I don’t like the show smiling friends or the people behind it.
I don’t like the show smiling friends or the people behind it.
Did anyone at adult swim or hbo listen to the podcasts these guys made before giving them unlimited money to make a tv show that looks absolutely shit? Seriously they were friends with shadman, how are you supposed to watch a show that’s message is “be kind” and “don’t be an asshole” when they made their careers off of being edgy. Some dipshit c suite exec who they’re probably related too took one look at them and thought “maybe we can get the Rick and Morty demographic and get chuds to riot in a McDonalds over chicken nuggets”. Also the mixed art style makes it the cartoon equivalent of Fortnite, no substance, no identity. A bland product that can be sold and commodified. I really fucking hate this show.
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I like it. Idk the history or background of the American guy but if he's like a Filthy Frank style edgelord I'm pretty sure it's a good thing he's grown up and moved away from it.
As for the show itself, some of the messages aren't exactly bad. The video game executive that's sitting on an IP to not make new games with until nostalgia gets to the point where they can make them a DLC character for the Fortnite/Smash Bros stand in gets murdered on screen and that's the good ending. The TV executive that micromanages a TV show to maximise appeal and profit gets murdered in live TV and the entire crowd cheers. There's a scene of a worker with 6 arms stocking shelves while his boss is a guy with no arms, calling him slow and useless and threatening to fire him despite the fact that he's the only employee and does all the work.
If anything the show makes fun of edgy people, possibly as atonement, to the point where the antagonist of the week, the edgy nihilists, get humiliated in front of a crowd and get murdered. Another episode has this evil scientist who thinks the world is fucked and he can replace people with his own homunculi to create a better world and he's shown to be a socially inept NEET who lives in his brother's house rent free.
Edit: also, as for the McDonalds Rick and Morty viral video, that was staged. The guy hates Rick and Morty fans with a passion so he threw a public tantrum under the guise of a Rick and Morty fan to make them look bad. It's still cringe, but in a different way.
As for the show itself, some of the messages aren't exactly bad. The video game executive that's sitting on an IP to not make new games with until nostalgia gets to the point where they can make them a DLC character for the Fortnite/Smash Bros stand in gets murdered on screen and that's the good ending. The TV executive that micromanages a TV show to maximise appeal and profit gets murdered in live TV and the entire crowd cheers. There's a scene of a worker with 6 arms stocking shelves while his boss is a guy with no arms, calling him slow and useless and threatening to fire him despite the fact that he's the only employee and does all the work.
Cool, the Simpsons did all that thirty fucking years ago, except they were also funny.
I get it if you don't find it funny, but solutions to like 50% of the episodic villains in Smiling Friends tend to be defeated by being murdered on screen, and it's shown to have no drawbacks whatsoever and way more effective than working within the system. It's kinda not really seen in a mainstream TV series. It's not even like the Rick and Morty "oh Rock avenged his wife by beating her killer to death with his bare hands, but now he feels hollow and sad". It's "oh, the antagonist was brutally killed? The problem is solved".
TV executives ruining an otherwise good show to maximise appeal and profit? Eaten alive. Video game CEO ruining a beloved franchise? Knife through the skull. Eldritch abomination trying to kill you? Drawn and quartered. Creepy incel stalker? Disemboweled. Terrible landlord? Driven to commit literal seppuku with a katana. Demonic succubus possessing your boss and making your work life even worse? Defenestration.
Half the episodes are played kinda straight, but the other half is literally "violence is sometimes the answer". One of the only 2 episodes this season where they don't resort to violence is the one where the protagonists lose. The episode in question is where the POTUS is a bumbling, incompetent idiot but his opponent is a comically evil psychopath TV billionaire who pours radioactive waste into rivers for fun. They work within the system to get him re-elected because the other guy is way worse, and the psychopath ends up winning anyway.
ok first of all, doing the whole "here is why my media property is actually revolutionary and leftist" is always a whack and cringe thing to do. it's a fucking cartoon.
also, everything you've just described about the show in an attempt to make it seem revolutionary or leftist actually makes it reactionary as fuck and as far removed from any sort of leftism as it could possibly be. murder and violence are not "working outside of the system". murder and violence are the system, the capitalist state is nothing but violent and cops murder people all the time. "violence works" is the message of every piece of conservative media ever produced.
murdering people in power isn't "leftist", since it's the capitalist system that binds us and not the individuals who are merely interchangeable pawns. there is a giant difference between random violence (bad) and revolutionary violence (good), because one is aimed at getting senseless revenge at individuals and the other is aimed at destroying the actual capitalist power structures that actually cause all the bad stuff to happen.
Is there a single part in the show where the random violent murder causes any sort of solidarity (class solidarity or otherwise) to form, or where there the capitalist state strikes back at the working class? Because that might give some credence to this show being anything other than a random cartoon where random people get murdered because randomly murdering people is a fun thing to do in a cartoon.
Murdering a CEO doesn't abolish copyright, murdering a stalker doesn't stop the patriarchy, murdering a landlord doesn't make you own the building (the landlord is a terrible example anyway, since a) he doesn't even get murdered, but instead commits suicide, b) isn't portrayed as the leech that he'd actually be but instead a crazy weirdo who only wants to smoke weed and play burnout 3 takedown with his tenants and also c) just gets up again at the end of the episode) (i literally just watched this episode to see if there was anything to the show and it was not very good or funny and certainly not leftist)
I literally never claimed it was revolutionary and leftist, I never even used those words. I said not exactly bad. Something doesn't have to be explicitly (or even implicitly) leftist and/or revolutionary to be "not bad".
But more to the point, I was directly addressing your point: It's not something the Simpsons did "thirty fucking years ago", because the Simpsons didn't build up a plot for the whole episode only to have it be undercut and resolved within seconds by violence against the villain of the episode. They know about deus ex machina and how it's lazy and then doubled down on it. It's kinda not really seen in a mainstream TV series.
Everything I described about the show isn't about it being leftist, I was literally pointing out things the Simpsons (and mainstream TV in general) never did. I started off with saying "Hey, I get you if you don't find it funny". Then I listed things that generally aren't seen in mainstream TV. You made a claim, I countered it, and then you went and implied that I think it's leftist? No, I think showing the bourgeoisie getting unceremoniously killed doesn't do shit for any leftist cause but it's still something that other shows aren't actively showing, let alone showing as an act with absolutely no downsides.
actually makes it reactionary as fuck and as far removed from any sort of leftism as it could possibly be
As it could possibly be? Actual reactionary media is less reactionary and less far removed to leftism? How? Please explain. When TV shows, animated especially, have just been "Pronouns! iPad bad! PC DEI bad!" or "My name is Rick Sanchez, god is dead, nothing matters, just get drunk and fuck around all day". Doing the whole "here is why this practically apolitical media property is actually reactionary and right wing" is always a whack and cringe thing to do. it's a fucking cartoon
murdering people in power isn't "leftist", since it's the capitalist system that binds us and not the individuals who are merely interchangeable pawns. there is a giant difference between random violence (bad) and revolutionary violence (good), because one is aimed at getting senseless revenge at individuals and the other is aimed at destroying the actual capitalist power structures that actually cause all the bad stuff to happen.
Getting past the point where I once again never claimed it was leftist, yeah. I agree. But I also understand that if John Hinkley Jr. actually killed Reagan on TV it'd be funny as fuck, top 5 hilarious moments of live TV of all time. And I know it won't build class consciousness or move the US towards communism and he would have just been replaced but a just as right wing VP. And that's an act of random violence against an individual for the sake of impressing Jodie fucking Foster, even less of a credible reason than revenge. Not everything we find entertaining has to actively be a movement towards communism. Seeing karma manifest can be satisfying in and of itself, even if it doesn't build any amount of solidarity or class consciousness.
Is there a single part in the show where the random violent murder causes any sort of solidarity (class solidarity or otherwise) to form, or where there the capitalist state strikes back at the working class?
No, because that would be ridiculous. No show does that. But it doesn't have to do that to be more than "a random cartoon where random people get murdered because randomly murdering people is a fun thing to do in a cartoon". The dial isn't a binary between "Random murder show" and "Leftist masterpiece". There are many, many steps in between those. You can't honestly tell me this show is worse than the unstructured random murder shows like Happy Tree Friends or Mr Pickles
Murdering a CEO doesn't abolish copyright, murdering a stalker doesn't stop the patriarchy, murdering a landlord doesn't make you own the building
Yeah, of course not, but a more lib show would have the CEO getting arrested or having a change of heart at the last minute to resolve the plot, and an outright reactionary shows would have had the characters realize they were in the wrong and the CEO is a benevolent job creator.
I was going to start this by writing something like "i guess we both don't have anything better to do than argue about some shitty cartoon no one is going to even remember in five years so lets go on" but then i came to my senses, so I'll keep this as brief as possible:
there's nothing good about suggesting that random violence against people in power is going to solve any of the problems capitalism causes. the idea itself is reactionary. that the idea itself seems to manifest itself into a mainstream show is bad. any random acts of vigilantism (even though we might find joy in them) is just going to be met with increased state violence, surveillance and reaction.
when a show like the simpsons (or even rick and morty) endlessly defers the problems, lampshading that fact and deus ex machina-ing them, that is actually a much better and productive thing to do than pretending to solve them through false means.
the Simpsons did all that
So? (CW: South Park, making one of those very rare good points they've had)