5 ms·

Can you give some examples of shows, scenes, or dialogue that you find particularly objectionable, and why?

ODILON_SATER 5y ago
An example is the complete unnecessary cast of Caroline Henderson (a black woman) to the series "Vikings: Valhalla". I understand it is a fictional story, but these are Vikings for pete's sake. The only reason they cast her was evidently for diversity reasons. It is a distraction to the story, I immediately turned off. Though we know that not all vikings had blonde hair, some may be even a bit more dark skinned, but definitely not black. And it is more laughable because she's a character that yields some power in the Viking society. Laughable and a distraction to the story. Another example of a series that, instead of focusing on its central theme, ends up injecting politically-motivated content is the series "High Score". Listen, I understand that a small portion of early video game enthusiasts care about those things, but for a series that has a purpose to tell the relevant stories about creation and development of video games in the 80s and 90s, you just can't help but to think that they felt that they needed to inject some LGBT content in it such as in episode 3 on the story about the 1st LGBT RPG game GayBlade. They end up leaving more relevant content on the table to shoehorn these themes into the series. Not everything needs to be "gay", or having a "gay angle".
andrew_ 5y ago
I've never seen a question like this asked in good faith on HN. Seems it's always to pick a fight.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  I'm honestly curious too. Our kids watch chip & potato, octonauts, number blocks, and all sorts of things. None of it seems political. But maybe I'm missing something. Hell, Netflix even has barbie cartoons, which leftists don't exactly view highly.
- otterley 5y ago
  I ask to elevate the level of discussion here. Speaking in generalities and characterizing people's work without evidence is too facile; you can go to other popular social media sites for that. Elsewhere in this thread, my gentle prodding has led to discussion of some actual shows and scenes that people are thinking of, and it's led to much more interesting - and less heated - discussion.
- stonogo 5y ago
  That's funny, because I've never seen a question like this answered, except with handwaving about how the poster can't say more, or they don't want to get distracted with specifics, or a handful of other reasons the original claim can't be backed up.
- sofal 5y ago
  I think it's because most of the time the "politics" that are objected to tend to be things like having an LGBT character in a show. While it's probably not true that everyone who complains about "politics" on TV these days are objecting to LGBT people, it is almost certainly true that everyone who watches TV and gets disgusted by seeing an LGBT character will code their disgust in terms of "being tired of politics" shoved down their throat, etc. Thus it tends to be very likely that the person complaining about "politics" is simply masking a disgust of others' identities, but doesn't want to get into specifics because it would be a bad look. Therefore the question asking for specifics is interpreted as a way to pick a fight, because they know what might ensue if they actually got into specifics.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Nonsense, its simply that if writers are engaged in social signaling some of that results in much worse shows and that is seriously annoying. Consider two shows that I watched in the same Week, Wheel of Time and Arcane. Both shows have a very clearly modern perspective, and are very much in line with what we might call 'woke' culture. Arcane did this in a brilliant way, a great love story between female leads of the show. Genuinely showing lower class struggle, corruption and so on. Both the villains and the heroes (and in between) have a wide range perspectives, capabilities and identities. Great show, well executed. Wheel of Time had a writer who made it a clear mission statement to transform the source material into a woke version of itself, going so far as to say 'this is how it would have been written today'. The show also has a female lead in a lesbian relationship, but one that feels forced and has little emotional core. Unlike Arcane there is a clear trend where females were powered up to a sometimes a hilarious degree, all antagonists were stereotypical boring men and all the main leading male characters were basically boring did basically nothing and their many story somehow relates to their relationship with a powerful women. If 'Wheel of Time' was just another show, it would just be a badly written show. However that it is adoption of well known source material shows the writers bias and political message quite clearly. Almost nobody is against LGBT characters or show that have woke politics in them. Its when it is badly done that it is annoying. The same in the past would apply to war propaganda movies. If its a very well done and executed it can be great content. But most that produced with that goal in mind is just lame. To suggest that the majority of people who criticizes shows for 'wokeism' are just LGBT haters is absurd. Its equally wrong as to suggest that all people who object to war propaganda movies are pacifists. The reality is that these studies want shows with these kinds of messaging in them and that a great deal of content ponders to that political outlook. Just as in the past content providers have pondered to politics as well. It does not mean you disagree with the political outlook, it just means I don't need it to be shoved into my face at every opportunity by lazy writers.
arghnoname 5y ago
I think water sanitation is vital, good, etc If every show I watched had ham-fisted dialogue about how great water sanitation is, how we should all happily pay more taxes to support it, how flushing chemicals down the toilet is evil, etc, I'd turn the channel off. Even if you agree with the message, being preached to can be off-putting. If you disagree with the message and people like you are framed as cartoonish villains, it's a different matter entirely.
pineconewarrior 5y ago
Thank you for taking the time to call these people out (or at least asking them explain themselves). Calmly thinking through ones prejudices, even if only to defend them, is an easy way to erase them.

An example is the complete unnecessary cast of Caroline Henderson (a black woman) to the series "Vikings: Valhalla". I understand it is a fictional story, but these are Vikings for pete's sake. The only reason they cast her was evidently for diversity reasons. It is a distraction to the story, I immediately turned off. Though we know that not all vikings had blonde hair, some may be even a bit more dark skinned, but definitely not black. And it is more laughable because she's a character that yields some power in the Viking society. Laughable and a distraction to the story. Another example of a series that, instead of focusing on its central theme, ends up injecting politically-motivated content is the series "High Score". Listen, I understand that a small portion of early video game enthusiasts care about those things, but for a series that has a purpose to tell the relevant stories about creation and development of video games in the 80s and 90s, you just can't help but to think that they felt that they needed to inject some LGBT content in it such as in episode 3 on the story about the 1st LGBT RPG game GayBlade. They end up leaving more relevant content on the table to shoehorn these themes into the series. Not everything needs to be "gay", or having a "gay angle".

andrew_ 5y ago

I've never seen a question like this asked in good faith on HN. Seems it's always to pick a fight.

bcrosby95 5y ago
I'm honestly curious too. Our kids watch chip & potato, octonauts, number blocks, and all sorts of things. None of it seems political. But maybe I'm missing something. Hell, Netflix even has barbie cartoons, which leftists don't exactly view highly.
otterley 5y ago
I ask to elevate the level of discussion here. Speaking in generalities and characterizing people's work without evidence is too facile; you can go to other popular social media sites for that. Elsewhere in this thread, my gentle prodding has led to discussion of some actual shows and scenes that people are thinking of, and it's led to much more interesting - and less heated - discussion.
stonogo 5y ago
That's funny, because I've never seen a question like this answered, except with handwaving about how the poster can't say more, or they don't want to get distracted with specifics, or a handful of other reasons the original claim can't be backed up.
sofal 5y ago
I think it's because most of the time the "politics" that are objected to tend to be things like having an LGBT character in a show. While it's probably not true that everyone who complains about "politics" on TV these days are objecting to LGBT people, it is almost certainly true that everyone who watches TV and gets disgusted by seeing an LGBT character will code their disgust in terms of "being tired of politics" shoved down their throat, etc. Thus it tends to be very likely that the person complaining about "politics" is simply masking a disgust of others' identities, but doesn't want to get into specifics because it would be a bad look. Therefore the question asking for specifics is interpreted as a way to pick a fight, because they know what might ensue if they actually got into specifics.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Nonsense, its simply that if writers are engaged in social signaling some of that results in much worse shows and that is seriously annoying. Consider two shows that I watched in the same Week, Wheel of Time and Arcane. Both shows have a very clearly modern perspective, and are very much in line with what we might call 'woke' culture. Arcane did this in a brilliant way, a great love story between female leads of the show. Genuinely showing lower class struggle, corruption and so on. Both the villains and the heroes (and in between) have a wide range perspectives, capabilities and identities. Great show, well executed. Wheel of Time had a writer who made it a clear mission statement to transform the source material into a woke version of itself, going so far as to say 'this is how it would have been written today'. The show also has a female lead in a lesbian relationship, but one that feels forced and has little emotional core. Unlike Arcane there is a clear trend where females were powered up to a sometimes a hilarious degree, all antagonists were stereotypical boring men and all the main leading male characters were basically boring did basically nothing and their many story somehow relates to their relationship with a powerful women. If 'Wheel of Time' was just another show, it would just be a badly written show. However that it is adoption of well known source material shows the writers bias and political message quite clearly. Almost nobody is against LGBT characters or show that have woke politics in them. Its when it is badly done that it is annoying. The same in the past would apply to war propaganda movies. If its a very well done and executed it can be great content. But most that produced with that goal in mind is just lame. To suggest that the majority of people who criticizes shows for 'wokeism' are just LGBT haters is absurd. Its equally wrong as to suggest that all people who object to war propaganda movies are pacifists. The reality is that these studies want shows with these kinds of messaging in them and that a great deal of content ponders to that political outlook. Just as in the past content providers have pondered to politics as well. It does not mean you disagree with the political outlook, it just means I don't need it to be shoved into my face at every opportunity by lazy writers.

arghnoname 5y ago

I think water sanitation is vital, good, etc If every show I watched had ham-fisted dialogue about how great water sanitation is, how we should all happily pay more taxes to support it, how flushing chemicals down the toilet is evil, etc, I'd turn the channel off. Even if you agree with the message, being preached to can be off-putting. If you disagree with the message and people like you are framed as cartoonish villains, it's a different matter entirely.

pineconewarrior 5y ago

Thank you for taking the time to call these people out (or at least asking them explain themselves). Calmly thinking through ones prejudices, even if only to defend them, is an easy way to erase them.