I chose to write my news comment on an article from Vox.com titled “Stranger Things, BoJack Horseman, and the Weird Power of Telling, Not Showing.” This article first details the second season of the hit Netflix Original Stanger Things and how it is so different in context than other television shows of today. It then begins to talk about another Netflix original, BoJack Horseman, and its animation and storyline. This second show is animated, thus allowing the writers to choose their words and the body language within the show.
This connects back to our Journalism class based on our new ideas of broadcast media. Broadcast media has many more characteristics to it than print does, allowing them to show and not tell, They have images that can show a viewer ideas through color and direct visualization, but this article hits at something different. Instead of using images to make a viewer understand subtext, writers are now having characters say directly what they mean. No guessing. Nothing lost in translation. They are beginning to use their words, just like in print, to get their point across.
I read the part about Stranger Things, since I’m familiar with the show. It’s a critique, and from what I can tell the author is not a fan of the “telling” part. He doesn’t seem to be a fan of subtlety, but then he writes, “burying that moral instruction in the subtext can often shoot a well-meaning series in the foot.” I didn’t much care for the “friends don’t lie” stuff over and over, but I think it worked because they’re kids. Kids aren’t subtle.