Small polyester tents — orange, green, blue — stretched across the grassy quad. Makeshift wooden signs and banners dotted the encampment. Sleeping bags and coolers were scattered on the ground.
The scene resembled one that cropped up across the United States this past spring, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up camp at dozens of colleges and universities. But the encampment at Queens College on Tuesday was a case of art imitating life. “F.B.I.: Most Wanted,” a police procedural drama that airs on CBS, had erected it for an upcoming episode involving a climate protest.
The episode will air during the show’s sixth season, capitalizing on a student movement that captured global attention, led to thousands of arrests and fueled debates over activism on American college campuses. The Hollywood version created on Tuesday was decidedly dystopian, featuring an explosion at a campus building and actors holed up in the rubble of the school’s dining hall.
Angered by what they saw as the trivialization of their movement, a small group of protesters organized by the pro-Palestinian groups Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine gathered on the Queens College quad a few feet away from the set. “They’re using our campus to film propaganda,” they chanted. The group numbered around 15 people, and it was unclear how many, if any, were students.
Queens College was not the site of its own encampment earlier this year. The school’s president, Frank Wu, closed numerous entrances to the campus during the protests, which may have deterred a camp from forming.
Many shows come to campus to film, a representative said.
“Queens College, similar to many campuses, is often the site of television and film shoots by reputable production companies and media outlets,” the school said in a statement. “In this case, the campus community was advised in advance of the anticipated media shoot parameters, including the fact that the episode would focus on a climate change/environmental issue protest at a fictitious college.”
But the protesters gathered, who declined to speak directly to The New York Times, argued that it was irrelevant that the fictional demonstrators were backing a different cause. In a flyer handed out to passers-by, the group criticized the “malicious framing of this film shoot.”
“The rental of the QC campus for this film shoot is a clear attempt to simultaneously demonize and profit from the student movement,” the flyer read.
Queens College was otherwise quiet on Tuesday, with many students gone for the summer. Grecia Cisneros, a rising senior, walked past the quad with a friend on her way to a class.
“I’m neutral about it,” Ms. Cisneros, 21, said of the film shoot, adding that she was sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian cause. “I’m glad they feel empowered over it, though.”
Thousands of college students nationwide participated in the encampments, which began in April and lasted into June. The protests called for a cease-fire in Gaza and for their administrations to divest from Israel and U.S.-based arms manufacturers, among other demands.
Though the protests were largely peaceful, isolated incidents led to mass arrests, clashes with counterprotesters and, in some cases, canceled graduation ceremonies.
At Columbia University, more than 100 students were arrested and many were suspended, their access to dorms and dining halls revoked. At the University of California, Los Angeles, the encampment was attacked by a group of counterprotesters waving Israeli flags. A firework was shot into the camp, injuring students.
The film shoot at Queens College began on Monday, but production wrapped early after a group of protesters gathered at around 5:30 p.m. On Tuesday, the shoot proceeded as scheduled, and by noon the encampment set had been broken down. Producers for the show declined to comment.
The scenes filmed on Tuesday were dramatic. Prop windows placed on Powdermaker Hall, a multipurpose campus building, were blown out by a staged explosion; fake glass and debris littered the steps and the path leading to the quad. In the dining hall, a campfire burned under a caved-in ceiling as a fog machine filled the set with smoke. Bloodied extras wandered campus with torn clothes and dirt smeared on their faces and arms.
As one actor emerged from the dining hall between takes, a small group of protesters seized the opportunity to confront him as he fished a sparkling water from a cooler.
“Is this your big break?” one of them asked him. “Is this going to make your career?”
“I hope so,” he said.
The protesters took particular exception to the blown-out Powdermaker Hall, where plastic blinds hung askew outside the jagged remnants of the prop windows.
“That never even happened,” one said as she walked past.
Crew members responded to the protesters with a mix of bemusement and irritation.
“How do you feel copying us?” one protester yelled toward a group of crew members walking next to the quad. “That’s not even what we’re doing,” a crew member responded.
Another protester handed the crew members handwritten leaflets that implored them to avoid perpetuating a pro-police narrative.
“You are talented and creative,” they said. “Don’t waste it on copaganda.”
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