Prison Politics and Casting Real People as TV Characters

Rob Henderson joins me to discuss the Apple TV+ miniseries Black Bird, which is based on the true story of a convicted drug dealer named Jimmy Keene and how he was enlisted by the FBI to befriend and elicit a confession from alleged serial killer Larry Hall.

We talk about its portrayal of prison politics, or lack thereof, and how believable we find the characters and how they interact with one another. We discuss PC and aesthetic casting changes, in which they made one real life white prosecutor black, invented an attractive female FBI agent, and took a fat white sheriff and made him skinny. Rob and I are grateful for these last two changes at least.

The unrealistically attractive FBI agent they added to the show, plus the white local sheriff she is working with, who is based on an actual person but is fat in real life. Source.

The show ends with us talking about the merits of different streaming services, including the difference between Netflix and Apple TV+, and the prospects of DailyWire+ succeeding in this space.

Links:

CNN documentary.

Bill Burr talking about the Larry Hall story in 2016 while providing running commentary to a Dateline episode.

Listen here or watch on YouTube.