Episode 345 of the Reversing Climate Change podcast. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Fair warning: this episode spoils a lot of (older) media.
Antiheroes make for great television. But why are we obsessed with them? Why are they in nearly all prestige dramas? Is this a result of our cultural beliefs, or is it (re)producing a culture of cynical realism? What impacts might it have for politics and climate change?
This ascendancy of the antihero is a trend I've been watching (and often enjoying) since my teen years. Shows like The Sopranos helped bring television to its lofty artistic status, but it did so by confusing the natural empathy that good storytelling generates. The longer one watches shows like The Sopranos, the more one ends up rooting for bad guys to be successful. In a world that is ever more mediated by media, could a similar trend be happening in politics?
Today's show is an attempt to make sense of the antihero through a number of prestige dramas, and look for some ways of telling stories that don't lead us into the abyss of constant moral ambiguity.
Today we're going to talk about hope, reclaiming moral authority, and why it's cool to believe in things. I hope you'll join me in that ambition.
