Friday, November 5, 2010

Casey Stengel Was Right: FX Develops Illegal Alien PI Series

Casey Stengel was right. Nobody can play the game. FX has announced it is developing an Illegal Alien Private Investigator Series. This is probably the stupidest TV move I've seen in decades. Worse than the now canceled Undercovers, or Chase, or even Outsourced. No one at FX has even the tiniest clue. Not only will this series fail, it will alienate the very viewers (White men) that FX wants to get. Spike-TV's new "FTW" about an undercover cop infiltrating a "Right Wing Militia" is probably close but not as dumb as FX's stunt.


During a particularly inept run of botched plays by the expansion Mets, Casey Stengel asked: "Can't anybody here play this game?" The same can be true of cable network executives.

It is a premise that would no doubt spark controversy. FX has put in development the first major series project centered on an illegal alien character, a drama from Changing Lanes writer Chap Taylor about an illegal Mexican immigrant working as a private investigator. TV and film director Rodrigo Garcia, born in Colombia, has come on board to direct and executive produce the project, described as "Traffic meets Chinatown." Also executive producing are Taylor, Dawn Parouse & Marti Noxon of Grady Twins and Garcia's frequent collaborator, producer Julie Lynn.


Yes, by all means go after the Machete revenues (around $26 million gross, not to the studio direct, domestically, against a production cost of $20 million and a marketing budget of $30 million or so). Because the movie made so much money. Then add a TV and film director from Colombia, and a couple of female writer-producers including the infamous Marti Noxon (known as the rape-obsessed, showrunner who tanked Buffy the Vampire Slayer) from Mad Men.

Yes of course, this will be a hit. Naturally, illegal aliens don't spend between $1,000 and $5,000 to be smuggled across the border, pay the money back at usurious rates of interest to the smugglers, save every dime, and don't send what little they can save back to Mexico. No of course not, Illegal Aliens are not underpaid by about 56%. Of course, Illegal Aliens make up a huge audience, lucrative and untapped, for FX. They all speak English and watch American Cable TV. Instead of maybe Univision or Telemundo.

And naturally, FX won't alienate the non-PC, almost exclusively White, male audience they're courting with Sons of Anarchy, Terriers, League, and Sunny in Philadelphia. Yes of course, America is just waiting to embrace a "powerless" and oppressed Illegal Alien P.I. exposing the "racism" of America and Los Angeles:

But Taylor says that most PI shows "have really focused on the style -- fedora, trench coat, etc. -- and not on the essence of what a PI is: a powerless individual sticking up for other people without power in a corrupt society." He points to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe who lived in the fringe of Los Angeles at a time when the city was riddled with corruption. Taylor decided to look for a contemporary counterpart to Marlowe, asking himself: "Who today is on the outer fringes of Los Angeles but sees everything?" The answer -- an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

In addition to relying on his own sleuthing skills, by being an illigal immigrant, the PI on the show will be able to tap into a network of other immigrants. "It's an invisible network of people we don't pay attention to who see everything," Taylor said. "They take care of our kids, they mow our lawns, they deliver our food, they mop the floors at our offices, they park our cars. They know if we recycle, and they know if we are cheating on our wives."


Translation: clueless Hollywood mega-idiot doesn't get that outside Malibu, people cook their own meals. Wash their own cars. Mow their own lawns. Park their own cars. Nor do illegal aliens "see everything." How could they? Illegal aliens are concerned with making money and not getting caught. They could care less about commenting or observing American society. They are often low-level players in scams, crimes, and crime-rings, from identity theft to armed robberies. And over-represented in murders.

Illegal aliens are more likely to be murderers of young women coming back for shopping for their bridal gowns than oppressed maids and such. Meg Whitman's illegal alien maid was paid $23 an hour, well over the California Minimum Wage of $8 an hour. Whitman's maid would gross about $47,000 a year, obviously a job an American would do. Meanwhile murderers like Omar Armando Loera (who fled back to Mexico) are common. One like him gunned down a San Francisco police officer, others killed Denver toddlers, and so on.

Indeed, illegal aliens, who have zero investment in American society by their nature, and come from crime-ridden, failed societies like Mexico and Central America, have almost no incentive to be law abiding and almost every incentive to be as criminal as possible while not being caught. After all, if identified the alien can simply flee back to native Mexico and avoid extradition.

I love this part:
"The theme is about helping the powerless in a corrupt society who can be from the immigrant or the Anglo community," he said, noting that a trophy wife in Beverly Hills who is completely dependent on her husband "is just a powerless as her cleaning lady."


Yes. Because Charlie Sheen's soon to be ex-wife is "helpless" with $50,000 a month alimony and child support equalling Denise Richards is helpless. The writer is just lazy, remaking Crash but without Sandra Bullock.

But "in Los Angeles and in the U.S., people's lives are built on the labor of those immigrants … "


Or, translated from Hollywood-ese, rich and clueless people (about 1% of the population) cannot tie their own shoelaces without dirt cheap and exploited labor. While the White middle class (and lower class Blacks) pay through the nose for Illegal Alien labor.

Lower class Blacks are crowded out of the low-skill marketplace, by an endless supply of easily exploited workers who are employed at carwashes and other places for about 60% below minimum wage. With no overtime pay, or safety regulations, or much of anything else in place.

Middle Class White people are crowded out of desirable real estate (would you send your kids to school with the kids of poor, violent, mostly illiterate, and Spanish only speaking folks from dirt poor Mexico and Central America)? This means no cheap, affordable, safe and close-by suburbs, instead distant exurbs to flee the crime and corruption and crowding out of daily life. With no illegal immigration the city of Bell would not be a byword for corruption in the Southland, but a working class neighborhood filled with Whites. Instead it is a symbol of the cost of illegal immigration, with the Westlake district in LA a symbol of Central American occupation (it is a no-go zone for cops and Whites) and an MS-13 stronghold.

The give-away is the involvement of Dawn Parouse, executive producer of Prison Break, Point Pleasant, Tru Calling, and Still Life, along with the notorious Marti Noxon. Neither could write or produce anything even remotely appealing to men. Neither is some guy from Colombia likely to have an insight into what appeals to the White Male audience that FX has courted.

FX seems to be now, drifting back, into appealing to what their executives and favorite writer/producers can create: status mongering stuff for SWPL women.

What is at work is the attitude that "White people are boring and have no culture." A commenter at Roissy's noted:

people go there for the culture, not the high-paying jobs. The culture comes from the diversity. White people are boring and have no culture or artistic ability. The high-paying jobs are required to live in the high cost of living. Otherwise they’d all come to Dallas, where 3000 square feet is less than 300k, and so 100k jobs seem really good compared to 200k in Manhattan to get a million dollar apartment of 800 square feet.


SWPL Central, the Colbert Report had a guest who asserted:

Wednesday night on "The Colbert Report," author Charles Kaiser was on the show to plug his book, The Gay Metropolis. Hoping to get the Colbert bump, Kaiser talked about how his book chronicles the history of gay culture and society in New York starting from 1940. One of his claims is that homosexuals and African Americans are “both more interesting than straight white people.”

Colbert: "You say that gay people thrive in places like New York."
Kaiser: "That is correct."
Colbert: "Why? Why do they thrive here in New York? What gives them power here?"
Kaiser: "Well, critical mass first of all." Colbert: "They're like a nuclear bomb. They're very, very... they're very dangerous is what you're saying. We agree on that."
Kaiser: "Without gay people and black people we have nothing but straight white males."
Colbert: "Don't equate black people and straight people. Don't just say the black people are on board with the gay thing. I know you're both oppressed minorities."
Kaiser: "They're both more interesting than straight white people. That's all."


Again, what this means is the highly feminized environment of entertainment, finds straight White guys who are beta, boring.

Much of PC, including the idolizing and idealizing of non-Whites, including illegal aliens, is because most young, attractive, disposable income women (the target of most advertisers and media companies) find most straight White men boring. Simply unsuitable. Johnny Depp, or Orlando Bloom, or Brad Pitt, or George Clooney, or even conservative Adam Baldwin, are not boring. Because they are hot, and famous. But an ordinary, non-dominant, non-aggressive, polite, beta White guy is boring.

It is pretty clear where FX is going. Straight back to the kind of thing Marti Noxon is famous for. Bashing "boring" Beta Straight White guys, going after female viewers who can status monger their concern for non-Whites as evidence of moral and therefore status superiority. Straight out of the Blind Side and Sandra Bullock. With the usual noble lies of how noble and oppressed illegal aliens really are, by the inherent racism of boring beta straight White guys, who often hit on hot women (who in turn resent it, its an insult).

Of course this will fail and die. But meanwhile it will produce one more bit of the feedback loop, of White guy being defined for SWPL women as boring and racist, and not worthy of existence, really. While idealizing the noble lie of how "exciting" and human the culture of Mexico (home of massacres of 72 Central American illegal aliens by Zetas) compared to the racism of again, boring beta White guys. Because dogfights (a favorite of illegal aliens), mariachi music, and drug gangsters are "vibrant" and exciting. Particularly for those who don't have to live there.

One more reason to go after Big Media.

Spike-TV seems intent on following the same path. Last time I checked, it wasn't White power militias sending bombs in toner cartridges, or shooting up Army bases, or trying to blow up Times Square, or flying planes into buildings, or threatening Seattle and Danish cartoonists with death, or writers. Nope. Making "low class" White guys the enemy is a straight play for younger SWPL women.

Spike is abandoning its male audience. You knew it would. The entire structure of Hollywood is anti-White guy, oriented to serving a mostly younger female audience. Even guys like Ed Bernero, who want to make male-oriented shows, find the dense network of female execs below the top guys simply impossible to get past.

Time to change the economics, to change the culture. No one can play the game, and the failure to build a broad, gender-crossing audience should be punished by Republicans to make cable networks like FX and Spike pay the full price for bonehead plays.

11 comments:

Scotsman said...

Time to kick the tube Whiskey. There hasnt been anything on since the 1990s anyway.

Kendama said...

Spike-TV seems intent on following the same path.

What, exactly, is Spike doing that would lead you to say this?

Jeff Burton said...

Can we get Whiskey's take on this, especially Snyder's involvement?

dienw said...

@ Jeff: that movie is insulting: every man a rapist, abuser, and prison guard. It is idiocy: the belief that one can enter one's own mind to learn unknown skills: if true, daydreaming nerds could be ninjas.

dienw said...

Whiskey,

You have not yet commented on the cancellation of "Caprica."

Also, "SGU" has become a steaming jungle of female soap opera drama with weak useless authority figures.

Polichinello said...

The guy is right. Blacks and gays are more "interesting." I'm sure life in the midst of the Stalingrad Siege was more "interesting" than life in small town Kansas, too.

Sgt. Joe Friday said...

Not to mention the fact that at least in California you have to be licensed. The licensing requirements are not exactly a piece of cake, and you have to pass a criminal background check, both state and FBI. My guess is that most PIs are former police or military.

Or do the shows producers intend that their illegal alien PI will be an "undocumented investigator?"

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Whiskey said...

Spike is developing a series about a cop who investigates "domestic terrorism" i.e. a "racist White militia." Because that's who is trying to blow up Times Square.

Sucker Punch is typical of Hollywood, all effects and no story. Snyder is no different from the rest. A story of real heroism (not the manufactured kind of ass-kicking babes) is beyond him. Without Frank Miller to give him a story he's got nothing but "kewl!" designs.

Yeah, Caprica was canceled, imagine that, SyFy turning into fantasy soap opera won't pull guys and not enough women away from Vampire Diaries.

Rob said...

Caprica cancelled?!? I *knew* it was too boring to be a success. This is not the type of show that science fiction fans tune in to see.

Anonymous said...

Honestly, I was more surprised that they gave Ron Moore another show to waste money on after the steaming pile of crap that were the 3rd and the 4th season of nBSG.