The NYT runs this piece yesterday on the Fall TV line up where the class warfare theme plays a prominent role. About one of them subtly called “Revenge” they write:
And, fittingly enough, “Revenge,” an ABC series starting on Wednesday, is set in the Hamptons. Emily VanCamp plays Emily Thorne, a young woman bent on getting even with the rich family that ruined her father. It’s “Gossip Girl” tailored to this economy, with just enough campy suspense to be enjoyable.
“Revenge” is loosely based on “The Count of Monte Cristo,” and it’s not the only new series that borrows from Alexandre Dumas to skewer the rich. On “Ringer,” a CW show that began this month, Sarah Michelle Gellar plays identical twins, one of whom assumes the identity of the other, like those in “The Man in the Iron Mask.” “Ringer” is even less subtle than “Revenge” in its depiction of the happy few; one early sign that the rich twin, a socialite with a house in the Hamptons, is the evil one is a scene with her in a chignon and an Hermès scarf, willfully steering a speedboat.
No doubt, television producers are playing off the same signals as President Obama as he tries on campaign themes with his “tax the rich” gambit.
Add to this, the feeble attempt at protests which took place over the weekend on Wall Street and what becomes clear here is that the collective American voice lacks the human agency to effectively express and deal with one of its deepest problems, the growing disparity between the haves and the have nots.
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