(Psst: it's Assault on Precinct 13, except we've secretly replaced the usual Scary Unwhite Urban Youth with Folger's crystals. Let's see if anyone notices!)

The treatment of race, considering the history of the entrenched-white-defenders genre, will be kind of key to next week's episode.

ETA: sorry, sorry. Screen embiggenation my fault.

But Victor is black. So ... I'm not sure where you're going with that.

I'm not sure where the show is going with that, either. (I mean, I haven't seen the episode.) It's just that, when you work in reference to a genre like that, race issues are gonna come up. A clever show knows that in advance, and comes up with some way of dealing with those issues.

It's just that, when you work in reference to a genre like that, race issues are gonna come up. A clever show knows that in advance, and comes up with some way of dealing with those issues.

I suppose. That's not why I'm watching the show, though. And I don't think race issues are in the show manifesto, even if they're addressed (for good or ill) tangentially.

Race issues are clearly not in the show manifesto, or else they'd have done a better job at them to date. However, stories don't exist outside of their context. If you borrow from a genre that has racist overtones, it kind of behooves you to rework what you're borrowing, so as not to continue transmitting the racist overtones. Right?

Just like westerns don't automatically cast the Indians as villains any more.

Is there more racial issue in the original AoP13, or am I just not remembering enough about the remake (which is the only version I've seen)?

If you borrow from a genre that has racist overtones, it kind of behooves you to rework what you're borrowing, so as not to continue transmitting the racist overtones. Right?

Oh, I get that. But what I'm taking from your earlier post is that in the original, the precinct was attack by non-whites. (I haven't seen either version.) And I didn't see evidence of that in the preview, so.

I just don't like to go into anything *waiting* to see how any particular issue is dealt with. That's not how or why I watch TV. But that's just me.

Is there more racial issue in the original AoP13, or am I just not remembering enough about the remake (which is the only version I've seen)?

Oh, it's been a long time since I've seen it, but I think it was part of that 70s-80s development of the equation of urban = poor = black = scary. (In some ways, Escape from New York works in a similar landscape.) Ironically, the oldest film-text of this kind that I can think of is Zulu Dawn, which is not urban or even American. (It's based on a real historical event, which, if you get into "historical" mythology about entrenched whites resisting the Roaming Unwhite Menace, there's tons and tons of material! Which I'm sure has been made into movies since movies were made.)

Suddenly I am remembering that the first Night of the Living Dead movie made one of its heroes black, as an explicit reversal of the prevailing stereotypes at the time. So even zombies can, under the right circumstances, be about race!

Of course, if the race issue at hand is demons vs. humans, the show has pretty well established that all of the former (except maybe Ruby, sometimes) are villains by disposition as well as circumstance.

Suddenly I am remembering that the first Night of the Living Dead movie made one of its heroes black, as an explicit reversal of the prevailing stereotypes at the time.

I also read that it wasn't on purpose. (That is, he just cast the guy because he was the best actor for the part.) Of course, it completely changes the way the ending comes off, so who knows how true that story is.