Stephanie says

The Walking Dead

Wow, I hate it.  Here are a few reasons (spoilers ahead):

1. Terrible, shallow story/writing/characters- There’s little story to even speak of.  All you need to know is that the zombie apocalypse is taking place, we’re not sure why, and we don’t know how to stop it.  (None of the characters seem to ever have seen a zombie movie, btw… I guess TWD operates in a reality where zombies are a totally novel concept). The main character, Rick, a Sheriff’s Deputy, is a laughably simple “good guy” and his best friend and partner, Shane, is I guess supposed to be complicated (?) because we’re maybe supposed to like him at first (even though the very first thing we ever hear from him is sexist, woman-hating bullshit) but as the show goes on any sympathy for him (if you had it— I sure as hell never did) goes out the window.  There is a very stupid and predictable love triangle, of course (Lori, Rick’s wife, believed Rick dead so naturally, as poor helpless women do in the world of TWD, she jumped into Shane’s open arms).  And predictably, women and minorities don’t fare very well in the zombie apocalypse.  (Honestly, treatment of race is offensive in this show— only two black characters appear in more than one episode and when the black woman dies, it’s pretty much written off as an inevitability. Also, the black man’s name is apparently “T-Dog” (SERIOUSLY!).  Also,  the Hispanic family gets written off.  Keep in mind, this is supposed to take place just outside of Atlanta, Georgia).

2. Little action- They keep making a big deal out of their 90 minute premieres, and I guess the first episode was okay and warranted it, but the second season premiere… WOW. How boring. I’m not sure if it’s just that HP7 has given me a HUGE aversion to “walking aimlessly through the woods for an inordinate amount of time” storylines, but wow, TWD S2E1… what a BORE.

3. Boring dialogue that does nothing to advance the story/characters- All they do is TALKTALKTALKTALKTALKTALKTALK but nothing really ever comes of it.  No meaningful character development, no mystery to drive the plot, no… anything, except pointless and really boring stories from characters’ pasts but no DEVELOPMENT.  There’s this relationship that I guess we’re supposed to be kind of seeing develop between two characters called Dale and Andrea, but the writers seem to want us to just take it for granted that it exists and that it’s strengthening under the pressures of their current lives.  S2E1 did do some to complicate that, which I’m happy about, but not much… not enough.

4. Total misunderstanding of the zombie genre- On that point, going a little further… zombie stories are supposed to be about characters, human nature, and how humans change under the threat of imminent extinction.  Or, at least, they should offer some satirical parallels about modern society a la Dawn of the Dead and consumerism.   But it’s doesn’t do either (maaaybe you can say that that 5 minute zombie church-goer thing did a little of that, but I’m not even sure that’s what it was going for)… everyone remains two-dimensional and, frankly, unbelievable and unrealistic, even after eight hours of show time. This show just hinges on the fact that it’s got really awesome and gory traditional, slow, shambling zombies (this is my one big up for the show, the makeup is great!). 

5. Inconsistent zombies- But even the zombies are flawed because at first we’re supposed to be really scared of their apparently heightened olfactory sense but then that seems to not really be the case anymore in the most recent ep.  And they also seem to be really sensitive to noise in some parts, but then the gang thinks it’s okay to have a loud-ass motorcycle as part of its caravan.  Ummm… pretty shitty writing there, IMO.

6. Avoidance or mistreatment of serious issues- Finally, and my biggest *personal* gripe with the show, along with the treatment of race, is the treatment of women.  In the first season, traditional patriarchal division of labor is pretty faithfully upheld, and I don’t think that any of the women even know how to handle a gun.  This is at least a month after the initial outbreak, mind you, so did TWD writers think at all about what this reality would look like? Do they really think women would be content to do the cookin’ and the warshin’ while the menfolk do the zombie huntin’? I guess so.  Again, in the second season premiere we’re starting to see a little bit of the women wanting to become more prepared (DUH!) but there’s this one really ridiculous scene where Andrea goes off on Dale for taking her gun (that her father gave her during happier times, I guess) and goes on a tirade about how she doesn’t need him protecting her, but then she just walks off… without the gun! *facepalm* I also want to quickly add that there should be a little more racism on the screen or at least some piece of writing that indicates that characters are realizing how petty it is (in any case but especially) in light of the motherflippin’ zombie apocalypse.  There is one racist character at the beginning, and I appreciate their showing that conflict, but race issues are suspiciously absent from the story now… all of the racism that I’m talking about on TWD is in fact subtle and imbedded, on the part of the writers.

7. Avoidance or mistreatment of serious issues, pt. 2- And MOST offensively to me personally, and really this is so offensive to me that it warranted its own numerical, is a scene from last season’s finale where Shane tries to RAPE Lori, and in the next season’s premiere, neither of them even mentions the word rape, instead saying “You know what that was” or something like that.  Well, TWD, if you bring up such an IMPORTANT and often undealt with topic as rape, you’d damn sure better give it a decent and thorough treatment, especially as much of geekdom has an issue with understanding rape.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some viewers were thinking “well she sure was acting like she wanted it before, why shouldn’t he be trying again?”.  So yeah, you need to address this topic in a mature way, not just put it on our screens for 15 seconds of shock value. 

I’ve got even more issues with it, but I think this is enough for now.  These aren’t just personal preferences or anything, these are pretty glaring issues, so I’m not sure why a lot of really intelligent people are so seduced by this show, just because it’s giving the zombie genre “serious” treatment.  Y’all should be upset that it’s giving such an awesome genre such drivel (not ironic or self-aware silliness… just bad writing chock full of white male (straight) privilege).

I’m rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and wow… I didn’t realize when I was 9/10 but the characterization of Kendra is so racist! And depressingly, so is Buffy. Like, kind of outrageously so.  She mimicks Kendra’s (admittedly really phony-sounding) vague West Indies accent and uses pidgin English to mock her.  I LOVE Buffy (the character and the show) but I’m totally viewing it with new 22-year-old, post modern eyes. :P