Under the Banner of Heaven, Arcane missed—and met—the mark.

"I hope there's someone in the writers' room with an abolitionist mindset. Because I know how the cop closure ending goes. We all do. We've seen it. What else is possible?"

by Kaitlin Fontana, Rebecca Bodenheimer and Naa Djama Attoh-Okine September 16, 2022December 4, 2023

Only Murders in the Building exemplifies the lies in 'true' crime

From true-crime encouraging neighbors to police each other to the liberal lie that Black cops mean progress, two critics reflect on the Hulu series' portrayal of true-crime obsessions.

by Adedoyin "Ade" Adeniji and Bria Massey September 16, 2022December 4, 2023

The Dropout dramatizes Elizabeth Holmes' fraudulent rise. Endless military funding is also a scam.

A Black woman in tech reflects on the rise of Elizabeth Holmes, arguing that the Theranos founder got as far as she did because of her commitment to advancing the military and prison industrial complex under the guise of "technology for social good."

by Bria Massey September 13, 2022December 4, 2023

Yellowjackets shows a world without police as disorderly. Abolitionists aren't buying it.

Instead of depicting and sensationalizing a post-disaster world home to teenage girls turned cannibals, an abolitionist from the U.K. asks fellow organizers about the promise of building a new society.

by Molly Lipson September 13, 2022December 4, 2023

RuPaul's Drag Race visibilizes queerness—and the police state

We need to talk about the police officers RuPaul keeps inviting into a world where they don't belong—especially as real-life cops continue to endanger queer Black lives in particular.

by Sezin Koehler September 12, 2022December 4, 2023

The White Lotus is supposed to be satire. Hawaiians deserve the last laugh.

Even if The White Lotus tries to be an indictment of white privilege and settler colonialism, its use of policing and stereotypes make a mockery of existing systemic harm.

by Mariah Rigg September 12, 2022December 4, 2023

Abbott Elementary and the promise of schools without cops

Without cops or school resource officers roaming the hallway, Abbott Elementary invites us into a world that's possibility-laden, imaginative, and abolitionist.

by Eteng Ettah September 12, 2022December 4, 2023

pop justice isn't about policing the media you consume (even you, true-crime bingers). Instead, we see pop culture as a relatable and—even enjoyable—entry point to tough and necessary conversations about abolishing the police state. Subscribe today so we can get free (and kiki) together:

more in pop justice:

Hell and High Water: From Gaza to Mississippi

This essay contains images that some may consider distressing. His face haunts me. Through the blur of the rain that splatters his face, I see his short black hair slicked against his olive skin. I see his features contorted, perhaps permanently, in anguish deeper than I hope to ever know. He cries out in a…

by Mary Annaïse Heglar

'It's not a story—it's a life:' A look at Snapped, from the inside

'What's true in true crime, is that somebody's dead. That's the only truth.'

"True crime" relies on the manipulation and simplification of facts to create entertaining narratives. Elena Kiejliches, who was featured on Snapped in 2004, reveals how her story was twisted to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about women's violence.

by Elena Kiejliches and Molly Hagan

Come on Barbie, give us nothing!

The film's hypnosis of capitalism, nostalgia, and lifelessness punts meaningful concepts into the void—but maybe that's the point.

"This is not a sweeping biopic of a beloved figure, but it's clear that we want it to be." Barbie may have no point other than highlighting the irony of the astronomical public value assigned to the entertainment industry compared to that of its creators.

by Virginia Walcott

Barbie: Pretty Police

An abolitionist perspective on the Barbie movie's depiction of a larger-than-life, imaginative universe as a reminder to keep fighting to build in our own worlds anew.

What Barbie does get right about oppression brought on by patriarchal violence and gender inequities is that it's something that was created—and therefore, can be destroyed. "As an abolitionist today, imagination is fuel."

by Eteng Ettah