More Media
Ξ April 14th, 2009 | → | ∇ 90065, Glassell Park, Press |
I love spotting the neighborhood on film and in television. I don’t love it enough to have rented Yes Man, but I do watch Life occasionally, which is a testament to just how much of a sucker I am for LA cop shows. (More on the later.) The commercial for the KIA Soul has about a one second with hamsters in wheels running just north of the Avenue 50 Studios.
Highland Park Hamsters
Also, as I was out of the country, I wasn’t able to see the debut of NBC’s new drama Southland until last night. As I mentioned earlier, I love LA cop dramas and since The Shield went off the air, I’ve been forced to watch Life, which is trying to be way too cute for it’s own good. The actor from The OC plays a rookie cop who, wait for it…has a rough first day on the job. Much of the pilot episode seemed contrived and stereotypical: A self hating closeted homosexual partner, fellow cops that are sexist & racist, and detectives with marital difficulties. Furthermore, much of the first episode’s vignettes seemed lifted from other sources: The main character’s father is a wealthy defense attorney, which was part of the plot of Will Beall’s LA Rex. I knew the call for an unusual odor coming from a man’s house who owned dogs would result in the dogs having eaten him. (I think that was from a James Ellroy novel.) Also, the main character’s shooting of a suspect on his first day paralleled one of Robert Crais’ Joe Pike novels. Still, I suppose these stereotypes are used because they’re often accurate, and if borrowing good plot material was a crime, Shakespeare would have been drawn and quartered. I’ll be tuning in next Thursday, and even though I’ll be whining, “North Hollywood cops don’t make traffic stops in West Hollywood on Sunset!”, I’ll enjoy myself. The reason I’ve posted this review is that the pilot episode centers around an officer involved shooting that takes place in Glassell Park. Although the address is fictitious, (Fletcher and 136th St.) Glassell Park is made to look a lot like The Jungle in Training Day, or South Central in Boyz n the Hood. LA Eastside already touched on this, but I agree that this isn’t the best kind of publicity for the neighborhood. Hopefully they’ll try to keep the gang names fictitious, to avoid glorifying the lifestyle. At the very least, the show begins with the epigraph, “Only 9,800 police officers patrol the city of Los Angeles, an area of 500 square miles and 4 million people…”. Maybe this will encourage the city to continue fixing what is the most underpoliced city in the country.
