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I am sick of seeing the rich and powerful on my screen. Where are all the TV shows about normal people?
(www.theguardian.com)
Judge Judy, Hoarders, and Cops
this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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Japan has an incredible wealth of entertainment in their TV shows. I highly reccomend KASSO! Its ninja warrior but with skating they have English guests and translations on their YT channel.
Usually non US shows and Movies are alot better imho. Another something you should not sleep on are UK TV shows. Like: The Responder a show about a first responder who is struggling with mental illness and the pressure of his work.
So broaden your horizon, The industry is not as bad as you think
Japan has an incredible wealth of entertainment
That is a wild way to write “a few very bright spots in a vast sea of absolute garbage”
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What really resonated with me was watching shows like Roseanne.
The article then goes on to ignore The Connors which aired from October 2018 to April 2025.
Yes, if you ignore all of the shows about "normal people", you'll suddenly find no shows about "normal people".
The Connors went on that long? I'll have to check it out. I figured with Roseanne having gone off the deep end it wouldn't hold up much longer.
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Also Young Sheldon and the spin-off that’s still going on
Such content already exists.
There's a Streisand Effect that occurs when writing about what you don't want instead of lifting up what you do want.
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Bob <3 (hearts) Abishola
I haven't seen it but I've heard good things about Adolescence?
I was gonna say that British TV has more realistic or normal people. However I haven't seen much of that recently. It's mainly Taskmaster and Black Mirror.
I am sick of "history" shows and movies that are completely inaccurate. There are so many unbelievable stories that fiction always takes a backseat for me if I were to choose between a history or sci-fi book for example. Shogun is extremely guilty of this, it had great production but the details were sickeningly incorrect, in Japan people were pissed because it's an opportunity to teach about culture and every Japanese knows the real story and details of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Americans have already been propagandizing and manipulating history in many ways since decades past, there is much change to be done.
I tried to watch Shogun, but couldn't really get into it. I was really hoping I'd like it. Instead I just be watching The Seven Samurai on repeat
To be fair, I don't know that Shogun ever purported to 100% totally accurate. It is a fictionalisation of events.
Shogun was adapted from a book by the same name written by James Clavell who wrote a series of historical fiction books that took place in different times in history.
The series stayed pretty faithful to the novel from what I remember, so the person your replying to’s complaint doesn’t really make much sense in that context.
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Check out the cartoon Aggretsuko. Not from this year but from this decade.
Yeah, it's a cartoon about anthropomorphic animals, but the characters are all very normal people, personality-wise. So normal, I got sick of watching how normal they were.
I love Aggretsuko! Good recommendation
I think they portrait (Japanese) work Culture quite well. It seems over the top cause it is an animation but you are right. They have the most normal drama I have seen on TV in quite a while.
I get it, but look at it this way, most of those shows do not show the rich and powerful in a flattering light E.g. Succession. So you could interpret it as Hollywood trying to shatter the glitz and glamor persona that the rich have always enjoyed.
Do yourself a favour and watch Son of a Critch..
Here it is:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287254/
That was a joke due to the English name, but Brazil is actually pretty good at making shows and movies about normal, ordinary people.
Brazilian show.
All cast is white.
Check out.
Depends on how you define white then, is it just skin color? Maybe you're right, but I know plenty of Brazilians that are indistinguishable from white people. We can't call them less Brazilian because they're fairer than the averagei guess real crime is choosing entire cast that is fairer than average and the show being promoted about average people.
Normal people can’t afford it like the rich can and shows about losers are depressing.
There's so much low-hanging fruit regarding topics and themes TV could be written about, but those are all "mundane" and not glamorous. The Pitt might be the closest thing to seeing normal people in a prestige show (not sure if it's considered prestige but at least it's getting a lot of attention).
For example, you could write a great drama or comedy about people moving away from a big city to work remotely from home in a small town.