Recently I've had the gratifying experience of rewatching episodes of a beloved childhood show and finding them dripping in thoughtful examinations and presentation of minority experience, privilege, racism and more.
Newsarama, "If it's news that will rip your heart out and shit in it, while violating your childhood memories with a piece of raw pork, Newsarama will bring it to you" (my personal label for them - which holds even though a friend brought me the news, they were the link). Has brought word that SciFi with it's new stupid ass name, is remaking Alien Nation and Tim Minear of Angel (the series) is driving the show.
I have no words for my fear and disgust and bright tears. It's been bad enough to have so many people convinced racism isn't a problem because hey, it's the future, it's 200something. It's been made fucking worse, to have people go 'Woot! Black President! Post Racial America! Suck it non whites!'
White privilege? WTF is that? I ain't got no stinking privilege you uppity n*gger.
And now a show that's been feeding my soul, and helping me hold on to my love for Non White Futurism and Fantasy, is being exhumed, savaged, and slapped with Contemporary For Our Times, New Interpretation, By Tim Fucking "Sure Joss, Let's Not Have Any Asians In Our Asian Future" Minear.
Thank you, Kenneth Johnson, for the original. For the respect and the effort.
Fuck You. SciFi Channel.
ETA:
The new "Alien Nation" will likely take place in the Pacific Northwest, and will take place about 20 years after the first ship of aliens - who have been banished as slaves - crash lands into Earth.
By the time the show begins, some time in the 2020s, the alien population has multiplied from a few thousand to 3.5 million. And much of the "newcomers" live their own segregated existence, in what Minear compares to the North African ghettos in France.
"You can take (the original 'Alien Nation') a step forward and really do a show that encompasses the clash of civilizations, and the idea of a ghettoized minority," he said. "You can touch on racism, terrorism, assimilation, immigration. And there's room for satire."
Kenneth Johnson did it better the first time. It got recognized and won awards.
