The headline to Tuesday’s screed in Variety by Michael Schneider, the Hollywood-based entertainment mag’s executive editor for TV, was as subtle as a Michael Bay movie: “As Fascism Takes Hold in the U.S.,How Will — and Should — the TV Landscape Depict Our Real-Life Horrors?”
I fear people are going to stop inviting me to parties. At what should be a happy reception for a new series, or a celebration for Emmy nominations, along I come to start a downer conversation: “The world is burning, and what are we going to do about it?”
Perhaps the better question is, can we do anything about it? There are plenty of examples of how television helped advance social causes, perhaps the most famous of the last 25 years being the subtle impact of Will & Grace.
The Will & Grace paragraph above was actually the most sensible thing Schneider wrote on Tuesday. He then segued to how shows like Survivor “rewarded players who were the most conniving, the most unethical and willing to stab others in the back,” thus creating the “ethos” that now “runs our culture.”
Sounds like someone needs a screen break. He harkened to a quote from an awards speech by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan.
Gilligan expressed a tinge of regret over creating the character, given the present world we’re living in — where being a convicted felon accused of doing some repugnant things doesn’t preclude you from being elected to higher office….
President Trump isn’t unique about being accused of “repugnant things” (see Clinton, Bill), and voters saw the Democratic lawfare for what it was. But given that Schneider is a fanboy of the disgraced anchor and memo fantasist Dan Rather, maybe he simply can’t handle the truth.
Schneider railed against living in a world “where our rights are continually under attack, our speech threatened, our healthcare slashed, our standing on the world stage destroyed, a secret police in ICE now roaming the streets and violently arresting people without just cause, military forces are being moved into our cities because they don’t support the president, women’s rights have been taken away, the advancement in gay marriage we just celebrated is now being threatened, books are being banned, important national institutions are being destroyed, and so on…..
The Variety editor had the self-control to resist mentioning The Handmaid’s Tale until near the end. The show itself went off the left-wing rails some seasons ago, but the title still serves as a handy whistle to dig out the red capes and white winged bonnets whenever restrictions on abortion (or any other leftist issue) are afoot.
Among this year’s Emmy nominees, Andor has been lauded for its depiction of what happens when authoritarian rule takes hold — and how to resist. And before that, The Handmaid’s Tale was chillingly accurate in predicting where we would end up. The Boys is a not-so-shaded document of what happens when fascism wins.
The above is silly enough, but Schneider had one more ramble to unleash.
….Will political dramas depict the crumbling of America’s place and influence in the world? Will legal dramas take on the ICE invasions of our cities? What about the attempts to silence journalists? The move to erase the sometimes ugly truth about this country’s history? The stripping of diversity, equity and inclusion standards? How corporations, in self-interest and self-greed, are bending at the knee to please our rulers? The assault on our higher learning institutions? The defunding of scientific research?
One could turn his points around and ask in the alternative: Will ending racism in hiring, restoring balance to slanted museum exhibits, ending anti-Semitism on college campuses, and saving taxpayer money get any play? Of course not.
For someone who thinks fascism has already won, he doesn’t seem afraid of government prosecution. Or perhaps Schneider is just being dramatic for effect. Either way, his outrage is as phony as his hero Dan Rather’s scoop on George W. Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard.
