Subtext

I've been getting really annoyed for quite a long time about people's increasing lack of ability to understand subtext. I first really started noticing it with The Sopranos, and then Breaking Bad, and now Ray Donovan. These shows feature characters who are horrible human beings, who wind up being heroes to a bunch of people who miss the point entirely. They are great shows, with extraordinary writing and acting(well, Ray Donovan has extraordinary acting that elevates mediocre writing at times), but a lot of that effort goes unnoticed.
At their heart, these characters are doomed by their violent tendencies and toxic masculinity. They repeatedly lose what they really care about, their wives and family, their freedom and their lives because of it. They are not heroes, they are not role models, they are tragic figures telling cautionary tales. It’s hardly even subtext, to be honest.
Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, lamented that no matter what he did with the character, he couldn't make Walter White evil enough to make fans view him as the bad guy in all this. Same with David Chase and Tony Soprano.
I noticed it before then, though. It goes beyond subtext. There are plenty of All In The Family fans who think Archie Bunker was right, when he is a buffoon and a parody of extreme right wing thinking. Same with Cartman on South Park, you're supposed to be horrified by him. I remember Matt Groening in an interview saying his fans come up to him all the time and tell him that they are just like Homer, and he thinks “noooo, that's not a good thing at all!”
It's gotten so bad that subtext and foreshadowing has to be blatant in most shows and movies now. Characters have to give speeches spelling out plot points, and the camera lingers way too long on objects that will have significance later because they don't trust the audience to figure it out. You might as well put a huge red arrow over Chekhov's gun.
There is an old adage about writing and storytelling, “show, don't tell”, meaning don't just describe everything you want the reader to see, let your characters reveal it naturally, and in their own way. Let the reader or viewer figure it out, and give them understanding and perspective and let them discover it as they go. It not only makes for a better read, but it bonds your readers and your characters, and makes them seem real.
There's not a lot of that in popular entertainment these days. I'm not sure if it's because people's attention spans have decreased, or writing skills have diminished. Maybe comprehension skills have gotten worse, or the trust writers and directors have in audiences had disappeared.
It's why a lot of movies and TV shows seem like something I've seen a million times before. It's why I can figure out where most stuff is going long before it gets there. It's lazy, and it's boring. I get it, people who make these movies and shows want to maximize their profits, so they want to appeal to the majority, and the majority isn't too concerned with challenging and complex plot structure. They want something they recognize, they want comfort, they want familiar and fun. That's valid, it's one of the great things that art gives us. But that's not all art is supposed to be. It's at the point where fans get to tell filmmakers what to do with their stories, nad get angry if they perceive any changes they don't like. They get directores fired and scripts and endings changed or retrofitted to a safer and more familiar narrative.
Okay, so all my movie and TV snobbery aside, it really bothers me most when it comes to politics and public discourse. These days, you can't be a leader or a public figure without hitting people over the head with stuff. The loudest and most manipulative people seem to get what they want, and the reasonable and understated people get lost in the noise.
You need to make your message simple and familiar and reactionary these days, and that's hard to do when complex and far reaching problems are on the table. Our deepest thinkers, our scientists, and our more logical and empathetic leaders are being ignored, and the most ludicrous buffoons are taking advantage of it. Nuance is wasted on us.
People can't even be bothered trying to spot the intricacies of governing and social issues, because they aren't capable of doing it. The subtext is lost on them. They don't care about repercussions, or the character of the people they elect, because they don't know how to extrapolate or see the foreshadowing, then they are shocked when their jobs disappear along with their pensions, healthcare and tax refunds. They want to fix everything with a hammer, when surgical tools are required.
So they call whatever ruins their comfortable story “fake news”, and they lash out at people who tell them things they don't want to hear as “know it alls”, and they bury their head in the sand. That allows the criminals in charge to run all over us, and bleed us dry, with a bunch of us as willing accomplices, because we're just too lazy to think for ourselves.
It's a sad development for TV shows, but it's going to be the death of us all when it comes to civilization.