Netflix slant
 

.

How is a judge being black an example of reprogramming?

Are you saying that we're programmed to only accept white judges?

It's possible I just motor past bullshit I don't care about moreso than most.

But apart from that fairly reprehensible show that very obviously sexualized 9 yr olds a year or so ago, I don't recall any overt pivot into 'wokeness' by Netflix.

And shows like Russian Doll have a hell of a lot of female empowerment 'strong woman' vibes, but hell man, it's just a show with a female lead. They also do plenty to make that person extremely unlikeable as just something of a narcissistic assbag. I don't think they paint her as some superhero by any means.

I mean just a couple weeks ago they sent out that email to employees essentially telling them to get over themselves or **** off as it relates to 'problematic' content.

Ultimately Netflix has just misfired a LOT of late. And meanwhile a lot of their subscriber losses seem to be to places like HBO and Disney that are as bad or worse when it comes to peddling this crap. You telling me HBO wouldn't have run with "Don't Look Up"? Of course they would've. The problem with that movie was that for all its star power, it was just bad. It was so on the nose that it probably should've just been a 5 minute SNL skit.

And was that fishing documentary any different than Blackfish like 5 years ago that took shots at Sea World and 'zoo culture' in general? Are there more preachy documentaries? Sure - so don't watch 'em. There's more OTHER shit on there too.

It just feels to me like Netflix lost it's monopoly on the streaming market, lost a bunch of rights deals as networks got their own streaming services off the ground, had some high profile misfires on simply bad movies (that Cumberbatch thing that critics liked that was boring as hell) and simply lost ground.

I don't see 'wokeness' as driving this. But again - maybe I just zip some of this crap or have become immune to it more than others.

Excellent question, thank you.

For many years, all tv judges were old white men, do you agree?

Now, they are all black, virtually all of them if you watch much TV on Netflix and other streamed channels.

Is it normalizing the change of authority? Acceptance?

Honest question, it seems like such change to me, and obvious agenda, but I am old.

Overton Window stuff.

I mean I've been in front of literally hundreds of judges. Honestly at this point probably over a thousand given the number of states I've practiced in. Off the top of my head I can think of 8-10 of them that were black. 3 of those in St. Louis City, 1 in NM, 1 in OK, 1 in KC. Gimme a minute and I could probably come up with a few others.

But there are a hell of a lot fewer of them in real life than there are on television, that's for damn sure. But performative 'representation' doesn't get met with bad reviews. You see it in commercials and such as well. You cast a legal drama that perfectly mirrors the profession and you can bet your ass you'll get excoriated for a lack of diversity. Do it in a way that's completely out of whack with the boots on the ground reality and you just won't hear the same kind of outrage the other direction over 'realism'.

I just can't claim to give much of a shit. It's your basic squeaky wheel thing.

I get what you're saying here and I agree.

The "POC" is used in the media at a disproportionate rate compared to reality. Matter of fact, i had this talk with my son just a few days ago regarding gays and transgenders being wildly over represented in media, and not truly reflective of society.

Nor are they nearly even close to being as accepted in society as social media/T.V would have you believe.

But like you said, i have a hard time giving a shit, at least in most instances.

I think this is where I am.

Very infrequently will an otherwise good show, work some bullshit in there that is offputting to a middle aged middle class white dude that tries to raise his kids to evaluate people based on merit. But I have a pretty decent filter of what sucks.

But hell if you do that, you'll have to shut off a lot more than Netflix. Disney's last movie they put out, I think called Turning Red was about a girl getting her period. Not something I want my 8 year old daughter to be exposed to just yet.

Fact is there is content bombarding us, and more often than not it is slanted some way or the other.

Looking at the media center here - look at Ozark, for example.

See many black folks on that show? Nope. Because...well, we've all been to Camden County. They didn't go off the rails to hammer some diversity agenda into the show.
And is the 'strong female lead' a likeable character? Oh hell no. Who's the character that gets the most sympathetic treatment? Really seems like Marty to me. And if not Marty, it's Jonah. Darlene is nuttier than a shithouse rat whereas Jacob was not cast in nearly as negative a light.

Granted, I haven't seen the back half of this last season yet so maybe Marty slaps on a clan hood and the good citizens of Osage Beach are ultimately saved by the military arm of the Black Panthers. But it seems pretty unlikely.

Like I said - not seeing it. For every 'celebrate black history' documentary I've seen, there's some movie with Chris Pratt hunting aliens. It's just lost it's hold on the industry, quality has slipped, value has also slipped and as such it's in fairly steep decline. Blockbuster didn't need to get woke to get passed by Netflix and Netflix isn't getting passed because it went woke.

What I'll say makes this easier is that USUALLY the more odious and obnoxious forms of it aren't hammered into otherwise 'secular' shows.

If there's some over the top flamboyant gay hero here to save the day, he's gonna get slapped into the middle of some show that was probably already being watched by the crew that would be excited by said flamboyant gay hero.

But as noted, Ozark had that bizarre homosexual love-fest in season one, the guy was a ****ing nut, and then he got got. And that was that. When it's done, it's not typically been done in an obnoxiously ham-fisted manner or somewhere that's going to foist itself on me when I'm just trying to watch cars drive fast or things go boom.

Feels like much ado about nothing.

I agree that our media is used to create social change. I am a firm believer in, "we are a product of our environment", and a firm believer that humans are influence sponges. We never stop being influenced, and we never stop influencing others. And literally everything is an influence to one degree or another.

However, my perspective on your particular example here is a bit different than yours.

Things like, "Virtually All" trigger my bullshit meter. I find that when someone says something like, "Virtually all", what they really mean is that they just noticed an uptick of, but in reality, it's nowhere near "virtually all".

I don't know what "change of authority" you're speaking on. Last i checked, old rich white men still run this world and all its systems.

Don't you think it's impossible for this to NOT be the case?

It's always just a matter if you agree with the message and the influence it's creating.

My 8 yr old watched it and would NEVER have made the connection. Never did. By the time they will, they're ready for it.

But again, that movie just sucked out loud. It was really awful. Not interesting, not funny, not unique. Just bad and hackneyed and tortured and slow. But as we were watching it I told my wife "lord, this things going to be critically acclaimed and get like 98% on rotten tomatoes because critics LOVE patting themselves on the back" Sure enough - "Best thing Pixar has ever done!!!"

But compare that to even their more obscure stuff like Wall-E. Or Zootopia, which was a MAJOR cringe when it came to just obnoxiously thinly veiled racism and climate crap. But at least Zootopia was actually good. It was funny. It had a fox and a goddamn rabbit as the main character and yet my kids didn't struggle to 'relate' because there weren't tiny little white kids telling them that racism ain't cool.

Toy Story wouldn't wipe its ass with Turning Red and the viewing audience absolutely knows this. But critics can't jerk themselves off to white male main characters. It's the same circle jerk echo chamber crap that the entertainment industry has always been. But audiences know better.

They're not fleeing woke, they're fleeing bad.

https://acegif.com/wp-content/upload...sachance-4.gif

Phew.

You wanna REALLY set people off - man, I've had some pretty rough judges in my day. But the whole time I can only think of maybe 5-6 that were absolute TRASH. I mean just won't do the work, don't know the law, just flat suck at their jobs.

3 of those 5-6 were black women. And one of them I actually enjoyed practicing in front of because she was the devil I knew. We got along well, I got done what I needed to get done 99 times out of 100. But I knew she sucked at her job - I shouldn't have been able to manage some of what I did. Another was formally censured by the state of Missouri for having her clerks sign her shit and run her dockets for her. Judges NEVER get that sort of reprimand. I think the Bar even recommended her 'do not retain'. The only other judge I know that to have happened to was Judge Hood out in STL (white guy) who was so damn aggressive that he manage to make both sides hate him. That's a rare sort of asshole there.

It's apropos of nothing (probably) but it still kinda cracks me up. Meanwhile can think of 4 judges that I absolutely respect the hell out of. I prefer taking Ls with these 4 over Ws with others because come what may, I know I had to be on top of my game and if I wasn't, I'd get called out for it in a fair but firm manner. Exceptionally well versed, bright, fair judges. I've defended these judges to people that really dislike them because they struggle with them.

3 guys, 1 woman - three white (including the woman), one Hispanic. Tough operators but they know their stuff backwards and forwards.

But the bottom line is the legal profession ain't the most representative one out there and what examples, at least at the higher ranks, I can think of - well they aren't often the bastions of justice and fairness typically suggested by television.

Netflix releases what seems like one show per day and most people don’t even know they are coming out until they show up on the home screen. They don’t care enough to market stuff so it’s hard to get people excited.

They also got use to padding their library with junk without much competition but it was fine because they had all the other stuff they don’t own and a few hits here and there that they did make. That strategy clearly doesn’t work anymore.

I think this issue has so many facets that can't really be boiled down to just a black and white judgement.

1) is there an over representation on tv of minorities? Yes. Most likely. Do i think that's a bad thing. Not really. I think it's an over correction to decades of under representation and white washing (John Wayne as ghengis Khan, Christian Bale as Egyptian, the last avatar movie, scarjo as the ghost in the shell lead). I think over time this will eventually balance itself out.

2) someone mentioned remembering when married characters had to sleep in separate twin beds on tv. That was also when there 3 channels and it was easier to control the narrative. Now there so many options. Hundreds of tv channels, so many streaming options. We can watch on our phone as we take a shit now adays. People are fighting for content that stands out. Pushes boundries. It's easier now than ever for people to create their own content and distribute it online.

That's going to lead to an up tick of non white male centered stories. But it's not like those stories aren't still being told (Better call saul, ozark, the boys, Rick and morty are ones that come off the top of my head)

3) it makes money. The saying "go woke go broke" is so much BS. If that was the case studios would stop funding projects because at the end of the day it's still about making money.

Black Panther and captain marvel (which i wasn't a huge fan of) still made over a billion dollars. Shang Chi set pandemic records at the box office as well. It's more like make shitty movies go broke. Make shitty movies with minority characters you will go broke and have people cry "wokeness" being the cause.

There are a shit ton of courtroom reality tv shows and the majority of them are either POC or women. But if they didn't get the ratings they would be canceled. The studios that do those shows probably have a ton of data that shows your average middle age white male isn't going to be their main demo.

Wokeness in the media has been taking quite the beating. If you look at the onslaught of cancelations from all platforms, many of these shows would fit the bill. They did indeed shoot their shot, but at some point folks have grown fatigued of it.

Oh I think it can be. I'm a sucker for The Ghost and the Darkness. It's hard for me to believe you can derive a narrative from that movie.

My position has always been tell a good story, make a good movie, I'll listen to your narrative.

Their content has become really stale.

Replace "Netflix" with "commercials airing on major networks" and you might be on to something.

Well there is that, also.

Is that the one with the lions and Val Kilmer?

Because that’s a CLASSIC bad good movie.

And since you’re my hayseed Tyler Durden, it makes sense you would like it.

Yeah, it's funny how many interracial and homosexual groupings you see casually in commercials. A gay couple joking over a cup of coffee in their kitchen, a lesbian couple doting over their child, a white man and an asian woman, a black man and a white wife...I don't know if it's right or wrong, but man is it everywhere.

My wife read the book, and said the movie, though it claims to be a true story, has nothing on the book, which she said was amazingly hard to believe. She felt they toned down the movie to make it believable...also the Michael Douglas character did not exist and the real Patterson was a total bastard who basically abandoned his family in Chicago so he could go on all his adventures.

But I love that campy ass movie. It's a classic, I wouldn't call it bad though...

Val Kilmer trying to carry a movie with dramatic undertones just didn't work. And wasn't there some supernatural element to it as well? Man, I haven't seen it in probably 10 years, but I remember the spirit world ghost lion stuff being really eye-rolly.

For whatever reason "The Devil has come to Tsavo" just stands out as an all-time line. Michael Douglas was the other hunter, right? That guy was just chewing scenery the whole time.

It was a pretty bad movie from an 'objective' standpoint - but I still enjoy the hell out of it.

and the shitty Irish accent didn't help either, that's for sure.

yes, the idea to me was that the people thought they were more than just lions, but Patterson didn't. I don't think they were getting at anything other than these two lions did not act like normal lions.
Definitely one of his cornier performances to be sure. It was like watching a kid scary movie type show in a way, except for the whole terrifying lion eating people thing...

Couldn't agree more. Used to have it on DVD but had to get rid of a bunch of that for space, and the Ghost and the Darkness didn't make the cut. But it was a fun movie and I'm sure I'll catch it again some day.

That's the one.

I just love the shit out of that movie. Hayseed Tyler Durden or not. :D

Michael Douglas's accent (wherever the hell it was supposed to be from) just put it all over the top.

The sort of 'leader' of the railroad workers and then the African hunter helper guy were the only two guys that acted worth a shit in that movie.

It was outstanding.

Well I finished "Lincoln Lawyer" the Netflix series that was the straw that prompted me to post this thread.

I truly enjoyed it, and would watch a second season if they have one.