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 Thirty years after "Rock the
Vote," a liberal nonprofit group, fused pop
culture and politics, TV makers are seeking to
make dry topics like registering to vote,
filling out the census and finding polling
places feel vital and fun by writing them into
the plots of popular shows.
In "Black Ink Crew," a reality show about a
tattoo parlor in Harlem, the Black owner
registers to vote for the first time and designs
a tattoo to mark the occasion. The
Cuban-American family comedy "One Day at a Time"
ran an episode about a census worker who comes
to their home.
"We're seeing a reshaping of how Americans are
encouraged to think about civics, not only
through a 30-second PSA (public service
announcement) but also through integrations into
storylines on some of our major shows," said
Steven Levine, director of the Civic Alliance.
The Civic Alliance, launched in January, is
supported by more than 180 companies including
ViacomCBS Inc <VIACA.O>, Spotify <SPOT.N>,
Univision and Hollywood's Creative Artists
Agency (CAA).
Earlier this year, ViacomCBS rolled out a Civic
Storylines Toolkit and organized workshops that
have been attended by more than 200 writers
across comedy, drama and reality shows.
The toolkit provides a road map on how to
"infuse storylines around voting and voting
culture directly into our content, instead of
the more traditional approach of PSAs," said
Brianna Cayo Cotter, senior vice president of
social impact at the ViacomCBS entertainment and
youth group.
"Television can really shape the way people
think and feel around major issues. But that
philosophy had never been applied to civic
engagement," Cayo Cotter said.
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 Many of the shows are aimed at
millennials and Gen Z, who together outnumber
baby boomers for the first time in the U.S.
electorate, according to a 2019 report by the
Pew Research Center. An upcoming
episode of comedy "black-ish" will focus on
first-time voter Junior, who discovers he has
been dropped from voter lists and wants to find
out why.
The main cast of White House drama "The West
Wing," which finished its run in 2006, is
reuniting for a special episode aimed at
promoting voting in November.
Actor Kal Penn, from stoner movie franchise
"Harold and Kumar," is launching comedy show "Kal
Penn Approves This Message" on the
youth-oriented Freeform channel that will tackle
topics like healthcare and climate change as
well as information about how and where to vote.
"It's very important for the show to be funny
and non-partisan," said Penn. "Younger people
tend to not be affiliated with a political party
the way older audiences are. They tend to care
more about issues," he said.
The initiatives are already yielding results.
Appeals by Trevor Noah on "The Daily Show" have
resulted in more than 100,000 people signing up
to be poll workers through dedicated links on
the show's website, ViacomCBS said.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant)
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