...teabaggers are completely unreasonable on this front, demanding that their non-ideas and values and tribal identification be reflected back to them on TV, despite the fact that most of the producers and most of the audience don’t want any part of that. 

Why not?  They do that with politics, demanding that their non-ideas and values and tribal identification be reflected even though the rest of the population has voted for something different.

since the official values of our society are liberal. 

You’re absolutely right about this, though I doubt you could get hardly anyone in the Tea party movement to acknowledge it, even if you walked them through it slowly. But it doesn’t take more than a cursory glance at history to show that this is the case, and what’s more, that the arrow of history points toward greater equality and progress. When I confront some of my conservative acquaintances about this sort of thing, I ask them what, exactly, they’d like to return to—open racism? women being unable to find work outside a few, menial options? open gay-bashing?—and they always hem and haw, because they realize that these are, without exception, good changes our society has made. But they can’t admit that, because that means they’re wrong about liberal, progressive change, and they can’t handle it.

Damn, but those free markets are bitch.  Frakking wingers always trumpet the virtues of the markets until the markets do something they don’t like.

Haven’t the conservative talkers spent the last few decades telling their audience to boycott Hollywood?

And now they complain that Hollywood doesn’t reflect their values.

I bet Warner Bros. et al. are laughing their ways to the bank.

Is the giant sky boner above Jack Bauer’s head mere coincidence?

I’ve been pondering how much entertainment contributes to rightwing politics, and IMO it’s disturbingly enabling… too many cheap emotional hooks, ethical shortcuts, and episodes of unaccounted-for violence, which is not to say that more liberally-oriented entertainment would be, well, entertaining.  Basically (yeah, this is my soapbox), we’ve created a nation of Walter Mittys who fancy themselves action heroes in a world that terrifies them, and now view important domestic & international political issues as script treatments.  It’s depressing and pathetic, but also scary; at least librul Hollywood actors usually know the difference between scripts & reality, even if they don’t know anything else.

Damn, but those free markets are bitch.

Yeah, funny how one of the most free markets—entertainment, which any consumer can decide to forego—tends to reach unsatisfactory-to-conservatives conclusions regarding content.

It is sort of funny how conservatives pretend to not believe that disparities in income for women and minorities, groups who have undeniably faced discrimination historically, are caused by anything but rational market forces, and to suggest otherwise is nothing but “identity politics” and claiming victim-hood, yet they totally think that the vast liberal conspiracy is able to overwhelm the invisible hand in order to persecute conservatives.

Wishing that torture worked?  Doesn’t get more right wing than that.  But of course, it’s always in the service of liberal values at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Well, that’s explained by the conservative whine that their dirty-handed torturing and various other war crimes allow us to live in our liberal-values paradise, and that if we spent even one day looking at the hard, dirty work that keeps this great country going, we’d understand what important liberal values torture fulfills.

These people WANT to be angry. They want to feel persecuted. (Except for those who make a living pretending to be.) There’s nothing we can do, except wait for them to peel off gradually, which a fair number of them will. Very few people can sustain this level of moral outrage every single day; as long as we never make them admit they were wrong, most people will finally wake up one sunny morning and say “Aw hell, life is short and things aren’t that bad.”

“The only ism that Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.” - Dorothy Parker

Conservatives already have a channel dedicated to providing them with fictional stories: Fox News.

Aren’t basically all romantic comedies conservative gender-role drivel wrapped up in a “romantic” package?  They get rape apologism, and perpetuation of the worst stereotypes about gender roles.  What more do they want?

And let’s not forget about all the movies with tokens of various minority races/ethnicities.  Why aren’t they grateful for the perpetuation of those stereotypes?

I find it enduringly fascinating how right-wing authoritarians are forced to appropriate liberal language and rhetorical style in order to push their ideas in the mainstream. This pattern can be seen in Hollywood productions, but it is far more interesting as observed in the gun-nut militia literature, “Christian persecution” literature, and in the vast majority of lifer rhetoric. Unguarded racism, ungilded misogyny and clinical-level paranoia are all too distasteful to market straight-up - but if you put them in a wrapper which reads “freedom from oppression,” all of a sudden people are lining up to buy.

catgirl @11

Because that’s what they expect to be granted, as a given. Like with most whines by the right wing, they are bothered that the “other side” gets an airing at all. It’s “natural” that all romantic comedies depict gender stereotypes because “that’s just how men and women are”, but facing a single movie countering that by say depicting real women and men in love and it’s a screech fest about “liberal Hollywood”.

Like with all their accusations, they are fighting for the status quo, for the denial of any alternate viewpoints and the historical trend of life away from the oppressions of the past and into slightly more egalitarian futures.

So no, they aren’t going to bother with what they have unfairly, because they expect that from their privilege. That’s natural and a given and “they” are taking it away from them.

And that’s because the official values of our culture are liberals ones

This is behind the drive to conflate liberals with communists/socialists. Since your official values are liberal and even conservatives have mostly abandonned traditional conservative values (except for a few paleo holdouts like Buchanan/Raimondo/Ron Paul) outside of a vague adherence to social conservativism, they need to Other liberals and make them into aliens bringing in a dangerous unAmerican ideology which is *radical* and not just liberal. *Sure* all races are equal… but Dems don’t just want equality, they want *reparation* (ooooh, scary!). Sure women have rights, but they’re not like you and me, you know… they like shopping and they really should stay in the kitchen but it will be their own choice, not because we’re, like, oppressing them. Only non-feminine women think like that (and they’re all lesbians too!). Etc etc.

Personally most people outside the USA are baffled by the idea that Hollywood is particularly leftist. Liberal? Sure, I guess. But the values that come out of Hollywood tend toward the noblesse oblige imperialist version of liberalism, where America is this shining city on the hill that will bring civilization (read: democracy) to all the savage nations, and that’s why you need that giant army and engage in wars of aggression since WWII. Half the cultural production out of Hollywood (and I think I’m being generous by saying only half) is based in warrior culture. One of my most gigantic faux pas while I worked in the USA was going to a (non-action) movie with American coworkers and loudly scoffing at the nakedly propagandist trailer of Black Hawk Down. I got scolded for insulting the troops and got told that as long as I was in America I should pay a little more respect, plus as a Canadian I’m beholden for eternity to our glorious American benefactors who are solely responsible for the fact we’re not speaking Russian (okay, I’m exaggerating a bit about their reaction).

Remember the right-wing movie that was released as a response to one of Michael Moore’s movies?

I can’t remember its name.

Went over like a lead balloon.

“I can’t remember its name.”

American Carol?

American Carol—I was kind of ashamed that Kelsey Grammar was in that stinker.

I generally like his work.

Hey the teatards have that show about the Duggars at least.

Hollywood is a strange kind of liberal. Women never have abortions, black people are either magical or thugs, even poor people have big apartments/houses and can always get treated at the hospital.

Even the right wing christians realize their shit is boring.  Their crown jewel, the “Left Behind” series, which sold eleventy gazillion copies, has all the christians go to heaven in the first chapter, and all seven or so books are about the decadence of all the evil people left behind.  Even they don’t want to read about what’s going on in heaven.

“...since the official values of our society are liberal.”

A point on which I have long annoyed all of my friends and family: that the dominant ideology of our country, Liberalism, is invisible because we fundamentally all share it.

There is no such ideology as “American Conservatism”, there is simply conservative Liberalism, as opposed to progressive Liberalism as espoused here at Pandagon.

But what unites us really is larger than what divides us: we all do agree that all men are created equal, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and so on.

Wait a second, pro wrestling fans are overwhelmingly liberal!?

Color me surprised.

Interesting to see that race cars that can turn right have more liberal viewers than race cars that can only turn left.

“Remember the right-wing movie that was released as a response to one of Michael Moore’s movies?
I can’t remember its name.”

FahrenHYPE 9/11

Although none of the “lies” they unpacked from Fahrenheit 9/11 were nearly as compelling as the inconsistencies in Bowling for Columbine.

Hollywood is a strange kind of liberal. Women never have abortions, black people are either magical or thugs, even poor people have big apartments/houses and can always get treated at the hospital.

Dennis Miller, before he lost it:

“Hollywood does what it does for financial reasons alone.  If Hitler walked into this town with a script for Die-Hard in a hot air balloon, he’d have a 3-picture deal faster than you could say ‘Carrot Top.’  The liberalism of this town thrives only at living room fundraisers and over expensive wines at Morton’s & Spago.”

I think that Amanda’s too optimistic here; while a straightforward description of the reality of prejudice and violence would, of course, be horrifying, there are plenty of narratives ready to fit into any story described above.

Even conservatives would blanch at a character making a speech supporting the idea of colonist war for the hell of it.

It’s not a colonist war; the people of the oppressed nation are crying out for a less brown form of leadership. Perhaps the heroic freedom fighters will elevate a mighty whitey to become their leader, and thence welcome American culture with open arms.

Greedy CEOs exploiting the working classes are so commonly regarded as villains, it would be hard to reposition them as heroes.

They’re not exploiting the working classes; they’re fighting corrupt unions and their ridiculous demands in order to superheroically Create Jobs for the teeming masses who, without their largesse, would go hungry.

Imagine trying to portray a group of young men beating the shit out of a gay person as heroes; it can’t be done.

Those young men wouldn’t beat the shit out of a gay person; they’d explain to him the sinful error of his ways. Following some easy evangelism, the heroic boys, by their charity, bring the poor misguided fellow into their circle of friends, where he grows up happy, well-adjusted and straight. To make it go down easier, his gayness can be presented as the result of a terrible childhood, which those heroes bring him out of.

I’m trying to imagine a show like the one that Big Hollywood seems to want, where a major religious figure is portrayed as a hero for helping rapists elude justice, and I’m guessing that even they wouldn’t be happy with the results.

But in this story, it’s a bigoted campaign against an earnest do-gooder priest. In the past, maybe it would have been perpetrated by communists or Jews, but I think nowadays it would be a bunch of secular humanist types bent on destroying religion through slander, using “recovered memory” gimcrackery on their unwitting pawns.

See, it’s easy once you remember that everyone’s the hero of their own story. The point of telling these stories isn’t to present the truth; it’s to create an alternate version of it in our heads, so that when we see the reality, we change it to better line up with what we think it should be.

I also wonder how much of the CEO-as-villain thing is because who else do you have? Small-time crooks as villains isn’t interesting except in indie movies, government as villains is all over the place (although usually with a few brave lone rangers as heroes). If you need someone who can mobilize huge resources against your hero, it’s pretty much got to be someone rich and powerful. What always strikes me about it is the outrageous plans that the CEO villains have to concoct.

Meanwhile, hollywood does have something of a fetish for the salt-of-the-earth working class, who will usually show up those pointy headed, morally equivocating intellectuals. And if that ain’t a tea party value.

Don’t you see, Amanda. Those things you mention are CONSERVATIVE values. You Big Hollywood Liberals get away with playing the race card by constantly dwelling on ANCIENT HISTORY. The producers of The Color Purple and Mississippi Burning are the real racists.

If we poor long-suffering conservatives actually had a say in TV, there would be a Law and Order series where each episode the judge dismisses an EOE lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiff has been so misled by the feminazis that she couldn’t accept a simple harmless compliment about how great she must be at sucking cock with lips like those or she doesn’t get that it’s ok to put a picture of Obama playing a banjo and eating a watermellon on the bulletin board because Snoop Dog once wrote a song called Down for my Niggas. They should call it Special Playing the Victim Unit.

Furthermore, Senator Byrd, Party of Lincoln. Also.

The reality is that modern American conservatism simply isn’t all that. That’s not a surprise really. Look how inconsistent they are, basically rejecting ideas that they used to support. There’s no meat on those bones.

It’s simply a tribalistic culture (and a big one!) that is motivated more or less by a personal fear/disgust about the “other”. And the ultra-right media has done a really good job in motivating these people to feel this way towards liberals/progressives. I’ll make the same suggestion…re-read Blinded by the Right, and kinda read between the lines into the future.

What becomes clear, is that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the anti-Soviet activists got bored/out of work and needed something new to do, so they redirected all that energy on a similar blanket opposition of liberalism. And that’s what we have now. It existed during the Clinton years, the Bush years fed this energy non-stop, and now it’s at a fever pitch.

But at the end of the day, it’s not pushed by issues, or problems, or whatever. Conservatism is strictly a tribal identity that only defines itself as being against liberals.

The failure of “American Carol” was doubly schaudefreudelicious since they made such a big stink out of the fact that they were making a proper, conservative, real Amuriken movie despite those damn Hollyweird libruls.

See, Americans don’t really like the liberal view that Hollywood forced down their throats.  If real Americans had their way, Hollywood would make conservative pictures.  Movie revenue would go through the roof by making these conservative movies that real Americans want to see, but they are blocked b/c George Soros is an evil Jew who controls all media.

So they managed, through their grit and determination, to make a conservative movie!  And conservative American went to it.  And, much as tea party attendance has shown, true conservatives are not a very bit part of the country, and certainly not big enough to support the movie industry.  Unfortunately, as much as people like to make “Michael Moore is fat” jokes, they’d rather see his movies than “An American Carol”

  [Amanda]  Imagine trying to portray a group of young men beating the shit out of a gay person as heroes; it can’t be done.

[grendelkhan]  Those young men wouldn’t beat the shit out of a gay person; they’d explain to him the sinful error of his ways. Following some easy evangelism, the heroic boys, by their charity, bring the poor misguided fellow into their circle of friends, where he grows up happy, well-adjusted and straight. To make it go down easier, his gayness can be presented as the result of a terrible childhood, which those heroes bring him out of.
Comment #26: grendelkhan on 04/19 at 11:26 AM

Or the young people beating the shit out of the gay person are heroic service members.  Like in “Under Siege” starring Steven Seagal, where Gary Busey “faggs it up” as a traitor submarine captain.  He’s not bad because he’s gay, he’s bad because he’s bad. He just happens to be gay.  Or seem gay.

The people at Big Hollywood need to talk (if they don’t already) to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They’re able to put a comedy out on a semi-weekly basis that very often dishes up conservative and/or libertarian values. Hate crimes are bad because they’re a form of racism, environmentalism is a waste of time, foreigners angry at Americans are angry for no actual valid reason…

People can “misread” plenty.  As a Communications Major, many of us read a study about the lefty, anti-bigotry show All in the Family.  To the researchers’ surprise, many racist and bigoted people saw Archie Bunker not as an ignorant figure who was being mocked and debunked, but as the hero of the show, speaking the truth to the stupid layabout hippies.  It actually ended up reinforcing their views instead of undermining them.  Hooray for Hollywood.

This is just one more artifact of a far right that is politically empowered all out of proportion to their demographic strength. They’re just pissed that the disproportionate power they wield at the voting booth isn’t reflected elsewhere.

The modern brand of American conservatism also tends to be rooted in nostalgia for the mid-late 1950s and early 60s establishment culture, and most of the consie-acceptable fiction of that period falls very flat for a modern audience or has inconvenient racial elements.

Jake, a similar thing happens with the Colbert Report, and even South Park.  For a long time I thought Cartman was an asshole in an attempt to mock assholes like him.  Now I’m certain that plenty of people see him as a hero, and I’m suspicious that the writers intended it that way all along.

Maybe we should make more movies and shows that are blatantly making fun of conservatives, and then everyone will be happy because they won’t know the difference.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2010/04/19/2010-04-19_fox_too_liberal_for_you_kelsey_grammer_backs_upstart_rightwing_tv_network.html

Kelsey Grammer will push conservative tv whether anyone watches it or not.

Another show is called “Evan Sayet’s Right 2 Laugh,” a comedy show that “proves funny people and funny things come from both sides of the aisle,”  Grammer said in a clip.

Sayet, a conservative comic and commentator, says he started the show because, there “weren’t many voices for the right values coming from the comedic side.”

I don’t think they get it.

(*** WARNING: Minor spoilers for an old, little-known show ***)

I can think of one show that would work—take Jericho and change who the ultimate bad guys are.  Personally, I’ll be happy NOT to watch that show if it’s ever made, but it would still work dramatically.

“However, the jokes in the clip are anti-President Obama.”

...they don’t feel the need to actually present anything like “things from both sides of the aisle” because they are so convinced that they are under siege by Libruls they believe (as that blowhard Limbaugh would say) they are equal time. 

I love to hear about more attempts to create Right Wing “comedy” shows.  It’s worked so well for them in the past…

“No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and lived to tell about it”—Sideshow Bob

One of my most gigantic faux pas while I worked in the USA was going to a (non-action) movie with American coworkers and loudly scoffing at the nakedly propagandist trailer of Black Hawk Down.

Reminds me of when I was in Kanchanaburi in 1996, watching some movies on Thai television with some Australians, and we were discussing movies.  “Independence Day” came up, since it was that year’s blockbuster, and they all universally lampooned it.  At the time I viewed it as a special effects vehicle without thinking about the politics, but clearly from a non-US point of view…

paul says: Hollywood is a strange kind of liberal. Women never have abortions, black people are either magical or thugs, even poor people have big apartments/houses and can always get treated at the hospital.

I’m with you!  Nobody on TV or in the movies ever seems to use contraceptives, and even when the woman is poorunemployed and babydaddy is a douche, somehow they resolve to raise the little baby together - happy ending, Amen!
TV police routinely abuse “suspects” as a normal part of the job.

”you need someone who can mobilize huge resources against your hero, it’s pretty much got to be someone rich and powerful.”

Yes!
Its not just current social values that lean liberal, its all of narrative fiction going back to the first cavemen telling stories around a fire, because if youre not rooting for the underdog, its just plain boring

Example: The Victorians could change Robin Hood from a rebellious serf into a unjustly dispossessed nobleman, but no way could you make the Sheriff of Nottingham the good guy

“our hero has his own private well equipped army, the king and the kings army is on his side, he has a castle, all the land and all the tax money, he has the pope and all the church on his side, plus he has the head bad guy’s love interest as a hostage.  The bad guys have a dozen guys armed with sticks living in trees.  How will our brave Sheriff over come this menace?”

It just dosent work as a story

“But you’d have to make him the lone cop going up against a society riddled with hoodlems and thieves.”

in other words, you would have to take away all his advantages and make him the underdog

“Hell, Atlas Fucking Shrugged!  If that’s not rooting for the Sheriff of Nottingham, I don’t know what is”

True but Atlas Shrugged is “just plain boring”

“our hero has his own private well equipped army, the king and the kings army is on his side, he has a castle, all the land and all the tax money, he has the pope and all the church on his side, plus he has the head bad guy’s love interest as a hostage.  The bad guys have a dozen guys armed with sticks living in trees.  How will our brave Sheriff over come this menace?”

It just dosent work as a story

Ahem.  “Terrorists”.

In addition to Left Behind, there’s the Passion of the Christ. I guess that was a popular conservative movie, though I think what really made people see it was the violence, and senseless, gruesome violence is pretty typical Hollywood fare.

Ahem.  “Terrorists”.

Hmm, but Robin Hood is more like the Vietcong or the Sandinistas of the ‘80s than the Taliban. “Communists” works better.

The failure of “American Carol” was doubly schaudefreudelicious since they made such a big stink out of the fact that they were making a proper, conservative, real Amuriken movie despite those damn Hollyweird libruls.
Comment 30—Caren

It’s a pretty good Morton’s fork, actually, if their movie is popular it proves that American values are conservative values, and if it’s unpopular it proves that the Librul Media Elite is duping people. Sure, no one saw it, but just the fact that it got made in liberal liberal Hollywood is a triumph for the American Way.

Hmm, but Robin Hood is more like the Vietcong or the Sandinistas of the ‘80s than the Taliban.

STILL FUCKING TERRORISTS!!  They’re ALL terrorists!!  They’re swarthy and they hate America - they’re terrorists.  Even if the US invaded their country and they’re fighting there, THEY’RE TERRORISTS!!!!

WHY ARE YOU PRO-TERRORIST?!?!?!?

Speaking of gawd-awful conservative “comedies” does anyone remember fox news’s “news hour half-hour”?

Ahem.  “Terrorists”.

even “24” had super-terrorists, with access to nuclear weapons

ther is a reason that they never made a series about Bushs Dept of Homeland Security unleashing the full force of the US government too investigate the crazy homeless guy who wanted to cut down the Brooklyn Brigde with a hacksaw

“STILL FUCKING TERRORISTS!!  They’re ALL terrorists!!  They’re swarthy and they hate America - they’re terrorists.  Even if the US invaded their country and they’re fighting there, THEY’RE TERRORISTS!!!!

Errol Flynn was swarthy?

“Errol Flynn was swarthy?”

He spoke fluent treason and wouldn’t let the Sheriff have his way.  What more do you want?

Oh, yeah.  We’re in the medieval now, baby!  Who needs waterboards when I’ve got a rack right here?

TV police routinely abuse “suspects” as a normal part of the job.

This. But it’s always okay, because they’re always right about who did it and it’s always a very nasty person indeed!

“He spoke fluent treason and wouldn’t let the Sheriff have his way.  What more do you want?”

plus he wears tights

They simply need to appeal to a large number of fools from whom they can part their money.  That’s why Glenn Beck continues to get sponsors.  His audience is dumb enough to buy just about anything.

Agree that conservatives are much more reliable, uncritical consumers, and as such are a pretty damned desirable audience.  Liberals tend to be nitpicky wrt both quality and ethics, and aren’t especially loyal.

This. But it’s always okay, because they’re always right about who did it and it’s always a very nasty person indeed!

As much as I like cop shows like Law and Order it kind of does send a bad message, that the police and prosecutors are ALWAYS right and the bad guy ALWAYS guilty, and the defense lawyer portrayed as at best a misguided ideologue and at worst a profiteering scumbag.

I wish there was at least one type of show like that where the police and prosecutors are the bad guys, railroading innocent people etc. and the defense attorneys good.

Oh, and 24 is a guilty pleasure of mine too but I’m smart enough to realize its, you know, FICTION and not a blue-print for real life anti-terrorism policy.

I wish there was at least one type of show like that where the police and prosecutors are the bad guys, railroading innocent people etc. and the defense attorneys good.

Canterbury’s Law?  I know there was one, at some point, but I only ever saw a few episodes; they leaned a little too heavily on she’s-a-successful-defense-attorney-around-but-she’s-a-miserable-wreck-because-her-marriage-is-falling-apart to try to ‘humanize’ her.

Errol Flynn was swarthy?

Errol Flynn was Australian.  They all deserve to be waterboarded.

I wish there was at least one type of show like that where the police and prosecutors are the bad guys, railroading innocent people etc. and the defense attorneys good.
You could always play the Phoenix Wright games, where both of those things are mostly true.

Even the right wing christians realize their shit is boring.  Their crown jewel, the “Left Behind” series, which sold eleventy gazillion copies, has all the christians go to heaven in the first chapter, and all seven or so books are about the decadence of all the evil people left behind.  Even they don’t want to read about what’s going on in heaven.
From the description of Ellenjay’s Heaven, it’s even MORE boring than you’d think. God even completely removes sexual desire from everyone there…

I also wonder how much of the CEO-as-villain thing is because who else do you have? Small-time crooks as villains isn’t interesting except in indie movies, government as villains is all over the place (although usually with a few brave lone rangers as heroes). If you need someone who can mobilize huge resources against your hero, it’s pretty much got to be someone rich and powerful. What always strikes me about it is the outrageous plans that the CEO villains have to concoct.
There’s always the JRPG staple of the (almost always Catholic-analogue) Church, but I don’t think that usually goes over well…

I wish there was at least one type of show like that where the police and prosecutors are the bad guys, railroading innocent people etc. and the defense attorneys good.

The closest you’ll probably ever get is The Wire to be honest.  And even that’s ambiguous on both ends.

I wish there was at least one type of show like that where the police and prosecutors are the bad guys, railroading innocent people etc. and the defense attorneys good.

Dah-da-du, du-dah!

Each episode’s format is essentially the same: the first half of the show usually depicts the prospective murder victim as being deserving of homicide, often with Perry’s client publicly threatening to kill the victim; the body is found (often by Perry and his investigator, Paul Drake, who through circumstance happen to stumble upon the body) surrounded by clues pointing to Perry’s client. Perry’s client is charged with murder, but (in the second-half courtroom setting) Perry establishes his client’s innocence by dramatically demonstrating the guilt of another character.[4]  The murderer nearly always breaks down and confesses to the crime in the courtroom – if not on the witness stand, then in the arms of the bailiff, who blocks the murderer’s effort to escape into the hallway.

CSI Las Vegas managed to get a good gulp of conservative values into an episode a while back - career woman with a SAHH (who, in case you didn’t get that he was emasculated, was shorter than her).

She’s a cold hearted b*tch who has an affair because her weak, ineffectual non-career partner can’t satisfy her; he pays to be a dom at an BDSM club because his harpy, career woman wife won’t be submissive enough.  He turned out to have murdered the sub, which, said the really obvious subtext, was the wife’s fault really because she cut his balls off.

It was so regressive I was nearly sick.

I wish there was at least one type of show like that where the police and prosecutors are the bad guys, railroading innocent people etc. and the defense attorneys good.

QFT

the last time we had a series was probably Matlock… and that was what… 20-30 years ago?

Katherine, the CSI shows tend to try to paint any slightly non-vanilla sexuality as something that will get you killed or involved with really dangerous criminals of some sort or another (swingers, BD/SM, age play, etc - anything but straight prostitution, and even that is portrayed as risky though “normal”).  I thought they were trying to paint the wife as a bitch (so yeah, though was that because she was a working mom or because she was an executive (corporate lawyer maybe) but also the husband as someone who would be pathetic and crazy no matter how she had behaved or what she had done.

“As much as I like cop shows like Law and Order it kind of does send a bad message, that the police and prosecutors are ALWAYS right and the bad guy ALWAYS guilty, and the defense lawyer portrayed as at best a misguided ideologue and at worst a profiteering scumbag.”

Buh?  The original Law and Order series gets itself out to an hour about 50% of the time by having the cops and/or the prosecutor’s office bark up the completely wrong tree while being totally! convinced! the guy did it! for the first third of the show.  I mean, the politics of the show are frequently regressive as all get out, but the first-act bad guy they hassle and arrest and bring charges against and occasionally get killed in jail quite frequently turns out to be innocent of the crime or innocent full-stop.

From the description of Ellenjay’s Heaven, it’s even MORE boring than you’d think. God even completely removes sexual desire from everyone there…
Comment 64—Devonian

If you believe sexual desire is a sign of the Devil’s influence that probably doesn’t sound so bad.

CSI Las Vegas managed to get a good gulp of conservative values into an episode a while back - career woman with a SAHH (who, in case you didn’t get that he was emasculated, was shorter than her).
She’s a cold hearted b*tch who has an affair because her weak, ineffectual non-career partner can’t satisfy her;
Comment 67—Katherine

Presumably in the real world she’d just divorce himand find someone more to her liking. The message I take away isn’t “men should have paying jobs and women should not” but “don’t marry someone you’re not compatible with.” But I’m a liberal, so going in I believe in choosing your own spouse and I don’t think a SAHH is a bad thing to be/have.

If you think of it, Hollywood has always turned real life villians into heroes.  Look at pirate, cowboy, and mafia movies, they make the brutal outlaws into romanticized heroes.  Heck, look at movies glorifying ruthless military leaders throughout history.  I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to turn a greedy CEO into a hero in a movie.  Look at the success of Atlas Shrugged, they are going to turn that into a film.

As much as I like cop shows like Law and Order it kind of does send a bad message, that the police and prosecutors are ALWAYS right and the bad guy ALWAYS guilty, and the defense lawyer portrayed as at best a misguided ideologue and at worst a profiteering scumbag.

Hardly.  Among other things, they’ve frequently had the wrong suspect (which isn’t even discovered sometimes until they’re well into the trial portion of the show), the cops have had evidence and confessions tossed because of the way it was collected, the ADAs have been censured (and in one case, outright fired) if their shenanigans go to far, they’ve had innocent people killed before their innocence was realized, they’ve had to swallow and accept deals that were unjust because they had no choice, they’ve had defense attorneys who were well in the right, hell they even had the State Department walk into the lieutenant’s to ream the detectives a new one for a stunt they pulled as an excuse to arrest two innocent diplomats.

But I’m a liberal, so going in I believe in choosing your own spouse and I don’t think a SAHH is a bad thing to be/have.

Did you get the impression that I disagree? I’m describing how CSI was trying to portray them, not what I thought of them.  I found it to be a conservative wet dream of a liberal strawcouple.

I wish there was at least one type of show like that where the police and prosecutors are the bad guys, railroading innocent people etc. and the defense attorneys good.
Comment #60: Ben D.  on 04/19 at 07:46 PM

Raising the Bar would qualify, I think.  There are major lawyer characters in both the defense and prosecuting arms of the law, and they have portrayed bad cops and lawyers and judges on the prosecuting side.

As to the “yes, but they get the wrong guy” defense of the Law&Order;/CSI shows, the majority of the time there isn’t even a “sorry we arrested you and called you a child abuser in front of your family and neighbors and co-workers.”  They just move on to the “real” criminal.

CSI likes to dip a toe into the sexually “aberrant” but there are no regular characters with non-vanilla tastes, at least not explicitly, though the episodes with Lady Heather do leave a bit of a question about whether Grissom is interested or involved in B&D;.

Hmm, to get a greedy CEO as the hero you’d only have to tweak Batman or Iron Man a little bit, I think. They’ve already got the rich, devil-may-care playboy thing going (Batman a little less, in the movies at least. I haven’t read the comics.) It wouldn’t be (hasn’t been?) hard to make them the bad guy, too, ‘cause they kind of walk the line by being rich and powerful and not-terribly-kind but also “Good.”

Just need to ramp up the wealth on the rest of the good guys a bit, make all the poor evil characters a little scummier, give either of those guys a decent excuse to want to amass a bunch of money to “fight evil” or whatever… Once you’ve established someone as “good” (or at least competent and badass) they can get away with a lot.

As for Australians, I’m pretty sure that sports involving water and boards are already quite popular, so a waterboarding* may go unnoticed…

*yes, I know, no actual boards involved

As to the “yes, but they get the wrong guy” defense of the Law&Order;/CSI shows, the majority of the time there isn’t even a “sorry we arrested you and called you a child abuser in front of your family and neighbors and co-workers.” They just move on to the “real” criminal.

Like real life, you mean?

But seriously, in a fair number of those cases it turns out they still need the help of the person they initially accused, and quite often they are really apologetic.

Just making an observation, Katherine.

A Law & Order series where EACH WEEK, the plot would revolve around a judge dismissing an EOE lawsuit? Liberal or conservative, that’s some boring-ass TV…

@#81 - fair enough.  Just wanted to check!