Eat the TV Rich (Please!)

I scream a lot these days about the preponderance of tv shows featuring insanely wealthy people making themselves miserable just for the sport of it, and it's kind of depressing that The Conners may be the only show left that has any real sense of real economic despair to it. - XMASTIME

I've bitched & moaned for years now re: our addiction to watching tv show after tv show of superwealthy people who are absolutely miserable & that it's fucking depressing on every level, and I've noticed recently the tide may finally be turning, including this article today:

 We also lose something vital when we no longer see 99 percent of American lives reflected on the small screen. Money isn’t just making TV boring. It’s also reshaping our collective psyche—building a shared sense of wealth as the only marker of a significant life, and rich people as the only people worthy of our gaze. We’re not supposed to be able to empathize with the characters on-screen, these strutting zoo animals in $1,200 shoes and $30,000-a-night villas. But we’re not being encouraged to empathize with any other kinds of characters, either—to see the full humanity and complexity of so many average people whose lives feel ever more precarious in this moment, and ever more in need of our awareness.

Moi Say Moi back in November:

Years ago I had to stop watching Billions, a show I otherwise liked but was making me depressed with its "how miserable can these people who have it all be?" theme, a theme similar to other incredibly popular shows popping up at the time, including Succession, of which I knew myself enough to stay away from since it's always sounded like the Michael Jordan of the "miserable billionaire" genre to me, and Yellowstone which started out aesthetically pleasing enough to transcend the "omg I own an entire US state but am miserable 24/7" genre but quickly devolved into an unwatchable soap opera. All of these shows highlight a patriarch clinging to every inch of money & power he's accumulated (or inherited), which is always more money & power than you or I would ever think possible to even dream of, and a bunch of seemingly worthless shithead sons & daughters cutting each other's throats for the biggest chance at Dad's power & money. This means that 60 minutes of a 60 minute show is stuffed to the gills with people who should be thrilled every moment of their waking days, but we're treated to the exact opposite which can grind me if nobody else down to the fucking nubs, screaming at the tv for them to just fucking go to a goddam island and enjoy your fucking money already instead of choosing to be absolutely fucking miserable all damn day long.