Rebels with Cause

The Weekly Standard ^ | Jan 14, 2013 | ELI LEHRER

[lentulusgracchus]

NBC's Revolution (Mondays, 10 p.m. ET/PT) features swordfights, gun-fights, and crossbow fights, chases on horseback, chases on trains, and chases on foot. .... the show’s politics can plausibly be interpreted as Hollywood’s stereotype of a Tea Party worldview ...

The show manages a degree of sophistication without ever becoming obscure. On one hand, it’s clear that Monroe and Neville are baddies, that Miles is an honorable rogue in the mode of Han Solo, and that the crossbow-wielding Charlie is a retread of the Hunger Games’s Katniss Everdeen. On the other hand, flashbacks to before and just after the blackout show the plausible, even sympathetic, motivations of both bad guys, while also showing that the good guys (especially Miles, Monroe’s former number two) aren’t as pure as the driven snow. ...

On top of all this, the show does appear to have something of a political message, although not the one some might expect, given that producer J.J. Abrams maxed out his donations to the Obama campaign. It’s clear from the first episode that the militia maintains its tyranny in large part because it has disarmed the population and controls nearly all guns. Rebels say that they’re fighting to restore the United States, and they use American flags as their standard. The militia’s tyranny is expressed through its tax collection, and [the number-two militia bad guy's] pleasant speaking style more than slightly resembles that of the incumbent president. .... Revolution appears to provide conservatives with “something out of Holly-wood that doesn’t mock them, but resembles them.”

As the plot has evolved, however, the “conservative” messages have become less clearcut .... they do reflect a technocratic, managerial, government-knows-best attitude that’s anathema to the show’s ostensible libertarian/Tea Party appeal.

[lentulusgracchus]

Hollywood doesn't mind borrowing Tea Party, Originalist, and other conservative themes, but even when they try to "represent", they can't resist getting their moral and ideational halitosis all over them.