MovieChat Forums > Alien Nation (1989) Discussion > What I hate the most about this show ...

What I hate the most about this show ...

posted 14 years ago by Fenrir-5
3 replies | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong, I like the show - I've even 'turned on' a few friends. I have the whole set. But there's something I hate about it: the smug moral preening of the aliens.

I have no problem with morality plays, but the aliens in this show aren't exactly gods. They're a slave subclass. They're members of an ultramodern society that still maintains a slave class through abuse, terror, and drug and mind control. And yet they're always acting so morally superior and passing judgment on human action.

This is particularly ironic when Buck becomes an alien purist. They spend all this time making sure we understand that human purists are evil, and then we have to listen with sympathy while the aliens whine that their species will die out through interbreeding.

And it's really irritating because the human species saved the alien species! Yet whenever they encounter a hardship they have to browbeat us all with their supposed moral superiority. It's tiresome.

Some of the outright moralizing is embarrassingly clunky too. In one of the 'second season' movies they briefly touch on homosexuality. George says, about his own species, something like "male-male relationships are perfectly fine". Really? With all the other differences they have with our species, they just happen to have this exact same analog? I realize the writers really wanted to use the chance to moralize on heteronormativity, but wouldn't it have been more effective for the aliens to not have gay relationships, but say something about how they don't see why they're a bad thing? At least then you present two arguments and pick a conclusion, rather than creating a world where conflict doesn't exist and the choice is supposedly obvious.

[–] ReasonlsOutToLunch 14 years ago

I loved this show and I agree with a lot that you have said. I didn't get to see the movies though so I can't comment on those. But, their stance of moral superiority didn't bother me much most people have it so it's no different from that. Also, I liked Buck even though he was obviously a troubled young man.

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] The-Phantom-2040 13 years ago

I agree with these statements on their face, but actually believed they worked since the series was a morality play. Yes, it's illogical--but it happens. A people who feel subjugated find themselves somewhere new where the people are different--and that difference can breed feelings of superiority. You find analogs in real-life, so an exaggeration in a work nearly devoted to exaggerations of real-life settings and situations works. Those exaggerations can point out how fallacious such stances are.

Same with Buck. There are numerous people who take to a belief--whether it's of their nationality's purity or their religion's righteousness or whatever else--who take it to extremes, just like Buck did. Often, and also like Buck, it's from a starting point of being confused and wanting to believe in something, wanting to have a place in the world.

As for the moralizing, part of the out-of-show reason for the Tenctonese was to point at things and call shenanigans usually through George (though occasionally through other characters) asking questions. As for the alien race having homosexuality in their culture, many, many species (though mostly mammals) on Earth engage in homosexual acts, from some monkey and ape species to cetaceans and everything in between. I found it perfectly acceptable that an alien species would have it as well.

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