To not be able to stand film and TV nowadays because it always has an agenda?

[mintlily]

I've noticed that I can only bear to watch TV shows and films produced until roughly 2008.

It feels like everything nowadays has some kind of moral or political agenda. The writers are either trying to show off how enlightened they are, or condition you to accept their certain neo-Marxist world view. Virtually ALL dramas have an LGBT, feminist or anti-racist agenda, delivered with 0 subtlety or nuance. And the way it is done is so patronising and disrespectful to historical writers and figures - as if we 21st century people are the moral arbiters of history, and must overlay our more enlightened worldview on their bigoted work, which was surely produced in ignorance. It's also patronising to the intelligence of viewers, as if we need everything censored for our innocent eyes and can't make our own moral judgements. There is something puritanical and unartistic about it, like the Victorians censoring art to not corrupt the masses.

For example:

The new Little Mermaid deleting the line "men don't like women who blabber" from Ursula's songs. Ursula is a villain. We can cope with her being sexist, for goodness sake - we know that we're supposed to think she's wrong. The writer didn't need to fret that children would internalise the worldview of the villain.

Anne of Green Gables and her gay best friend. Why? This is not the genre to deal with LGBT issues. The author had no interest in this subject (as far as I'm aware).

Call the Midwife and it's pro-abortion stance. As if CATHOLIC MIDWIVES IN THE 1970s would have been pro-abortion?!

It's nothing to do with your actual views on these subjects. I just find that TV and film lacks the nuance and intelligence that it used to and I actually can't bear to watch any of it anymore, as it just feels so soulless.

Whereas ' white people are overrepresented on TV' is a perfectly acceptable view, not complaining at all. Thus spake the MN hyocrites, it's only wrong if I disagree with it!

@mintlily - yes. It starts to strip away what was the actual attitude.

So to with feminism or homosexuality. I find it patronising when it's written like this, as if people were openly supportive. That didn't happen very often.

It wasn't because people had a chat at a BBQ. It's like a spot of soft soap to make people feel better.

No, I don't mean people would be overtly less tolerant to refugees after watching a shit TV show!
I phrased it badly but I meant that, if programmes are done well, people might be more likely to watch things outside of their comfort zone and learn from it whereas, if done badly, people are maybe less likely to take chances and watch things that challenge their views.
Ultimately though, I guess a narrow world view may lead to less tolerance

You could do the same kind of show where they were mostly black or Asian or whatever and it would still work.

There was the same kind of show in the US with mostly Black people and it was called Living Single (1993) about 20-something Black people living in a brownstone in Brooklyn. It has been said that its Living Single’s success, at the time, is the reason Friends (1994) was green-lighted. I remember watching both and the biggest things that stood out to me was that with the Black cast you had women of different sizes where as with the white cast the women were all around the same body type.

The complaints just reminds me of the complaint about how white the Buckingham Palace balcony was following the Coronation. Er yeah, people from the same family usually do look alike...

Or just an individual with her own views.

Agree 100%.

The first series was set in 1957.
The most recent shows (series 12 I believe?) were set in 1968.
It hasn't reached the 70s yet!

Personally, I've quite enjoyed Call the Midwife, and have appreciated the way it's covered all sorts of 'controversial' topics (everything from abortion to prostitution to racism to the unfolding Thalidomide scandal), and included a lot of nuance. and been based on real women's life experiences in that era/ in the East End.

There's not necessarily anything wrong with 'having an agenda' - sometimes it's with the intention of foregrounding and raising awareness of history that would otherwise be unknown, cultural perspectives that don't get mainstream coverage, social inequalities and issues etc...

Arguably almost every TV show/ film ever broadcast is the result of someone's 'agenda'. In many ways, the BBC's output in its early years can be seen as pretty unsubtle propaganda for the British State/ Empire/ Royal Family etc.

Many of the programmes I remember seeing as a child obviously reflected the mindset of the men who were making and commissioning them - their 'agendas' were obviously not progressive, their output was misogynist, homophobic, relied on racist/ ageist/ jingoistic stereotyping and was just as unhealthy for society as anything being produced right now. You seem to be viewing the past through some very rosy lenses.

I completely agree OP. I am so sick of being preached at in practically everything you watch. And it's the same viewpoints, over and over again. I don't mind something nuanced and interesting and that makes you think on occasion, but this isn't that - it's the preaching of one way to think is the only way to think, over and over. And sometimes, you know, I just want some fucking entertainment, not a political message shoved down my throat. I turn stuff off now the minute it starts getting preachy - have no tolerance for it. So bored of being told what to think! When I was younger the "cool" thing to be was an individual, with your own mind, and often controversial viewpoints. I struggle to understand how we've got to the "groupthink" we seem to have ended up with today! It's depressing tbh.

Well, tbf woke people don't usually tend to be the sharpest tools in the box....

I thought that CTM handled these things far better in the early seasons, maybe up through about season five. In a way it's a really good example of what people are frustrated by, because it's the same show that went from dealing with serious topics in a way that was extremely well done, to being, at best, bland and predictable, but often just really misrepresenting the period.

Partly I'm sure because the first two seasons were autobiography, talking about real people, but even after that, the show seemed to be very much trying to give a window on how people felt and thought during a very interesting historical period. They didn't all think the same way of course, but they seemed to try and authentically represent the kinds of views people really held. And they trusted the audience to be able to think about things from a different perspective than the ones they were used to, to accept that characters they liked might think in a very different way, and also that people could be good people and see things from a very different perspective.

The abortion issue is a really good example. The likelihood that all of the main characters, the doctor, the nuns, would all take what is essentially a modern view is really slim. There are a few who it is a real stretch to think they are as blase as portrayed. Many of the arguments they make in favour also seem very modern, while you hear very little about what have been widely held reasons for being against the change in laws at the time.

They've had to turn Sister Julienne into a kind of dithering idiot, quite unlike she used to be, because they don't seem to be able to write a conservative religious woman as an intelligent, kind person, even though that is clearly what she was at the beginning of the show.

It's absolutely a problem with the writing, but stems in large part from an inability on the part of the writers to think from multiple perspectives It's all very much baddies and goodies. It used to be said that good fiction writers tended not to take any one side much, because they were good at seeing things from multiple perspectives, but that doesn't seem to be the case any more.

Hilariously ironic comment given you use the word 'woke' 🤣

This really shows your ignorance, as things become normalised people do change. How else do you think attitudes have changed over time? 🤔

Yes. It is good things become normalised but it’s dodgy if the real situations are glossed over, given a nicer look.
eg woman who got pregnant unmarried were slappers, undeserving of sympathy - to give the impression there were lots of understanding people out there able to help is wrong. If you believe the latter you won’t appreciate how misogynistic people were nor how little interest was given to the well-being of the child. Society was very cruel.

I don't think it was by shows becoming essentially Sesame street for adults.
If someone wants to normalise something make it look normal not "and in today's episode we have X! X for xenophobia and xenophobe, this Doctor who, kids, need to see the light and we will absolutely show it to him/she in next 10 minutes".
This is what people have issue with. Not with showing the problems as part of a story of a character etc.

Totally agree with Mintlilly i dont watch tv much at all, definitely not mainstream.

Don't you realise how things aren't "normal" if you notice an interracial couple in an advertisement? that's more what I was referring to with that poster who seemed to find that quite offensive, even though apparently she's not racist ...

I am more about general tv than ads. The only thing I properly notice about ads is that there must be some interesting drugs being taken when teams are creating them😂

The thing is, I for example did not note these things in programmes until recently.
I think quite a few people didn't. I did not think twice about gay character or skin colour of character, or x religion of character. They were just there, simple. Now it's often there loudly sometimes overtaking the actual plots. I have mlved very much to continental and Asian Netflix now.

I mean, if they’re a serial killer, that’s accurate based on data.

There are so many frothy “anti work” responses from people on this thread, I can only assume none of you have ever watched Eastenders, which for many years - definitely pre 2008- has showcased difficult social issues and in a pretty obvious way. When they had a gay kiss for the first time it was front page news. Imagine getting outraged about it now. See also; Brookie, Coronation Street.

art in whatever form has always reflected changing attitudes. And would have annoyed a lot of people contemporaneously with this. Just like the people on this thread. Ok, Dickens exposed issues of child poverty and people got annoyed about it. Xxx whatever TV show exposes racism, and OP is annoyed about it. Oh and OP we’ve all got degrees in English Literature 🤣🤣🤣 it doesn’t mean you can justify being a bit prejudiced by making it all faux intellectual

Dickens exposed child poverty by writing stories people enjoyed reading and wanted to read. He didn't just write polemic against the government and morality of the time.

Here we go:
'Where The Full Monty was an uplifting caper, the TV series ladles on the politics' - Ian Hyland - Mirror Online

"Where the movie was a warm-hearted, uplifting caper with a side order of politics, the TV series ladles on the politics and despair from the very beginning, pausing only to offer the occasional comedy moments."

It did in the US…

The Religious Network that Made Abortion Safe When it Was Illegal

@mintlily have you watched I May Destroy You?