Part 1: Taking Stock in 2024 I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. --Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth I once remarked to a friend of mine that starting in the 2000s and 2010s, each woke release was a net loss to the Right Wing. One by one, every franchise was systematically carved up on the altar of progressive politics, and Hollywood made bank on the outrage machine which followed. Each humiliation ritual set a blaze to the internet, but over time, those fires dimmed to cinders and then ash. What cannot go on forever must eventually come to an end.
Love this essay. I've never really watched Futurama, but I definitely see the "animated sitcom problem" elsewhere. The one that hits close to home for me was SpongeBob, especially since he actually did have a character development (in the first movie where became the manager of Krusty Krab II) but they decided to throw that away because that's verboten in a western cartoon. And I'm actually with you that it's not so much about "the money". If the writers really wanted to continue the show while taking into account these developments, they could have.
Full House had the main cast growing up through the years, Uncle Jesse getting married and having his own kids, etc. There's no reason why we can't have that with (for example) the Simpsons.
The remark about there needing to be an ending to every journey, and that the context of the ending is important for writers to bear in mind (myself included there as a fantasy writer), lest we lose track that we write ultimately not for ourselves but for others. Excellent article.
Even though there's warning signs of progressive virtue signaling in the Season 3 finale episodes, I'd say the only show actually succeeding on some level of what reactionaries could be doing is...Bluey.
Love this essay. I've never really watched Futurama, but I definitely see the "animated sitcom problem" elsewhere. The one that hits close to home for me was SpongeBob, especially since he actually did have a character development (in the first movie where became the manager of Krusty Krab II) but they decided to throw that away because that's verboten in a western cartoon. And I'm actually with you that it's not so much about "the money". If the writers really wanted to continue the show while taking into account these developments, they could have.
Full House had the main cast growing up through the years, Uncle Jesse getting married and having his own kids, etc. There's no reason why we can't have that with (for example) the Simpsons.
The remark about there needing to be an ending to every journey, and that the context of the ending is important for writers to bear in mind (myself included there as a fantasy writer), lest we lose track that we write ultimately not for ourselves but for others. Excellent article.
Even though there's warning signs of progressive virtue signaling in the Season 3 finale episodes, I'd say the only show actually succeeding on some level of what reactionaries could be doing is...Bluey.