This is the best hack I've seen on Hacker News in months and it doesn't even involve a computer. Great job to everyone involved in pulling it off, even if the casual viewers didn't notice.
It's a risky proposition and not guaranteed to work most of the time.
From the show's creator & executive producer: "We wish we’d caught these images before they made it to air. However, as Homeland always strives to be subversive in its own right and a stimulus for conversation, we can’t help but admire this act of artistic sabotage.” [0]
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/oct/15/homeland...
(edited for clarity)
If you ever needed proof of the adage that capitalism will co-opt even the most accurate and stinging criticism of it, here it is.
The show was criticized as being racist and so the show appropriated that message (by hiring the "street artists" and instructing them to "go rogue") in order to sell more of the show.
The producers know that if they publicly complained they would be torn apart on social media and in the press.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melrose_Place#GALA_Committee
If I were a producer of the show I might go so far as to actually discuss this issue with the (graffiti) artists on camera, so long as they agreed to be reasonable and collegial about it.
One of the great opportunities for the producers is to shine a light on the show not being particularly racist, but that characters might be - a little.
Having said that, it sounds difficult.
I think the best example of this is The Americans, which stops just short of making the FBI look stupid while kind of raising its eyebrows at the then-prominent "evil empire" narratives. The ...constraints of Soviet political culture are also shown well.
But the craft level of "The Americans" is extremely high.