TV SERIES | RACE
How ‘Presumed Innocent’ Uses Race To Make Us Complicit in Murder
Apple TV+ delivers a legal thriller that explores the implosion of a multiracial family while exploiting and seducing the rest of us.
Caution! Spoilers ahead!
Scott Turow’s 1987 legal thriller Presumed Innocent was definitely due for an update. In the nearly four decades since its publication, a lot has happened to warrant a new look: the nation’s first Black president, the #MeToo movement, and a significant decline in the public’s trust of our legal system from the Supreme Court down.
There’s been an uptick in the presence of multiracial families in commercials and TV shows. We’ve gone from The Jeffersons and Good Times to Scandal, Blackish, and Bridgerton. On the political stage, we’ve traveled from the quixotic to the plausible — from Shirley Chisholm to Kamala Harris.
Surely, the zeitgeist has shifted enough to serve up a multiracial family as the centerpiece of this year’s 8-episode update of Presumed Innocent on Apple TV+. On one level, the decision to cast Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga as the interracial couple at the heart of this drama was a safe bet. The show is currently the top-rated TV series in the country.
