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.

I'm old. I remember similar complaints about:

ITV promoting left wing filth because Curly Watts in Coronation Street was going out with a black woman from the factory.

The loony left BBC pushing homosexual filth on our children when those 2 blokes kissed in Eastenders.

The tiresomely left wing BBC somehow fixing it for Nadia to win Bake Off.

And plenty more if I wrack my brains

Twas ever thus.

Haven’t read the article yet but I remember Full Monty being very political - the closure of works, people losing their jobs, unemployment, poverty; there was a beautiful signposting of diversity, sexual
politics were alluded to with the women making fun of the men. I seem to remember a scene where the men are horrified that yhe women are now peeing standing up - hilarious and ridiculous. It is a lovely film

I agree.

You can be accurate enough. We have plenty of recordings of people speaking from that time.

Not enough for a drama. Most dramas are about us not really about the past. Why would they be?

You think a more diverse cast would not have developed a similar chemistry? And why would that be, I wonder?

Peole are misrepresenting what some say on purposes. (not talking ad diacussion, not into that)
I am not native English speaker and even I understood op doesn't have issue with dkversity but with forced, often badly written and not fitting with kveral theme/plot/character behaviour lectures some shows and movies provide lately.

I think people should be more angry with Netflix and likes. The Cleopatra debacle was the last nail in a coffin currently. It just made everyone quite hyper aware of diversity productions and casting for the sake of tick, rather than anything else. I mean even Egyptian government had to comment fgs.
It's these things then make people wonder if every x is diversity hire/purpose written character, if you see what I mean, and it ruina natural flows because people suspect they are there for the tick. And take a piss.
No need to "steal" other people's history. Anyone who went to school knows that every nation, religion, race has amazing characters/heroes which could be easily made into movie, let alone a documentary.

It's simple, if they kept writing naturally flowing stories with characters being there for the story not for the sake of it (like in examples given on this thread) people wouldn't need to complain about low quality output (and in case of Egyptian gov, actual lies)

@Mintfly I totally agree, just one thing though, the nuns in Call the midwife were Anglican, not Catholic.

Absolute rubbish!!!
American TV is dull af.

British drama will always be number 1

I think no one does detective series like Brots. And comedy. The british humour is something I grew up with and it was glorious!

If you put lots of black actors into series set in the past, I notice background figures, men and women, as police constables, the doctor, various other roles, then it gives the impression that there were lots of black and Asian people in society in professional roles when actually there weren't. I'm talking about outside London.
In some ways this is good and it makes it 'normal' to have black people in different roles in society but in fact there weren't black people in much of the UK so none in any roles. It sort of disproves that we had racism, that minority groups coming to the UK were bus drivers etc unable to use their qualifications. I feel there could be downside to this and not just upsides but time will tell?

I think it's a bit of both. They may have Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, but they also make a lot of shit TV.
Meanwhile we have Killing Eve, After Life, Happy Valley, Slow Horses (my god, Slow Horses is incredible), Detectorists, Wolf Hall, Motherland, Catastrophe, Unforgotten...and that's just in the last few years.

It's the badly written, forced morality.

I agree that TV / film has always had an agenda - it just changes with the prevailing views of the day. But there does seem to be an increase in the really clunky moralising, which is a shame. PP have mentioned season three of Ted Lasso - and that's exactly what I thought of when I read the thread title. The episode on consent was unbelievably cringey and such a missed opportunity, because done well it could have been much more impactful.

Compare with Years & Years by Russell T Davies which covered sexuality, gender identity, climate protesting, refugees and small boats, extreme politics - but was genuinely thought provoking and brilliantly done.

Every country has shit TV, but I judge TV on what I watch, not on what I don't watch, and American TV has been better for many years. It's a shame because British TV used to be really good but it has declined so much, when was the last great British sitcom? The Office and Phoenix Nights were both over 20 years ago now.

Catastrophe, Motherland, After Life not doing it for you? Then I can't help you.
I'm not sure if Detectorists counts as a sitcom but it's one of the most beautiful TV experiences ever, IMO.
Have the Americans produced a decent sitcom since Frasier?

Many shows “rewriting history” also put disclaimers that they aren’t accurate depictions and that it is fiction based loosely on true stories. It’s really on those watching to take such things into consideration as well as stories that are actually based off of other fictional stories. If you want what the creator wrote, you can just as well get their works and ignore the stuff based on it. I also think some forget many authors gave license/permission for their works to be used in a certain way and were even involved with how they were portrayed.

People can always not watch such shows if it is so tiresome. There are plenty out there that you won’t see as “preaching” to you or suits your chosen values and it is not new whatsoever as other posters have pointed out for there to be some type of moral or message in shows. Human history is filled with stories where morals, lessons are being pushed and always have. Myths and legends, religious texts, fictional stories from different eras , etc.

Have the Americans produced a decent sitcom since Frasier?

Yes, Community and What We Do In The Shadows, which have richly diverse casts.

I think 90s period dramas - e.g. The Merchant Ivory films - did a much better job of emulating how people spoke and thought compared to nowadays. E.g. Room with a View, Howard's End, The Age of Innocence... They did show a slightly transgressory morality for the time that they're set in, but delivered with great nuance and without depicting the protagonists as if they were 21st century acivists catapulted into the past.

Yes agree 100% it rewrites history and sometimes to a point of being nonsensical, which is pretty insulting to the migrants who struggled so much and worked so hard. I am not a migrant, but that misrepresentation would anger me in the same way if a TV series depicted an office half full of female executives in the 1960s. By showing things how they were producers are not stereotyping, in fact its by developing these characters and showing a real human side that promotes more tolerance, understanding and education about different races / minorities etc.

Actually the Age of Innocence was extremely transgressory for its day, but I just really like the way they showed it in the film. It respected the viewer's intelligence much more than period dramas and book adaptations do now and wasn't in any rush to jump to moral conclusions and shout "CONSERVATIVE VALUES = BAD!!!!" "LIBERALISM = GOOD!!!"
And it dealt thoroughly with the benefits of a conservative society as well as the disadvantages

Perhaps a good format for tv and films is when they really zoom in on how the character is experiencing and processing the values of the context they live in, rather than an external voice superimposing their worldview on the plot...

This is why I like Downton Abbey too. It featured the very ‘of its time’ issue of someone wearing the wrong jacket to dinner, but also covered things like sex out of wedlock and interracial relationships in a way that felt nicely balanced between historical accuracy and a modern viewpoint.

We had characters such as Mr Carson disapproving and the new wave like Lady Mary pushing the boundaries, but it never felt preachy.

This is why I like Downton Abbey too. It featured the very ‘of its time’ issue of someone wearing the wrong jacket to dinner, but also covered things like sex out of wedlock and interracial relationships in a way that felt nicely balanced between historical accuracy and a modern viewpoint.

The Doctor Who episode 'Human Nature' is very good at this, where someone who is supposed to be a 'good' character expresses quite racist views towards Martha. It shows someone can't just transcend their time and place, and doesn't demand someone from 1900 think and speak like someone from 2000.

So all the dramas with diverse casts etc are poorly written and produced? Okay…