What western media do you know of that has problematic moments in them?

All dark humor and jokes in family guy is highy controversial

Fun fact: Just because something is depicted in a work of fiction does not mean it (or its creator) is condoning it. Same goes for enjoying said work.

"Problematic" is too ambiguous. Be more specific about what you are asking.

If you simply mean content you would not morally approve of if it were to happen in reality, then...welcome to reality.

I think Mein Kampf was problematic maybe Im too woke tho.

So...Harry Potter

1. Harry Potter introduces the house elves and the barbaric nature of their slavery, before making fun of Hermione for trying to end it a few books later, and skipping over the initial moral discussion of it entirely.
   
2. Having Hagrid say of Hermione that "there is not a spell they made that Hermione cannot learn" when Malfoy called her a "mudblood", which implies that if Hermione sucked at magic that Malfoy would be right to mistreat her/assume that due to her heritage, she would be awful at magic.
   
3. Equating being a werewolf with being gay, then introducing a villainous werewolf character who preys on children a few books later.
   
4. Naming your characters with symbolism (Luna Lovegood, Draco Malfoy, etc) and then having your first named Asian character named Cho Chiang.
   
5. Having the goblins evoke Jewish stereotypes
   
6. Ultimately forget the Goblin's cultural issues with wizardkind because screw them.
   
7. Not have wizard society grapple with the effects of wand bans for non-wizards and other ordinances despite having previously brought up the fear that Voldemort might have appealed to non-wizards by offering them a better life under his regime.
   
8. And more!
   

I can't think of a single work of western media in the modern world that is as problematic as Harry Potter. Other works that readily come to mind for me include The Idol and Velma in my experience. Oh, and Roald Dahl.

@konkelo Fair enough, but I wouldn’t say Rowling has written with anti-Semitic or pro-slavery messages either. That doesn’t make her work any less problematic, just a bad writer who often doubles down on her self-righteousness at the expense of lacking self-awareness.

Rowling isn’t bigoted here in the sense that she is a supremacist or full of hate, but rather her ignorance and her stubbornness to admit it.

Or essentially, an unapologetic Michael Scott.

I fail to see how it would be on another level when compared to the treatment of enslaved house elves. Even the most religiously fundamentalist people I met with bigoted views towards LGBT generally think that slavery is wrong. If you take a poll of most communities, I like to think that while a fair amount of people might be against gay marriage, there would be far more outliers when it comes to literal slavery, at least of the plantation variety (Modern versions might be more controversial, but that is besides the point).

The issue then is J. K. Rowling backpedaling the issue because she for whatever reason did not want to portray slavery as an issue in the books. Slavery in Harry Potter is portrayed as an individual evil, that there is "good" and "bad" slaveowners. The point I am making is that Rowling isn't hateful, she is just horribly ignorant and lazy, and does not think things through. This is par for the course for someone who was careless enough to have introduced time travel and named a character Cho Chiang.

So it is not on any different level to equate Remus Luipin with homosexuality and think J.K. Rowling was trying to be progressive after the fact, just as she attempted to say that she did not specify Hermione as white, despite passages clearly indicating otherwise. I was wrong here, but it wouldn't be exceptionally terrible for Rowling to make that sort of equivalence given everything else she had written and expanded upon.



I mean, as children, we don't really scrutinize works as we do with adults, and yeah, I think some adults do take it too far. Unlike Roald Dahl, who was a very old man by the time he passed away in the 70s, J.K. Rowling is not nearly as old and therefore I think it is expected for her to not be so antiquated in her "views" or writings.

Again, I am not sure it is any real exaggeration to call things like the S.P.E.W plotline problematic. Like well...yeah, she introduced slavery as a bad thing and then thought it was a good idea to make fun of Hermione for trying to advocate on behalf of the house elves? Like, I understand that it was an attempt to admonish those who advocate on behalf of those who may not want their help, but it is fucking slavery. Rowling could have and should have chosen another topic.

The weird thing about reading Harry Potter as an adult is that she introduces topics like systemic discrimination and magical stand ins for racial/ethnic supremacy but really does not do much with thhem. Her books threatens to be more interesting and more involved than what they turn out to be in the end, and it such a shame.

So...Harry Potter

1. Harry Potter introduces the house elves and the barbaric nature of their slavery, before making fun of Hermione for trying to end it a few books later, and skipping over the initial moral discussion of it entirely.
   
2. Having Hagrid say of Hermione that "there is not a spell they made that Hermione cannot learn" when Malfoy called her a "mudblood", which implies that if Hermione sucked at magic that Malfoy would be right to mistreat her/assume that due to her heritage, she would be awful at magic.
   
3. Equating being a werewolf with being gay, then introducing a villainous werewolf character who preys on children a few books later.
   
4. Naming your characters with symbolism (Luna Lovegood, Draco Malfoy, etc) and then having your first named Asian character named Cho Chiang.
   
5. Having the goblins evoke Jewish stereotypes
   
6. Ultimately forget the Goblin's cultural issues with wizardkind because screw them.
   
7. Not have wizard society grapple with the effects of wand bans for non-wizards and other ordinances despite having previously brought up the fear that Voldemort might have appealed to non-wizards by offering them a better life under his regime.
   
8. And more!
   

I can't think of a single work of western media in the modern world that is as problematic as Harry Potter. Other works that readily come to mind for me include The Idol and Velma in my experience. Oh, and Roald Dahl.

I think one of the worst thing you could ever ask of a child is to not analyze the media they are consuming. Especially something as already on the nose as Harry Potter, which is not a complex work by any stretch of the means. Like seriously, S.P.E.W is one of the weirdest things I have ever read in children's literature.

I think it is important to understand whether or not children's literature is actually well-written. No offense, but if woke means wanting slavery to, you know, be depicted as consistently evil for the right reasons, then I have to ask what is the issue with being woke here?

I fail to see how it would be on another level when compared to the treatment of enslaved house elves. Even the most religiously fundamentalist people I met with bigoted views towards LGBT generally think that slavery is wrong. If you take a poll of most communities, I like to think that while a fair amount of people might be against gay marriage, there would be far more outliers when it comes to literal slavery, at least of the plantation variety (Modern versions might be more controversial, but that is besides the point).

The issue then is J. K. Rowling backpedaling the issue because she for whatever reason did not want to portray slavery as an issue in the books. Slavery in Harry Potter is portrayed as an individual evil, that there is "good" and "bad" slaveowners. The point I am making is that Rowling isn't hateful, she is just horribly ignorant and lazy, and does not think things through. This is par for the course for someone who was careless enough to have introduced time travel and named a character Cho Chiang.

So it is not on any different level to equate Remus Luipin with homosexuality and think J.K. Rowling was trying to be progressive after the fact, just as she attempted to say that she did not specify Hermione as white, despite passages clearly indicating otherwise. I was wrong here, but it wouldn't be exceptionally terrible for Rowling to make that sort of equivalence given everything else she had written and expanded upon.



I mean, as children, we don't really scrutinize works as we do with adults, and yeah, I think some adults do take it too far. Unlike Roald Dahl, who was a very old man by the time he passed away in the 70s, J.K. Rowling is not nearly as old and therefore I think it is expected for her to not be so antiquated in her "views" or writings.

Again, I am not sure it is any real exaggeration to call things like the S.P.E.W plotline problematic. Like well...yeah, she introduced slavery as a bad thing and then thought it was a good idea to make fun of Hermione for trying to advocate on behalf of the house elves? Like, I understand that it was an attempt to admonish those who advocate on behalf of those who may not want their help, but it is fucking slavery. Rowling could have and should have chosen another topic.

The weird thing about reading Harry Potter as an adult is that she introduces topics like systemic discrimination and magical stand ins for racial/ethnic supremacy but really does not do much with thhem. Her books threatens to be more interesting and more involved than what they turn out to be in the end, and it such a shame.

@PeripheralVision Of course SPEW is weird, Hermione is a nerd.

More like it's a learned behaviour of adults to overanalyze everything for social media brownie points...
If you insist on seeing politically correct messaging everywhere, then you probably shouldn't consume fiction.