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Comment by roody15 | Hacker News Reader

I didn't suggest it was "hurting" children however I do believe it hurts the overall quality of the programming.

One example that probably flirts the line with hurting children was Netflix's Cuties.

"Netflix is also the streaming service behind "Cuties," a wildly controversial French film that tells the coming-of-age story of an 11-year-old girl as she discovers her maturing self, all while looking for acceptance in her religious family and group of young dancers she hopes to befriend"

If you want examples of pardon the term but I guess "woke" programming, this list is pretty extensive on Netflix. You can do a quick google search yourself to see lots of examples here.

My personal take (as someone who is left leaning) is when these messages are bombarded into programming it often feels forced.. even perhaps propagandized. This level of inauthenticity hurts the overall artistic and entertainment value of the programming (just my two cents).

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Cuties isn't a children's film, it's rated MA (for mature audiences).

There is no dispute that Netflix has woke programming, or heck many other kinds of programming and no sensible person would claim otherwise. What is being asked is which programs for children/kids are you arguing is politically motivated?

The only examples anyone has been able to produce are children shows that have homosexual characters in them. I am going to assume the best of intentions here, but it's very hard not to find it appalling that many people would think that a show that has some gay characters in it is making a political statement or has a political agenda.

I've been seeing people complain about the presence of PoC in many of these programs too, even though artificial diversity has been a staple of children's programming since at least the '70s.

The fact that the inclusion of LGBT and/or PoC in a children's program is at all controversial tells me we still have a problem that needs to be addressed. If you really don't like the idea of seeing a black or gay person on TV then you are the problem.

The sad thing is that a big majority of people complaining are people who are past child-rearing age and thus not even the target market for any of these shows.

I think you are straw manning vs steel manning the argument. I don't think people mind the inclusion of LGBQT or POC people in shows. I don't think people mind even the occasional artificial inclusions - e.g. Mr. Rogers did a great job of bringing in kids with special needs and helped the audience understand that they were people too. He also showed how whites and blacks could be friends and equals in a time when this was still a bit controversial in some pockets of the country.

What bugs people, me included, is very different. It is the forced inclusion of diversity seemingly everywhere. It is the constant subtle messages of "white man evil" in shows where it doesn't add to the plot. It is stuff like the Oscars being explicit about requiring minority leads. It is the one sided diversity where blacks, browns and Muslims are protected but it is perfectly acceptable to make racist jokes about white people or say Christians. It is the subtle shaming of anything conservative.

FYI I am mixed race, liberal, and not Christian. I am also of child rearing age and don't like seeing my kids being indoctrinated at so many levels.

All anyone is asking for are examples and while everyone is happy to go on and on with long paragraphs about how white Christian men are under attack and portrayed as evil, while gays, browns and Muslims are portrayed as absolutely perfect saints, no one is yet able to produce any actual examples of children shows that are engaging in this indoctrination.

It's nice that you're a mixed race liberal Christian who has kids, but please answer the question. It really is coming across as a bunch of people who want way too much to be angry about something without knowing precisely what it is they're angry about.

They said they were not Christian, but I agree with the rest of your arguments.

Also, apparently it's annoying to "force" representation in shows but it's perfectly fine to have shows whose literal only purpose is to drive demand for various dolls and toys. As if anyone would have created Bob the Builder or whatever without a plan for selling it in Walmart.

More to the point, even if we assume this indoctrination exists, what concrete harm to children or to society at large will result?

if you are a racist homophobe it feels weird if your kids are not

Cuties isn't a children's show. It's a commentary on sexualization of minors in France. Do you have any specific examples of political agendas in childrens' shows?

Can you give an example of a scene or dialogue that poses a problem, and why it's a particular problem?

I watched a recent program about a clothing brand who they tried to peg as racist but failed.

The content itself is political. That's increasingly problematic.

You mean about Abercrombie & Fitch? The company whose former CEO Mike Jeffries effectively spelled out his tactics in a now-infamous profile on the news site Salon, saying: "We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong (in our clothes), and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."[1]

[1]https://edition.cnn.com/style/amp/abercrombie-fitch-exclusio...

I fail to see the racism in that statement. Essentially he's saying "it's not for everyone", and that's true for a lot of brands.

When I see companies on shark tank say they are targeting the black community most agree with the approach. Many brands target segments.

There's a difference between targeting a segment and saying others don't belong.

There's also a difference between reaching out to disadvantaged groups -vs- targeting elites.

As an absurd example, compare a fancy restaurant to a soup kitchen. The fancy restaurant is targeting the elite, and excluding the poor. The soup kitchen is targeting the poor, and it'd be ridiculous for Elon Musk to demand food from them - but they'd probably still serve him if he showed up.

Analogously, it feels like you're trying to use the existence of soup kitchens to defend restaurants.

(To be clear, I'm not saying restaurants are evil, or that clothing brands are an act of charity. Just trying to illustrate why people are going to have different intuitions on Abercrombie -vs- clothes for black people)

Except most content is always political, because it's being written and created by people that belong to groups and organized institutions.

What you're really saying is that it's not your personal politics, and is therefore bad.

Not really. I am saying there is an artificial corporate element of inserting political narratives into much of the programming. Authentic pieces where writers just create a good story typically reverberate better with audiences .. despite the writers political opinions whether they lean left or right.

The opposite is true. If a writer feels or is outwardly coerced that he/she must include certain characters, topics, behaviors.... this comes off an not genuine, propagandized, or even corporate commercially. My personal opinion is much of the Netflix original content falls into this later category.

Exactly. I don't know why is it so difficult for people to understand that you aren't sexist, racist (pick your favourite -ist) for noticing this. The time you take to "educate" viewers about your preferred political agenda is time you are taking from the plot, from character development, from story cohesion... It feels forced no matter what.

Yes, really. A story about Christian values is going to come off as political to Hindu or Muslim viewers.

> this comes off an not genuine

I get the feeling you'd say this even about authentically written content, so it's a moot point. You've drawn a line in the sand that characters and content that don't look like you are bad, and that it's origins must be from seedy beginnings rather than decades of hard work by dismissed groups of people that are now finally getting a chance to write stories about people like them.

>Yes, really. A story about Christian values is going to come off as political to Hindu or Muslim viewers.

Not necessarily. If Netflix had 10,000 shows and some of them were stories about Christian values, some were about Hindu values, and some were about Muslim values, nobody reasonable would have a problem with it. However, if all 10,000 shows made a forced effort to somehow include Christian values, or always had to shoehorn at least one character openly wearing a cross and saying a prayer into every show, it would rub on people the wrong way. That's how it is with Netflix original programming. You can break out your "woke" bingo card for any Netflix original show, no matter what it is purportedly about, and score bingo every time. Not every show has to include a facet of the same political agenda. Even if you happen to agree with that agenda, there is something to be said about diversity (true diversity - diversity of thought, not the fake kind peddling on Netflix).

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