I was thinking the other day of what could be the most right and left wing TV shows (scripted dramas or comedies - not shows like the Daily Show, Keith Oberman or Bill O).
I think currently “24” with its “Anything for the U.S.” point of view has to be at the top for the right, but I have found NCIS to be rather that way at times too. That being said I have seen them turn this on its head on occasion.
On the flip side, I’m not sure. For programs long off the air, I would probably say “Maude” was the most “Liberal”. I do not know where you would put “All in the Family”. I mean it is right wing, but for a lefty reason. But I am not sure of a current or recent show that would clearly be left of center - “Big Bang Theory” maybe because it suggests that something other than creationism exists, but that’s kind of a stretch.
I’ve heard the “24 is really right wing” argument before and I don’t buy it. Action shows don’t have political leanings. In action shows, the bad guys are always irredeemably bad and there really are terrorists around every corner.
To say that makes it right wing is a bit of a stretch.
JAG and NCIS I would safely say tend to be a fair distance right-of-center, but that’s because the POV characters tend to almost exclusively be in the US military (although the guys on NCIS are mostly civilians, I think. Some of them might just be plainclothes military like Gib, but I’m not clear on that). The military itself, as an institution, tends to be right-of-center, regardless of where many of the members might be on the spectrum.
West Wing struck me as fairly left-wing, but not unbelievably so. Characters on the show had to swallow their morals from time to time for the greater good, while they also on occasion got unbelievably setups for verbal smackdowns on super-conservative characters (including my favorite scene: “Here, when I stand up… NOBODY sits down!”
Everyone THINKS “24” is a right wing show… but who are the REAL villains every time? Muslim extremists? Nah! Communists? Nah! Every fiendish plot Jack Bauer investigates turns out to be the work of Big Business, which is trying to stir up wars for its own purpses.
I agree. I’m a bona fide San Francisco liberal who lives in the Castro to boot, but I never thought 24 was right-wing or political at all. I suppose T2 is right-leaning, since Sarah was able to get all those guns and use them to help save the world, but I figured it was more because blood and bombs go a lot better with pizza and beer.
I recall an ep. of JAG where, in the B plot, the Navy was challenged in court about amphibious training disturbing the nesting sites of an endangered species of turtle (I think that’s what it was). The concerns of the strawman environmental activist were pooh-poohed, and that entire subplot was promptly dropped and not revisited for the remainder of the episode.
Yeah, pretty far right. Never watched it again after that, despite my finding the woman lawyer to be very hot.
24 co-creator Joel Surnow is open about being a conservative, so it’s not entirely an assumption based on the content of the show. But for the most part I agree with what you’re saying. It’s fiction that is enjoyable on its own merits regardless of your politics and it doesn’t pretend to be an honest debate about surveillance, torture or terrorism. It’s moronic that the show is sometimes used that way, but that’s the fault of Fox and Friends and pundits, not 24.
I think 24 is an unusual mix, because they do go out of their way to avoid using Muslims as terrorists, preferring to substitute businessmen or corrupt government officials (usually white men). At the same time, they do make fun of non-evil international groups as spineless appeasers, such as the UN worker in Redemption.
I’m going to go with an unusual choice and say that most crime shows, such as Law and Order and CSI, are left-wing. Why? Because they go out of their way to show crimes perpetrated by middle- and upper-class middle-aged white men, doing what Tom Wolfe called “The Search for the Great White Defendant.” A more realistic show, such as The Wire (whose writers are openly left-wing, btw) would reveal the depressing truth about crime patterns in major cities.
Columbo is another “cop drama” that ALWAYS has super rich people as villans. Even more super rich than L&O and CSI. I would have never thought of the show as having any political leanings, but if we’re saying that “evil rich white people = liberal” then that one tops them all.
One of the characters on How I Met Your Mother is always talking about wanting to be a lawyer for environmental causes (although at present he works for a Big Bad Corporation out of desperation)…so I guess that show would lean left.
King of the Hill is often cited as a conservative show, to which I’d say maybe, and Hank Hill as the most conservative man on television, which I think is probably true.
In thinking about it it’s astounding how many “slice of life” shows were pretty much apolitical on practically every level.
“Most liberal” crown has to go to the later seasons of “MASH” even over “The West Wing” although some of the more smugly preachy episodes of STTNG would give them both a run for their money.
Most conservative (in tone) overall with everyone else running a distant second would have to be “Dragnet”.
I’m kind of debating whether the mid to later episodes of “The Andy Griffith” show would be “conservative” of not.
There’s also the basic fact that the creator and showrunner of both shows (well, he no longer runs NCIS), Donald Bellasario, is a very conservative person and the shows reflected his POV in that regard.
There was an episode of NCIS centered around the sonar testing the Navy does that disturbs marine mammals. The environmentalist smuggled himself on board a submarine with the intention of blowing it up. When his plan was foiled, he boobytrapped his body and committed suicide, so they shot his body out the torpedo port and he blew up in the ocean… then they went and ate ice cream.
Another show built upon conservative ideology, even if it wasn’t explicit, would have to be Dallas. The endless pursuit of money and oil, at whatever cost.