On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 9:47 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> I was actually commenting on this indirectly on my Facebook a few days > ago. Due to the nature of how we are as a society today, there are no more > heroes. No more good guys. Take any human being or even fictional character > in the past, and we have to deconstruct him and identity each and every > flaw. We cannot accept that anybody is worthy of praise. > > Back in the day, Superman was a boy scout, and the only people who feared > him were bad guys, because they knew he couldn't be corrupted or killed or > stopped. Now, people have to fear him because he's an alien, and he has to > be a brooding, dark figure because he's so lonely and isolated. Writers > like flawed heroes because they can be gritty and "real." The Dean > Cain/Teri Hatcher "Lois & Clark" series was not perfect by any stretch, but > it had a sense of optimism and positivity that "Smallville" and the recent > movies lacked. > > I don't know why Hawaii 5-0 needs to have morally gray areas, but I'd > guess it is because writers genuinely struggle with "good guys." It is easy > to write about anti-heroes, because by-and-large, viewers can relate to > them. What is difficult is taking someone larger than life and keeping them > interesting while keeping them on their pedestal. No more Joe Friday or > Perry Mason. > I think morally gray areas are important. Our culture should always be probing moral questions and finding ways to put it into narrative forms. I did not like what came before - stories where the good guys and bad guys were clearly identified and the good guys could be as cruel, vicious, and violent as possible and not have to deal with any consequences. What bothers me is a specific narrative frame: The protagonist is employed by and acts in the name of an authority. The authority could be a law enforcement agency or spy agency. If it happens that there is corruption or misconduct in the authority, that can be fine. Serpico was a good movie. But the base of Serpico was that he was a good cop and he found that the levels of corruption above him kept him from enforcing the law. His moral choice was to put himself in danger by exposing the corruption which would allow the police department to return to just and effective law enforcement. In the current conspiracy narrative the authority is evil at its core. There is no telling who tells the truth and who lies, and there is no telling who enforces the law/ protects national security and who stands in the way. And the conspiracy tends not to be in service of an ideology or any larger cause. It's just to provide the main character with a moral quandary. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
