Why, you might wonder, am I writing about this treacly show on Netflix?

Well, I started watching it because I, like many others, wanted some pleasantly numbing entertainment to dissociate with. And I, like others, was reeled in by the fact of there being a not insignificant number of Black main characters. I did not read the books the show is based on.

The gist of the story is: three women friends who live and grew up in the town of Serenity, South Carolina become the pillars of the community, and everything is very Christian, and all the parents are good, or good adjacent, and the treasures of the South are revealed—gentility, community oriented values, and a little dash of progressivism lite in the form of cherishing of Southern women, allowance for SOME diversity (interracial relationships, divorcing and finding love again, gayness, fatness, befriending the husband’s mistress, and promoting self sufficiency in women). The town is resolutely saved over and over again by the women and their loved ones, thus proving that America is not lost.

Some things made me eye roll. Every storyline is so sappy. And every interior scene has the colors teal and burnt orange. In general, you could say that the story is not written for someone like me, and as long as I keep that in mind, I can find something to enjoy. And that was reasonably true until the last season.

In that season, the older kids have hit their stride, and one of the boys becomes popular, thus attracting some groupies at school. One of the groupies is an Indian American kid, who quickly becomes Too Much, always popping up, not understanding boundaries, and the source of much anxiety for popular boy.

All that is fine. There are annoying people in every demographic. And learning to set boundaries with love is a skill we could all cultivate.

But Indian kid (Dev, I think?) is quick to latch onto every cause in town. The town mayor (a Black woman) is struggling to fix the mistakes of her predecessor, and is being helped quietly by another Black woman. Meanwhile, the town is facing insufficient funds for every important project, and the people don’t really know why.

Why, you might ask, is it imperative for the mayor and her friend to work in secret? Well, it seems as if they are trying to protect the reputation of the previous guy. The author is very intent on distinguishing between bad people who do corruption and mostly decent people who are ashamed of some moral messes.

I think you can see why I don’t like this at all. And no, it isn’t because I think everyone who does wrong is bad and irredeemable. It’s an issue of accountability for me, and elected officials are literally being demons in real life, not to mention many of them are unqualified for the positions they hold, but the people who push back are being brutally punished. We are in serious trouble and this author thinks it can be solved by being more saccharine. Please.

And lest we say white women are the carriers of water for the state of things, the story places the running of things on two Black women so we will appreciate how everything doesn’t have to be about race, doncha know. Snort. You think they would keep their positions and friendships if they didn’t keep the previous guy’s secrets?

Anyway, Dev(?) starts protesting and putting things online about the state of things and, because he has not been aware of the issues prior to that scene, he is clearly being a rabble rouser, and the national press comes sniffing for a story.

At this point, I had lost all respect for the show, and was only in it to see whether Dev would be redeemable.

Because, even if you want to write a story about small town America being nice to newcomers, it’s actually okay for Americans of color to notice the leaks in your plot boat.

So we have Dev being seen as a liability because he is not from Serenity. And his enthusiasm for community action being demonized because he “doesn’t have the facts.” But the facts are that the previous guy fucked up and he did it and got away with it because of racial privilege.

Dev’s “redemption arc” basically lies in the insiders getting him to tame his impulses. Because really, protest is messy. It’s not needed as a form of citizen action. He should just learn to be more, well, assimilated. And if he does, then rabble rousing won’t be necessary, and things can be resolved quietly, no need for external questioning. That was snark, to be clear.

I have no idea if this plot line was written by the author, or by the scriptwriters, and I don’t care to go look. Given the protests of the past decade, I know what they are trying to do on the show. They are glossing over the KKKommunity that is a not insignificant part of white Southern heritage, and treating resistance as something us POC do because anarchy is in our nature, and we come from those bad places that have nothing to do with the American South.

Also, they are reducing protest to something that is unplanned, not tapped into the issues, and anti community. In this aspect, they reveal their own outsider status to activism in this country. By the very fact that they see it as mere agitation, performative bs committed by perennial outsiders, they effect for an apolitical viewer, two things: One, they make organized activism seem terrifying rather than responsible citizenship; and Two, they Restore Order by having Dev’s mom come to “collect” her errant boy, who must learn his place in this town.

It is not that Dev did no wrong. It is that protest is shown as inherently chaotic and uninformed. And in that way that the majority have of rarely seeing things the way the minority do, they make it evident that they have no interest in the often better functioning community that Black people, for example, have fostered in the South.

It’s embarrassing, but these sorts of storytellers are not embarrassed. The teal and orange make it all exotic, so that’s okay.

I think it should be obvious what connections one can make to disability justice in my critique. I shan’t insult your intelligence by going into detail, and if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, I think you do know what statement I am making about how dangerous this sort of ditzy storytelling is in a time of great crisis. A lot of people around me are not reading, not keeping up with the news, and would rather hide in fanciful narratives about how we could all just be kinder and women could smile more.

Do we think the people of Serenity would protest a concentration camp in their locale? Not if they could paint it in teal and orange.

Radha.