Fact check: Is Snowfall based on a true story?

John Singleton's Snowfall was a story of tragedy and poverty, which told the tale of Franklin Saint as he became part of the same cycle of addiction that he had once sought to condemn. However, as the show aired its final episode on April 19, 2023, the show mixed fact and fiction to tell a poignant story about the darker side of the drug industry.

Many fans wonder whether Snowfall is based on a true story, and it succeeds as a historical work because it is set against the backdrop of the 1985 crack epidemic in Los Angeles. However, the characters, especially Franklin Saint, are a product of imagination. In other words, while inspired by real events, Snowfall is not based on a true story.

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Snowfall is about the crack epidemic

Snowfall deals with the drug industry and the very real crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1900s. The very presence of crack cocaine served to counter the decreasing cost of cocaine, whose prevalence had led to an 80% drop in the decade. However, since drug dealers needed to make profits off the drug, they had to find a smokable, alternative form of cocaine which could be sold in smaller quantities.

Known as crack cocaine, the drug made appearances across the major cities in the USA, and this is explored in Snowfall. However, another real event that is highlighted in this period piece is the relationship of crack cocaine with the African-American community. Snowfall delves into the racial segregation policies that have caused black communities to dwell in a constant state of poverty.

Due to said poverty, these communities were being constantly targeted by drug dealers, leading to the families being disproportionately impacted by the crack epidemic. This further intensified poverty and drug usage, which caused the people to be embroiled in a vicious cycle of addiction and tragedy. In other words, the story accurately portrays how crack cocaine became the catalyst for a criminal ecosystem.

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Franklin Saint is an imaginary character who acts as a victim of the criminal ecosystem

This is hardly the first show to target the evils of drug abuse, especially as fans of Breaking Bad, Narcos, and The Wire would testify. However, what differentiated this story from these shows was the racial coding. The Wire and Breaking Bad featured predominantly Caucasian main characters, but Franklin Saint, played by Damian Idris, is part of the black community.

Franklin is painted as an antiheroic character who spent the first five seasons contributing to the rise of addiction and crime in his neighbourhood. He is portrayed as a vicious and manipulative person who does not even leave his childhood sweetheart and his best friend's girlfriend out of his drug addiction cycle. Of the show, writer and producer Cheo Hodari Coker said:

"The one thing I think was important to John is that it reflect a certain reality, a certain soul - that deep, deep Blackness that comes from a place and a texture that only we know and understand."

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Fans can catch the seasons on FX.