#TV TROPES EVE ONLINE SERIES#
Kate is presented as an “Iran expert,” but the series never explains her unique credentials or what drew her to study the country (she speaks three words of Farsi over days of narrative time). I admit my bias here: As an Iranian American, it’s pretty jarring to watch characters in The Diplomat, which starts off by suggesting that Iran attacked a British aircraft carrier, casually drop declarative statements about the country’s antisemitism and how its military is too violent even for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad (a man who used chemical weapons against his own people), and then refuse to apologize for the death of an Iranian ambassador (which, at this point in the story, the Brits and Americans might have caused) because Iran’s citizens are “hardly nuns.” This isn’t painting with a broad brush it’s drowning the canvas in decades of the same axis-of-evil talking points.
#TV TROPES EVE ONLINE TV#
Here are four things The Diplomat does that I never want to see on TV again. government’s international dealings post-9/11, yet The Diplomat makes them particularly exhausting. When coupled with moments where Keri Russell’s Kate is simply too irresistible to her colleagues and her childish ways are positioned as empowerment, The Diplomat becomes a superficial slog of self-important “herstory.” None of these tropes is new for a series about the U.S.
#TV TROPES EVE ONLINE FULL#
How many times can one series use Afghan women as props for understanding how sad its powerful, wealthy white protagonist is? An embarrassing amount! Or act as if the American decision-makers who initiated the invasion of Iraq have been wracked with guilt ever since? Also an embarrassing amount! The Diplomat is full of othering and historical revisionism, which are irritating enough in how they position characters working on behalf of the American empire as tormented by the burden of their loyal sacrifice. Netflix’s contributions to the genre include The Recruit, about a CIA lawyer thrown into the field The Night Agent, about an FBI desk jockey thrown into the field and its latest release, The Diplomat, about an international political operative thrown into - you guessed it - the field, this time a British ambassador’s palace worlds away from the war zones she’s used to.Ĭreator and showrunner Debora Cahn put in time on The West Wing and Homeland, and The Diplomat also features tons of wonky walking and gabbing, a “complicated” female protagonist whose romantic relationships are tied up in her work life, and a frankly exhausting amount of imperialism-excusing neoliberalism.
Sarandos-land is steadily expanding into the same thematic space as Amazon, home of dad TV like Jack Ryan, The Terminal List, and the upcoming Citadel, series that center the CIA, Navy SEALs, and American-aligned ideologies.
Watch out, Prime Video, Netflix is coming for your deep-state mantle. Spoilers follow for the first season of The Diplomat, which debuted April 20 on Netflix.
0 kommentar(er)
