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Friday Fun Thread for April 25, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Last week, I recommended "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," and JarJarJedi replied "Second this, and despite them addressing a lot of topics that would be classified as "social justice" and "woke", it does not give off the impression of being a woke product. I have very low tolerance for "agenda" productions, and I quite enjoyed it..." What other shows "thread the needle" well?

The legal procedural/political dramedy "The Good Wife" was interesting: It was set in Chicago and the (almost exclusively liberal) characters were always openly cynical about local "Machine Politics," and neither side was portrayed as having the moral high ground. Early episodes included "cross-racial identification" problems by witnesses in a criminal trial, a judge being suspected of racial bias and statistical challenges to the evidence (the big reveal was that it was a "kids for cash" scheme), and multiple instances of lawyers saying they stereotype jurors because it works. Later episodes had the liberal main characters battling progressive ideological excess, like a college that interpreted "diversity of expression" as "privileging expression by 'diverse' students," and the odd principled alliance with a red-tribe cause, like a defense of a Project Veritas stand-in against prior restraint. In examples of the main characters being openly ideological, the show was scrupulous about giving the opposition "their day in court." (Not every episode, but if it was a recurring topic.)

(I've never seen it, but I've read the sequel series does all the wrong things.)