2020 has been a year-long series of grievances, and TV was no exception. Although COVID ended a lot of business, leftist Hollywood has been in full force shoving its agenda down our throats. In honor of Festivus on December 23, we’ve once again gathered a list of 2020 TV grievances to air as well as feats of strength and Festivus miracles.
Gather 'round the Festivus pole and enjoy a Festivus for the rest of us!
Airing of Grievances
1. Enough with BLM. Ever since the George Floyd protests earlier this summer, shows have been falling over each other to try and appease the Black Lives Matter crowd. Week after week during the fall season, we’ve been getting shows insisting that BLM are mostly peaceful protesters fighting against systemic racism and evil racist cops. If that wasn’t bad enough, we even have cop shows following the same trend. If you’re going to push radical beliefs on us, the least you could do is not humiliate long-running cop shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Curry: Since George Floyd, I've taken statement after statement from two kinds of cops: The baton swinging gladiators who take one look at me and can barely hide their disdain...
Benson: And I'm sorry that you had to experience that.
Curry: And the well-intentioned, guardian cops who never see themselves as racist, but are in denial about their complicity in the systemic racism within the NYPD... Cops like you, Captain Benson.
Benson: I'm well aware there's racism in NYPD.
Curry: And what about your own bias?
Benson: I'm not racist.
Curry: I'm sure you're not, explicitly. But implicitly? If you grew up in this country, it's in you and me. I struggle every day with my own biases. For too many people, law enforcement has lost all credibility, and until every one of us takes a serious self-inventory, we can't begin to get it back.
2. Stop demonizing ICE. This was definitely a habit that did not improve since 2019. Although the pro-illegal immigration message was side-lined this fall by BLM, that didn’t stop the first half of 2020 from slamming immigration enforcement. We still got the usual arguments from CW's Roswell, New Mexico that border laws are arbitrary, from NBC's Superstore that E-Verify is “so unfair,” and from Starz's Vida that Hispanic ICE agents are race traitors. When they're not whining about ICE, they're claiming some empty platitude like “we’re all immigrants” as a defense for tipping off an illegal immigration raid, like in Fox's Deputy. No one would miss that in 2021.
Board Member #1: Sergeant Hollister's storied history with this department is well-known to this board. Equally well-known is his history of recalcitrance, insubordination, and disregard for the chain of command.
Board Member #2: Sergeant Hollister, let me make this clear for you. Did you or did you not warn residents of this community about our joint operation with ICE?
Sergeant Bill Hollister: I might've mentioned it.
Board Member #1: Bill, you jeopardized 30 million in federal grants.
Board Member #2: Who the hell do you think you are, Sergeant Hollister?
Hollister: I'm a lawman. Never took a dime. Never put my hands on somebody unless I had to. Never pulled the trigger when there was another way. You wanna hunt gangsters, human traffickers? Well, I'm your huckleberry. But you're asking me to drag families from their homes so you can eat from the federal trough. When did you lose your way, Jerry?
Board Member #1: At least I know what century it is.
Hollister: Well, I swore the same oath he did. I didn't swear it to you. I swore it to them. And I don't give a pinch of dry turd how those folks got here. We're all immigrants. I gave my word I'd protect them. Even if it's protecting them from you. Here's the deal. You can tell Sheriff Bradford if he wants my star, he knows where to find me.
3. Speaking of terrible patterns, not only did 2020 double down on sexualizing children, we saw several transgender children as well. Now we have kids as young as six on shows like NBC's Council of Dads declaring themselves to have been born the wrong gender. Shows like The Babysitters’ Club on Netflix even turned around to lecture doctors for daring to question a child’s gender preferences. So much for respecting science there. Apparently, we can’t let real science get in the way of a sick fascination with getting kids sexualized like in Netflix's AJ and the Queen.
4. With that in mind, it makes sense that another grievance of 2020 includes the degrading and erasing of religion. Shows like The New Pope on HBO and Filthy Rich on Fox thrived off insulting Christianity, but even non-religious shows went out of their way to insult or mock religious behavior. Whether it was mocking thoughts and prayers, like in NBC's New Amsterdam, or praising atheism, like in HBO Max's Raised by Wolves, there was no shortage of hating God and His people even on the holiest days of the year. In fact, it just about brings out the worst in people as seen by this explicit clip from Netflix's F Is For Family.
Frank: “Goddamn son of a bitch. Coming here making my kids happy. ‘Oh, talk to God!’ Oh, what a laugh! Just sits there with His Son and the fucking Holy Ghost, thinking He’s better than me! It’s Frank Murphy calling! Why’d you bring that fucker back to me? I demand an answer! Aw, fuck all three of you!”
5. Please, please, please no more election specials. Sure, 2021 will see fewer attempts by celebrities to lecture us about voting, but really, this trend should end here and now before the next presidential election cycle begins. No more cast reunions of The West Wing just to raise money for Democrats. No more wasting episodes of ABC's The Conners to tell us how great it is to vote for Democrats. And definitely no more “non-partisan” shows that still tell us to vote for Democrat policies. Kal Penn is proof that actors should just stick to acting.
Kal: When I had the chance to book you, this reminds me of this-- several conversations I had with friends, right? Said, "I think Secretary Clinton has agreed to join us for our show." There was a lot of pushback from Democratic friends. Um, and I know that you know it's there. It's sort of like, "Oh, she might be too polarizing. "Do you--do you really want a polarizing guest on--on an episode of this new show that's encouraging people to vote?" And I just thought--I wanted task you how that makes you feel, whether it's exhausting. Because to me, it's sort of like how Kumail Nanjiani is getting all the acting jobs now that he's ripped and way funnier than me. Uh, is that frustrating? Is it exhausting? Or is that just part of how it is?
Hillary Clinton: Now, why I am polarizing? Well, you know, I'm a kind of pushy woman, if you really stop to think about it. And I've also pushed hard on a lot of issues that I care deeply about. You know, back when I was First Lady, um, and was advocating for universal healthcare, uh, I was burned in effigy. Now, was I polarizing because I thought everybody in the country should have access to quality, affordable healthcare? Or was I the, you know-- the figurehead, ah, that was then targeted because there are a lot of really powerful interests who don't want us to have, uh, universal healthcare, no matter what you call it. Whether you call it universal healthcare, Medicare for All, whatever you call it, there area lot of powerful interests, ah, that don't want you to have it.
6. Finally, we get to the one thing that could possibly end in 2021: the endless Trump jabs. We get it, Trump is evil, Trump is a Bobo, Orange Man Bad. It’s not like that hasn’t been the message for the past four years. Come January 2021, he shouldn’t be a problem for Hollywood anymore, but with scenes like this one from Black-ish, it’s hard to imagine any of them overcoming Trump Derangement Syndrome any time soon.
Dre: “You see, what feels like a long, long, long time ago, but really was just a year ago, America got a new boss. Let’s call him the Shady King. And when the Shady King came, even though he scared the (bleep) out of Daddy, Daddy and Dave Chapelle were willing to give him a chance… When this dude said he didn’t believe in political correctness, giving him a chance was harder than you think. I mean, the Shady King was even scarier than Daddy could ever imagine. This sucker wanted to build a wall between us and our neighbors. He seemed to have private meetings with our enemies. And when it came to his subjects some thought that the Shady King appeared to be out of touch with what they needed. And some people felt he cared more about trophies than his subjects... I’m not really sure how we got here, but I think it started in 2008 with this guy who people say is just like your daddy. Let’s call him Prince Barry…the people of the kingdom saw Prince Barry’s reign as a sign that the kingdom was changing, and it felt good. So good, in fact, that the people of the kingdom started looking for other things to change… And it turns out that everyone was not a fan of different. There were a lot of people in the kingdom who weren’t happy about these changes and wanted to change them back. They thought they were being ignored. And you know who wasn’t ignoring them? That’s right. The Shady King.
Feats of Strength
Those being said, not every show bowed to the liberal elite this year. Blue Bloods on CBS stood up to the BLM crowd by having a season premiere that didn’t insist that the police are filled with gun-toting racists. In fact, the show defended the dignity of cops in the face of a BLM supporter. Although Blue Bloods has a habit of defending law enforcement, it’s still nothing short of a Christmas miracle that we have this scene.
Frank: Please have a seat.
Regina: Thank you. Listen, I... May have gone a little overboard today. I don't want you to think I'm trying to start a fight with you.
Frank: Hey, we're good.
Regina: We are?
Frank: Yeah. The truth is, I enjoy fighting with you. But, Regina, what exactly are we fighting about this time?
Regina: About-- and you're not gonna like this-- the NYPD being on trial.
Frank: Well, because you're putting it on trial. And, by the way, everyone is entitled to a vigorous defense, even my people.
Regina: Do you really not see what's going on here?
Frank: I do. Every single cop is being painted with the same brush. And when anyone in my rank and file conducts themself in a way that is not worthy of the uniform, they get dealt with.
Regina: Every cop is wearing the same uniform, so if you get stopped walking while Black, how do you know which one is walking up on you?
Frank: Okay, how's a cop to know what he's walking up on? See, that fuse gets lit both ways. At least we can agree on that.
Regina: I need you to get your cops in check.
Frank: Fine, as long as we can keep the criminals in check. You got a way to do both?
Regina: You have criminals in your ranks.
Frank: Boy... Regina, you need to get your head out of your ass.
Regina: Don't talk to me like that.
Frank: Okay.
Festivus Miracles
Although Trump is still the butt of every unfunny joke, Democrats didn’t completely escape Hollywood’s wrath. In fact, more than once, an obvious Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stand-in character came off as wrong at best and evil at worst. Amazon Prime's The Boys revealed their AOC character to be a secret supervillain responsible for several horrible murders. Even the definitely anti-Trump Netflix series Space Force featured a scene putting their AOC-like congresswoman in her place.
Unfortunately, abortion was still a popular topic on 2020 TV. Despite that, we had several shows acknowledge the value of unborn life. Reality shows, HBO dramas, and even shows about lesbians couldn’t help but concede that there is life in the womb or at the very least acknowledge abortion can scar a woman. The best example comes to us courtesy of NBC's Chicago P.D. which had a woman recognize her unborn baby through her ultrasound photos.
Ruzek: You know I like it when you come down to my neighborhood. You sound a little off on the phone. Everything... You went to the doctor? Alone?
Burgess: Yeah. Sorry, I wanted to go alone, I--sorry.
Ruzek: It's okay. I--can I see?
Burgess: Yeah.
Ruzek: No, it's--it's just-- I don't know. You know everybody always says that these things are just like fuzzy clouds, that you can't make anything out, but... That's definitely our baby.
Burgess: Yeah. I heard the heartbeat.
Ruzek: Really?
Burgess: Yeah. Like, I'm--I'm really having a baby.
Ruzek: Yeah. You know at some point we're gonna have to talk about how this is all gonna work. You know, what it's gonna mean for us, what it'll look like.
Burgess: I know.
Ruzek: You know, and I just-- Hey, hey, hey, hey. When we were together, you know, we always said that we would—
Happy Festivus and Merry Christmas!
