Of course Snoop Dogg’s sold a family sitcom to NBC. Of course he has. Ice Cube’s already paved the way, going from roles in Boyz n the Hood to a mini family entertainment empire built around movies and TV spin-offs like Are We There Yet? Up next, he’s doing what Ice-T did in transitioning from “Cop Killer” to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, by playing a cop in the remake of 21 Jump Street.
I don’t really begrudge anyone who sees an opportunity to make some money, and I do appreciate it when the market tips people away from treating women like objects. But there’s space between, say, Snoop Dogg with a houseful of Glee-like misfits and something like “Fuck tha Police”:
Racial profiling, say, doesn’t stop when you get extremely rich and famous, even if you don’t have some of your old problems, like having to share a car while you cruise around trying to pick up girls. It’d be nice to see folks like Snoop and Ice use their power to produce a compromise with mass culture rather than a total capitulation to it. It’s possible to be an adorably bumbling dad who also encounters institutionalized racism — and maybe to be an even more effective spokesman in that kind of role.
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