Political Differences Among DS Fans

[MagnusTrask]

The one calling for the president's death ought to be reported too (too late now I guess?) and not just to FB.  The Secret Service ought to pay him a visit.

I like black humor when it's done right.  Good, real black humor acknowledges the seriousness of what's being joked about, though sometimes it may not show on the surface.   There's a difference between that and just making light of people's deaths.   It sounds as if these people are doing the latter.  No excuse for that.

[BurkeDevlin]

I'm openly gay, super liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-tea party, half Israeli and very open about that too.
So how do I react when I see fellow DS fans who worship uber-homophobes like Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin, or who are pro-life and anti-marriage equality?

How may of these views, or any other important views you hold, do you believe that reasonable people could disagree about?  If the answer is none of them, that may be the problem.  I found it a bit unsettling that your post seems to equate people who advocate violence with anyone who holds any opposing view of any kind.

If one thinks that every issue is black and white, and anyone with a different view is a monster, then it probably does seem odd when the "monsters" like some of the same shows or movies that oneself does.  I'm not saying you do that, but I know people who do.  I had to unfriend one liberal friend on Facebook simply because she writes a dozen posts a day, all political, and all bigoted diatribes about how much she despises anyone with a different idea.  Never any substance or argument, just raw emotion.  Actually, it's so extreme that I suspect her life is going very badly, but I don't know her well enough any more to be able to ask personal questions, and it was simply too embarrassing to be associated with her.  But there are other people with views on public policy identical to hers, who I'd never consider unfriending, because their views are based on a reasoning process that they're capable of selling and defending.

To equate Beck with somebody who advocates violence is a bit absurd. I've heard him speak a few times and he's one of those guys who specializes in saying nothing at all for long periods of time.  I once saw him spend an hour talking about a book about George Washington without saying anything about it that he couldn't have read on the dust jacket.  The first time I ever saw his show, I was playing Age of Empires, the show came on, and I was too busy to change channels.  After a couple of minutes I thought "Gee, these introductory remarks are taking a long time.  I looked at the clock and saw that I'd lost track of time, the show as more than half over, and he still hadn't said a darned thing.  As far as inflammatory rhetoric goes, there are probably people you agree with who are much bigger offenders in this regard.

[David]

I never equated Beck with violence, but Beck does use his platform to keep people like me from having full equality.
It's one thing to disagree, it's another to actively target a group of people to stop them from having the same rights as everyone else.

BTW, some of the religious groups now obsessed with homosexuality also tried to have DS taken off the air in 1968 because they found the Nick Blair story offensive & satanic.
At what point do we tell them to stop trying to force us to adhere to their views?
And when does it become OK to say: "you're not a nice person, begone!" (not saying this to anyone in this thread)

[Midnite]

Thanks for attempting a DS tie-in, but the truth is that the discussion isn't about DS or its fans anymore and is therefore far off topic.

[David]

Just for the record, I honestly see the two (1968 & today) as being the same thing done by the same people.

[Gerard]

I remember TLATKLS once making what could be considered an opinion about DS's popularity and politics.  She stated that when it aired, the country was mired in massive social and political change and turmoil, and the show (along with Star Trek) allowed people to escape and enjoy other times and places with their own turmoil far removed from where they audience was.

Gerard

[The Doctor and K9]

TLATKLS? I assume the KLS is Kathryn Leigh Scott, but what do the letters before siginify?

[Cousin_Barnabas]

"The Lovely and Talented," I'm sure.   

[David]

The book TV Milestones: DS states that the show's explosion in popularity began during the Summer of Love, barely 3 months after Barnabas' arrival. The author argues that the show's radically different nature appealed to the Peace and Love crowd, who were rejecting the politics, morals & culture of their parents.

The show's huge audience among gay men & lesbians, according to the book, is directly tied to closeted vampire Barnabas.

[BurkeDevlin]

BTW, some of the religious groups now obsessed with homosexuality also tried to have DS taken off the air in 1968 because they found the Nick Blair story offensive & satanic.

Well, to play you-know-who's advocate) it is, isn't it?  Nicholas is a warlock, trying to use Adam to create a race of Satanic Supermen, and in one episode, actualy goes to Hell for a meeting with the Big D (I guess they didn't have gotomeeting.com then).  I found it more funny than offensive, but I can't claim to be shocked that someone might look askance at that.  You could get in more trouble with Muslims for simply depicting Muhammad, so that was one of the milder reactions.

Anyway, if you haven't seen my rendition of the Angelique in Hell Sequence, and want to opine, I still have it online at

http://graeme.t15.org/burkedevlin/anghell/index.htm

It's got a little analysis, along with the scripts of the original episode for comparison purposes.  Nicholas lays out the whole plan explicitly in Ep 628.

[MagnusTrask]

I wonder if they tuned into a minute or two with Blair, and assumed he was meant to be the good guy!   As long as the point of view of the show was clearly anti-Satan, which it was, calling it Satanic was insane!

[BurkeDevlin]

Do fans universally dislike Nicholas and Angelique, or are they often made to seem likable and/or sympathetic?  I'm not sure about Nicholas, but Angelique is extremely popular, and not always in a "Love to hate" way.  I remember kids playing Dark Shadows as a kid, and lots of people wanted to play her.

Change the setting from the supernatural to, say, a show about Nazis.  A documentary is fine, but a show that made the audience identify and sympathize with Nazi characters would probably get a lot of blowback.  That's why a show like Hogan's Heroes made the likable Germans like Schultz and Klink, into idiots.  DS is in a similar situation, but unlike Hogan's Heroes, it really has very few good characters.  Almost everyone is deeply flawed in some way, and the ones who aren't (like Vicki), are the dumb ones.  I can see that some parents might object to it.  In a way, it's a grown-up show, like a supernatural Peyton Place, but it did have a lot of appeal for kids.

[David]

A show about likable Nazis would be offensive, considering how many people the Nazis killed, but to compare that to DS is absurd: DS is fun to watch, but it's also so far removed from reality that being offended by it seems ridiculous.

Funny, witty captions, btw.

[MagnusTrask]

There may have been fans who were on Blair or Angelique's side, and liked their agenda, but it's hard to imagine.    The point of view of the show was that they were villains, and had to be stopped.   How anti-Satanic can you get?   These churches should have been writing fan letters and asking parishioners to watch every day.   Are the villains attractive characters?   Yes, but they often are, and devils are supposed to be.   They're supposed to be magnetic and entice you in.   Dark Shadows should have been a Biblical literalist's dream TV show.

Never mind that the men of God on DS are also bad guys, and that the hero's a vampire.  Details, details...

[BurkeDevlin]

In a way it is a Biblical literalist's dream.  Check this dialogue from the transcript on my website:

"(Julia) Then... why did you come here? You have powers at your command, why don't you bring Eve to life?"
"(Nicholas) If that were the case, I could have used them to avoid the first two experiments. Why didn't I do that?"
"(Julia) You tell me."
"(Nicholas) Because it was imperative that Eve be created artificially, the same as Adam was."
"(Julia) Why?"
"(Nicholas) For the answer to that, I refer you to the book of Genesis. The original Adam and Eve were tempted by the Master."
"(Julia) By... Satan."
"(Nicholas) I know him... by another name. At any rate, the first man and woman yielded to temptation, sinned against their maker. For this they were punished. But they remained his children nevertheless. Now... now after thousands of years, there is a new Adam, a new Eve! Different from every living human being and yet... human, just the same. And they, and all who they breed shall be the children of my master!"
"(Julia) It's... monstrous!"
"(Nicholas) Yes. It is intended to be."

Side Note:  This makes the whole Diabolos business even more convoluted than it was.  The original idea was that having the Devil on TV was a bit too much, so they filed the serial numbers off and made him "Diabolos", a Prince of Darkness, but not any particular one, mind you.  Of course they never called him that onscreen, so you had to read the credits to even notice it.  But now Nicholas comes flat out and says that Diabolos is Satan, making you wonder what the point of the name change was in the first place.  That's why  my page has that one caption that always cracks me up no matter how many times I read it:

"(Nicholas) Genesis, Chapter 3, okay? Adam and Eve were tempted by the Master."
"(Julia) By Satan!!"
"(Nicholas) I know him by another name. A super secret name. A name that no mortal has ever heard and lived to tell the tale!"
"(Julia) Oh, you mean Diabolos."
"(Nicholas) D'oh!"


Anyway, it's true that Nick and Ang are the bad guys, but I can buy the idea that some might not think it a great show for kids.  Like Peyton Place, there really are no Good Guys, or very few at least.  On DS it's usually less Bad Guys vs. Good Guys than it is Bad Guys vs. Not-Quite-So-Bad Guys.  From seeing it as a kid, I remembered Barnabas as being a good guy, but when seeing it years later, was surprised how seldom he was.  Well, Julia was a good guy, at least.  No, not really her either.  Seeing it again years later, I was surprised how quick she was to abuse the doctor/patient relationship with Maggie, and cut corners whenever necessary to get what she wanted.  At first she seemed to have some idea of winning the Nobel Prize for her anti-vampire elixir or something, and after that, she was Barnabas' enabler.

It's a good show, but not a great show for kids, as there are no real role models.  Everyone is either deeply flawed, or perennially out of the loop.  Some struggle against their flaws harder than others, but there's really nobody you'd want to emulate, at least not consistently.  People have little flashes here and there.  It really is like a supernatural Peyton Place, which wasn't a show for kids either.