Tumgik
#and its fans do so frequently and with really inspiring levels of insight
somfte · 25 days
Text
Tumblr media
Here is a link to the above post, just to cite the source. I don't really think OP is interested in what I have to say, but I felt compelled to write down my thoughts, regardless.
Sorry, stranger on the internet, but you seem to have mistaken a TV show for a Sunday school parable. Protagonists do not have to be morally pure. You do not have to agree with a protagonist's actions. Additionally, a TV show character being part of the main ensemble cast does not necessarily make them a protagonist.
You should, in fact, consider deciding for yourself whether a character is behaving in a way you agree with. There is a huge difference between media that glorifies a character's harmful actions, and media that simply depicts those actions and invites the audience to critically engage with them.
Sometimes, people do incredibly shitty things while thinking what they are doing is fine and normal, without even really thinking about what they're doing and why. It's important for us to see this in media, because it reminds us that we, ourselves, can be capable of participating in morally bankrupt systems (capitalism? anyone?).
Beyond that, a slaveowner being presented as a human who a viewer can understand and sympathize with is, in fact, critical to a nuanced story. This may come as a surprise to you but everyone who has ever participated in a morally bankrupt system has been a human who had friends and loved ones and complicated internal lives. If we dehumanize these people in media, we are again at risk of not recognizing when we or our loved ones are doing deeply harmful things. In fact, more TV shows should be like that.
Ignoring painful realities of history like slavery, or making slaveowners into fully evil cartoonish villains may be satisfying, but it is not more helpful or morally pure than presenting nuance.
100 notes · View notes