This show was recommended to me recently and though I've not been obsessed with it, it's been watchable. Just got to episode 3 and long story short they run an MMO company and it's come to their attention that there are a bunch of nazis who play their game. The episode culminated in them making a private server just for the nazis. This is a widely agreed upon solution and it does not seem solely motivated by "evil money man". I thought maybe I had missed some nuance so I looked it up and there's an article (linked below) where the writers of the show seemingly pat themselves on the back for coming up with such a fair and balanced solution.
Am I missing something here? Have I gone too woke? The community is still filled with nazis who will likely still be engaging in online and offline activities related to the game. You as a company have seemingly no desire to distance yourself from that kind of community? The issue with nazis is not just that they're mean to people in your video game and giving them their own private Nazi clubhouse does not seem like the solution. There's that popular story about how a bar will slowly become a Nazi bar and I just don't know why that's not a concern for the writers of the show or the team in universe. This is not an always sunny type show where the people are supposed to be bad or incompetent and the whole episode rubbed me the wrong way. Has anyone seen the show? When I looked at other discussions online people were actively saying this was their favorite episode?
Article with the commentary: https://decider.com/2020/02/12/mythic-quest-dinner-party/
McElhenney joked that he thinks his server-banning plan may be able to work in real life. “You know what? That’s what we gotta do. Let’s get Zuckerberg on the phone!”
I haven't watched it actually, so maybe your interpretation is more accurate than mine. My dad has, though, and he used to talk about it all the time with me. I never got the feeling from our conversations that this was a show to be taken seriously, it sounded very much like satirical comedy. He complained quite a lot about the third season - from what I gather it becomes a pretty bland and directionless sitcom - but he really enjoyed the first couple and I don't think that would have been the case if this show was actually as you describe.
I guess knowing what I do about the show, I don't really interpret those quotes in the same way you do. To me, it seems sort of self-deprecating in a way, because he's saying that we all think we know better but maybe if placed in that situation we'd be just as spineless. That kind of take would be very on-point for satirical comedy. Also, I just don't see how you can come to the conclusion that the writers are actually platforming nazism (or in support of this) when this is the quote they provide:
Again, my interpretation of all these quotes put together is that he's saying the obvious solution (outright banning them) would not be funny because it's too obvious and too one-sided. The tension between a satirical comedy's protagonists making bad decisions because they are cowards, or because they are not actually as good as they think is often what provides the humour.
Interesting perspective. I didn't mean to suggest they're pro Nazi or anything, just that the episode resolution didn't sit right with me based on my interpretation. Your mention of the tension between self perception and outcome resonated a bit for me, though I'm not sure if that was my takeaway after watching it. If you ever do end up watching it, feel free to ping me. Would be interested to hear your post view take too.
We will see, I have to admit that the show itself doesn't immediately grab my attention and I'm very picky with comedy. Most of the conversations I had with my dad about it were more about letting him share his interests with me than me actually wanting to talk about the show lol