A group of radical artists smuggled political messages into Melrose Place
slate.com
slate.com
Honestly, this reads more like a cautionary tale about subtle subversion: sometimes its so subtle it's invisible, and therefore wasted effort. This kind of subversion is "safe" and therefore useless, or worse than useless, since it still gives the catharsis of action without being effective.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melrose_Place#GALA_Committee
I really doubt they did. It was all too subtle. The effect was next to nothing.
Pretty much sums it up. All the effort of thought, hiding it from the producers, thinking themselves so radical, and nobody noticed anyway. They probably should have put their creative effort (not that I think the things listed in this are that creative) into something else.
And good for them! In this modern age of rage porn, someone would have noticed, started a twitter storm (or is it X storm now), and more likely than not, some people would have had their career ruined, just for having some fun at workspace.
Sigh.
except that that's not really what the article is about. it's more about how hard it is for the maker' political opinions to be loaded in the show:
> This plot arc aired in the mid-1990s, when abortion wasn’t really an option for characters on television shows. If a series even openly discussed abortion, it risked the ire of highly organized media watchdogs on the religious right who would lead boycotts and threaten skittish advertisers.
and it's about how the "makers" of the show didn't know it was happening:
> Outside of a select few insiders, no one—including Aaron Spelling, Melrose’s legendary executive producer—knew what it was doing.