'Walking Dead' Drops Liberal Platitudes, Goes Conservative

Big-Hollywood ^ | 22 Oct 2012, 11:16 AM PDT | Kurt Schlichter

[djone]

"We are only two episodes into the new season, and it appears that AMC's "The Walking Dead" may have been resurrected after last year’s mostly craptacular second season, which was preceded by a pretty craptacular first season. And the reason seems to be the conservative outlook that the show has now embraced. Let’s pause for a moment to let the fanatic liberal fanboy virgins fulminate and fret over the notion that their favorite zombie show may have been saved by their characters’ (and the writers’) change – unconscious almost certainly – from a liberal world view to a conservative one.... Let’s understand the difference between a liberal world view and a conservative one. It’s not necessarily about retail politics, though you got some sense of it with the “I don’t believe in guns” crap early on, as if the world wasn’t crawling with cannibal corpses looking to dine on the lesser cast members. And it is not just that the views of the Georgian characters seemed to be the same as the views of the provincial Hollywood screenwriters – country folk are racists and sinister, religious folk are abusive and borderline psycho, and the only good cops are the ones who soft pedal the macho......

...my other brother

[Blackirish]

I call BS. If the author thought the 1st 2 seasons were sooo bad why’s he sticking around for a third?

Also I’m glad I can enjoy a zombie flic without seeing politics in ever frame. Sheeesh it’s a show about the Zombie Apocalypse. not Meet the Press.

[Terry Mross]

For the dummies who don’t understand that the “zombies” are a metaphor for “people trying to steal your stuff”, last night’s episode should have made it clear. The convicts were just as much, if not more, of a threat than the zombies.

[APatientMan]

Great show. The only one I watch with any regularity. A reminder that - and I’m sure it’s a draw to people who understand that - It’s up to us to make our way. Life can seem unfair. Get it done, anyways.

[x]

with the demise of Dale and Shane, there is no longer any moral/ethical diametric opposition or any underlying power struggle undermining Rick’s leadership, there is only Rick’s way and the highway. Given his newly acquired unquestionable unity of command, the group has developed into what they should have been all along, the cure to a disease, a killer T cell in a world of infection. I’m gonna watch last night’s episode in about five minutes. I can’t wait. This show is awesome.

I liked last season because of all the tension with Rick and Shane and Lori. I didn't see it as liberal propaganda. It was biblical in a way. So far, this season looks to be more about killing zombies -- exciting, maybe, but not so dramatic.

[Teflonic]

In the season 3 webisode sequence “cold storage” they made a flag mounted conservative out to be an evil rapist backstabber. The writers may be forced to have their characters follow a conservative philosophy for now but I’m sure a liberal wrapper will be put around it in later episodes.

The propagandists of today are adept at co-opting conservative wisdom and making the sheeple think it is what the left stands for and the right is against.

[Terry Mross]

Not calling anyone on here a dummy. Freepers are the smartest people in the world and know how to read between the lines.

I was talking about liberals who think a zombie is a zombie.

[fr_freak]

The show has definitely had a liberal bent, as virtually all Hollywood creations do, but it wasn't so much an obvious, in-your-face bent, but more along the lines of the left-wing worldview of the writers affecting the plot, usually badly. For example, most of the regular people I know, their first instinct when facing a situation like this would be to band together, find a relatively secure location to live in, and attend to basic survival needs (food, water, etc.) The MORE GUNS THE BETTER and nobody would go ANYWHERE without a weapon.

However, the writers of this show probably had never done anything in their lives to put them into that mode of thinking - typically, Hollywood left-wingers have never been in the military, never been cops, never really spent any time in brutal third-world conditions. They've been living in sheltered fantasy land their whole lives. So, instead of writing the first two seasons where the characters behave in a believable way (as in they actually make survival a priority), the writers wrote in the same melodramatic As-the-World-Turns fluffy nonsense as they always do and just chucked in a few zombies here and there because they have no idea how a reasonable person would react in a survival situation. A conservative writer with some experience in the real world would have made these characters' behavior far more believable.

For me, the defining liberal stupidity moment in the show was the constant fighting over whether people should have guns or not. And a southern farmer was one of the biggest objectors to the proliferation of guns! In a world literally crawling with flesh-eating zombies, these people are arguing over whether they should have the means to defend themselves or not! Lori has no problem with letting her 10-year-old son run loose over the world, almost getting eaten a couple of times, but God forbid he should carry a gun, because THAT'S where she puts her foot down!

A writer with a conservative world view would have had all of the characters armed to the teeth, would have had them banding together, with any drama merely being the result of jockeying for leadership or different, pragmatic, survival strategies, and the women, such as Lori, would be a LOT MORE compliant and respectful toward the men keeping them alive. That's human nature.

[Future Snake Eater]

I don’t understand the criticism of the second season, though, to be fair, I watched it uninterrupted on Netflix, so I didn’t mind the “zombie breaks.” One scene in particular at the end of “Nebraska” (the one in the bar at the end—you know what I’m talking about) was one of the best scenes I’ve seen in a show in a long time. The writers were obviously channeling Quentin Tarantino and everyone involved did a fantastic job.

As to Dale...I don’t know. He wasn’t without a point regarding their prisoner, but the “let him go” folks did keep conveniently forgetting that his buddies would all over them in no time. It kinda sucked when he died; I liked him for the most part.

If Shane had been a bit more controlled, then he would’ve been a great “dirty jobs” kind of guy to have around. A real waste.

[free-n-TX]

Daryl is my favorite character....living in reality and self sufficient.

Lori has got to go...it will be interesting to see if her fears about her baby come true. :)

The Walking Dead is one of my guilty pleasures

[mnehring]

What I find amusing about the whole Zombie thing going on now.
Liberals I know are always the ones going to Zombie walks, dressing up and acting like zombies (all in good fun).
Conservatives are the ones always playing out the Zombie Apocalypse game playing the survivors.

Seems kind of fitting.

[discostu]

Remember they were mostly related to the old people. And who says the staff were gringos?

[matginzac]

Oh Lordy...you hit the zing button!
Love, love, love WD...and yes, the issues contemplated in the show: survival, misplaced compassion, life, ethics, principal, leadership, decision making when not popular, use of weapons even by a kid who deserves to learn how to protect himself, wife beating,etc. This show is a thinking person’s show, kind of like “Lost”, that really makes you wonder what you would do to survive. Along with great characters and a machete to the head of a bad guy every now and then...great TV and I don’t watch much.

[Hot Tabasco]

I won’t be watching another episode anytime soon.

Global fans of "Walking" will weep with sorrow at your absence..........

[Arrowhead1952]

There was a nine point buck in my yard that had a good chance of being a walking dead chunk of meat and onto the BBQ pit today. If ONLY we did not live in the city limits...... Bow season is open here. To heck with movies, I intend to stay alive.

[bicyclerepair]

I kinda like Sarah Wayne Callies. Think she’s kinda hot.

She was the doc in Prison Break. Also a great series, minimal liberal bs moments.

[Hot Tabasco]

it’s a show about the Zombie Apocalypse. not Meet the Press.

LOL! Isn't it refreshing to know that you have a life of your own that can discern the difference between science fictional zombies and current day politics?

[discostu]

Whether or not everybody should have guns is a valid discussion. In any randomly selected group of modern Americans there’s going to be a solid 1/3 that have never fired a gun, and another 1/4 to 1/3 that learned to shoot over a decade ago and haven’t touched one since. Do you REALLY want to be handing them guns in a situation where you KNOW they’ll want to shoot them? If I were in that situation nobody who hasn’t fired a gun in the last 2 years gets one, we’ll train you up when we have time, the goal will be everybody competent enough to be armed and then armed, but hell no don’t give guns to folks that don’t know how to use them, that’s just begging for friendly fire incidents.

Lori is a product of suburban living. We aren’t used to having to watch kids every single minute or sudden death could pop out. Heck Rick made the same mistake with the girl. And again he had no knowledge of guns, do you really arm a completely untrained 10 year old? Not me.

If a writer had them all armed to the teeth right at the beginning it would have been unrealistic. These are regular people, regular people aren’t armed to the teeth. Not right after the zom-poc. They’ll get there eventually. Which is exactly what’s going on in the show.

[x]

The story was originally a series of comic books or graphic novels. I don't know how closely the TV people followed the books, but they didn't have absolute freedom in creating and writing the story.

For example, most of the regular people I know, their first instinct when facing a situation like this would be to band together, find a relatively secure location to live in, and attend to basic survival needs (food, water, etc.) The MORE GUNS THE BETTER and nobody would go ANYWHERE without a weapon.

It sounds like what you're talking about is the world that comes about after we go through a lot of confusion and disagreement and trial and error. A lot of the interest in the show is in the conflicts that people go through before they reach that post-apocalyptic view of the world.

I don't fault the writers for showing the messiness of different world views in conflict. The show would be a lot poorer if everyone was just interested in getting together as many guns as they could (though a lot of the conflict gets stale after a while as well). Some of the more specific details, though, one could take exception to.

[cripplecreek]

At the rate Carl is going, he’ll be more ruthless than his dad.

I just love the way he went off by himself in a zombie infested prison and found the infirmary. Plus he killed two walkers hand to hand style. Can’t say I blame Lori for being pissed though.

[Stand W]

Yeah. Last night, scumbag inmate throws walker on Rick. Rick says “Sh*t happens” then throws machete in Scumbag’s brainpan.

Yeah. No long discussions.