DRW50

I also have to give a mention to ATWT for the absolutely atrocious treatment of the Denise storyline. What should have been a compelling baby swap storyline, on a show that was competent and more willing to not stack the deck, instead became the perfect, loving white wife and mother vs a black stripper and crack addict who sold her child. As if that wasn't enough, they had the character go around fighting with people for most of her first months on the show, complete with a terrible scene where she went after Camille for being "high yellow." I don't think the audience ever forgave Denise or gave her a chance after that introduction.

While we're talking about AMC, they went from trying to have a relatively integrated black cast to, by 1995/1996, having Derek as a degraded supporting character, Noah there to be generic eye candy for white housewives, and incredibly insulting character trashing for Taylor (going from layered character to a badly acted psycho). And then they got a voodoo priestess who joined from the Jamaica jaunt, until seemingly someone decided this wasn't the best idea, and she vanished. If the original plans to kill Belinda had gone through, AMC would have had no black cast, aside from degraded Derek, by 1997. And Belinda never really had much of a chance even after that. The Santos were heavily pushed, but the writing was a mess, especially the decision to make "Papa" into an out of control hatemonger and pervert, culminating in vile scenes where he forces his daughter to have a painful medical procedure to "prove" her virtue. As if someone realized this was all too much to come back from, he was then killed off, and we got cringey scenes where the family reminisced over how back in the old days, he'd stayed up all night to protect the local church. Embarrassing. And the so-called soap press giddily went along with the idea that black and gay characters caused a ratings crash and the show was better off without them.

I think by the late '90s it was forgotten.

The problem is the pockets of social media tend to have a pipeline to large press outlets. For instance, during the primaries, some big paper reporters like Dave Weigel were very close to those Chapo losers, to the point of retweeting their gross rape and murder fantasy material. It trickles up (or down). The fringe also helped push the Tara Reade story into the mainstream. Ideally this pipeline won't be as effective as it was in 2016, but it's still there and still seems to churn out results.

If not for the narratives in 2016, I'd be more hopeful, but in 2016 so much slowly went from social media to mainstream coverage. And now with Biden we have mainstream coverage the last few days of him hiding (getting much more coverage than his speech), or not caring about younger voters, which both went from Twitter to the major media. The NYT is at it again today: I feel like those of us who are voting for Biden are mostly just immune to all the consistent numbing material that is used by the press to help Trump. I've never seen someone who is down by 5 in a major poll have multiple 'mainstream' outlets talk about how good it is for him. There is such a vested agenda in his reelection and I think they are only just getting ramped up. I hope it doesn't work, but it's hard to believe after what happened before.

The police chief of LA. Oof. I guess some things never change.

More media pushing. Just shameful.

The problem (in my opinion) is you have performative and "woke" voices on CNN like Cooper or Lemon, who get them praise for speaking truth to power, but you have the bulk of the channel that, as Jeff Zucker said in 2016, benefits from Trump. CNN, MSNBC, and all the rest need him to keep the cash rolling in, which is why you get lots of time spent on things like "you ain't black" or Tara Reade. Stunts like what he did with the Bible today tend to get more push and focus on other forms of media that seem to more actively motivate people, like social media. That's also where you had so many today spend their time ignoring Trump and instead blasting Biden for a misquote (they kept claiming he said protesters should be shot in the leg). It's another way that Trump and the GOP end up winning the overall message war. Speaking of Biden, I wish he was staying quiet to be honest, because of paragraphs like the above, but he will be speaking again tomorrow.

It won't work on us, but I've seen others pushing the symbolism of holding the Bible in front of the church, etc. The press and a lot of stupid people eat that up. I hope that doesn't happen...

Oh God, we're going to have to hear everyone say this was his big "Presidential" moment, aren't we, and push him to a comeback narrative?

The image of a darkened White House is such a potent symbol for what we now are it almost doesn't seem real. (I know they do that every night, but still...). Meanwhile, Trump is trying to pass the buck yet again, berating governors into getting violent with protestors. And the media, who have done so much to help him and define Biden as being out of touch, are continuing to do their part, as Rush Limbaugh is going to be on the Breakfast Club today, a week after the media tried to make "you ain't black" a huge scandal. I just wish I could believe that this won't work. The media are determined to do anything and everything for him, and their own pockets.

Ben Smith disgusts me, but I still figured this was important to post. CNBC has been tied to hard right agendas for a long time (they helped start the Tea Party) and now they will be getting even more blatant in their fascism.

I've been reading so many tweets about watching videos with journalists being attacked by police, many saying they've never experienced this before. You'd think this might wake the media up about what is coming, but other than empty tut-tutting from heavy Trump enablers like Maggie Haberman, it's the same pushing for Trump and the GOP. Talk about how Biden may not be able to "meet the moment" and coverage that frames the protests in a way that benefits Trump. Jeff Zucker and friends are so greedy, they simply don't care about what they are going to do to the last gasps of the media in this country, let alone anyone else. They want us all to die for a few bucks.

You can't say that about Loving uploads too often... That's the early '90s for you.

Sorry - I meant the writer. Was it Elizabeth Page? I wondered if it was her or Passanante who was responsible for making the show so unwatchable for me around 1999. I know Agnes wasn't perfect but there was just something about that period (the Dixie stuff, the nonsense with ending the Adam artificial insemination storyline with him getting a pie in the face on TV, how intensely plot-driven the show felt, unbearable Mateo pouring his alcoholic wife a drink [and we were meant to support him], etc.) I found intolerable.

The last time I remember seeing Flo was in 1993 or 1994 during the aborted story about Nina's father. She may have popped up after that in one of my gap years.

That's just how Flo was anyway. Sharon always did a good job. It's another consequence of watching scattered episodes wildly out of order (although I'm glad they are being repeated at all).

Thank you for sharing, as you always do. I saw some people on Twitter last week talking about how crazy and ridiculous Flo was. That was why I loved her though. Wherever she is now...

I remember seeing that clip too. Nikki is so lady of the manor and makes you feel for Veronica. I give MTS a lot of credit for never caring about whether or not Nikki looked unsympathetic.

This is partly a consequence of decades spent belittling "identity politics." You now have so many who insist everything is about everyone and it's all a big system of oppression. There's no real time spent pausing to remember that some things really aren't about you. There's a difference between supporting or participating in protests and marches, and going around burning buildings and looting and acting like you are making some sort of societal statement. I keep seeing so many people on Twitter (who have nothing to lose and everything to gain) saying things like "destroying property isn't violence," and absolute garbage like this:

The Kit story started in July or August 1998, I think. Even though the actress was in over her head, I still gave the story a chance until the rape and the twist of her lying about Tad raping her (which even McTavish said was a mistake). So about 6-7 months into her second run. I know a lot of people hated her return from the start, which I understand (especially with the Camille and Lee Hawkins saga), but there were enough things I still enjoyed at that point, like Stuart and Marian, and early Ryan and Gillian, Opal leaving Palmer and the Adrian story, etc. (I'm also biased because she gave one of my favorite characters [Gloria] a good exit) It got just awful by fall 1998 though. I will say I still kept watching - it was only in 1999, with Page and whoever else, and stuff like the Martins hounding Dixie into a miscarriage that I finally had enough. I do appreciate Broderick's efforts to keep Kevin on the canvas - I guess it isn't surprising he disappeared 5-6 months after she was fired. McTavish made a lot of terrible mistakes but I still think in her heart she did understand AMC in a way many other headwriters did not. She just had no self-control and no proper guidance for most of her tenures, especially when it came time for her fixations on sexual assault. But when she was good, to me she was very good, and some characters, like Kendall, just didn't really work without her.

I saw this going around.

John did, I agree - I wasn't sure if James ever did. I guess he was noticeably older than Dee and Barbara but with Marland it became more predatory and I can't even remember if Emily was of age when their relationship started. I'd forgotten Emily was supposed to have been with Hensley Taggart (I can still hear Duncan saying his name)... Marland seemed to reposition Emily into more of an anti-heroine, especially by the time of her relationship with Brock. I think after Brock died they tried putting her back with Paul again but I don't think that was a good idea (I guess both actors left not too long after...probably not because of the relationship, just to try new things). The relationship worked more when Emily was Paul's obsession, and she made that one bad, dumb mistake of a night with him.