Rapper and actor Ice T plays Fin Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. (NBC/Getty)
Rapper and actor Ice T has absolutely no time for fans of Law & Order: Special Unit for Victims and claims the show has become “woke.”
Born Tracy Lauren Marrow, the actor has played the role of detective Fin Tutuola in NBC’s Emmy-winning crime series since 2000, making him the series’ longest-serving male star.
After sharing a photo from the set of the upcoming 26th season on X/Twitter, he was faced with the reaction of a dissatisfied fan who decided that Law & Order: SVU had suddenly woken up.
“Have they written SVU back to normal yet? It was starting to wake up,” the viewer asked.
In a scathing response that has since gone viral, Ice T replied, “What the f*** is woke? Like I give a f***.”
When another of the star’s followers tried to explain – albeit jokingly – what “woke” means, Ice T had another answer ready.
“Woke means tearing down my John Wayne statues and forcing me to build a Spider-Man fountain that sprays gay beer on my lawn and turns it into astroturf,” the fan joked.
“That sounds awesome…F John Wayne,” Ice T replied.
In view of this Law & Order: SVU is a crime series that addresses a wide range of societal issues, including domestic violence, sexual harassment, male rape and spiking.
When asked by another viewer what exactly was “woke” about the show, the original author of the poster didn’t have much to say.
“It got to the point where it was ridiculous. I’ve watched SVU since the beginning. It’s changed,” they responded.
The series first aired in 1999 and over time has increased diversity in both victims and investigators, for example by including more black and LGBTQ+ main characters in the series and better portraying the treatment of transgender victims of crime.
If anything, the show has been criticized in recent years for having too few LGBTQ+ characters after the police force’s only queer detective, Kat Tamin, left the series in 2021.
Ice T insisted: “I stay out of the political shit. Like I said… The blues against the reds… To me, that’s gangbanging.”
He previously admitted that he had found his role on television increasingly difficult in recent years because the programme could give the impression that it was “making the police look good” in the face of high-profile cases of brutality and attacks on ethnic minorities.
Season 26 of Law & Order: Special Unit for Victims is set to air next year and older episodes can be streamed on platforms such as Hulu, Apple TV and Prime Video. Season 25 will air in the UK on Sky Witness.
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