You should watch it a second time. He comes off less like a redneck and more like an intelligent person who knew more about what was going on than the actual government. In other words, he's being portrayed as possibly a good guy, so far. Or at least someone who is partially right. And his diatribe was against colonizers, not illegal immigrants.
I have little doubt that the ranch guy is going to turn out to be a bad or grey guy, based on Sheriff Kane's basically being like, "You don't want to end up owing Ranch Guy anything" and Sheriff Kane being portrayed as an unequivocal good guy. Now if Lanterns flips the script and has Sheriff Kane be a bad guy and Ranch Guy be Right All Along, kudos to it for breaking with genre conventions. I think, unspoiled, there is a decent chance that Ranch Guy is actually supported by aliens and/or may in fact be one himself. We know that there are at least two factions of aliens who were involved in the Friday Night Massacre, so he could be on the side of the faction that was against the faction of Mr. I-know-Barack-Obama-as-the-44th-president-who-succeeded-George-W.-Bush-and-had-some-controversy-about-his-birth-certificate.
GOP Politico all over. Now he may have a point as Crosis says, but his family are also racist fucks when it comes to Jon (except his wife who evidently knows where its at) and those apples aren't being shot from the heads by him.
I don't know if Ranch Guy -- who I finally went to IMDB to check out his actual name -- William Macon is racist or his kid are racist. I think he just thinks that John is a) a weirdo for being vegan b) second fiddle so doesn't deserve his full attention c) probably feels some sort of way about being cucked, but I'm not sure which. Turned on? Passive-aggressively angry? As for John Stewart's race: at least so far in this pilot episode, although obviously the character is Black, there has not yet been anything truly IMO centered around that. In other words, there is not an action or dialogue or anything that would seem strange if the character were played by a White actor (or one of any other ethnicity.)
1) Typically, yes, the uniform is a construct. They appear to be going in a different direction here. 2) Yes, you normally need the ring to maintain constructs. That's why the bird is such a big deal.
So some thoughts on the episode: It is hard to talk about race-related issues in general and more specific in the realm of sci-fi. There's so many dangers, from alienating a lot of viewers by seeming too "anti-white" or being too political, to seeming too condescending or to insincere, just to talk about a few things. It would have been easy to tell a race-neutral-ish story where it just so happens that Hal is white and it just soo happens that John is black, but that there is nothing more about the difference in their experiences or characters really because of that. But TPTB here decided to go out of their way to tell a story in which race is now central to the origin of John Stewart. It is common in my understanding for middle-class black parents to tell their kids that they will have to strive to be twice as good and work twice as hard to get half as far. People can and will harrumph and quibble about whether that's true and so forth. But this show is putting that on display. Note, it never says that Hal was undeserving or anything like that. But it does strongly suggest that a key difference between hm and John Sr. is that Hal could be fearless, at least according to Bernadette Stewart, he didn't have to live as a black man in America. Now, maybe John Sr. would have flunked some other test, and maybe Hal would have still been fearless if he happened to be black. But whatever the reason, all this led to John Sr. suffering trauma that he passed along to his family, and that trauma led to a Guardian offering literal reparations in the form of a big-ass diamond. Now I have mixed feelings about the episode establishing that somehow the Stewart family went through the money they got from selling what should have been a multimillion dollar payday. And they decided to concentrate the trauma on John Jr. From the age of five, they tried to get him to be fearless. They never stopped to think: why do we want this for John Jr? What does John Jr. want? What if the Guardians have ulterior motives? What if the Guardians can't be trusted? Why can't John Sr. (or for that matter, John Jr.) serve in any number of non-GL roles? There are presumably a fair amount of things the Guardians and the individual GLs might need that either John would be perfectly suited for even if they felt fear. When he's grown up, why does John Jr. have to go through the hurdles he has to go through? Why can't the Guardians just give him a ring, or have the AI determine if he is worthy of one, have him train under normal circumstances? John Jr. literally works multiple times as hard as Hal to show that he deserves a ring. In addition to 20ish years of conditioning to show that he is fearless, he has to demonstrate the ability to actually create something with the ring. He has to have an interview. He has to train with Hal, and has been doing so for two months. All Hal had to do is convincingly and truly say "I'm not afraid," and he was slinging his ring within an hour or two of that. The other thing that this highlights is about power. The Guardian absolutely could have uplifted John Sr. or Jr. whenever it wanted. Hal, with that ring and his popularity could have solved all sorts of problems for Earth. But both of them have just used a fraction of their potential. Meanwhile, John, despite having gotten half-assed training from Hal, has already managed something that should be impossible. And it would seem that after all this, he still doesn't get his ring as of 2026.
The ep establishes there were significant issues with a black person suddenly showing up trying to sell a massive diamond. Presumably this lead to a smaller payout to avoid questions? I don't think the Guardians trust the AI. Sinestro was likely chosen by his ring. And they clearly don't trust Hal, even if that's guilt-by-association for being Sinestro's protege. They want Lanterns who'll follow orders.
I definitely could see that the Stewarts might end up taking a lower amount than the diamond was worth to avoid hassles or what not, but the trouble is a diamond that size is worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more, from what Google tells me. So for the diamond money to have run out in a relatively short time (less than 10 years, probably less than 5) means either the Stewarts were super-wasteful or got way way less than it was worth from the sale. They don't seem that wasteful, so they must have seriously gotten screwed in the sale. I can take it for granted since I can in 2026 just Google how much diamonds are worth. But I think common sense and a little due diligence would tell people back in 1996 that a big-ass diamond is worth more than $10 million and to take anything less than $2 would be a sucker's play. There is no real reason for the Stewarts to take such a big haircut on the sale of the diamond that I can see. They are pretty smart people and they didn't seem particularly desperate for cash or in debt. probably would have been better to have a scene/dialogue indicating that they couldn't fundamentally sell the diamond because no one would believe the story that a black couple happened upon a diamond worth that much. Yes, the cops doubting them might have incentivized the Stewarts to what to get rid of the diamond sooner for less than it is worth, but that much less? It seems like it would not be too difficult to once you have the diamond, find some way to sell it through an auction house or wherever where you agree to take only 20 percent of the proceeds and you'd still be set for life. I get that the Guardians are looking for something different than the previous AI gave them. The answer to that would seem to me to be: adapt the AI to make willingness to follow orders a higher priority. It also seems like with the tech and the abilities that the Guardians have -- uploading consciousnesses since at least 2006, for example, it is somewhat wasteful to try old fashioned interviews.
Most Southern states you can shoot firearms into the dark and no-one will bat an eyelid unless you hit someone of value. Who counts as valuable would no doubt align quite closely with your professed opinions.
If you watched the episode, you do not need me to transcribe the script. If not, kindly shut your dick holster.
So you've got nothing. Just wanted to hear yourself flap. At least Critical Drinker makes a buck of fit.
Did you watch the episode, yes or no? Did you see villainous mama Stewart lecturing the old white lady "Guardian" about racism and privilege, yes or no? Does it make you feel smart to pretend you didn't? Go fuck yourself.
Repeat after me: Characters are not the authors. Or do you think Brett Ellis endorses murdering prostitutes as well?
I think it's interesting that you call her "villainous mama Stewart." Do you actually think that she is a villain? That the show writers want us to think of her as a villain? She seems to me to be portrayed as a hero even though she and John Sr. do objectively terrible things to John in order to toughen him up. If she is a villain, it would seem to undercut the notion of her talking about race and privilege with any authority. It also seems to me no matter how you slice it, she is portrayed as wrong quite frequently. 1. She was wrong to distrust John Sr. about what he said happened to him initially. 2. She was wrong to distrust John Sr. even after it came out that GL publicly said the same thing happened to him. 3. She was wrong to not get her husband some help prior to him apparently spiraling out of control, or as he was spiraling out of control. 4. She was -- from what we saw, anyways -- wrong to blame John Sr.'s feeling of fear to the existence of racism rather than being grabbed up in a green bubble is an inherently fear-inducing thing. 5. She was wrong to not have the Guardian talk to John Sr. directly. 6. She was wrong to not tell John Sr. about her conversation with the Guardian until some time after it happened. 7. She was wrong to allow that diamond to be apparently sold for pennies on the hundred dollar bill, because a diamond as big as a fist would be worth well in the $100 million range, and there's little chance that they could have gone through that much money that quickly. 8. She was wrong to traumatize John as she did. 9. She was wrong to lie to John about the Guardians watching him through birds. Given that Bernadette was portrayed as wrong about so many things, it seems to me that the message about racism and privilege coming from her mouth undercuts it, rather than supports it. I suppose it should go almost without saying, but the Guardian is no more an old white lady than I am. I'm not sure why you have "Guardian" in quotes. Do you have some doubt that it's really a Guardian for some reason?
I suggest Al and any other butthurt white dude should try watching this: It is a wonderfully nuanced look at just how badly Al misses the point. Al, like the grifters he parrots, immediately turns off what little brainpower he has the second a person of color discusses the struggles they deal with. This is why he thinks that just because a character says something, it must mean the show as a whole is endorsing it.
It's hard telling how much is genuine stupidity with the grifter audience, and how much is being racist, and wanting all minority narratives screamed down, but wanting plausible deniability with their neutral-sounding pseudo-arguments. I mean, it's totally that for the grifters. But how many in their audience are are in on it? I know FF is in on it, because he's too much of a blithering nimrod to hide it.
Who the fuck cares if the character endorses it or not? Some victimhood-fetishizing, excuse-making hack writer still decided I had to hear it. And it was the same tired old tropes I've heard a million times. It's lazy and boring.
