I am sick of seeing the rich and powerful on my screen. Where are all the TV shows about normal people?
I am sick of seeing the rich and powerful on my screen. Where are all the TV shows about normal people? | Rebecca Shaw
And medical dramas ignoring the INSANE cost of medicine in the US
I remember one line in the good doctor that went something along the lines of
"We treat the super wealthy with whatever they want so we can treat the poor with what they need"
I don't live in the US and even I knew that line was complete BS
Atlanta, Black Mirror, Severance, Silo, The Terror: Infamy, Slow Horses, The Bear, Black Bird, Baby Reindeer, Station Eleven, Russian Doll. Most of what I've seen recently that was produced in the last few years has been primarily about people who are not wealthy or privileged.
Great list! Add in the show ‘Maid’ starring Margaret Qualley.
I read some article the other day, how they had noticed a heavy attempt, by Hollywood, to glamorise and humanise ultra rich, like Yellowstone. Is that so we just sit back and shut up and let the billionaires be. Fk that.
Same way that tv shows glorify cops who break the rules and disregard suspects rights. It’s so that we cheer for cops who break the rules and excuse them for “doing what you need to do to catch the bad guy”.
They did it for cops so why not billionaires next!
Bob's burgers.
Bob's Burgers breathes class consciousness. There's an episode where the kids are forced to volunteer through school, and the rich landlord makes no secret that he's exploiting their free child labor to clean up his beach. The concept of collective bargaining is played with when the kids decide they don't want to do that work for free. That episode also includes the lesson that the rich will absolutely use you and screw you over to further their own desires.
The rich landlord is frequently shown dicking around as if the people around him are playthings. In another episode, his tenants decide to hold a rent strike. The landlord uses classic divide and conquer strategy to turn the other tenants against Bob, the leader of the strike, via a water balloon contest (it makes sense in context.)
That's not even touching the realistic struggles that Bob, Linda, and their family have to live with day-to-day. Despite characters sometimes being, well, completely wackadoo, it's probably the most relatable animated show I know of.
Normal people are boring. I want to watch TV shows about wizards.
But not the kkk wizards. And if so, be Rick and Morty chopping them into little pieces like the trash they are.
I'd be down to watch a dark comedy about kkk wizards.
I don't keep up with current shows but here are my favorites from the last 20 years or so, not exactly about "normal" people but they aren't rich:
Raising Hope
Firefly
Battlestar Galactica
Trailer Park Boys
Malcolm in the Middle
The Middle
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The New Girl
Tbh there really are a shit ton more TV shows about normal people than about rich people. Not sure how you are even having trouble finding them. And of course there are always game shows.
Raising Hope was great, especially the first couple seasons.
The wonder years?
2021 reboot
Buffy was 27 years ago...
I know, and thanks to the marvels of the Internet, I watched an episode last night - isn't that awesome?
New Taskmaster series just dropped with Jason Mantzoukas for us plebs.
Maximum Derek!
Game changer new season first 2 episodes just droped and its 1000% better than task master. Thats how a game show for us normal people looks like.
"How long can you keep a cat on your lap?" 0.02s
Ooh that’s another good show! They’re both good in their own rights.
Speaking of, Plebs was a great comedy series
Right. Like, first of all, stop watching tv.
Second of all, there is tons of TV about normal people. Like, most of it.
Third, yes, the rich and powerful are overrepresented on tv. Why? Because people like to watch that shit. They know what their own lives are like, and they are boring - people want to watch a show that is interesting. Being rich and/or powerful is an easy way to make a story compelling, and gives writers an obvious way to make up ludicrous plot points.
What really resonated with me was watching shows like Roseanne.
The article then goes on to ignore The Connors which aired from October 2018 to April 2025.
Yes, if you ignore all of the shows about "normal people", you'll suddenly find no shows about "normal people".
The Connors went on that long? I'll have to check it out. I figured with Roseanne having gone off the deep end it wouldn't hold up much longer.
Nope, they killed her off with fent, made suing the drug company a storyline, and then did like 5 more seasons.
Also Young Sheldon and the spin-off that’s still going on
Shameless: "am I a fucking joke to you?"
Since the wealthy fund the shit, anything to do with the commoner is portrayed as trashy, just above literal refuse with regard to usefulness, while the wealthy are portrayed as the righteous and just, with money to fix all the problems they face and any moral failings related to them is the result of something outside their wealth.
The biggest reason I dropped Succession during first season. I have no interest in watching some rich fucks and on top of that there is not one likable character in that show.
You missed the point of the show, they are all unlikable for a reason, and contrary to what you might think, none of them come out on top the way they wanted to. It's a great show that highlights their petty, callous, empty little lives
Skills issue.
Japan has an incredible wealth of entertainment in their TV shows. I highly reccomend KASSO! Its ninja warrior but with skating they have English guests and translations on their YT channel.
Usually non US shows and Movies are alot better imho. Another something you should not sleep on are UK TV shows. Like: The Responder a show about a first responder who is struggling with mental illness and the pressure of his work.
So broaden your horizon, The industry is not as bad as you think
Japan has an incredible wealth of entertainment
That is a wild way to write “a few very bright spots in a vast sea of absolute garbage”
TV Broadcasters: "oh, so you want more shitty 'reality TV' then?"
Yeah I wanna see 2 roommates working 2 jobs and still can't afford to pay the rent for their shithole apartment
I haven't seen it but I've heard good things about Adolescence?
I was gonna say that British TV has more realistic or normal people. However I haven't seen much of that recently. It's mainly Taskmaster and Black Mirror.
They have to show rich people because it's what most people aspire to be.
If they show working class people, then they end up telling on themselves. Homer Simpson was able to pay for a house, three kids and two cars all while being the sole income. All the working class sitcoms of the 90's seem unrealistic because the characters all work dead end jobs but can still afford those nice TV houses.
It looks unrealistic anymore because we're out here having to grind so hard just to keep a roof over our heads. Nevermind paying for kids! People won't watch something that doesn't reflect their life in some way. At least with the rich people on tv, you can project yourself into that life and not be reminded that you are more broke than the characters of Roseanne and you're working harder.
Obviously this isn't a defense, it's just one read on why they don't show "normal" people.
Shameless was a great show (the US version). It was very much a show about the working class.
I adored superstore. I love how I think back of the show and nothing comes to mind because everything was painfully ordinary.
Yeah. That was a surprising gem to stumble upon
Here it is:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287254/
That was a joke due to the English name, but Brazil is actually pretty good at making shows and movies about normal, ordinary people.
Brazilian show.
All cast is white.
Check out.
Depends on how you define white then, is it just skin color? Maybe you're right, but I know plenty of Brazilians that are indistinguishable from white people. We can't call them less Brazilian because they're fairer than the averagei guess real crime is choosing entire cast that is fairer than average and the show being promoted about average people.
MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE
(Also please Disney don't fuck up the sequel)
Sequel? Modern Disney? Oh fuck...
I am sick of "history" shows and movies that are completely inaccurate. There are so many unbelievable stories that fiction always takes a backseat for me if I were to choose between a history or sci-fi book for example. Shogun is extremely guilty of this, it had great production but the details were sickeningly incorrect, in Japan people were pissed because it's an opportunity to teach about culture and every Japanese knows the real story and details of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Americans have already been propagandizing and manipulating history in many ways since decades past, there is much change to be done.
I tried to watch Shogun, but couldn't really get into it. I was really hoping I'd like it. Instead I just be watching The Seven Samurai on repeat
To be fair, I don't know that Shogun ever purported to 100% totally accurate. It is a fictionalisation of events.
Shogun was adapted from a book by the same name written by James Clavell who wrote a series of historical fiction books that took place in different times in history.
The series stayed pretty faithful to the novel from what I remember, so the person your replying to’s complaint doesn’t really make much sense in that context.
Check out the cartoon Aggretsuko. Not from this year but from this decade.
Yeah, it's a cartoon about anthropomorphic animals, but the characters are all very normal people, personality-wise. So normal, I got sick of watching how normal they were.
I think they portrait (Japanese) work Culture quite well. It seems over the top cause it is an animation but you are right. They have the most normal drama I have seen on TV in quite a while.
I love Aggretsuko! Good recommendation
Such content already exists.
There's a Streisand Effect that occurs when writing about what you don't want instead of lifting up what you do want.
The cool irony of this thread complaining about it is that it’s promoting tons of great shows many of us would have not known.
If we redistributed all excess wealth perpetually they wouldn't exist anymore and we would stop treating them like kings and gods.
Watch Andor, if you wanna see ordinary people fight the power
Detectorists
Northern Exposure
Abbott Elementary
All Creatures Great and Small
Black Books
Bored to Death
Bridget & Eamon
The Cafe
Cheers
The Cleaner
The IT Crowd
King of the Hill
Letterkenny
Peep Show
Shameless
Spaced
Tacoma FD
Taxi
Do yourself a favour and watch Son of a Critch..
I get it, but look at it this way, most of those shows do not show the rich and powerful in a flattering light E.g. Succession. So you could interpret it as Hollywood trying to shatter the glitz and glamor persona that the rich have always enjoyed.
Bob <3 (hearts) Abishola
There's so much low-hanging fruit regarding topics and themes TV could be written about, but those are all "mundane" and not glamorous. The Pitt might be the closest thing to seeing normal people in a prestige show (not sure if it's considered prestige but at least it's getting a lot of attention).
For example, you could write a great drama or comedy about people moving away from a big city to work remotely from home in a small town.
YouTube
Why do you need a show about normal people?
You're surrounded by normal people
We want to see a show about normal people that just happen to be more interesting than the normal person you are.
Money doesn't make people more interesting, it usually makes them far less interesting.
The life stories of the people around you are likely more interesting than anything a Hollywood screenwriter can come up with
Yeah. Enough of celebrities going on and on about their introspections, how this experience will grow their personality. Show the guy that spend years building a model train track in his garage.
Exactly... Fuck that lifestyle.
Reattach to reality.
Married with Children was super fun and about normal people.
Reality TV
Fuck that shit, I want to watch sci fi
im currently watching the orville, its perfect to just forget everything and be entertained in on a silly level
can recommend
I'm sooo hyped that it's coming back with another season! Just the show we need these days.
Ooh that sounds perfect right now. Lost my pup recently and really need just some good distraction. I’ll check that out today, thank you! And with that username, I’m very excited by your suggestion :)
I've been rewatching The Expanse. God it's good.
I just read the summary for that and it sounds awesome, I’ll check that out, thank you!