Elon Musk says he canceled his Netflix account — and urges his followers to as well

[RileyG]

Good grief. Netflix has always had content that required parental guidance, or that was inappropriate for children altogether. I would never sit a 10-year-old in front of Netflix and say "Watch whatever you want; I'll be back in a couple of hours." If you don't like the show, don't watch it.

My thoughts exactly! Adults can watch what they want and make choices about their own viewing habits!

 

[RileyG]

I am sure that between the alimony and child support, the kids are doing far better than kids who were raised as "theybies."

I’m sure they’re all pretty wealthy. I just cannot help but wonder what they think of their dad ic he’s present in their lives at all?

Oh well.

Not my monkey, not my circus.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

I quoted the maker of the show, and based on their own words, this show in particular was more than just having a character.

So in this case, it's not merely that a gay character was in the show... it sounds like activism was the point.

I don't know how you get "activism was the point" from those quotes. Seems to me, the point was to make a cartoon about LGBT characters dealing with issues encountered by people (teens especially) in the LGBT community, and life in general, in the US. That's not "activism" - it's just a different demographic. There are shows where the whole cast is Black and the core themes are all about Black (American) culture - would you call those shows unrealistic or activist? Or do they just have a target audience?

 

[rambot]

I quoted the maker of the show, and based on their own words, this show in particular was more than just having a character.

Steele describes this as not just being simple representation, describing it as “meant to be in the structure and the bones of the show.”


And in another part of the interview:

TD: The original was supposed to be more of an adult cartoon, and I know it still has a curse word and references to porn in it. And I know that you were asked to take some of that out to make it more youth friendly. So I guess my question is: what was that decision like when you were making the Netflix show? Did you always want it to be more friendly for kids? Or were you originally thinking about making it adult-oriented like your original project?

HS: No, funnily enough the adult comedy was added to it. I didn’t pitch it as adult, and then Cartoon Hangover’s brand at the time was trying to make more adult cartoons, and then halfway through production they changed their mind because I think it demonetized their videos, and that was their whole business model. So it used to be a lot worse. There was some proper bad stuff in there.

So we took out what we could and we left in the stuff we did, and we still think it’s funny. And then the comic was more YA, I wouldn’t say adult, I guess more teen. It kind of set the tone of the show. No, I wanted it to be kind of kid friendly but see what we could get away with.


So in this case, it's not merely that a gay character was in the show... it sounds like activism was the point.

Given the demographic makeup of the characters, they swung the pendulum in the other direction when it comes to societally proportional representation.

As I noted from the synopsis of the show earlier. 80% of the main characters non-cis/non-straight...that doesn't represent demographic reality either.

You may be surprised to know that a lot of those people are ostracized in that particular culture group and so they tend to hang around each other. In other words, it's a show about a friend group of lgbtq.

So yeah, it makes 100% sense.

I don't know if you'd even encounter those kinds of ratios at a Sam Smith concert.

So we both haven't seen the show I guess.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I don't know how you get "activism was the point" from those quotes. Seems to me, the point was to make a cartoon about LGBT characters dealing with issues encountered by people (teens especially) in the LGBT community, and life in general, in the US. That's not "activism" - it's just a different demographic. There are shows where the whole cast is Black and the core themes are all about Black (American) culture - would you call those shows unrealistic or activist? Or do they just have a target audience?

It would depend on context, the issues they were regularly discussing, and whether or not they were trying to make any sort of political statement.

For example, the cast of Family Matters was all black, and I can recall one, maybe two?, episodes of that show that delved into some heavier racial issues, the rest was just regular old comedy about guy getting driven nuts by his nerdy/genius (but clumsy) neighbor.


Which is very different than a show like this:

Dear White People (TV Series 2017–2021) ⭐ 6.4 | Comedy, Drama

30m | TV-MA

www.imdb.com

 

[durangodawood]

Basically, when characters in shows deal with real life situations where politics currently intrudes, thats "activism".

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Basically, when characters in shows deal with real life situations where politics currently intrudes, thats "activism".

Seems like it.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Basically, when characters in shows deal with real life situations where politics currently intrudes, thats "activism".

Real-life situations like say, when you run away from home in your teens as a trans-masculine gay identifying person to go live in a magic theme park (that evidently employs everyone but straight people), and solve mysteries with your BIPOC neurodivergent lesbian friend who likes Muslim chicks, and an androgenous fallen angel?


Let's be honest here...

If it's a supposed to be a show for young people that's stated intent was to be a comedic show about solving mysteries, then the gender identity and sexual orientation are irrelevant. If people want to some representation fine... but if those two aspects are getting shoehorned into the plot regularly, and the intent is "we need to make sure kids see this as normal, because the adults in their life may not be guiding them down our preferred ideological path", then that is a form of activism.


If someone made an animated & simplified adaptation of Atlas Shrugged that was designed to appeal to the 10-16 demographic, and then tried to play it coy and say "no no, it's not activist at all, it's just a story about a railroad owner and an inventor trying to keep their family businesses alive", most of us would call BS on that, because clearly the intent of that work is to persuade people to a particular way of thinking about certain issues, simply by virtue of who the various protagonists and antagonists are in the story.

 

[BCP1928]

Real-life situations like say, when you run away from home in your teens as a trans-masculine gay identifying person to go live in a magic theme park (that evidently employs everyone but straight people), and solve mysteries with your BIPOC neurodivergent lesbian friend who likes Muslim chicks, and an androgenous fallen angel?


Let's be honest here...

If it's a supposed to be a show for young people that's stated intent was to be a comedic show about solving mysteries, then the gender identity and sexual orientation are irrelevant. If people want to some representation fine... but if those two aspects are getting shoehorned into the plot regularly, and the intent is "we need to make sure kids see this as normal, because the adults in their life may not be guiding them down our preferred ideological path", then that is a form of activism.


If someone made an animated & simplified adaptation of Atlas Shrugged that was designed to appeal to the 10-16 demographic, and then tried to play it coy and say "no no, it's not activist at all, it's just a story about a railroad owner and an inventor trying to keep their family businesses alive", most of us would call BS on that, because clearly the intent of that work is to persuade people to a particular way of thinking about certain issues, simply by virtue of who the various protagonists and antagonists are in the story.

No, it's to present a different way of thinking to the audience for their consideration. That's what stories are all about.

 

[RileyG]

Don't like a show? Don't watch it. Problem solved