MovieChat Forums > The Twilight Zone (2019) Discussion > Preaching about social justice worked in...

Preaching about social justice worked in the 60s... not today


Probably the most often repeated defense I hear about this series (in response to people referring to it as "woke") is that this is how The Twilight Zone has always been. It's always tackled social justice-themed topics. And this is completely true.

However, that was the 1960s.

The 1960s is when we began the Civil Rights movement, when many people were being legally discriminated against (or literally just stopped being discriminated against) due to things like sex and race. It was a time when discussing these topics on film and television was rare and groundbreaking. Not to mention important for the betterment of society. It was a fight with an actual opponent with a real goal trying to be achieved. Now it's just kicking a corpse after alleging that it looked at you funny, and expecting people to high-five you for showing it who's boss.

Since the 60s, we've had the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Violence Against Women Act, Affirmative action, "unconscious bias training" (oy). We managed to pummel the religious right so bad that "No Religion" has somehow become America’s fastest-growing religion and BC/AD is being referred to as BCE/CE (oy, again). Diversity is so normal on film and television that it's reached unrealistic levels (we've even gone back in time to insert it in stories about Vikings). There are no sexist laws left in the books, no racist laws left in the books, in less than a decade we’ve gone from half the country being adamantly against gay marriage (including liberal politicians) and talking about it nonstop to gay marriage being legalized and that topic almost never coming up anymore (not in any big way). Everyone in America (liberal AND conservative) has become wildly more liberal. In 1960, for Pete's sake, more women approved of husbands slapping their wives than men do now. Liberals elected a black president. And, before he dropped out of the race due to allegations, republicans almost elected one too. An unarmed black male is statistically more likely to be struck by lightning than to be killed by police. "Hate crimes" have been in the single digits almost every year for many years. Who the heck are we still fighting against in regards to these topics? A fringe of a fringe?

I'd keep going, but there's a character limit. The point is: these topics aren't relevant like they once were. They may as well be making episodes about how we shouldn't feed Christians to lions, how the earth is round, or how Hitler sucks. Despite the tiniest minority, most people know and agree already. "Racism and sexism is bad" isn't a taboo topic anymore that needs to be discussed. In fact, it's talked about so much that it's become a hack point.

When the OG Twilight Zone did it, it was brave and original. Doing it now is just trendy and eye-roll-inducing. There are so many other topics that they could have been tackling instead that would've been so much more thought-provoking and engaging. Black Mirror, for instance, shelled out quite a few of them in regards to where we are (and where we're going) with technology. For my money, if any show took the reigns of the original Twilight Zone, it was that. This felt more like Twilight Zone cosplay, where even the host is clearly just doing a silly Rod Serling impression.

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welll ... if you ask black people if racism is dead and buried thanks to various equality laws being brought in , I wonder what theyd say?





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If you can score sympathy points and free stuff on top of it and never be held accountable for your actions, wouldn't you continue to support the illusion that you're oppressed?

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Cuz all black folks are the same, right?

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welll ... if you ask black people if racism is dead and buried thanks to various equality laws being brought in , I wonder what theyd say?


Depends who you ask. There are a lot of us who just don't see this big bad bogeyman everywhere we look, and others blame all their failures on racism.

I'm 65, but when I was a young man starting out, getting an apartment in a white neighborhood was nearly impossible. I'd call on the phone, everything sounded great, I'd look at the apartment, and suddenly there were several applications ahead of mine. The only good thing about that was that it was the impetus for me to save my money and buy a nice house - in a white neighborhood..

Things are *so* much better today. There are certainly plenty of white racists, but there are racists of every color as well. I take people one by one and not by a demographic.

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You don’t find that Moviechat is full of racists? I’m white and I’ve never been to a website with more obvious hateful racists in my life!

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Not full, no. But there are a few. There's one in particular who is an unabashed white supremacist but I honestly can't recall his name (I'm sure someone knows to whom I'm referring).

But then, it comes down to what your definition of racist is. The guy I was talking about says right out loud that we are inferior to whites (kudos to him at least for not attempting to hide his racist views behind veiled statements). That is a racist statement, but if someone says we should get over the whole slavery reparation deal, that's not a racist statement.

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I don't think I've seen anyone mention reparations here but I've seen a Hell of a lot of people complaining that there is black people in movies.

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That's why we need examples.

I think people who complain when traditionally white characters are recast as black for pandering purposes, they aren't racist. I happen to agree.

No one complained about Django being black because that was his character, but when Snow White (so named because her skin was white as snow) is recast with a black actor, that's just silly (to be kind) but it's also pandering and reverse racist at its core. Every black person I know laughed at that casting choice.



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What do you mean when you say "I'm white and I've never been to a website with more obvious hateful racists in my life"? Are white people only capable of racism?

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I meant that if the racism is obvious to me as a white person, it must be REALLY bad for a poc

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"if you ask black people if racism is dead and buried thanks to various equality laws being brought in , I wonder what theyd say"


I think they would say: Man, you is all whack, dawg. Nom sain?

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‘Nom sain?’ 🤣

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Very economical and efficient with their words. They turned an 8 syllable phrase into a mere 2 syllables. What a time saver!

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The difference is the original Twilight Zone was clever in how it wrote it's episodes and it was entertaining. Today's television shows takes a topic and crams it down the viewer's throat and insults their intelligence doing it.

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And written in a format that would embarrass most 5-year-olds.

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OP is almost totally right. My only quibble is that rather than "No Religion" being America’s fastest-growing religion, the real fastest-growing religions are Climate Change Hysteria, and Transgenderism.

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New Age religion took off 50 years ago and is now a multi billion dollar industry. Ignore those polls!

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It wasn't called "social justice" back then. It was probably called "thought-provoking" and "ground-breaking," far better-defined terms than the stupid one we have today.

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