Politics in Art and how The Twilight Zone 2019 failed

Nobody likes politics. Nobody likes discussing politics, nobody likes watching politics, nobody likes thinking about politics. Politics are divisive and depressing, causing arguments over discussions, often leading to awkward moments at family get-togethers if it's ever brought up. Do you know what people do like? Art, or more specifically entertainment. People like to discuss a show or movie they watched and even disagreements about them don't devolve to the point where people are screaming at each other. Outside of internet message boards that is but, let's be honest, most message boards are nothing but people screaming at one another for no good reason. So you can imagine what happens when these two are combined. People don't like politics and, by extension, don't like politics in their entertainment. You see this rejection all the time on social media, a piece of media comes out that has something resembling politics or an author says something political and people react negatively. Unless they agree with it but that's an entirely different issue. But with every reaction comes the inevitable counter-reaction, often coming from those whose politics align with the work in question, which often reads as this "Art has always been political". Now for as much as I hate politics in art and entertainment, it would be intellectually dishonest for me to say there wasn't some truth to that statement. Art can be and very often has been used for political purposes. Propaganda exists for a reason after all and one glance at comics and cartoons made during World War 2 should make it clear that entertainment can also be used for such purposes. So yes, art has a history of being political, but I think this is missing the point entirely. What both sides of this argument don't understand is, it isn't that the art is political, it's that the art isn't good.

There are two main issues when it comes to writing politics into a story. The first is that politics are difficult to write fairly due to the biases of the writer. The second is authorial intent vs audience interpretation. Art is subjective in it's meaning, what one person reads into a work might not be what the author intended to say. The Anime film "Grave of the Fireflies" is widely considered to be an anti-war movie even though the director has said that it isn't a war movie and contains no such anti-war message. Or how about the 1952 western "High Noon" which was intended as an allegory of McCarthyism and the blacklisting of communists in Hollywood but instead became decried by the Soviet Union as a "Glorification of the individual" when it emerged that it was the favourite film of the former Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower. No matter what intent an author has for a works meaning that doesn't necessarily translate to how an audience will view it. There are multiple reasons for this and one of them ties directly into the aforementioned "Grave of the Fireflies". The film, as we've discussed, is not an anti-war movie as per the words of director Isao Takahata but is rather a story on the dangers of isolationism and was intended as a wakeup up call to Japanese teenagers who were moving away from their parents, emotionally speaking to be clear, and turning to crime and violence. Many old school Anime fans will notice the theme of teen violence in many Anime during the eighties and nineties with the most prominent example being the highly acclaimed Akira. The anti-war message in "Grave of the Fireflies" is mostly a western interpretation as many in the west were unaware of the Japanese social climate at the time, not helped by the fact that it wouldn't gain a wide western release until several years after it's initial Japanese theatrical release. It's hard to predict about how an audience in your own country will react to a given work but it becomes nigh on impossible to fathom how different countries, some with a radically different culture to your own, will view a given piece of entertainment. And considering many movie studios are aiming more and more at the international market is it now coming into sharper focus for you as to why the politics in movies these days aren't just on the nose but so far up the nose it's merged with the brain stem at a subatomic level?

But all of this still doesn't fully explain the intense backlash many modern movies, games, comics and TV series get when they insert politics into their stories. No, I think the main reason is something far more straight forward. Modern media, is shit. Badly written garbage that's so preoccupied with getting their message out that they forget to tell a good story in the meantime. "The Last Jedi" may get a little backlash for its anti-capitalist message but it's the abominable writing and complete rejection of established characterisation and lore that truly drove fans away. But I think we're getting too broad here, it's too easy to paint all modern media this way but it would be unfair. No, we need to get specific, zoom the camera right in to see the painstaking details. I'm going to look at one show and analyse how writing politics into a story can go so badly wrong. And I can think of no better target than the 2019 reboot of The Twilight Zone.

I've already talked about the Twilight Zone reboot before, you can read my review if you want my full opinion on the show, but that was more of a general discussion and I only briefly glossed over the political aspects. This time, we are going in deep. I have three episodes that I think perfectly encapsulate different ways of what not to do when writing politics into a story. To be fair there was an episode that does do it right, "The Blue Scorpion". It isn't perfect mind you, that final narration couldn't have screeched "Gun control now!" any harder if it tried, but the politics didn't distract from the main story. So yes there are times when 2019 Zone gets it right. Now let's talk about what it gets wrong.

The first episode up to the chopping block is "Replay". The basic premise of the story is that an African American woman is trying to get her son to college while being constantly harassed by a racist cop who keeps getting in their way and causing the sons death. Thanks to a magic camera the woman possesses, she is able to rewind time and try again several times. It's only when she finally reconnects with her estranged brother that she can finally get her son to college and stand up to the racist cop. On the surface there are two themes that run concurrently throughout the episode, familial connection and racism. From looking over the basic plot, familial connection would appear to be the main theme, it not only ties directly into the motivation of the main character but it also ends up being the solution to the conflict of the episode. So by glancing over the plot, one would think that would be the main focus of the episode, if one wished to be wrong. No, this episode is far more focused on the theme of racism, in particular the theme of police violence against African Americans. Not a bad theme to discuss but there are two main issues with how this episode handles it. Firstly, how it affects the plot. The idea of a camera that can rewind time is a good one, a perfect fit for a Twilight Zone story, and there are a lot of ideas and unique philosophical ideas such a story could bring up. Do we control our own fate? Is it set in stone or can we truly control our destiny and if so what does it take to accomplish such a task. "Replay" asks none of these questions rendering the time controlling camera as little more than a plot device, something to merely keep the plot moving without contributing to it in any meaningful way. What's worse is that this makes the episode incredibly boring. A story about a person having to restart a journey due to running into several obstacles isn't a bad one but when it's the same obstacle, that plays out in the same way each time, eventually, you're going to become predictable. Once the audience catches on to how the episode works any tension you build is going to be worthless because we know how things are going to play out. If the episode wanted to be about racism it should have picked a better story device that worked with the theme itself. As is it feels sloppy.

Now let's talk about allegory. Science fiction and fantasy have often used allegory to touch on larger social issues. Allegory is a good means to convey a message to an audience because of its subtlety, and it allows more creativity when discussing the topic at hand allowing the writer to fit this theme into a fantastical setting without it feeling out of place. A lot of science fiction shows do this, Star Trek is a great example of this, so is the original Twilight Zone series and this new series does an admirable attempt at this in a few episodes, though whether or not they succeed we will soon see. Now that we've established this, what is the allegory in "Replay"? Well since the fantastical element of the episode is the time controlling camera the allegory must come from that. The closest thing I can think of that pertains to an allegory is that police brutality is such an issue that it feels like history is repeating itself, hence the mother constantly rewinding time whenever her son dies. Two issues with this. First, it doesn't work. The idea of time repeating itself isn't a bad one and has been used as an allegory for other themes in the past, the most famous of which being "Groundhog Day" which used it as a theme of self-improvement, but it doesn't work here because it's the same event happening in mostly the same way with the same people involved. That's not history repeating itself, that's the story repeating itself. You could say that I'm stretching to create this allegory in the first place and I wouldn't argue against that, I'm not even sure it's even what was intended. The second issue is that the theme of history repeating itself is not the main theme of the plot. The main themes, as we've discussed, are familial connection and police brutality/racism. So where's the allegory for those? There is none. No subtlety here just the blunt force message of "police are racist". No attempt at subtlety, no creativity just the same message you've seen a million times before with a weird time travel gimmick thrown in. It's one thing to have fantasy elements to a story, but if it's little more than a gimmick then what's the point?

Now let's talk references because there's a trend with the references in this episode that we need to discuss. Let's talk about two of them in particular. The first reference happens in the very beginning of the episode, the son mentions that he hasn't seen his uncle since "Kaepernick took the Niners to the Superbowl". I don't know much about American Football, on account of being British and not giving a crap about sports, but I know who Collin Kaepernick is. I know who he is, not because of his football career, but because of his activism. Activism which targeted police violence against African Americans. The second reference happens near the end when the son is given a box of comic books, in particular the Tah Nehisi Coates run of Black Panther. Now I AM a fan of comics, at least casually, and from what I know the Coates run of Black Panther is not a popular run. It was cancelled after only a few issues and many comic book fans consider it one of the weakest runs of the character. It's also fairly recent so it feels odd that they would treat this run as a big collector's item. Why not use the original run? Or if you want a run by an African American, why not use the more beloved Christopher Priest run? It's considered the gold standard by comic book fans and is far longer than the Coates run making it more impressive if you collected the whole thing. Is it because Tah Nehisi Coates is a notable activist for African Americans while Christopher Priest is a cynic who attacks both sides of the political aisle? Probably. These references are so obvious and so forced that they suck you out of the story. It's hard to get invested in the plot when the theme is being shoved in your face this hard. Mind you this only applies if you notice the underlying theme of the references, if you don't they just come across as stilted and awkward.

The sad thing is, "Replay" is the best episode we'll be talking about in this. Sure the message is conveyed with all the subtlety of a neon light bedecked mac truck, it may lack any kind of creativity in presenting its message, relegating it's fantasy elements to little more than a gimmick leaving the allegory to desperately pray for a reason to exist, but at least it has some kind of narrative core to hold it together. The politics are merely just window dressing over a story about the importance of family and what one is willing to do to protect a loved one. It's just the window dressing completely eclipses that story and makes it hard to make out. But at least it has a narrative core that isn't just about politics, which is more than you can say for what comes next.

Next up we have "Not All Men". This episode is about a meteorite that pollutes a small towns water supply causing all the men to become primal and violent. The main character is a woman caught in the middle of this while dealing with an abusive relationship. Well, I say that but it wasn't a relationship so much as a bad date that got very intense and a little violent. If you haven't gathered by the plot synopsis, the theme of this episode is toxic masculinity. Full disclosure, I do not believe that the modern interpretation of toxic masculinity to exist. I believe the term has been used more as a basis to attack men and masculinity in general rather than have any real discussion on the actual toxic aspects of masculinity. Toxic masculinity itself is difficult to define because masculinity itself is a nebulous term that means different things to different people. To some being masculine is being a good husband and father, others see masculinity as a need to protect others. Many see masculinity as a positive trait in men and would argue that "toxic masculinity" isn't masculinity at all, which I agree with. Those who bully or abuse aren't men, they're cowards. I could go on but the discussion of masculinity and toxic masculinity could be it's own separate discussion so I'll just leave it at that and go straight into the episode.

Now that we've established this, how does "Not All Men" tackle toxic masculinity? Unfortunately in the worst way possible. Right from the beginning the episode plays its hand. The main character, Annie, asks her nephew why men want to beat the crap out of each other, to which the nephew responds, "because we're dudes". Now to the episode's credit, this conversation happened in response to the nephew wanting to beat up the guy Annie went out with who tried to force himself on her, so at least the violence was to be used to protect a loved one. Obviously violence is never to be the first response, but violence in defence of oneself or a loved one is still better than senseless violence. Oh and this isn't a trait exclusive to men, I know women who have threatened violence in defence of a loved one too. Speaking of senseless violence that's exactly what most men partake in due to the effect of the meteorites, destroying property and attacking random people for no reason due to the effect of the meteors. Annie's brother in law also succumbs to this and beats a guy to death for stalking Anne and her sister even though he was previously shown to be a pretty ok guy. But wait, I forgot to mention something, a little twist in the tale that changes the context of what is going on. This of course means I am going to have to spoil this episode but I am not spoiling much, this episode is so predictable you can call it almost plot point by plot point based on the preview alone. It turns out that the meteorites were little more than a placebo, and that the men were acting violently entirely on their own accord.

I'm going to shelve the politics for just a second because I feel like when we start talking about it we may get distracted from one of the main issues of the episode. Namely that the twist makes absolutely no goddamn sense. First off, the time frame of events in this episode is unclear but it can't have been any less than a day. For one a meteorite strike would have attracted the government and meteor collectors almost right away. Since the government only shows up at the end we can assume that the time frame of the episode's events takes place during a single day, maybe two if I was feeling generous. This wouldn't be a problem if the meteorites were the cause of the violent behaviour, viruses can and do spread quickly after all, but now that the meteorites didn't do anything, well now we have a problem. Who concluded that the meteorites did this in the first place? How did this rumour spread so quickly in such a short amount of time? If the meteorites didn't do anything why did the men's eyes turn red when drinking the infected water? Why do only some men realise its a placebo? If it is a placebo shouldn't more people have realised it sooner? Why did women not come to the same conclusion the men did and act similarly? The plot is broken. This twist completely decimates any narrative sense the episode might have had, it simply raises too many questions that shouldn't have been asked to begin with. It feels like the twist was added simply because it's the Twilight Zone and therefore it must have a twist. Mind you this is only if you ignore the underlying politics because if you don't, things start to make sense.

See the questions I asked do have an answer, the reason that the men started to act violent despite the meteorite being little more than a placebo is because men are inherently violent by their nature. Bear in mind that this is not something that I believe personally but it's the only way that this twist works. The only way this episode works and even has a plot is if the men are inherently violent. Now you can probably understand why I would be bothered by this as a man but let's really look at this. Toxic masculinity can come from a variety of places, abuse, poor parenting, a lack of a strong father figure. There are many arguments for where it comes from, in fact it was originally coined by men's rights activists believe it or not, so for this episode to just say, "toxic masculinity exists because men are inherently toxic", is not only grossly offensive towards men but actually unhelpful in dealing with the issue at large. Rather than talk about the underlying causes of toxic masculinity, it would rather paint all men as toxic in broad strokes and call it a day. What's worse is that it implies that all men are tribalistic with no sense of individual actions or responsibility. I get that peer pressure exists but just because I see a group of men acting like barbarians doesn't mean I'm gonna suddenly start punching women or kicking babies. I'm not even that offended at the politics I'm more offended by how lazy this episode is. Now I know what you're going to say, "but Jackson, the title is Not All Men and some men aren't depicted as violent. Surely the episode isn't saying all men are bad." Au contraire my friend. While there are men in this episode that do not act in a violent way these are exceptions and exceptions do not exist without a rule. Let's be honest the whole #notallmen thing this episode pulled its title from was a mistake. Anyone who used it was basically saying, "yeah most men are bad but not all men are", even if that wasn't what they intended to say. Then again what do you expect from Twitter.

So we've established that the twist makes no sense, we've established that the politics are lazy and badly handled, in isolated cases both would be bad but what makes "Not All Men" worse is that both are intrinsically connected. To be blunt, without the politics the twist does not exist and because the twist destroys the episodes plot, the politics, by extension, ruin the episode. Granted even without the twist this would still be a mediocre episode, it's not that dissimilar to a bland zombie movie frankly, but with the twist ending and the cavernous plot holes it creates, this might be one of the worst Twilight Zone episodes I've seen. And all of it could have been avoided without the underlying politics forcing the writer to create the twist just to hammer home a point that wasn't well thought out to begin with.

Before we go on I want to talk about a trend you may have noticed. Each of the episodes we've talked about are a reaction to recent events. "Rewind" was a response to the shooting of Treyvon Martin whereas "Not All Men" was a response to the #MeToo movement. There's nothing wrong with writing stories based on current events, South Park is a master at doing it, but something about the way it's done here feels off. I think it's because most of these feel like talking points you would see on CNN or MSNBC, there's a very clear left-leaning bias in the show. I get that most entertainment media is decidedly left-leaning but for The Twilight Zone, a show that regularly showcased common flaws in our shared humanity, it's really disappointing. If you're going to get political it's best to attack both sides of the aisle because no one side is exclusively right or wrong. This is not the case with Twilight Zone 2019. Here there are clear good guys and bad guys. In "Replay" all police officers are racist, it even ends with the ominous sound of a police siren for god's sake, and nearly all the men in "Not All Men" are violent jackasses. There is no nuance here, if you are part of the groups mentioned you are bad and if you aren't you are good, irregardless of who you are as an individual. Yes, racist police officers exist, yes violent men but to say that all officers are racist and all men are violent is wrong. There is a clear bias here and the show makes no attempt to hide it.

But let's take this bias, this vilification of one side of the argument, and put it to a multifaceted issue, immigration. This is "Point of Origin", the final episode I'm looking at. I will give "Point of Origin" this, it is the most well put together plot-wise of the three episodes. There's no twist that kneecaps the plot and the fantasy element is not a gimmick and does work as an effective allegory. That's not to say it's a good episode, because trust me it isn't, but it is the most well thought out plot-wise. The actual plot itself is fairly simple, Eve Martin, a housewife living an idyllic life with a loving husband and children, is whisked away from that world by the government and soon discovers she is in fact an immigrant from another dimension and finds that she is no longer welcome. Tortured by the government for answers she soon escapes with her housemaid, also an immigrant, and returns home, only to discover that she is no longer accepted by her husband and is soon carted off once again, only this time it is permanent.

Before we get to the negatives of this episode I do want to talk about one positive element of the story that I did actually like. Let it not be said that I'm not a fair critic. At one point Eve is talking to Anna, the housekeeper I mentioned earlier, and discovers that despite hiring Anna for a good amount of time, she doesn't actually know anything about her or her family. Eve knows Anna has kids but can't actually name one of them. This scene caught me off guard because it's something that few talk about. While middle class and upper-class families will hire illegal immigrants as servants very few of them want anything to do with them despite advocating for and helping them through employment, not because it's the right thing to do but because of how it benefits them. This ignorant hypocrisy is not only a good thing to call out but could have made for an effective episode in its own right. Sadly this one scene is only a brief moment in a nearly hour-long preach fest.

So I've been calling Eve an immigrant but that isn't entirely accurate. It would be far more apropos top call Eve and the other dimension hoppers as refugees given that the dimension they originated from was doomed. This is a strategic distinction. See immigrants come to a new country for a variety of reasons but it is often by choice, refugees are forced to leave their homes for things outside of their control. Framing the dimension hoppers as refugees makes them more sympathetic than if they were just immigrants. After all, who would hate on a refugee escaping to a new land for the sake of survival, you would have to be some kind of horrible racist to do something like that. If that sounds intentionally manipulative, it's only because it is. But this is important to note here because the writer wants you to empathise with the dimension hoppers as much as possible and despise the people that want them gone just as much. They don't want to portray those who are against immigration as anything other than the scum of the earth, they are not rational, fair, even-handed or even justified in their actions whatsoever. The main justification the government gives as to why they want the dimension hoppers gone is they are disrupting the lives of citizens that are already there, the problem with that reasoning you ask, we never see such disruption take place. There are two ways of viewing this writing decision and both are terrible. The lesser of the two evils would be to simply call this an example of tell don't show, which is bad but more forgivable. The other, far more likely, reason is that the writer wanted to portray this reasoning as non-existent. A thinly veiled lie to justify getting rid of these undesirable dimension-hoppers simply because they don't belong there.

This has some problems. First, regardless of your position on the subject, I think we can all agree that immigration does cause issues. Socially, culturally it does cause problems not just for the citizens living there but for the people left behind in the country the immigrants are escaping from. To take the issues that people have with immigration, to portray it as nonexistent, to say "you just don't like immigration because you're a racist", is intellectually dishonest. The issue of immigration is a complex and multifarious one, and the problems people have with it is more than just "DEY TUK OUR JERBS!!!!", and you should be wary of any story that tries to portray the issue as such. By the way, go back and watch the South Park episode that quote is from, "Goobacks" it's called, it goes into the issue of immigration far better than people give it credit for. Now if you've been paying attention to the news in the last four years, you may recall an issue that was brought up where border patrol was separating children from their families and the resulting backlash the organisation ICE received from it. I bring that up because this episode is a very clear response to that. We can all agree that children shouldn't have been treat the way that they were, we can all agree that immigrants coming into the country should not be treated like animals, but to inflate this as a reason to support immigration in its entirety, without any regard to the legitimate concerns people have regarding it, is ridiculous. To write the story of "Point of Origin" in such a way shows that the writer has no interest in actually engaging with the issue instead wanting to guilt-trip those who oppose their position, a position that has been influenced by an emotional response to an event that is one part of a very complex issue that the writer has then simplified to a such a degree so as to push that position on the audience. While I wouldn't call "Point of Origin" outright propaganda, it certainly skirts dangerously close to it.

The second problem is that by vilifying those who are opposed to immigration in such a way, the episode devolves into preaching to the choir. Politics is like a coin, there are always two sides. If I write a story tackling abortion and give it an anti-abortion slant then I probably am going to have people who are already anti-abortion agreeing with me but it's not those people I should be targeting when writing such a story, it's the pro-abortion people. Why? Because they're the ones I would need to convince of my position. To do that, I would need to consider their position and reasonably lean into their arguments, treat them with respect so they would be willing to listen to my arguments. If I don't, if I wrote them as baby hating monsters, chances are they won't be willing to hear what I have to say and then I'm only appealing to a group who were already willing to agree with me. "Point of Origin" suffers from this. By painting all people who are anti-immigration as racist xenophobes who want less illegal immigration simply because, "they don't belong there," well they aren't going to care about the message then. Even if the message was as unifying as, "don't kick puppies," no one will listen to you because you've portrayed an entire group of people as irredeemable assholes. Meanwhile, the side that already agreed with you will heap with praise because you've played into their confirmation bias.

Sadly the story of "Point of Origin" won't convince people either because of how married it is to the politics. I know I praised the story as being well put together, which it is there aren't many major plot holes that I noticed, but because the plot is so married to the message there's almost nothing to enjoy about it if you don't agree with it. The story has no real depth, few interesting characters, in short, there's nothing here for you if all you want is a good story. So focused is it on the message that it forgets to tell an engaging story. What's worse, you can apply that last criticism with every episode I've talked about. "Replay" has it a lot better, because it actually tries to have depth, but both "Not All Men" and "Point of Origin" are both so married to their message that it is all but impossible to sit down and enjoy them without feeling like your being preached at. Even if you agree with them that has to be very annoying. The original Twilight Zone was a master at storytelling, yes it could get political but it was the brilliant writing that kept bringing people back week after week. This new series hasn't quite reached that point but it has shown that it can shelve politics in favour of telling a good story. The two best examples are "Wunderkind" and "The Blue Scorpion". Both do have political messages but both are able to shelve them in favour of telling a good story. I just wish it did it more often.

So why did I write this? Aside from wanting to rag on the new Twilight Zone. Because I'm tired of politics being at the centre of every conversation regarding media instead of discussing how well the writing handles the message and whether or not the message is detrimental to the story being told. Politics has completely dominated media criticism. If a work agrees with the politics of the critic it will receive unanimous praise, if it doesn't it will be ragged through the coals. Meanwhile, audiences, who at the end of the day just want to be entertained, are largely being turned away by media that tries to shove its message in their faces. I know some people will cringe when I say it but, there's a reason the saying "go wok, go broke" exists. Not because audiences can't except political messages in media but because they're tired of feeling lectured. They just want good stories and they aren't getting that from a lot of shows and movies nowadays. This has caused a cavernous divide between critics and audiences, if you go to Rotten Tomatoes it's not uncommon to see the critic and user ratings to be on opposing ends of the scale. If you want an example, look no further than the most recent season of Doctor Who. Critics may be throwing the show a parade but the audience? They're not so impressed, with many claiming the show has died after the latest finale, and critics seem to only be praising the show because the show's politics line up with their own. I have no doubt that many Doctor Who fans are doing something similar, hating on the show simply because their politics don't align with the show, but most of the ones I've seen are hating it because of its poor writing and complete disregard for canon, you know things critics are supposed to criticise, and the Rotten Tomatoes score is a great indicator for how deep the divide between critics and fans is like.

Note that this is an older image and does not show the actual score. my apologies, this was the only image I could find but the score it has now isn't that far off from this.

The problems with the politics in the three episodes I've covered isn't the messages, it's in the way the messages are portrayed and how they negatively impact the stories. The politics are a problem but only because the writing isn't good enough, the stories are incapable of portraying the messages with any kind of subtlety and, to top all that off, the stories themselves are mediocre at best. If you shelve your own personal beliefs for a second and look at the stories through an objective lens, you realise how heavily flawed they are. We cannot allow bad writing to get a pass simply because we agree with its message. However, we also cannot simply take politics out of the equation. People who say that art shouldn't be political are fooling themselves, art should be political. Art should be provocative and challenge the preconceptions of those watching it. If we removed politics from art we miss out on some truly groundbreaking work. "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Dr Strangelove" and yes the original "Twilight Zone" are all works with strong messages and would not exist if we removed politics from art. But the one thing a work must be to get that message across, is to be good. Would "To Kill a Mockingbird" message of equality have had the impact that it has had if the writing and performances were sub par? No of course not. To get an audience to listen you must first capture the hearts of the audience and a bad movie cannot do that. We cannot simply take politics out of art, but we can criticise it when it's done badly. There's a right way to write politics into a story, there's a wrong way to write politics into a story and if we aren't critical of the wrong way to do things then things will only get worse and eventually that cavernous divide between critics and audiences will deepen and deepen until the only ones left watching these shows and movies are a gaggle of obnoxious asshats that constantly praise things for mercilessly agreeing with them. You tell me if that's a future worth living in.