james-stark-the-writer · 1 year ago
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5 episodes into Deadloch and this show is so much more fun when it isn't trying to pretend like it's not copaganda like genuinely a really fun mystery and executed super well and then the lib-ish politics of the show keep popping in like "hey fuck the gender binary" and "hey queer people don't murder, we get murdered" and "hey our lead is a lesbian cop" and it's like shut the fuck up already my god. like you're bringing up all these issues you're clearly not gonna fucking reckon with because you can't by the nature of the show unless this ends with cops getting abolished in australia so like what are you doing here, you know? like in the first few minutes of episode 1, the lead lesbian cop finds ACAB spray painted on her neighbor's garbage cans and we just haven't gone anywhere with that, it's not like used to critique the system or anything, and her response is just to get it cleaned up. so like. it's just kinda infuriating.
#james talks#deadloch#Michael Schur did this. B99 is a fun show but jesus lord it has done such irrevocable and incomprehensible damage to shows like this.#like i'm not even saying that shows shouldn't reckon with issues like this. it would be irresponsible NOT to but like oh my god guys.#what is the end goal here?#like truly genuinely what are you planning on achieving with these remarks if not to constantly remind the audience—#that the protags are complicit in the oppression of the people who they've been hired to defend and in reality are ineffective & unnecessary#like they're doing a pretty decent job of showing just how bad & broken the system is and that's like kinda cool but at the end of the day—#it's kinda inherent to the genre to be copaganda and your attempts aren't mitigating it.#they're making it worse bc you keep reminding us how woke you are.#i will say though as far as i am aware (my knowledge extends as far as tertiary facts and Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale)—#the representation of First Nations People/First Australian People and the colonizing Australians is actually pretty well done.#like the racial stuff here IS nuanced and interesting. the rest is... distracting at best.#anyway it's a fun show so far and there's a lot of lesbians in here and it doesn't feel particularly TERFy so far so feel free to watch it#the mystery is genuinely fun. i just don't love the constant 'hey we're so woke guys' reminders#anyway cool that it's a show by women with 3 women leads and a majority queer cast of characters that's talking about land back and stuff#like there is fun to be had here but i know by the nature of it that the buildup can't go anywhere or lead to anything so it's just annoying
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