"Hate-watching' is a real thing
but until fairly recently it had only one – and much worse - subtext.
When the Sci-Fi channel remade Battlestar
Galactica in the early 2000s almost from the start there was a certain
contingent of fans who tore it apart online because they felt it was a betrayal
of the 1979 series. That the original had only lasted one season and was not
even well reviewed didn't matter the genre fans; almost from the start they
would refer to its GINO (Galactica in Name Only). One of the big reasons they
decried was that Starbuck, a character that had been played by Dirk Benedict
was gender flipped into Kara Thrace and was played (brilliantly) by Katee Sackoff.
The showrunners took this in good stride, even going so far is to name one of
their characters Gina as a poke in the ribs towards the haters. (In keeping
with that, they gender-flipped that character.) None of this seemed to make
much of a difference to them.
Now, of course, the fanboys will
vituperate with great venom on any intellectual property that dares to
be case with anything other than cis white males. We saw this play out with so
much of Greg Berlanti's Arrow-verse, particularly Batwoman, then saw it become
toxic in Disney's attempts to widen the Star Wars franchise and now see
it play out with the remake of The Last of Us. The big difference is now
they are determine to put their thumb on the scale of these shows upfront and
make their very bigoted opinions the only ones in the practice now known as
'review-bombing'. By this point they have gotten so efficient at it that only critically
acclaimed awards winners like The Last of Us can survive it while Rings
of Power and The Acolyte are doomed before they can even begin. (I
will write about this process at some point in another article but this is not
the time.)
By contrast the kind of 'hate-watching'
that is done my so many other shows such these days for Emily in Paris or
The Gilded Age would appear to be much tamer. Many of these self-proclaimed
'haters' will only say they watch these shows ironically and never go out of
their way to openly destroy them online the way the fanboys do. That would seem
to be a nicer way of dealing things.
But is it?
I didn't realize it until fairly
recently what so many of these shows that are supposedly hate-watched have in
common but after rereading a recent article I've picked up the consistent elements
of the majority of them and it troubles me. While much of what I'm about to
write may be purely the realm of conjecture with no direct evidence, if it's
true…well there's something that troubles me, both as a critic and because of
the wider implications.
Much of this is based on several articles
I've read over the last year or so, but according to this the major shows that
some people have 'hate-watched' in recent years are Emily in Paris, the
recently cancelled…And Just Like That, The Gilded Age, The Morning Show,
Tiny Beautiful Things and in one case The Bold Type.
What do all six of these shows
have in common? They are all centered on female characters, almost all of them
were written and created by women showrunners and they are all aimed for female
audiences. This last part might be a bit of a reach, considering that Gilded
Age and The Morning Show have been nominated for Emmys over the
years which means they must have some appeal to male characters but I think my
basic thesis is still accurate.
Based on that one reaches the conclusion
that the vast majority of people who are 'hate-watching' these show are women. …And
Just Like That would make this a given this past season when a major storyline
had Miranda hate-watching a series. (Cynthia Nixon stars in two of the shows on
this list, so I don't know what this must have been like for her.) Considering
that those who claim to hate-watch these series are women themselves (I've seen
multiple reviews both in the Times and online stating as much) I feel safe in
that assumption.
Now I can understand to a degree
why some people hate-watch a show; as I've written multiple times I did the
exact same thing before there was a word for it. From Melrose Place to Ray
Donovan there are certain series that have a trainwreck capacity to them
that I just couldn't tear myself away from even though I didn't enjoy them. The
difference as I said comes when you consider how many of these shows involve
streaming and seeking them out. I thought in some cases it was a guilty
pleasure kind of thing but looked at this and combined with the kind of viewing
their male counterparts do, I find some troubling indications.
Again I am incapable of understanding
the mindset of any person who goes out of their way to seek out any television
show and watches it for any purpose other than enjoying it. With so many other
things on the air and on streaming, you really wonder if these people don't have
anything better to do with their time. At a certain level, those who choose to express
their bigotry and prejudice in the world by first watching and then negatively
reviewing any major show based on IP strikes me as the epitome of
small-mindedness. They are under no obligation to watch these shows (and in
some cases I don't think they actually do) and they certainly don't have to
scorch the professionals who go out of their way to produce these series
because of their horrible prejudices. I've spent a little too much time in
their chatrooms, particularly in regard to the current season of The Last of
Us and I think their thinking irrational.
They will occasionally try to use
dog whistles, particularly saying that the characters and the plot don't
resemble the game its based on, as if they can't see why works in a video game
won't work for an hour long show. Most of the time they wear their homophobia
and sexism on their sleeves, and I truly admire Bella Ramsey for all of the
courage they must go through on a daily basis ever since they took the role as
Ellie. The body shaming alone is horrible enough and it's the most subtle
slurs they use.
That said, if my theories about
the hate-watchers of so many of these shows are accurate, there are ways I
almost find the venom they spew preferable to those who only watch these shows
'ironically'.
First of all, there's the fact
that so many people during the 2010s were openly vituperative about how Peak TV
had become all about the 'white male antihero trope'. I heard this in
particular in regard to Ozark and after going through one season of
that, I understood why. All of the shows were developed in the last decade, the
majority in the last five years; so you'd think that they were serve as a tonic
to so many viewers (women in particular) who'd grown sick of the trope during
the last twenty years.
But if these trends are true, that
does not appear to be the case. Furthermore there's also been an outcry for a
reckoning in Hollywood about so much toxic masculinity in the industry.
Considering that these shows are, as I said, designed by women for women, you
think this would fill that need. Instead, if these phases are true, these
viewers have been given what they asked for and are at best saying: "This
is okay. I guess."
One must also recall that the
toxic fandoms on the internet have not always been center on IP. Over the years
the wives, girlfriends and relatives of so many white male antiheroes have
drawn an overwhelming amount of poison directed at them that is true to this day.
Skyler White on Breaking Bad is the most obvious example but it includes
Deb and Rita on Dexter, Betty Draper on Mad Men and Kate on Lost.
Even though these women were almost always morally right, they were
considered wet blankets because they got in the wife of the white male antiheroes
violent and often murderous behavior.
Again you'd think shows that have
strong and complicated women at their center would draw praise from women in
particular. I myself have argued shows like The Gilded Age should be
what the new era of Peak TV is like. But for a long time I was alone in this
apparently because female viewers don't that wild about the concept. Which honestly
makes me wonder, was everything they said about white male antiheroes just
posturing? Did they really like watching these horrible men behave badly?
I can't speak with authority on
one way or another. However I do have a theory about what I think hate-watching
represents at least to me and certain things about the cultural divide.
Let me get this out of the way
first. I think that the way that the fanboys have been acting towards any
variation on their precious comic books and fantasy novels and video games
being made 'woke' on the big screen and how they express it is morally
despicable and goes against everything a human being should stand for. That
they do so in the guise of 'canon' and 'authenticity' is simply a dog-whistle
for their own personal prejudices which are all the worse because they have already
co-opted so much of the popular culture. It offends me as a critic and as a
white, cis male as it makes all of the rest of us look horrible by comparison.
That said, at least they can
sometimes be honest about their bigotry. As I said, I've spent time in
some of their chatrooms and they will not shy away from using the most horrible
racist, homophobic and sexist language. But when they do that, they're saying
the quiet part out loud and you know who they are and you know to avoid them.
I've said something similar in
many of the comments sections on this site and others but I need to state it
directly. The left can be as bigoted as the right is. In recent years they've
become very direct at it but its only in the comments sections or in certain
social media chatrooms that you can find it. The majority of the time they will
use code words and a passive-aggressive approach to show an often withering
contempt for the aspects of our society they do not care for. Usually you see
this in their political articles but every so often I've seen it here on
television and it is almost always to piss on the enjoyment you might get from
a popular show. One critic argued Shogun failed because there were no Africans
in feudal Japan. Another genius argued The Diplomat was a statement for
neo-liberalism because its character who were in American politics believed in
American diplomacy. We've recently seem some people make these arguments about
Stephen Colbert being canceled not for economic reasons but because the current
administration wanted it done. Articles like these are framed as criticism but
actually are the left criticizing the most left-wing industry in the country
for not being sufficiently progressive.
One can see how hate-watching is
part of this same noxious package: basically telling an industry that many on
the left criticize as being both a corporation and tarnished by toxic
masculinity that even when it gives us the very things we have been demanding
for twenty years we still find it woefully insufficient. It's a prominent
critic hating The Bold Type because it's an inaccurate portrayal of a
magazine as the mirror image of why the plot of Season 2 of The Last Of Us is
horrible because it breaks from the canon of the video game. In both cases
there's a sense of superiority and looking down on the program in question on
the kinds of trivial details the layperson would miss and using it as a reason
to excoriate all the virtues those people might find in it. In both cases it's
arguing the judgment of the masses is wrong and mine is superior because I say
so. The only difference is that in the latter case it's more obvious what the
judgment is based in. In the former, it's framed in the kind of vague academic
terms that take longer to parse and make the clear bigotry harder to pick up on
first (or even second) reading.
All of this is usually done in
the 'just asking questions' mold that the left hates when the right frames it
that way but never seems to mind when its partisans do the exact same thing.
And because it's framed with far better vocabulary and more lucid analysis then
the usually misspelled rantings on so many chatrooms that you start to doubt
yourself. You think: "I thought Tiny Beautiful Things was a great
show but maybe I wasn't looking it with the proper gaze?" And you start
wondering: "Maybe I've been liking this show for the wrong reason? Maybe
it was never good in the first place?"
This is where I have to offer a
disclaimer that all of this is purely theoretical and based on my own
interpretation. I could be completely off-base on all of this. What I do know is
that I've read more than a few critics and writers over the years who are very
persuasive at making you doubt your original opinion, even if you and indeed much
of the critical and public are. And I've read more than a few pieces at sites
like this one and countless others which basically make these kinds of
arguments about pop culture in general.
All of this is something to be
considered but I basically have no intention of going further with it, mainly
because I still can't comprehend why someone could 'hate-watch' anything on a
regular basis. There is still a lot of good TV out there and there are always
people who feel compelled to shit on what other people enjoyed. I can respect
dissenting opinions but I tend to ignore the mindless haters out there and I'm
going to keep doing so.
So I think I'll end this with a
line from William Shatner from that classic SNL sketch to those haters: "I
just want to say with all sincerity, get a life, you people. It's just a TV
show!" Stop taking it so seriously and stop taking the fun out of those of
us who do like those shows. At the very least, find shows you can watch with
genuine passion and without irony. It's a small way you can make the rest of
our lives a little easier.
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