Hi all, this is a video I've wanted to make for a long time so I hope I've done the idea justice! Also, I hit 10k subscribers yesterday which is awesome so thanks to all of you for your ongoing support! Of course, if you're new round here and want to check out the rest of this series, you can find it in a handy playlist here: ua-cam.com/video/uSgnyKRBe-g/v-deo.html
Hi Tom, congratulations!! I am curious to find out what you did for you BA study and the length of which it took you to choose to do an MA I'm looking into MA study at the moment, and am really weighing up my options (Graduated from doing Drama at University of Lincoln 2 years ago and currently based in Lincoln)
I always thought the idea of punishing someone, for having Good Intentions, but who's actions end up having a Bad Outcome, completely ridiculous. That's, literally, what a: 'Mistake,' is. What if someone tried to save a chipmunk, but somehow (I'll leave You, to figure out the details, if You'd like), caused the destruction of the Planet. Now, most likely, their Points are now screwed for life, because of a Mistake. And, it's this flawed System's Mistake, that the entire Human-Race, is now screwed. (Cough! Season 3)
@@Tom_Nicholas I hope you do a part 2 now that the show is over, and reflect upon your analysis of it as well as some of the response to this video. Especially since the show is very subversive in nature.
On the other hand looking at the things they put on the point scoring system in Episode 1 shows that there are a number of bad things you can only do if you're in a powerful class; commit genocide, poison a river, Be Commissioner of American Football League. And later on in the show they start to make clearer that being in a high social class might actually increase your chance of going to the Bad Place because the consequences of your actions are more far reaching.
Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment! I'd suggest that the difference is that those things are fairly objectively bad things (other than the AFL commissioner thing, I know nothing about American Football so couldn't comment!!) whereas the working-class stuff that is categorised as immoral is not. Neither revving a motorbike engine or lacking knowledge of how to behave "correctly" at the opera is intrinsically immoral in the same sense that genocide is.
Excellent point! While I think this is an intensely interesting subject to explore through TGP, I also think the show's text disproves the video's conclusion. Spoilers... . . The points system doesn't account for factors like racism, nobody has gotten into the Good Place in over 500 years, (including wealthy, ethical people who love ballet and opera) and the only person on earth who lives his life by the point system is still not good enough to get into paradise -- just buying a tomato can damn you. And upper-class people like Tahani's family are portrayed as status-obsessed bullies who ignored and neglected and criticized Tahani basically into insanity because she didn't measure up to their own little points system. In fact, "holding people to impossible standards" is a reoccurring theme in the show, and the idea that you can "live ethically" is a prime target (it actually ruined Chidi's life). While it's an interesting, well-made video, and I'm all for examining the show with a critical eye (or at least using it to explain more abstract ideas) I seriously doubt this show is punching down at the working-class under the assumption that they aren't watching. In fact, I think those people are the target audience, especially considering who the protagonist is. The Good Place is never sold as a show about ethics, so even if the producers really thought working-class people wouldn't watch a show like that, it's not like they're advertising that aspect. Again, well-made video, but I think the fellow who made might wanna double-check his conclusion.
@@Tom_Nicholas I think the moral framework of season one is overall a clever trap , given later story developments. But it is nonetheless a trap that won't be noticed by people who don't follow the series further. Also, the evolution of Eleanor makes her more and more conforming to a higher middle class archetype: down to earth but knowledgeable, and it is framed as the direct consequence of moral growth. There is an element of class-ism in the framing, in recognizing the moral worth of working class people only if there are one of "the good ones", read, conforming to the expectations of the upper classes. I often fall prey to that myself, expecting that an ideal egalitarian society would result in everyone being in the cannon of the upper middle class. I think it is a failure of the imagination, that is somewhat inevitable in our stratified society.
The point is while people of higher class will be punished for acts everyone can agree are bad, but people of lower class are punished for simply not being as socially refined.
honestly as a working class viewer seeing Tahani in season 1 is what initally made me question how many people were "incorrectly in the good place", from the beginning shes clearly just an entitled rich kid who throws parties for charity as a way to stroke her own ego.
In a way, quite clearly less deserving. She is referred to in the show as a narcissist and if she is, although those possibly can change (through a lot of hard work and a desire to change that they seldom have) it is considered extremely rare.
She was also a bit A PRODUCT of her parent's upbringing: they were pitting the two girls against each other to get "results" (not to speak of rejecting the least accomplished child as not "good enough"). If you are "good" after that treatment - well that would be quite the miracle ;)
@@busylivingnotdying i completely agree - but this isn't the only situation that applies to. all we are is a by-product of the way we have been treated our lives. does this mean that none of us have any responsibility for our actions? are we all "good" people who do "bad" things? i'd love to hear anyone's thoughts
@@nikittan.4863 Perhaps we are «victims» of our parents, but morally responsible for our children? Because we cannot undo who they made us into, but we can «sow the seed of a better future» in our kids... perhaps? At any rate: «free will» is only indirect. We cannot chose who we are, but we can «select» positive influences in our lives thus make the most of our «lot»
I would say the thing that sort of stands in the face of this theory is Jason's penchant for telling little moral parables as forms of advice that often help the characters make actual decisions much more than the strict moral laws of Kant or the other philosophers. (At one point it's even alluded that he is making these stories up to help his friends which is basically confirmed later on). This combined with Eleonor's hope and bravery that the two "upper class" characters constantly envy (which ends up making her the de facto leader of the group) tells me that the show's writers are making some meta-ethical commentary. Like the "lower class" characters provide what the "upper class" character can't, real world perspective and resilance. An idea that's really expanded upon in the 4th season.
Personally, I found that even within the context of only season 1 the show seemed to be arguing implicitly against your thesis. Yes, it opens with the implication that the Good Place is more accessible to the middle and upper classes based on Eleanor and Jason not belonging there, but that's just set up for the irony that Chidi and Tahani are also not in the Good Place. The characters and audience are meant to presume that the philanthropist and professor are more moral when they are not. The twist derives its humor directly from the assertions and analysis you state being subverted. Michael is l y i n g and wants Eleanor and Jason to feel out of place by shaming lower class pursuits while depending on Tahani and Chidi to presume that they deserve eternal reward in the afterlife. If anything, I'd say that the show seems more to scrutinize the upper and middle class in regards to their presumed moral superiority. Tahani feels wronged to be in the Bad Place, but the audience is left to either feel satisfied that her class and status could not buy her way into being morally superior or wrestle with why they thought that she *could*
I agree that the show is subverting expectations by revealing that Tahani and Chidi actually were sent to the bad place, however I think you're missing the point of what was being said in the video. Yes they are all bad but the actions that put Tahani and Chidi in the bad place are boiled down to being misguided and confused while Eleanor and Jason are inherently bad. Yes, Chidi is indecisive and Tahani is obsessed with status, but they both believe they're doing good (unlike Eleanor and Jason who know they're committing bad actions). Further more what puts Chidi in the bad place is something somewhat out of his control (his indecisiveness which he was born with) unlike Jason and Eleanor who both make the obvious choice to do bad things (robbery, sell fake medicine) on purpose. In this sense the show is unintentionally suggesting the lower classes have chosen to be bad, while for the upper/middle classes their badness is an accident. Ultimately I would argue that what alerts both the audience and the main characters that something isn't right about the point system is not that Eleanor improved, but that Chidi and Tahani don't deserve to be in the bad place at all.
@@sophia5774 I don't think that's the case though. I think that you'd be right if certain later events didn't happen, and if the only reasons Tahani and Chidi are in the Bad Place are the ones that you stated. A lot of spoilers coming up. For one thing, there are a few examples of talking about how the point system is flawed where the show makes direct critiques or colonialism and capitalism as they exist today. There's the thing where Micheal says that getting your mother flowers would have once gained you five points, but going to the florist now has a ton of negative points associated with it, due to economic and environmental issues resulting in that action being something like negative 60 points. The again when the Judge goes to Earth and states that she tried to find tomatoes and was confronted with internet pornography, a lack of available information about ethically sourced produce, and racism. Then later the group discusses how a lot of people are forced to do bad things, but they were able to become better people *and* improve their scores because the lack of outside influence, and unintended consequences in the Bad Place. The show basically screams, "There's no ethical consumption under capitalism!" It also doesn't leave it there. It tries to be very clear that the people who are forced into it are the victims, and I also believe that it makes an indictment of those who either benefit from that, exploit it, or uphold it. I also think the show makes it very clear that aside from Tahani's whole right thing for the wrong reason issue isn't her only glaring flaw, and I think that it's a symptom of her not being fit for the Good Place, not the cause. I bought into Tahani deserving to be in the Bad Place because she's arrogant, narcissistic, and selfish. The way she was always pitted against Kamilah when she was a child has given her the insecurity that forces her to try be the best at everything, and be performative about her virtue. Looking back at Tahani in the beginning of the show with some of its critiques of capitalism her charity reads similarly to the way the wealthy use charity to suit their own needs, whether it's for tax benefits or maintaining their positive reputations. I consider Tahani's first major bit of character development when she realizes Jason could do more good with her money than she can. How charitable she is also plays into Tahani's feelings of class superiority. While Tahani might feel second fiddle to her sister, that inferiority doesn't extend to anyone else. We get that from her name dropping, but I think the part that Tom refers to where Tahani can't reconcile Jason liking Pittbull is the best illustration of that feeling of being superior to everyone other than her sister. We get that again when she interacts with John Weaton. At first she kind of sees him as a charity case and she still holds onto some of that feeling of superiority and possibly feels new superiority due to the fact that she has improved so much. However her final character improvement comes from realizing how similar she is to him. How they both wanted to be accepted and acknowledged as exceptional, but also for people to genuinely accept them for who they are. Her final landing point for her character is truly a reversal of her initial character. She ends up doing meaningful work truly helping people in a position where the people she helps will never know who she is or thank her for it. With Chidi, I think that for the first two seasons, Chidi seems pretty deserving of being in the Good Place, but I think that retrospectively we can justify it with flaws other than just being indecisive, and also with another running joke. I think that Chidi also has a bit of the same bit of inflated sense of self worth that Tahani has, but I think it comes from his belief that he can always make the right choice. He definitely seems a bit stunted and naïve due to him saving his parents' marriage as a child. Again I think the indecisiveness is a symptom and not a cause, although his flaws aren't nearly as big as Tahani's nor are the fleshed out as much. I think the show tried too hard to make Chidi the example of how the road to hell can is often paved with good intentions that they neglected to flesh out the other issues they gave him. They kind of fixed his whole character by focussing on the decisiveness, and I guess it worked okay, but that's because I think that Chidi's big flaw was a lack of self-reflection. Every time Chidi finds out he was sent to the Bad Place, he thinks it's due to drinking almond milk, which is both an indication that he rarely reflects on his own actions yet prides himself on being adept in ethical philosophy. This causes him to be unable to learn from his mistakes and unable to see how miserable he makes the people around him. We also get an extension of his inability to remain calm under duress when he has his Peeps chili episode which is an example of what could possibly be an indication of his ability to fall into self-destructive behavior, although I admit to that potentially not being a strong enough argument as the only other example of that is his response to being told to cut a lot out of his thesis. But we do know that he make some choices that are arguably bad before the events of the first season. There's the thing with the boots, which was not only pretty shitty friend behavior, but ends with the guy in the hospital. Then there's the almond milk thing. It's kind of a funny joke that could be easily taken as a throwaway line, but taking into account the turn the show takes toward criticisms of capitalism and the fact that the environmental issues regarding simple things come up, I think that this is meant to be another major contribution to him not being in the Good Place. I think the fact that he knows that it's bad for the environment is the nail in the coffin. I think this is meant to represent his position of relative privilege and his ability to partake in luxuries without having to worry about the effects it has on other people. But then how do we accept that when it conflicts with his inability to make any decisions? Maybe he decided that because of the institutions in place, his own personal actions would make no difference in the world. Maybe he rationalized it, figuring that regardless of his own actions, the almonds used to make the almond milk he bought would still be made, and therefore his responsibility was negligible. Maybe he decided that his consumption of it prevented it from contributing to the word's food waste problems, and that made it okay. I think that if we think about that, and the fact that he never quotes any theories that directly criticize capitalism, that might make sense. Perhaps his inability to successfully apply those theories to his own like caused him to feel unable to teach them. I think that if we look at it this way, the fact that one of his final milestones in his character development is that he not only has to overcome his indecisiveness, but helps come up with the solution that changes the whole system it is a fitting place for his character to end up. He goes from indecisive and unable to stand up for things that he might morally believe in to able to make decisions under pressure and uproot an entire broken system. Maybe I'm reading a little too much into Chidi, but I believe that my conclusions about Tahani are firmly backed by the examples I've given, and even a few more. The final thing that I want to note is that Tahani and Chidi learn just as much from Jason and Eleanor as Jason and Eleanor learn from them, and they all learn things that none of the originally knew together. I think that the show really does intend to critique the idea that things that are seen as classy are often given positive moral connotations whereas lowbrow or trashy things are often regarded as morally deficient.
@@sophia5774 Another point ofview could be that Eleanor and Jason, being lower-class, have been confronted with the consequences of their actions (e.g. Jason getting arrested, Eleanor losing friendships), but Tahani and Chidi have been insulated from that by wealth (Tahani) and respectability (Chidi). So Eleanor and Jason know that they're bad people, but Tahani and Chidi can delude themselves that they're good and moral people, due to their privilege.
@@masalanicholoff3593 So first of all, I loved reading your response. I would disagree about a few points but for the most I do agree that Tahani and Chidi are both extremely flawed. However I still think there is cause to believe that the show is perpetuating stereotypes of the working class being less moral; even if it is unintentional. Spoilers obviously. So with your first point about "no ethical consumption under capitalism" I do think that is what the show was implying; however a side effect of that is that we can't say for sure whether Tahani or Chidi would've ended up in the same place as Eleanor or Jason had the point system been fair. So to say "this is why Chidi ended up in the bad place" is a bit tough to comment on because it is revealed that everyone goes to the bad place. What I'm trying to say is that the sins that put Tahani and Chidi into the bad place come from their subconscious; while for Eleanor and Jason they are conscious that their making the wrong choices. So to your point about Tahani, yes I agree with your interpretation of her character. The point I was trying to make is that her compromised motivations are unknown to her. When Michael reveals that she is actually in the bad place she has a revelation that she didn't have on Earth. She realizes for the first time her motivations were corrupt once she is already in hell. So we can assume that while she is on Earth, she believes she is doing good. If you were to define the badness or goodness of an action by it's consequence, than yeah she belongs in hell. But if you were to define the action by it's intention, there is room to assume Tahani intends to do good. When Micheal goes down to Earth to confront her about her book and asks to her scam her followers with him, she declines and is appalled at the thought of the two of them being moral equals. When she realizes that this could be the case, she joins the study because she wants to help people. This furthers my interpretation that she really doesn't know just how bad she is. With Chidi, the same is true. I really liked your comment on the almond milk joke and how it's a marker of his narcissism. But once again with Chidi, it's the same as Tahani. Chidi thinks he is doing the right thing and is naive of how his actions affect other people. Once he is made aware of how he ruined everyone's life (once again after he is sent to hell) he is appalled. From this we can conclude the same thing with Tahani, he intends to do good. This goes back to what I was saying originally about how the wealthier charters of the show are "bad on accident" in comparison to the lower class characters. There is no representation of Tahani or Chidi doing something they know is bad because they want to. For the whole time they are on Earth they think they're doing good. This could be a commentary on how upperclass people don't have to live with the consequences of their actions while lower class people do; and if so I think that's brilliant. But unintentionally it promotes stereotypes of the working class as being less moral. Jason and Eleanor are aware of their badness and indulge in it anyway, however we don't see any of the upperclass characters doing the same. This furthers stereotypes that lower class people are less moral and indulge in bad actions more than their upperclass counterparts. In reality everyone across the class spectrum behaves bad because they want to, but we never see this in the show. So I think that even the show intended to do different, it did promote the stereotype that lower class people like to do bad things more than the middle/upper classes. I still love the show but I do think it failed in this regard. If Tahani and Chidi had been fleshed out more and shown to have just as much badness and selfishness inside of them as Jason and Eleanor, I think this would've been great. But instead the show presented the two character's bad actions as being mistakes rather than conscious choices.
You gotta remember though, that one of the implicit statements the show is making is that the point system has this huge innate flaw in its methodology. In short, every human action is assessed by an inhuman Accountant who assigns it a point value by fiat, then to verify his work runs it past 3 billion other Accountants...all of which are equally inhuman and distant from human experience. The prejudice you see in the point values is actually part of the story, part of the plot. It's this notion that points are assigned by people inherently unqualified to assign them, and the consequences of those assignments are impossible to evade, and have eternal and non-challengeable results. In short, it's all forked up. The show pretty much acknowledges this, and it becomes the basis of the later seasons.
MAJOR SPOILER FOR THE ENDING OF THE SHOW I don't see why that's relevant. According to the show the only problem is the unintended consequences of actions, the complexity of the system. There's never a point in the show where any of the characters even suggests that the problem is the the point values themselves or their positivity/negativity, that some of the "bad" actions are not actually bad. The solution they settle for in the end still has the exact same point system, just with a second chance for improvement. The show never challenges the idea that it's literally evil to read trashy magazines or to use "Facebook" as a verb. They just give you a chance to improve afterward, which still takes for granted those things are bad.
@@maksiiiskam2 that’s totally true. But there is also more to it than that. The biggest issue is that there is no winning the system, even if you somehow know the rules. The punishments are assigned bigger negative values than good actions. For example, reading a trashy magazine means that you lose more points than you can gain by doing something banally good like hugging a kid. Bad actions somehow mean more to this system. There’s also the fact that motivation both means everything and means nothing. In season 3 they all find out that they can no longer get into the good place because they know about it and therefore, they cannot be trusted with their motivations, even though they all want to do good for the sake of it, because they can’t get in and they might as well be good anyway. However, if you have bad motivations, it’s counted against you no matter what. The good doesn’t matter as much as the bad. Another problem is that even if you do everything right on Earth, there will be people who you don’t make happy, and therefore lose points. You lose points for punching someone, even if the motivation was good. You lose points for using technology because it’s bad because of capitalism but you’re using it to research which tomatoes to buy, but you still might lose points because that means you have less time for other stuff. And that’s just a few examples. The biggest issue I have with the point system is that it’s inherently unethical, not because we don’t know about it, but because we are being punished for evil doer’s mistakes. We are being punished for buying an IPhone, because of sweatshops but we didn’t create that system of inequality. We are literally trying to survive a society where there are pitfalls to literally EVERYTHING because there are people who created the systems we have to live with. It’s not about the point system, it’s the fact that it holds individuals personally responsible for other’s evildoing. The emphasis on happiness is a double edged sword too, because you can make some asshole happy and thus enable his assholeness and therefore lose points, but if you make the asshole unhappy, it still counts against you because you made someone unhappy. This system punishes you for not knowing what will make other people happy, or in the case of Chidi, for your own brain issues, or in the case of Jason, his lack of access to any meaningful education and job prospects. Not to mention the randomness of the points. Why is a destination wedding going to cost you 10,000 points? Why is Doug Forcett allowed to know about the system enough so he can play it and still get points, even though his motivation is the most corrupt from any other character? Answer: it’s an arbitrary system Unintended consequences are a stupid excuse because you literally cannot control how someone is going to feel about you, or react to you, or your actions. You cannot control a system that causes misery and if you do anything about it, you’ll be spreading unhappiness because war. Which is why class is such a big deal. Because only people of a certain social and economic class are going to be able to treat themselves for a neurological disorder, or get an education and go on charity trips because they have the time and money to do so. Only people of a certain class can afford to give a crap about happiness and doing good for the environment- which is why Tahani is such an important symbol of class. She’s privileged in a way that most of us can on,y dream of, and yet she is still punished because she caused unhappiness to people who literally spent most of their time together abusing her. Why is she just as punished as her parents, who raised her to be self centered and overly concerned with public opinion? Why is Chidi being punished for a neurological disorder that he doesn’t understand? I’m sorry about how rambly it got. I’m just mad that discussions about class don’t include the idea that people are being punished for being born in a world where nothing they do has positive consequences. And that goes far beyond modern society.
Your limited take to avoid spoilers defeats the exercise, since the twists are meant to rip the carpet out from under the audience’s biases the show was playing into. Yes season 1 was does frame people of privilege as more deserving of paradise.... until it doesn’t. The biggest reveal further in the series is that no one gets into the good place at all because the last 500 years of history (I.e. the period of history shaped by European colonization) has made living an ethical life impossible because of the economic ramifications of all actions in life - i.e. there’s some sort of unnamed system in place under which there is no ethical consumption.... GEE I WONDER WHAT SYSTEM THAT COULD BE!?
It is true that the show works to subvert the notion of objective morality even being possible in the context of a globalized capitalist society. However, the underlying cultural notion of "virtuous class" still pervades the series through little gags deriding certain "low class" activities as being inherently immoral. The demons, for example, are constantly portrayed as having "boorish" behavior, enjoying classless things, and *also* being morally reprehensible. We also see this in the "impartial" accountants' department, who concern themselves with deciphering the morality of such things as "Impressions (Borat)", "Songs With Specific Dance Instructions", and "Weird Sex Things." The fact these cultural signifiers with no material impact are even considered up for debate about their "goodness" is meant to signify that the project of calculating goodness is not simply about ethics in a class-neutral way. It's about assessing whether in total, a person is "well-behaved," and is advancing a societal-level cultural purity.
Also yes through capitalism it has become so much harder to be good but the point is still with different classes and the typical actions of those as even if you’re rich enough like tahini to shop as ethically as you possibly can you can still be in the wrong but not having the right morals, by the way you behave or act. If that makes sense. His points are valid
Well between the lines it says that the people in heaven are assholes who place arbitrary hidden values on everything. Even if these arbitrary values weren't all exceedingly harsh, they are indeed extremely arbitrary, this is made as a tool for jokes multiple times, like anything french being worth negative points. The afterlife of this universe, not understanding morality if it bit them in the bum. At the same time, the show never directly says this, none of the characters never directly go "hey this is random BS". *_SPOILERS_** head* Even when they are tasked with proving people can be good and fighting against the concept that the point system has made it so that no one can get to heaven, even then they never take these celestial beings to task for their arbitrary nonsensical morale value system. Even that judge, her tests made a bit more morale sense then the average point system regular people go through, she's still arbitrarily deciding what is good and evil, and what is sufficiently good and evil to decide someones eternal fate. And of course beings who set people to be tortured for eternity really especially have no right to decide morality, because I can imagine no more wicked a deed. I feel the show values the jokes much more than the plot, and as things go on, this becomes notably more of an issue as the plot becomes a hot mess IMO.
I may be extremely wrong but I genuinely think that the general progress of the show was planned from the beginning, at least to a certain point. Since the first season we start to question the system that keeps score and the polarity between the good place and the bad place, so I do think this was done on purpose.
I've gone back and forth on this a lot because you're totally right that, particularly at this level, a showrunner will have multiple seasons planned out prior to even pitching a pilot. Ultimately, however, as I've written in response to someone else below, I'm not sure the show's eventual critique of society's tendancy to conflate class and morality forgives (for want of a less-loaded word!) the fact that so many of the jokes are intrinsically based on the idea that to be working class is to be lesser. To repeat what I've written below (sorry, being lazy!), I'm not sure very many people who laugh at Jason's love of Jacksonville (including me!) are laughing at the manner in which our culture frames certain places as intrinsically less meaningful than others, I think they're (and, again, me included!) laughing precisely because we consider Jacksonville to be unworthy of such devotion. I totally think you're right that the show critiques rigid notions of good and bad, however I'm unsure it totally undoes all the class stuff it sets up in season one. Happy to argue it out though, haha! Thanks for watching!
@@Tom_Nicholas I think part of the comedy falls on the contrast (as comedy so often does) between him and both his Buddhist monk fake persona, and his pairings (both Tahani and Janet). But regardless it'd be awfully naive for me to deny how classism plays a huge roll in it , love the video 💖
Oh absolutely, the contrasts between Eleanor and Chidi and Tahani and Jason are pivotal. In fact, I did spend quite a while trying to find moments where Chidi or Tahani were the butt of a contrast-based joke to see if the fact that (by that point in writing the video) I was actively looking for class-stuff might have been clouding my judgement but came up fairly short. Thank you for saying so and for taking the time to let me know your thoughts! The best part about making these is always reading people's alternative takes in the comments!
@@Tom_Nicholas What about the fact that most if not almost all of the jokes at Tahani's expense revolve around her shallowness, egotism and disconnect with the reality of the situations she finds herself in as a result of her upper class upbringing and lifestyle, which directly mirror the way Jason is framed ? I think their pairing in the first season is intended precisely to highlight the classist slant of the common cultural understanding of Good and Bad by juxtaposing the "Florida trash bag" with a wealthy socialite who's just as vapid and out of touch and even more self-obsessed as him while presenting both as redeemable. As for the creators planning the whole show as a critique of the classist capitalist system from the very beginning, I think it's evidenced by the fact that the conclusion of season 3 about what's wrong with the whole point system was already foreshadowed as early as episode 3 of season 1 during one of Eleanor's flashback.
I thought this was really interesting, but doesn't encompass what the good place was going for. I think the idea that we're supposed to think of "lower class=bad" isn't so clear cut. I thought the end of season 1 was designed so we'd question that premise. I found who eleanor used to be was not great but I thought jason was frankly awesome. Tahani started out unbearable and chidi had great theories but was a pushover. Chidi's parting gift to eleanor was a mailman catalog and this is supposed to be seen as something eleanor likes in a positive way. Jason didn't become high brow, but he did become a better Jason. Eleanor didn't become high brow either. In fact tahani joined the working class for her final arc because she needed to earn things. I think if you wanted to tackle these issues I'd look at killing Janet and how Derek is treated; rebooted repeatedly, used as a living sex doll as a joke, etc. I'd also be interested in the fact that bad place overlords and goodplace overlords and neutral place overlords and the judge can't die even if they're bored or being mistreated or are unable to manage their place properly. These might allow for a more substantiative analysis on class structure in the good place.
I really think this analysis is not accurate The criticism of the character of Tahani is brutal in the series. The narcissism of her class is yet another running gag, which points out that Jason and Eleanor's low-class genuineness is actually refreshing by comparison while her manicured pompousness is a sign of deep moral degradation. I don't see this as unbalanced. Eleanor and Jason have their flaws as well, obviously. But so do they all - including Cheedi, the seemingly pure academic. That's the point of the series. Seemingly "fine" people might have equally deep flaws as the "lower classes" who might "seem" to be "worse." I personally love how they play all this without making anyone into the hero or the villain.
As a north american anglo whose class background and adverse childhood experiences were a couple degrees worse than Jason and Eleanor combined, I watched the show with a keen awareness of the class commentary. I also assumed that the audience was expected to see Eleanor as our self-insert and find it completely plausible that Tahani actually is terrible. I definitely don't think this show was written to turn off working-class people.
I remember season 3 when Jason is able to casually through his own life make a great point that affected the higher power by saying how much poverty affects the ability to ‘do great good’
You make a good point about how we think about good and bad behavior in general. However, in 5:45 you can see a bunch of "cheap" good actions (carefully stepping over a flowerbed, remember sister's birthday, fix tricycle for child, remain loyal to Cleveland browns) while some of the moderate bad actions are only available to the rich (ruining the opera) or more likely to be practiced by the privileged (overstating personal connection to tragedy). Possibly the later season where it is revealed that no one has gotten into the good place in 500 years (in essence because 'no ethical consumption under capitalism', though they don't explicitly say that) might have more to say about this. It seems like you should be able to avoid the problem with unintended effects if you still lived in a rural area that still produces most things locally, while in the more 'developed' world one should be able to avoid at least some of the bad points if you could afford to buy, say, organic fair trade products.
you'd think that, but no. Organic food is often worse for the environment and people than the alternative, due to a slew of reasons primarily to do with land use, and there isn't really such a thing as an area so remote that it doesn't run into problems with all consumption being negative, other than uncontacted people such as north sentinel island
To add to @thalia storer 's comment, this is pointed out in the good place too! the whole thing with Chidi and his oat vs almond milk is that even someone clearly trying to eat the most ethical foods can't win, bc every supply chain is at least a little forked up. Like w organic foods, some things bought specifically for being better as equal to or worse than the generic thing. And even if there were perfect options for everything a human needs, no one is able to find all these things, being aware of all issues, while also being able to live and work to afford those things, and also stay sane. It's an impossible ask of anyone- that's the problem the good place puts to us.
The problem with analysing the good place up until the penultimate episode of the first season is how interrelated the entire series is. All the criticisms brought forward are directly dealt with in future episodes...
what i like about the good place is when they finally reach the good place in the finale and are shown to be the best versions of themselves, eleanor and jason's (especially jason's) working class cutlural touchstones and behaviors haven't simply disappeared. they're the best versions of themselves without having to pretend to be upper class. they still talk the same way. eleanor still likes hot mailmen. jason still plays videogames and loves the jacksonville jaguars. AND they've reached self actualization. i think this is what makes the good place's commentary effective. to actually be better people they all have to change the way they treat people and see each other and themselves, but they don't have to change unrelated behaviours. because the system WAS wrong. and reading trashy magazines was never morally bad.
I had similar complaints about the seeming moral litmus test of the show, until a friend pointed out that [SPOILER] in the season 1 finale, we learn that this is not the true morality of the afterlife but something created to reassure Tahani and Chidi that they belong while proving to Eleanor and Jason that they do not. The true/false test, in particular, is designed to make certain Eleanor feels unworthy of The Good Place while simultaneously feel superior to the people she would "join" in the Bad Place. That said, later seasons continue many of the trends you identify, complicating that objection. "Technically speaking, we're supposed to shut down the bank if anyone from Florida sets foot inside" indeed. One thing that always drove me CRAZY about the show is the idea of these "Good Place" residents fighting for human rights all of their lives and then get to the afterlife and are fine with eternal suffering for 99.99% of people absolutely infuriating. But that fits in well as a critique of the upper philanthropic class that thinks of themselves as moral for benefiting from an absurdly cruel system because they do other good things in their lives.
EDIT: I wrote this comment before watching the last 30 seconds of the video, but since you said you're still skeptical of this viewpoint, I'm leaving this up in the off chance I can convince ya So I can definitely buy that some of the jokes in the show (at Jason's expense especially) reflect class prejudice and reinforce those boundaries, but I think that limiting the conversation to the first season and not discussing the big twist skew this discussion a lot. As you noted at the end of your video, Chidi and Tahani are also "bad," but I have to hard disagree on their characterization. Chidi can definitely be considered "well intentioned," but of course, the issue here is the consequences of his actions, which hurt him and the people around him. It also points out the way academics or professional class folks who view themselves as "do-gooders" can often be unintentionally harmful if they don't pay attention to the world around them. In Tahani's case, it is literally explicitly stated in the show to her face that the reason she's in the bad place is due to her false intentions. She did philanthropy for clout and that was what was wrong with her, which, again, I think is saying something pretty important about class and ethics. I also don't really see how we're made to believe Eleanor has changed and Jason hasn't. Sure, Jason is still the brunt of a lot of jokes about his lack of intelligence, but he helps the groups out on numerous occasions, often proves to be devoted to doing the right thing, and offers emotional support to his friends. And just like Jason still loves Bortles and shitty EDM, Eleanor still fantasizes about hot firefighters and acts snarky. In becoming "better," they don't really lose their identities and I think that's great. We also see Chidi learning to connect more over the three seasons while retaining his inquisitive nature and... well, I'll admit I think any "transformation" Tahani has been through is pretty underwritten. But, more to the point, I also think developments in season 3 offer even more evidence against some of your claims. The list of bad and good things you discuss at the beginning of the video is, in my opinion, pointing out the absurdity of such minor behaviors being calculated into some type of moral score. Whether this list is real or not is unclear after the season 1 finale when we learn it's actually the bad place, but the series thoroughly trashes the whole damn system in season 3. By this point, the show is saying the way people are being sorted into good or bad is fundamentally flawed so even if the list IS accurate, our main characters goal at this point is to shred the thing up anyway. The discovery in season 3 that the system is so flawed no one has been admitted to the good place since the 1500s as well as the explicit linking of this phenomenon with the development of a modern, globalized, capitalist economy was WILD to see on network tv, even if they don't use those words specifically. The show, at this point, is really saying that the world is too complex and interrelated to isolate individual's actions in the way we thought things worked. They point out the futility of attempting to buy ethically and live a "clean" lifestyle through the character of Dough Forcett, which is a rather pointed statement in an era where buying or destroying a lot razor counts as an act of resistance. I appreciate a lot of your points about class identity formation and the social barriers that creates and I fully admit, I'm likely ignoring a whole host of jokes that play on class distinctions in later seasons. But I think that thematically and character-wise, the writers have gone to great efforts to subvert the expectations set up in the premiere and interrogate just why we view some people as moral and others not. I think it presents most of these characters as fairly complex and limiting the scope of discussion to barely a third of the show's run really hides that. And finally, just an anecdote. Based on my interactions on Twitter and discussions with friends, Jason is commonly cited as a fan favorite and although most love all the characters, I definitely see the most hate for Tahani. I think the sharp class distinctions between the two of them serve to highlight Tahani's hypocrisy and pretentiousness a lot more than they serve to paint Jason as "bad."
Hi Krish. Wow, thanks for taking the time to write such an in-depth response, I really appreciate it! I think, as with anything but perhaps particularly with regard to the politics of aesthetics and the representational act, there’s a lot of nuance to be acknowledged here. For example, I totally agree with what you say about the manner in which the later seasons change our appraisal of the first. Particularly the way season three links the impossibility of behaving morally with colonialism and the rise of capitalism. From that position, we’re certainly invited to reassess some of the stuff that we are complicit in through our laughter earlier in the show. As you say, this is something that goes largely undiscussed on our screens (and particularly in mainstream sitcoms!). Nevertheless, I’m still skeptical of the idea that this undoes the manner in which class is used (and, as I say in the video, likely unintentionally) as a shorthand for being immoral/unethical/unrespectable and the use of those socially sustained preconceptions as the basis for humour. Even if we’re later invited to reconsider them, all the jokes which rest on Jason’s low aspirations, for example, still do so. Again, I think it’s far, far more nuanced than the show’s treatment of class (or anything else for that matter) being “good” or “bad” and more just a case of acknowledging the presence of this stuff within it. (Also, I’m under no illusion that just because I think something it’s correct, haha!). Sorry, I feel like I’ve barely touched on some of the really astute points you’ve made there but it’s late and I wanted to make sure I at least responded with something!!
I think that's a totally valid opinion, however I'm not sure it's that black and white. I think there's certainly a critique of overly-rigid moral frameworks which happens to end up subverting some of classist ideas about morality (by which I mean I'm doubtful that the creators would neccesarily have considered it in those terms even if that is the result). Nevertheless, I think the jokes themselves still very much play in to classist stereotypes. For example, I'm not sure very many people who laugh at Jason's love of Jacksonville (including me!) are laughing at the manner in which our culture frames certain places as intrinsically less meaningful than others, I think they're (and, again, me included!) laughing precisely because we consider Jacksonville to be unworthy of such devotion. Therefore, although our conflation of class and morality might eventually come up for critique within the show, I'm not sure that eventual critique entirely forgives (for want of a less-loaded word) the stereotyped humour at the expense of working-class people which punctuates the series. And that, I think, is the longest response I've ever given to a comment, haha! Thanks for watching!
True to a point. But while the overall story punches up, some of those jokes do punch down, and it might be the result of the social class most writers are from (upper and upper middle class) where we tend to have a polite disdain for other classes (including the too stuffy upper upper class, but mostly the lower class).
Same. Eleanor and tahani end up in the same place despite their vast class differences. As a viewer, we assume that tahani is morally superior because of her class but the show actively subverts that by the end of the season
@@maximeteppe7627 Was thinking exactly this. A writer's room is famously over educated Ivy League grads, of course their moral qualms (small ones) would be opera etiquette over working class issues. This is true from shows to The Simpsons and Frasier, both taking part in the same classism as most shows on tv as they are written by literal cultural elites whose education is way higher than the average person.
it could also be commentary on how "morality" is often only available to the upper class by having money and resources, one has greater opportunities to be charitable and greater options for media which they consume
I come from a very comfortable middle class background, and it's interesting looking at things from this point of view. I was completely BAFFLED at the season one finale. I didn't see it coming at all but it seems some others were questioning. My classism is one of those things that I've not completely unlearned yet, and this video helped me ponder it, so thank you for the good work!
You forget the fact that they're (BIG SPOILERS) actually in the bad place for the first two seasons. I balk at the idea that Schur would be saying (on purpose or not) that ethics raises a person's social class. If you were to examine the later seasons you'd see ethics and charity (as in love) applied to people across the board, on all levels of 'class'.
It's important that you still treat a program you love critically, and it is even more important that you don't mischaracterize what it is saying and doing. Probable spoilers. It is never implied that, like Eleanor and Jason in the first season, that Chidi and Tahani were in the bad place by mistake. Chidi is in the bad place because his indecisiveness made life harder for everyone around him--something that has nothing to do with classes. And with Tahani, her sins were sins only a rich person can commit. She raised billions of dollars for the sole reason of making herself feel better in a misguided competition with her sister. Also, you look at the presentation in episode 1, and assume that the pluses and minuses are how the universe actually works. That buying a trashy magazine drops you a fraction of a point. But as is revealed in the second season, these are all frauds carried out by demons. They are what we might expect are "good" things and "bad" things, but there is no statement within the series that the points they show in episode 1 are actually the points being used. They could just be things the demons thought would convince Jason, Eleanor, Chidi and Tahani. So yes, the demonic approximation of The Good Place is a classist nightmare, but partially, that's because it's a demonic approximation. The first season of The Good Place was supposed to be torture. So maybe, by putting our four condemned souls into a classist system as torture, they were saying the exact opposite of what you claim in your video.
I more so think the show is being reflective on how we as a society think that way and by them showing that they all end up in the bad place is meant to make us critical of the idea. Like the that list of good and bad deeds was made to literally torture lower class people who felt as though they shouldn't be in the good place and upper class people who felt entitled to.
I think you misread the scenes where it’s revealed Chidi and Tahani should be in the bad place. They’re not trying to make you sympathetic to them, they’re saying in Tahani’s case, that she just happened to have the resources to help people. She didn’t actually care about them and she did it for purely selfish reasons. They’re criticising her, and rich people like her who think they’re morally superior to others just bc they have the money to sometimes help people purely for fake and acclaim. In Chidi’s case the whole point of his character is to show a person who’s always desperately trying to do the right think but it just results in him doing more harm than good due to his fear of doing the wrong thing. The result of his actions were bad, even if his intentions were good. Unlike Tahani, who is the opposite. The results of her actions were great but she didn’t have good intentions and was only capable of doing what she did due to her social status. I agree that they maybe equate lower class “hobbies” or “things” in general with bad as humour but overall I think they do a pretty good job of giving you backstory of Jason and Eleanor and making you sympathetic to them, including Chidi and Tahani. At no point do I feel like they try and make Chidi and Tahani out to be morally more virtuous without critiquing that assumption. Again, I think it’s the jokes about the things that associated with lower class ppl as bad is what’s maybe giving you this view. It’s a great video in general, I think maybe you just misread that particular area. Like I say, the whole point of Tahani’s character is to tell you she’s not better than anyone else just bc she had more money, thus was able to do “more good”. You point of the video is good tho, I’m going to watch out for that a lot more in the tv shows I watch. There in general is obviously class structure in even the things we like. It’s a very interesting topic.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment! I think that's an entirely valid way of reading it. My question would be why the immorality of rumour-spreading/-listening is specifically concentrated into "trashy" magazines rather than anything else. Obviously, again, it's a joke so we do have to bear that in mind but, alongside everything else, it does seem to be part of a broader suggestion that immorality and being working class are in some way intrinsically linked. As always, happy to debate these things and be convinced otherwise!
@@Tom_Nicholas Because trashy magazines have a tendency to exploit, to lie, to try to make things worse instead of better to have more flashy titles. Buying a trashy magazine is giving money to people who will do immoral things and hurt people, and you know it, and you don't care. Tahani did many great things, but was prime Bad Place material, because she didn't care about how her actions affect others, only about beating her sister and getting seen by her parents - she even failed the test, because she cared more about her own wants than her friends getting into the Good Place. And it is only an example, noone ever stated that other forms of feeding rumor culture are not negative points.
They don't just spread rumors they ruin lives, invade privacy, break laws (be they stalking, peeping, slander, photographing without consent, distribution of images of minors without consent) and dehumanize their subjects to a degree that creates a commodity out of real people's lives. @Tom Nicholas Rich people can also buy trashy mags honestly I think the whole point of that was to put a product or action to a feeling: Schadenfreude. Rich people can equally take part in that, maybe moreso. People of all classes buy those magazines.
Loved the video and I would like to add a topic of discussion just for the sake of argument: There are several articles that have investigated the proclivity of people to commit crimes, do generous acts, abuse substances, etc. Many of this studies have shown that people with more resources and education do actually behave in more "ethical" or "moral" ways. This has to do with the pyramid of human needs: The idea is basically that if you have your needs met consistently through out your life, you are more preoccupied with behaving in a way that sustains the social relationships that help you maintain your resources. On the other hand, if your basic needs aren't met consistently (or are scarce), the risk of not being "good" is not much more greater than doing whatever you can to meet your needs. This might explain why in most countries it's been demonstrated that cops and judges show leniency towards rich, educated, attractive people.
To paraphrase Chris Rock.... A poor man may steal your wallet but a rich man will steal your future. There may be a kind of middle class morality based on a tenuous level of comfort that provides one with the necessities of life but it’s always in jeopardy from those with more power so being careful becomes more important. Being super rich removes such inhibitions it is also said that every great fortune begins with a great crime. So there's a bell curve of sorts. Low income with low risk, medium income with high risk, and high income with low risk.
While this video is really well-supported and discusses relevant class bias beautifully, it overlooks the main thesis statement of the series in an effort to not spoil it. Yes, the characters are all actually in the bad place, and they've been set up to drive each other insane, but more importantly, no one has gotten into the good place for decades because the algorithm has become inapplicable to the modern world. Eg, buying a rose for a loved one is a negative action because it supports a major corporation and environmentally destructive practices. I don't think The Good Place overlooks classism as a factor in how we perceive morality, I think it actually argues that being a genuinely "good" human being is impossible in such a complex society if you don't have absurd amounts of money (and that's our fault!). It's not that wealthy people are inherently more good, or even good at all, it's that the capitalist institutions pushed on lower-class people are suffocating and preclude any benefit from meaningful efforts to make the world a better place. Their lack of respectability means nothing about what they deserve, but what they are capable of doing for others in their society if the default state is oppression
You know what else Michael says in his orientation speech? "what happened to everyone else? don't worry about it" Saying that to a crowd of actually good people would be a big mistake. The defining characteristic of good people is that well...they care about others. They would want to know what is happening to the other people, why, and how they can help those people get to the Good Place. Michael says "don't worry about it" knowing that his audience won't ask those questions because they are all actually self-centered assholes. He says it to let them off the hook, because although they all know that they are supposed to care about other people: they actually don't. Heck, one of the very first things Michael says is "in cases of traumatic or embarrassing death we erase the memory". Why would a good person want their memory of something embarrassing erased? They wouldn't. Right from the beginning the show tells you that all is not as it seems. But the show also believes that it's audience is too self-centered to notice that, it believes that you will buy into the fiction it sets out. This is a show intended to call out it's viewers, whom Eleanor is a substitute for. And there is nothing "working class" about Eleanor. You're putting British working class stereotypes on her (the sexualized images on the wall, for example). That's not a class stereotype in America: rather it's meant to speak to her age. Eleanor was killed while buying margarita mix. She definitely wouldn't be drinking cocktails if she was working class. Cocktails are absolutely coded as middle-upper class here (rather than just feminine). She'd have been buying a six pack of Bud Light if she was working class. Eleanor is meant to represent the viewer of this show, who is assumed to be a middle class young white hipster. If you're that person, you'll buy into the show's fiction whole hog and then be shocked by the twist. If you're anyone else, you'll be in on the joke from the beginning.
On top of all the counterpoints other comments made, I would like to add a single thing about the low-art / high-art dichotomy. Thorughout the 4 seasons Eleanor and Jason improve dramatically, by the end becoming arguably better people than Chidi and Tahani are, and the show remarks on this often. However their love of low art and identification with lower class signifiers never disappears: instead it is reframed, from telltale signs of their unworthiness to endearing humanizing traits. At the end Eleanor is basically the moral paragon of the show, and she still has sex in a closet, likes trashy media and fun. It's Tahani who is considered in the wrong by the story for still giving negative value to these things by the end of season 3. Which is all to say: Tom's criticism stands for season 1 if taken in isolation but is addressed and subverted by the show itself in later seasons. I still think the show could have used a harsher critique of the point system (i.e. individual responsibility in ignorance of systemic problems and the practice of punishment in general) and of social inequality (which is never directly addressed), but overall I think this is one of the best left-leaning shows in mainstream tv
Thanks for making this thought provoking video. I watched through the whole of the good place without thinking about this for a second. And now I'm looking at it from a totally different POV and questioning why I took it all for granted.
This is unrelated to the politics but I just have to say, the most solid and subtle joke I have ever hear is when “real” Elenor said “...yadda yadda yadda I learned English from watching Seinfeld yadda yadda yadda”
I think I disagree with the overall premise seeing as Tahani is revealed to also belong is hell, but I'm SO glad someone brought up the scene in Jason's flashback where the cop says "I think he got pretty much what he deserved" and he's the correct straight-man in the conversation, with Jason's friend being the idiot. Like holy, shit. I know Michael Schur 's shows tend to be full of bootlicking but that scene was just so strange to me, the implication Jason deserved to die when he didn't even do anything that immoral
Yeah big agree. In Australia there's a popular show called Housos that's a comedy about bogans in Australia and being a bogan living in public housing it's definitely right about a lot of things but it's laughing at us rather than with us often times. That's especially obvious compared to say, Sasha Baron Cohen whose comedies rely on us seeing the prejudice of the characters as ridiculous
Hi Tom, As a PhDer who is familiar with Bourdieu & Skeggs I loved this! If you ever get around to a follow up it would be great to take a look at how the show handles the idea of the transformation of identity amongst the characters. Does it present a transformation of identity to one that fits with middle-class dispositions as the ideal? Does it do anything to address the psycho-social difficulties that may present themselves as a result?
Very good video ! I think discussing about series is so important and I agree with a lot of your points here, but there is one point about which I really disagree : I don't think the show is made such as we see the position of Chidi and Tahani are more unfair... as I watched the show, I felt like Chidi's flashbacks and Tahani's attitude show pretty clearly that their presence in the Good Place is not so obvious... but yes in our society they are viewed as more virtuous because of their social situation and therefore they both feel entitled to be there, whereas Eleonor knows that she is not a virtuous person so their torment works best by using those assumptions. For Jason, I really felt like he was the one presented with good intentions !
Very interesting take! It would be interesting to see what you think about the series now that it is completed and if it has changed or developed considering the way that the show criticises the way that the system that judges whether people go to the Good Place or Bad Place in season 4. I wonder if the show maybe was less self-aware about its classism in the first season(s) but gradually become more aware of it? I haven't re-watched the show in its entirety but I feel like especially the thrid and fourth seasons began dealing with it more.
I'd say they were completely aware. You need the contrast the show creates in order to have something to reflect upon, which is why I partially disagree with his analysis.
Having watched the whole thing, I think maybe an update is in order. Turns out the inherent classism in the “system” is the point of the show, and not at all a failure on the part of writers and creators. You’re not holding the show to task, as you put it, but actually delivering basic thematic information as if it’s super deep and critical. Jason didn’t need an education to explain it succinctly to the judge, and neither do we.
Yeah, it bothers me how much Jason's character and interests are played for laughs. Then again, he is one of the kindest ppl on the show, then again I don't remember how much of that was revealed in later seasons.
Could you do another video now that the show is over? I would like to hear more of this persepective, considering the rest of the show and the solution they ended it with. I must say that i did like the ending, but i felt like there are too many questions left unanswered. Like.. besides the good/bad place stuff.. like Kristen Bell's daughter asked her "why is earth?". I wanna know why the fuck is earth. The good place committee, and the bad place demons crew.. the office with the neutral Janets that manages the point system. Thats it? The highest being we get is that judge? i did like her, but there's no explanation about whats behind all this. What is the whole point of it all? The system didn't work well for hundreds of years and no one seemed to care? Or pay the price (Except humans)? Or answer to a higher status figure? What if it was part of a plan? that michael and team cockroach were in the right place at the right time to fix things? It just.. happened. Oops, we tortured beings who are capable of learning to be better for hundreds of years.. and they were all saved by.. chance? Luck? And also, i think it was clear that the good place committee allowed the bad place to sabotage the system because they had nothing to do with the people who did get there since the begining of time.
Interesting! I actually read it as heavily and obviously (to my perception) satirical when I watched it, and took it that Tahani was clearly supposed to be seen as obnoxious!
I might be giving this show too much credit here but doesn't the season 1 twist and the whole subsequent plot kind of undermine all this? I know you said you were skeptical about it but I was really close to letting go of the show precisely because of all you said but the following twists I think did a great job at subverting those notions and I might even go as far as saying this more cliche and trope-dependent start becomes a good thing cause it forces people to confront what they were laughing at and why if they want to keep watching.
it's not all black and white. I mostly agree with you, but by the end, it seems the best way to become moral is to live a life in a context of material abundance that still gives you moral challenges (not all scenarios are necessarily like that by the end, but most of what is presented as opportunity for moral growth in the show fits this framework). which is not necessarily a classist Idea (the movie parasite has a similar framework of money "ironing out" the flaws of people, implying that a more egalitarian and solidary society would allow individual growth). But it also is often framed as a moral person appearing as such by conforming to the canon of the upper class.
I've never encountered a video with so many points that I can't help disagreeing with, while not being able to be deleterious toward any points made, and even agreeing with most characatures. I believe this show is uniquely American in it's parody of morality and ethics, and even Brits won't get every single thing. Brilliant, though. :D Yes I'm three years late. I know.
While I agree with you on many points, the show later very clearly points out how the circumstances of their lives affected their actions in ways they could or could not control, and that's very important. By only analysing the first part of the show, you completely miss how the show tells you that your actions and the following consequences aren't solely a result of your own moral/ethics, but also the circumstances of your life. It's supposed to make you question the supposedly inherent morality and ethics of different related to your life's circumstances. For instance it's very clear that Jason is at heart a good person with the potential to do good, but the environment he was born into tilted the scales against him and pushed him towards the "bad things" he did. Tahani would never have to suffer the consequences of the same environment, which in turn meant that the "bad things" she did would be of a different nature. This brings up the question: Is stealing always bad and Is it always the same "amount" of bad, unrelated to the scale of the effect and the circumstances of the person? Jason stole because of his upbringing (or lack thereof), poverty and other circumstances of his life, but if Tahani did the same it could arguably be perceived as worse, because of her circumstances. By this logic, if Tahani did the exact same thing it would not only be inherently worse, but considering her circumstances she would probably get away with it also. Realistically, a person like her wouldn't even turn to petty crime like Jason, but steal on a greater scale that affects a bigger number of people, with a greater chance for getting away with it. And because she already had more than enough capital and opportunities to live comfortably, unlike Jason, her reasons for committing either of those crimes would arguably be morally worse. All of their "bad" actions had to be befitting of their background, but also morally comparable in the context of the show, in order to make us question relative morality. The value of Tahani's actions wouldn't be the same for Jason, because they are Tahani's actions affected by her circumstances, and not his. That's why showing that her "good work" was in the end self serving, could be comparable to Jason's stealing. Stealing food when you're poor, does not have the same moral value as stealing food if you're rich. The show forces us to compare, in order to think about how morality might be more relative than we think, and I'd say your analysis misses this point completely. The show literally subverts the idea that rich people are more "good" because of their seemingly good actions, because actions don't hold the same value for everyone.
I always thought the idea of punishing someone, for having Good Intentions, but who's actions end up having a Bad Outcome, completely ridiculous. That's, literally, what a: 'Mistake,' is. What if someone tried to save a chipmunk, but somehow (I'll leave You, to figure out the details, if You'd like), caused the destruction of the Planet. Now, most likely, their Points are now screwed for life, because of a Mistake. And, it's this flawed System's Mistake, that the entire Human-Race, is now screwed. (Cough! Season 3)
carealoo744 I’m a utilitarian so I believe that the consequences of an action are more important than the intent. Mostly I think about this in terms of voting, people who choose to vote for someone who will cause suffering amongst the poor instead of someone who will lessen the suffering of the poor did an immoral thing. As did the people who chose not to vote because their moral purity was more important than stopping the lesser of 2 evils from taking or keeping power. It’s my head cannon that Chidi never voted. He probably went to the polls every election but when he was in the ballot box couldn’t decide and just left it blank
Ryuk Is god it sounds good in theory but consequences cannot be calculated in advance in many, if not most case. Some actions have immediate and clear consequences and some have consequences lasting for ages, even thousands of years, or causing a chain reaction with very weird turns. It is a very complex thing to evaluate which cannot be expected from many. I am on a middle ground, intention and consequences both count, but depending on the situation. However if you think it more through, if you know there is a bad consequence then how can your intention be pure and good? No way. So I think I lean towards more to the importance of intention afterall. You cannot judge a person based on the consequences they were not able to foresee. (Sorry if the message is not clear, English is not my first language and I am not used to discuss ideas on this level to ensure my message coming across)
I strongly disagree with the beginning and end of this video but you made some good points in the middle about respectability vs class. The ending is easier to argue with - you say that it's implied that Eleanor and Jason were intentionally immoral people, whereas we are encouraged to view the others as well intentioned but failing. I don't believe this is an implication for anyone except Jason. The entire point of Chidi and Tahani's characters is that they are trying to be good people (Chidi for to purpose of being good, Tahani for her own gain) but miss the mark. The entire point of Eleanor's character is that she doesn't care about ethics, until effectively being forced to learn about them and subsequently seeing the virtue. Jason's character is about the question of whether unknowingly immoral acts are immoral - he just straight out doesn't understand any ethical consequences of his actions that take thought. I think you could reverse the social classes of the characters without changing any of that, and in fact you may even draw in a particular section of the left-wing audience with that take on it, as it would look like bashing rich people. At the beginning you point out that the good actions are more available to the upper class, while the bad actions are more available to the lower class. You use the trashy magazine as an example, which I think is a bit weird as trashy magazines are definitely available to all classes...Anyway it definitely can't be argued that more good actions aren't available to wealthy people, but more bad actions are as well - poison a river was in there, and I read that as targeted at CEOs of companies which pump waste into rivers, or maybe careless farm owners. I won't go so far as to say that the upper class doesn't have it easier, but you imply a very strong tilt that I never saw in the show.
Except that The Good Place is an American produced show written by Americans. American philosophy has a strong thread of Calvinism running through it. This is the concept that wealth is a sign of God's favor. The wealthier a person is, the better morally they must be, God is pleased and rewards with wealth. Of course, much of this comes from the Bible. In the Old Testament, for example, whenever the Hebrews are obeying God's laws they are prosperous and safe. When they stray society decays and invasions occur. Carry this to the past 400 years and we tend to believe that the wealthy and prosperous are morally upstanding people who deserve their wealth. The Native "heathens" deserved to be pushed off of their land and slaughtered, they are poor after all. Slaves deserved to be slaves. The landowners deserved all of their wealth and privilege, they were godly people. Etc... The Good Place merely reflects this kind of thinking, even though, as it is pointed out, everything is free and anyone can "own" anything.
Trashy magazines are available to all, but they are cheap and easily assesablenand more likely to be purchased by someone whondoesnt have more money to spend on some other pursuits. Like... tv used to be free to all, but rich people spent less time watching it because they had money for other things.
I know this is a little late to the party, but I would posit that The Good Place uses our understanding of class to help pull the wool over our eyes. The twist at the end of S1 treats the sins of all 4 characters as equally bad. While Jason does commit crimes, he is also presented as genuine person without malice and didn't bear any ill intent from any action. I think this does counterweight perfectly with Tahani where that is completely flipped, as she disingenuously performs actions of charity. While Elanor and Chidi are opposites as well, they more show the overall unfairness of the binary afterlife system that someone who dedicated their life to this pursuit still ended up in the same place as someone who ignored it. And, as the season went on and her point total had been improving, she retains the same interests. She never stops loving the hobbies and passions associated with her class, but instead becomes a more considerate and thoughtful person. Still, regardless of intent, this show does reveal some culturally ingrained views on class and morality.
Does any of this still hold up after you know this isn't the real "good place" at all and that Chidi and Tahani were both in hell just as well as Jason and Eleanor the whole time?
@@fatymah1138 Well, you know, the show's been on the air for three years. I don't think people have to avoid talking about shows forever for the benefit of people who might not have seen it.
I cried so hard when they went through that arch at the end. Such a good show and all good points in your video. On TVTropes it was said that the points system was what the writers found personally irritating so yeah class politics spring from that.
Tou should do another video on the good place but with all season present in the argument. Now that the show is finished it would be cool to see how an argument may hold up in comparison to the whole of the show
After watching the entire show so far, I do believe that the setup on season one was done intentionally in order to criticize such shallow approaches to morality in later seasons. I do love the show btw, but also find it's overall approach to morality and human development a little bit simplistic, especially the discussion around the actual good place.
Very interesting video! Definitely see your point, though I always viewed it more as depicting the ways class changes the ways you can be immoral. Tahani's flaw wasn't that she tried in the wrong ways or too much, but that she tried for the wrong reasons. She was a high flyer, with all her philanthropy done for her own image while reaped the benefits of being v rich and rubbing shoulders with other rich people. Chidi did maybe try too hard, but his flaw was that he had the privilege not to actually do anything, he could just talk and theorise till the cows came home; something that is discussed a lot these days. Jason's major difficulties in his flashbacks are from a lack of opportunity, education, and support, while Eleanor's whole thing is that she's out for herself and doesn't empathise with folk; but this shows up in that she's happy scamming old ppl in a shitty job, or she'll abandon her friends when she's the designated driver but wants to drink, instead of them all just getting ubers. Eleanor would be a very different bad person if she was from a different class, as would the others. The fact that the two more working class characters have to be told they stole someone spot in the good place, and the other two don't, was to me speaking to how lower class folk are always on blast for every little 'bad' thing they do, whereas middle/upper class folk pay to plant a tree in Madagascar and feel like moral beings while driving their new range-rover around town. Again though, I totally see your point on it, but this was just how it read to me!
Good points, but I'll forgive the show because of its later reveal that the real reason absolutely everyone is going to the Bad Place is not because of the moral value of their individual actions based on their intentions or their class, but because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. I thought that was a pretty bold point to make on a corporate channel. Of course, they did not state it directly. They talked about society being more "complicated" but that is what their examples of this "complexity" came down to: exploitation under capitalism.
This theory is fine if you take the first season in isolation, divorced from the rest of the show, which is damn near impossible. I agree with Quinton Reviews when he says that the show will eventually reward you for seeing the first season as classist.
Between the lines The Good Place says that the people in heaven are assholes who place arbitrary hidden values on everything. Even if these arbitrary values weren't all exceedingly harsh, they are indeed extremely arbitrary, this is made as a tool for jokes multiple times, like anything french being worth negative points. The afterlife of this universe, not understanding morality if it bit them in the bum. At the same time, the show never directly says this, none of the characters never directly go "hey this is random BS". *SPOILERS head* Even when they are tasked with proving people can be good and fighting against the concept that the point system has made it so that no one can get to heaven, even then they never take these celestial beings to task for their arbitrary nonsensical morale value system. Even that judge, her tests made a bit more morale sense then the average point system regular people go through, she's still arbitrarily deciding what is good and evil, and what is sufficiently good and evil to decide someones eternal fate. And of course beings who set people to be tortured for eternity really especially have no right to decide morality, because I can imagine no more wicked a deed. I feel the show values the jokes much more than the plot, and as things go on, this becomes notably more of an issue as the plot becomes a hot mess IMO.
i would say that tahani and eleanor both had selfish, bad intentions, except tahani had a positive impact on people and eleanor didn't. chidi had good intentions, but a bad impact on people and jason had no intentions at all, yet still had a negative impact on people.
I think a big part of the reason "upper class" and "middle class" activities are seen as inherently more worthwhile than those of the "working class" is because things like literature, philosophy, theater, etc, are things that aren't just less easily accessible, they're things that require taste. In the same way you would find it odd if someone only ever ate fast food, but couldn't enjoy something with more subtle and nuanced flavors, it's really off putting to be around people who only listen to readily available pop music, and only ever watch trash and network TV. Things that are meant to appeal to your baser desires and preferences aren't inherently bad, but for a lot of working class people, that's entirely what their tastes consist of. So yea, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I do think that failing to cultivate any sort of taste beyond what you're presented with and or immediately gratifies your primal instincts and engages you without offering any sort of substance, is trashy and if that's all you like and partake of, then you yourself are trashy as a result thereof. It's not that you can't EVER enjoy those things, but I see too many people who ONLY enjoy those things, and that's the issue.
There's also a smattering of utilitarianism in the Good Place's moral algorithms, apparently. The fact that artists don't make it to the Good Place, that folks like Mozart and Bach aren't there, further casts doubt on the notion that the Good Place's algorithms reward virtue, and have a narrow, materialistic conceptualization of utilitarianism. This isn't about love or virtue (as in traditional religions), it's about performativity.
What I think happened is that the writers wanted to do a whole Upper Class People Can Be Assholes Too thing, but for the reveal to be effective they had to keep it a surprise from both the audience and the characters themselves until later on. They wrote this out, figured it sounded good and didn't look to much further into the potential issue it caused, which isn't an excuse as much as a "sympathetic backstory" or whatever you want to call it
Very, very strange take. All of the dynamics with moral judgement and class, poverty, and trauma were thoroughly addressed in the later seasons, and frankly even in the first season. This was all very clearly deliberate setup to critique the bias behind the idea of absolute moral judgement. I can’t imagine watching the first season, let alone the whole show, and not understanding that. I feel like I could write a thesis on the lack of wholistic understanding of theme in this video.
My biggest issue with TGP is How Chidi is labeled the moral centre of the show. When Eleanore tells him she doesn’t belong in the good place, he encourages her to turn herself in to presumably be sent to the bad place and tortured forever. That is never a morally acceptable thing to pressure someone into. In the season 1 finale Eleanore says ‘I understand why Jason, Tahani, and I are in the bad place but what about Chidi?’ I hated that. Chidi is the most immoral of the 4 of them because his own moral purity is usually more important than others safety
That's literally the point of his character. He's intentionally camouflaged as the morally good to subvert our expectations. There's a a reason why he's actually in the bad place after all.
Severinsen but even after finding out that Chidi is no better than her or the others, Elannore still wants him to guide her morally, and still believes he is as good of a person that he convinced her he was before they found out they were in hell
@@ryukisgod2834 It's only because he is the most educated in terms of what makes a moral person. He is literally a moral ethics professor. You also gloss over why he is listed as a bad person: he cannot apply his knowledge because he is stunted by his inability to make choices, and harmed others due to his indecision. His indecision stemmed from the fact that he was trying so very hard to weigh right from wrong. He wasn't outright evil, his indecision was negligent, and even within it it wasn't out of malice or spite. He genuinely wanted good for himself and others, and it's out of this place that he gets asked to teach moral philosophy. Not because he himself is a paragon, but because what he knows is specifically tied to what Eleanor needs to learn to be a good person. She isn't following his example: she comes to her own conclusions from his teaching.
B Z I’ll just never be able to get past him pressuring Elanore into going to the bad place. I don’t think his intentions matter in those scenes. “He genuinely wanted good for himself and others” if that were true he would have immediately seen what was wrong with there even being a bad place, like elanore did
@@ryukisgod2834 He thought there was a legitimate heaven. He thought he was judged to be there by objective standards, and that the system was legitimate. I think demanding perfection from any one person, from any one piece of media, or any one system in general is unfair. Anyone will be able to abuse any given system, and no one person is so righteous that they are moral perfection. Chidi was not written to be perfect and he is far from a "moral center." He is a moral resource, which is far different.
Hearing you talk: like this. Hearing afk arena realizingI left a really really quiet video playing: HEY HOPE YOU WEREN'T DOING ANYTHING! LISTEN TO THESE RANDOM SCREAMS. P.s. your videos are very hard to hear at times. I love the content though!
(Edit: 12:53 Okay, this is a good point; it's a problem that persists throughout the show. But examples of it persisting throughout the show would have strengthened the video's argument a lot and kept it from feeling oversimplified due to the focus on season 1. Also, 15:35 is a really good point, too, that could be extended to a lot of common "cosmic justice" narratives we find.) I think a discussion of the morality of "The Good Place" and the actual Good and Bad Places, that doesn't take into account the season-1-finale-twist and its implications and consequences, suffers a lot by not including those, because the show goes on to subvert a lot of the stuff set up in season 1. As a result, any discussion of the show's morality or class implications that doesn't at least address this, ends up feeling fairly simplistic and even unfair to the show, to say the least. There probably are actual classism issues in "The Good Place," and it would be interesting to hear about those, but by only looking at season 1 and its premise, we end up having a discussion of the class issues and morality of an almost completely different show.
Like, one of the overarching plots of the show turns out to be that a lot of the activities characterized as "bad" using the Good Place's points system, are actually often unavoidable, and the premise of the two Places and the method of deciding who goes where is fundamentally flawed (I think that hopefully doesn't spoil too much). So criticisms like this video seem like if you watched Star Wars, and then said it could be interpreted as encouraging a militaristic, fascistic view of the world or conflicts or life... because of the Galactic Empire. Like, those issues may exist in the work and should be discussed, but that's a fundamental mischaracterization of the story. The narrative is not trying to glorify what the Empire does. You're not supposed to imitate or cheer for the Empire.
I actually didn't know we were supposed to feel like Chidi and Tahani ending up where they originally did was a "miscarriage of justice." Tbh, any of the human characters potentially going to the Bad Place is a miscarriage of justice, as is the existence of something like Hell or the Bad Place to begin with... the only one who I was really surprised at, and think the show is still wrong about, is Chidi. Being indecisive is not a sin, and that's literally all he ever does "wrong." With the other three characters, I was like, "well, I don't think they're worthy of eternal damnation, but I can see how someone who does think Heaven or Hell is appropriate as a divine/cosmic justice system could make a case for this, if you only look at their actions and have 0 sympathy for anyone's motives or psychological state/issues." But I still have no idea why, under that logic, Chidi would ever deserve to go to Hell.
Maybe an interesting take on the first season and its premise is what it shows about the ideas and systems of morality we tend to already take for granted socially, as an audience, such that we could buy this premise and run with it enough to suspend disbelief and watch the show. It seems like this video has some thoughts in that direction, which is cool (15:35). This could have also led into a fascinating criticism of conventional Heaven and Hell and similar "cosmic punishment" narratives that often lack compassion/empathy, and include disproportionate consequences for behavior that's either genuinely not a problem, or only a very minor misdeed, or even behavior that's really bad on a human level, but still infinitesimally minor from a cosmic perspective compared to what any Divine Being in this system is also doing, such that it still doesn't merit eternal punishment. Maybe even a discussion of the problems with the "Law" of Attraction, or of retributive vs. restorative justice. Idk. 12:53 Also, I think this is a really good point about the way Eleanor and Jason in particular get played for laughs, in terms of their backgrounds and behavior, throughout a lot of the show even beyond season 1, which is a problem.
To be honest, Jason's apparent cognitive ability makes it hard for me to believe he's liable enough for his own actions for him to "deserve" the Bad Place, anyway. ("no, he's just comedically stupid, he's not intellectually disabled!" nope, no takesies-backsies. As I once told Stephen King (in my head), if you're going to write disabled/neurodivergent characters, it's your responsibility to actually look at the consequences of a character being classed as "disabled" in society through that writing. If you write a character as being unable to understand a lot of concepts and do a lot of cognitive reasoning, that should have consequences in terms of what the narrative/the work's positioning of "right" and "wrong" expects from him.)
I will take a look at it since they do display the really pronounced imagos up against which they fail to alienate. Agressivity in Psychoanalysis. One does get the feeling of beatings within a beatinh in a continumm between 0 and 1, and all the infinite sub-sets that may serve as the geometrical enviroment that betrays the laws of the warping motion of their existance. I do look foward to hear from their lawyers with all their documents of the history between us.
Ive also given thought of how subjective the idea of what makes someone ‘worthy of the bad place’. There is no room for cultural relativism or understanding of class analysis. But its bc the premise is philosophy, particular greek western philosophy which was v focused on ultimate moral good and truth, with Plato among others sectioning others off on the ideal person as an ideal upperclass greek male, not slave to their short termed passions
I don’t think this video in particular should have been spoiler free. The other comments already went into detail on exactly the sort of criticism of capitalism the show is making. Even looking at just season 1 though it’s clear that Tahani is not being presented positively despite her seemingly having enough points to be there
At around 10:00, a discussion of Bourdieu's "forms of capital" misses Bourdieu's pointers about the conversions of forms capital between financial capital, cultural capital or education, and social capital or participation in social networks. Although the conversions are difficult to identify in some cases, and downright contradictory in others, there is some validity to this association. Having more money permits people to go to college, and even more money opens up opportunity to more expensive colleges and higher degrees. However, Bourdieu addresses some obvious problems, namely, the school failures in the wealthy families. What are these families to do when their offspring fail or reject college? Also, there is the phenomena of 'poor boys with money,' as you specify, but there is also the problem of 'rich boys without money!' But, the totality in question, the "good place" still harbors the main ideological problem of contestation or social antagonism. This problem is represented but not interpreted or explained. In a similar key, Talcott Parsons addresses the conversions between forms of the media of exchange by which he meant money, power, influence and commitment. Although it might be obvious how money and power interconvert, how power converts to influence is not clear and commitment, as in following certain norms, often seems entirely distinct from the other media. Perhaps, this show is pointing out how the conversions from one form of capital or media does not slide easily.
Isn’t the whole point that the points system is ridiculous, specifically because it doesn’t account for social conditions? I know the show explains it in a more broad or simplistic way, but that’s what i felt it was trying to get across
This video is so frustrating to me, because I think you're missing the point, later seasons straight up say that the system is broken; like a character literally defends the choices of the poor. Not to mention that the show takes time to show that NONE of the characters deserve to be in Hell. Incidentally, how do you get Tahani being in hell is a "miscarriage of justice"? It was very clear to me that she was a bad person from the beginning
THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE MORAL PHILOSOPHERS. lol... not really it just needed to he said. This is brilliant. Its difficult to hear through. Anyway, its somewhat off base because a lot of this does get addressed later and turned on its ear. (Really the whole point system has a lot of problems in my opinion). But I feel like what's important is that we are thinking about these things, moreso than having the *right answer.* so even though it maybe is and maybe isnt a fair criticism of the show, its brilliant simply because it is a springboard for deep reflection which you've done well. (Also can you list your references because I'd lile to study more.)
Not a robbery. I know, even the show calls it a robbery. But they're wrong. Robbery is theft by force or threat of force (e.g., a mugging). What Jason and Donkey Doug did was attempted burglary of a business... i.e., breaking and entering, or entering and remaining after closing without permission, with the intent to commit a felony within. Burglaries are considered MUCH more serious.
@@finnianquail8881 Occasionally. but I'm a blast at the jail. Another way to put it: In Virginia, Burglary is a 20-year max as long as you're just stealing. Robbery is a life max, even if you don't use a gun.
Hi all, this is a video I've wanted to make for a long time so I hope I've done the idea justice! Also, I hit 10k subscribers yesterday which is awesome so thanks to all of you for your ongoing support! Of course, if you're new round here and want to check out the rest of this series, you can find it in a handy playlist here: ua-cam.com/video/uSgnyKRBe-g/v-deo.html
Congrats, you deserve it !
Thanks for saying so!
Hi Tom, congratulations!!
I am curious to find out what you did for you BA study and the length of which it took you to choose to do an MA
I'm looking into MA study at the moment, and am really weighing up my options (Graduated from doing Drama at University of Lincoln 2 years ago and currently based in Lincoln)
I always thought the idea of punishing someone, for having Good Intentions, but who's actions end up having a Bad Outcome, completely ridiculous.
That's, literally, what a: 'Mistake,' is.
What if someone tried to save a chipmunk, but somehow (I'll leave You, to figure out the details, if You'd like), caused the destruction of the Planet.
Now, most likely, their Points are now screwed for life, because of a Mistake.
And, it's this flawed System's Mistake, that the entire Human-Race, is now screwed. (Cough! Season 3)
@@Tom_Nicholas I hope you do a part 2 now that the show is over, and reflect upon your analysis of it as well as some of the response to this video.
Especially since the show is very subversive in nature.
On the other hand looking at the things they put on the point scoring system in Episode 1 shows that there are a number of bad things you can only do if you're in a powerful class; commit genocide, poison a river, Be Commissioner of American Football League. And later on in the show they start to make clearer that being in a high social class might actually increase your chance of going to the Bad Place because the consequences of your actions are more far reaching.
Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment! I'd suggest that the difference is that those things are fairly objectively bad things (other than the AFL commissioner thing, I know nothing about American Football so couldn't comment!!) whereas the working-class stuff that is categorised as immoral is not. Neither revving a motorbike engine or lacking knowledge of how to behave "correctly" at the opera is intrinsically immoral in the same sense that genocide is.
Excellent point! While I think this is an intensely interesting subject to explore through TGP, I also think the show's text disproves the video's conclusion.
Spoilers...
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The points system doesn't account for factors like racism, nobody has gotten into the Good Place in over 500 years, (including wealthy, ethical people who love ballet and opera) and the only person on earth who lives his life by the point system is still not good enough to get into paradise -- just buying a tomato can damn you. And upper-class people like Tahani's family are portrayed as status-obsessed bullies who ignored and neglected and criticized Tahani basically into insanity because she didn't measure up to their own little points system.
In fact, "holding people to impossible standards" is a reoccurring theme in the show, and the idea that you can "live ethically" is a prime target (it actually ruined Chidi's life).
While it's an interesting, well-made video, and I'm all for examining the show with a critical eye (or at least using it to explain more abstract ideas) I seriously doubt this show is punching down at the working-class under the assumption that they aren't watching. In fact, I think those people are the target audience, especially considering who the protagonist is. The Good Place is never sold as a show about ethics, so even if the producers really thought working-class people wouldn't watch a show like that, it's not like they're advertising that aspect.
Again, well-made video, but I think the fellow who made might wanna double-check his conclusion.
@@Tom_Nicholas I think the moral framework of season one is overall a clever trap , given later story developments. But it is nonetheless a trap that won't be noticed by people who don't follow the series further. Also, the evolution of Eleanor makes her more and more conforming to a higher middle class archetype: down to earth but knowledgeable, and it is framed as the direct consequence of moral growth.
There is an element of class-ism in the framing, in recognizing the moral worth of working class people only if there are one of "the good ones", read, conforming to the expectations of the upper classes. I often fall prey to that myself, expecting that an ideal egalitarian society would result in everyone being in the cannon of the upper middle class. I think it is a failure of the imagination, that is somewhat inevitable in our stratified society.
The point is while people of higher class will be punished for acts everyone can agree are bad, but people of lower class are punished for simply not being as socially refined.
honestly as a working class viewer seeing Tahani in season 1 is what initally made me question how many people were "incorrectly in the good place", from the beginning shes clearly just an entitled rich kid who throws parties for charity as a way to stroke her own ego.
In a way, quite clearly less deserving. She is referred to in the show as a narcissist and if she is, although those possibly can change (through a lot of hard work and a desire to change that they seldom have) it is considered extremely rare.
She was also a bit A PRODUCT of her parent's upbringing: they were pitting the two girls against each other to get "results" (not to speak of rejecting the least accomplished child as not "good enough"). If you are "good" after that treatment - well that would be quite the miracle ;)
This was an excellent hint
@@busylivingnotdying i completely agree - but this isn't the only situation that applies to. all we are is a by-product of the way we have been treated our lives. does this mean that none of us have any responsibility for our actions? are we all "good" people who do "bad" things? i'd love to hear anyone's thoughts
@@nikittan.4863 Perhaps we are «victims» of our parents, but morally responsible for our children?
Because we cannot undo who they made us into, but we can «sow the seed of a better future» in our kids... perhaps?
At any rate: «free will» is only indirect. We cannot chose who we are, but we can «select» positive influences in our lives thus make the most of our «lot»
I would say the thing that sort of stands in the face of this theory is Jason's penchant for telling little moral parables as forms of advice that often help the characters make actual decisions much more than the strict moral laws of Kant or the other philosophers. (At one point it's even alluded that he is making these stories up to help his friends which is basically confirmed later on). This combined with Eleonor's hope and bravery that the two "upper class" characters constantly envy (which ends up making her the de facto leader of the group) tells me that the show's writers are making some meta-ethical commentary. Like the "lower class" characters provide what the "upper class" character can't, real world perspective and resilance. An idea that's really expanded upon in the 4th season.
Personally, I found that even within the context of only season 1 the show seemed to be arguing implicitly against your thesis. Yes, it opens with the implication that the Good Place is more accessible to the middle and upper classes based on Eleanor and Jason not belonging there, but that's just set up for the irony that Chidi and Tahani are also not in the Good Place. The characters and audience are meant to presume that the philanthropist and professor are more moral when they are not. The twist derives its humor directly from the assertions and analysis you state being subverted. Michael is l y i n g and wants Eleanor and Jason to feel out of place by shaming lower class pursuits while depending on Tahani and Chidi to presume that they deserve eternal reward in the afterlife. If anything, I'd say that the show seems more to scrutinize the upper and middle class in regards to their presumed moral superiority. Tahani feels wronged to be in the Bad Place, but the audience is left to either feel satisfied that her class and status could not buy her way into being morally superior or wrestle with why they thought that she *could*
I agree that the show is subverting expectations by revealing that Tahani and Chidi actually were sent to the bad place, however I think you're missing the point of what was being said in the video. Yes they are all bad but the actions that put Tahani and Chidi in the bad place are boiled down to being misguided and confused while Eleanor and Jason are inherently bad. Yes, Chidi is indecisive and Tahani is obsessed with status, but they both believe they're doing good (unlike Eleanor and Jason who know they're committing bad actions). Further more what puts Chidi in the bad place is something somewhat out of his control (his indecisiveness which he was born with) unlike Jason and Eleanor who both make the obvious choice to do bad things (robbery, sell fake medicine) on purpose. In this sense the show is unintentionally suggesting the lower classes have chosen to be bad, while for the upper/middle classes their badness is an accident. Ultimately I would argue that what alerts both the audience and the main characters that something isn't right about the point system is not that Eleanor improved, but that Chidi and Tahani don't deserve to be in the bad place at all.
@@sophia5774 I don't think that's the case though. I think that you'd be right if certain later events didn't happen, and if the only reasons Tahani and Chidi are in the Bad Place are the ones that you stated. A lot of spoilers coming up.
For one thing, there are a few examples of talking about how the point system is flawed where the show makes direct critiques or colonialism and capitalism as they exist today. There's the thing where Micheal says that getting your mother flowers would have once gained you five points, but going to the florist now has a ton of negative points associated with it, due to economic and environmental issues resulting in that action being something like negative 60 points. The again when the Judge goes to Earth and states that she tried to find tomatoes and was confronted with internet pornography, a lack of available information about ethically sourced produce, and racism. Then later the group discusses how a lot of people are forced to do bad things, but they were able to become better people *and* improve their scores because the lack of outside influence, and unintended consequences in the Bad Place. The show basically screams, "There's no ethical consumption under capitalism!" It also doesn't leave it there. It tries to be very clear that the people who are forced into it are the victims, and I also believe that it makes an indictment of those who either benefit from that, exploit it, or uphold it.
I also think the show makes it very clear that aside from Tahani's whole right thing for the wrong reason issue isn't her only glaring flaw, and I think that it's a symptom of her not being fit for the Good Place, not the cause. I bought into Tahani deserving to be in the Bad Place because she's arrogant, narcissistic, and selfish. The way she was always pitted against Kamilah when she was a child has given her the insecurity that forces her to try be the best at everything, and be performative about her virtue. Looking back at Tahani in the beginning of the show with some of its critiques of capitalism her charity reads similarly to the way the wealthy use charity to suit their own needs, whether it's for tax benefits or maintaining their positive reputations. I consider Tahani's first major bit of character development when she realizes Jason could do more good with her money than she can. How charitable she is also plays into Tahani's feelings of class superiority. While Tahani might feel second fiddle to her sister, that inferiority doesn't extend to anyone else. We get that from her name dropping, but I think the part that Tom refers to where Tahani can't reconcile Jason liking Pittbull is the best illustration of that feeling of being superior to everyone other than her sister. We get that again when she interacts with John Weaton. At first she kind of sees him as a charity case and she still holds onto some of that feeling of superiority and possibly feels new superiority due to the fact that she has improved so much. However her final character improvement comes from realizing how similar she is to him. How they both wanted to be accepted and acknowledged as exceptional, but also for people to genuinely accept them for who they are. Her final landing point for her character is truly a reversal of her initial character. She ends up doing meaningful work truly helping people in a position where the people she helps will never know who she is or thank her for it.
With Chidi, I think that for the first two seasons, Chidi seems pretty deserving of being in the Good Place, but I think that retrospectively we can justify it with flaws other than just being indecisive, and also with another running joke. I think that Chidi also has a bit of the same bit of inflated sense of self worth that Tahani has, but I think it comes from his belief that he can always make the right choice. He definitely seems a bit stunted and naïve due to him saving his parents' marriage as a child. Again I think the indecisiveness is a symptom and not a cause, although his flaws aren't nearly as big as Tahani's nor are the fleshed out as much. I think the show tried too hard to make Chidi the example of how the road to hell can is often paved with good intentions that they neglected to flesh out the other issues they gave him. They kind of fixed his whole character by focussing on the decisiveness, and I guess it worked okay, but that's because I think that Chidi's big flaw was a lack of self-reflection. Every time Chidi finds out he was sent to the Bad Place, he thinks it's due to drinking almond milk, which is both an indication that he rarely reflects on his own actions yet prides himself on being adept in ethical philosophy. This causes him to be unable to learn from his mistakes and unable to see how miserable he makes the people around him. We also get an extension of his inability to remain calm under duress when he has his Peeps chili episode which is an example of what could possibly be an indication of his ability to fall into self-destructive behavior, although I admit to that potentially not being a strong enough argument as the only other example of that is his response to being told to cut a lot out of his thesis. But we do know that he make some choices that are arguably bad before the events of the first season. There's the thing with the boots, which was not only pretty shitty friend behavior, but ends with the guy in the hospital. Then there's the almond milk thing. It's kind of a funny joke that could be easily taken as a throwaway line, but taking into account the turn the show takes toward criticisms of capitalism and the fact that the environmental issues regarding simple things come up, I think that this is meant to be another major contribution to him not being in the Good Place. I think the fact that he knows that it's bad for the environment is the nail in the coffin. I think this is meant to represent his position of relative privilege and his ability to partake in luxuries without having to worry about the effects it has on other people. But then how do we accept that when it conflicts with his inability to make any decisions? Maybe he decided that because of the institutions in place, his own personal actions would make no difference in the world. Maybe he rationalized it, figuring that regardless of his own actions, the almonds used to make the almond milk he bought would still be made, and therefore his responsibility was negligible. Maybe he decided that his consumption of it prevented it from contributing to the word's food waste problems, and that made it okay. I think that if we think about that, and the fact that he never quotes any theories that directly criticize capitalism, that might make sense. Perhaps his inability to successfully apply those theories to his own like caused him to feel unable to teach them. I think that if we look at it this way, the fact that one of his final milestones in his character development is that he not only has to overcome his indecisiveness, but helps come up with the solution that changes the whole system it is a fitting place for his character to end up. He goes from indecisive and unable to stand up for things that he might morally believe in to able to make decisions under pressure and uproot an entire broken system.
Maybe I'm reading a little too much into Chidi, but I believe that my conclusions about Tahani are firmly backed by the examples I've given, and even a few more. The final thing that I want to note is that Tahani and Chidi learn just as much from Jason and Eleanor as Jason and Eleanor learn from them, and they all learn things that none of the originally knew together. I think that the show really does intend to critique the idea that things that are seen as classy are often given positive moral connotations whereas lowbrow or trashy things are often regarded as morally deficient.
@@masalanicholoff3593 Goddamn I loved reading that. Thanks for sharing your analysis.
@@sophia5774 Another point ofview could be that Eleanor and Jason, being lower-class, have been confronted with the consequences of their actions (e.g. Jason getting arrested, Eleanor losing friendships), but Tahani and Chidi have been insulated from that by wealth (Tahani) and respectability (Chidi). So Eleanor and Jason know that they're bad people, but Tahani and Chidi can delude themselves that they're good and moral people, due to their privilege.
@@masalanicholoff3593 So first of all, I loved reading your response. I would disagree about a few points but for the most I do agree that Tahani and Chidi are both extremely flawed. However I still think there is cause to believe that the show is perpetuating stereotypes of the working class being less moral; even if it is unintentional. Spoilers obviously.
So with your first point about "no ethical consumption under capitalism" I do think that is what the show was implying; however a side effect of that is that we can't say for sure whether Tahani or Chidi would've ended up in the same place as Eleanor or Jason had the point system been fair. So to say "this is why Chidi ended up in the bad place" is a bit tough to comment on because it is revealed that everyone goes to the bad place. What I'm trying to say is that the sins that put Tahani and Chidi into the bad place come from their subconscious; while for Eleanor and Jason they are conscious that their making the wrong choices.
So to your point about Tahani, yes I agree with your interpretation of her character. The point I was trying to make is that her compromised motivations are unknown to her. When Michael reveals that she is actually in the bad place she has a revelation that she didn't have on Earth. She realizes for the first time her motivations were corrupt once she is already in hell. So we can assume that while she is on Earth, she believes she is doing good. If you were to define the badness or goodness of an action by it's consequence, than yeah she belongs in hell. But if you were to define the action by it's intention, there is room to assume Tahani intends to do good. When Micheal goes down to Earth to confront her about her book and asks to her scam her followers with him, she declines and is appalled at the thought of the two of them being moral equals. When she realizes that this could be the case, she joins the study because she wants to help people. This furthers my interpretation that she really doesn't know just how bad she is.
With Chidi, the same is true. I really liked your comment on the almond milk joke and how it's a marker of his narcissism. But once again with Chidi, it's the same as Tahani. Chidi thinks he is doing the right thing and is naive of how his actions affect other people. Once he is made aware of how he ruined everyone's life (once again after he is sent to hell) he is appalled. From this we can conclude the same thing with Tahani, he intends to do good.
This goes back to what I was saying originally about how the wealthier charters of the show are "bad on accident" in comparison to the lower class characters. There is no representation of Tahani or Chidi doing something they know is bad because they want to. For the whole time they are on Earth they think they're doing good. This could be a commentary on how upperclass people don't have to live with the consequences of their actions while lower class people do; and if so I think that's brilliant. But unintentionally it promotes stereotypes of the working class as being less moral. Jason and Eleanor are aware of their badness and indulge in it anyway, however we don't see any of the upperclass characters doing the same. This furthers stereotypes that lower class people are less moral and indulge in bad actions more than their upperclass counterparts. In reality everyone across the class spectrum behaves bad because they want to, but we never see this in the show.
So I think that even the show intended to do different, it did promote the stereotype that lower class people like to do bad things more than the middle/upper classes. I still love the show but I do think it failed in this regard. If Tahani and Chidi had been fleshed out more and shown to have just as much badness and selfishness inside of them as Jason and Eleanor, I think this would've been great. But instead the show presented the two character's bad actions as being mistakes rather than conscious choices.
You gotta remember though, that one of the implicit statements the show is making is that the point system has this huge innate flaw in its methodology. In short, every human action is assessed by an inhuman Accountant who assigns it a point value by fiat, then to verify his work runs it past 3 billion other Accountants...all of which are equally inhuman and distant from human experience. The prejudice you see in the point values is actually part of the story, part of the plot. It's this notion that points are assigned by people inherently unqualified to assign them, and the consequences of those assignments are impossible to evade, and have eternal and non-challengeable results.
In short, it's all forked up. The show pretty much acknowledges this, and it becomes the basis of the later seasons.
MAJOR SPOILER FOR THE ENDING OF THE SHOW
I don't see why that's relevant. According to the show the only problem is the unintended consequences of actions, the complexity of the system. There's never a point in the show where any of the characters even suggests that the problem is the the point values themselves or their positivity/negativity, that some of the "bad" actions are not actually bad. The solution they settle for in the end still has the exact same point system, just with a second chance for improvement. The show never challenges the idea that it's literally evil to read trashy magazines or to use "Facebook" as a verb. They just give you a chance to improve afterward, which still takes for granted those things are bad.
@@maksiiiskam2 that’s totally true. But there is also more to it than that. The biggest issue is that there is no winning the system, even if you somehow know the rules. The punishments are assigned bigger negative values than good actions. For example, reading a trashy magazine means that you lose more points than you can gain by doing something banally good like hugging a kid. Bad actions somehow mean more to this system. There’s also the fact that motivation both means everything and means nothing. In season 3 they all find out that they can no longer get into the good place because they know about it and therefore, they cannot be trusted with their motivations, even though they all want to do good for the sake of it, because they can’t get in and they might as well be good anyway. However, if you have bad motivations, it’s counted against you no matter what. The good doesn’t matter as much as the bad. Another problem is that even if you do everything right on Earth, there will be people who you don’t make happy, and therefore lose points. You lose points for punching someone, even if the motivation was good. You lose points for using technology because it’s bad because of capitalism but you’re using it to research which tomatoes to buy, but you still might lose points because that means you have less time for other stuff. And that’s just a few examples. The biggest issue I have with the point system is that it’s inherently unethical, not because we don’t know about it, but because we are being punished for evil doer’s mistakes. We are being punished for buying an IPhone, because of sweatshops but we didn’t create that system of inequality. We are literally trying to survive a society where there are pitfalls to literally EVERYTHING because there are people who created the systems we have to live with. It’s not about the point system, it’s the fact that it holds individuals personally responsible for other’s evildoing. The emphasis on happiness is a double edged sword too, because you can make some asshole happy and thus enable his assholeness and therefore lose points, but if you make the asshole unhappy, it still counts against you because you made someone unhappy. This system punishes you for not knowing what will make other people happy, or in the case of Chidi, for your own brain issues, or in the case of Jason, his lack of access to any meaningful education and job prospects. Not to mention the randomness of the points. Why is a destination wedding going to cost you 10,000 points? Why is Doug Forcett allowed to know about the system enough so he can play it and still get points, even though his motivation is the most corrupt from any other character?
Answer: it’s an arbitrary system
Unintended consequences are a stupid excuse because you literally cannot control how someone is going to feel about you, or react to you, or your actions. You cannot control a system that causes misery and if you do anything about it, you’ll be spreading unhappiness because war. Which is why class is such a big deal. Because only people of a certain social and economic class are going to be able to treat themselves for a neurological disorder, or get an education and go on charity trips because they have the time and money to do so. Only people of a certain class can afford to give a crap about happiness and doing good for the environment- which is why Tahani is such an important symbol of class. She’s privileged in a way that most of us can on,y dream of, and yet she is still punished because she caused unhappiness to people who literally spent most of their time together abusing her. Why is she just as punished as her parents, who raised her to be self centered and overly concerned with public opinion? Why is Chidi being punished for a neurological disorder that he doesn’t understand?
I’m sorry about how rambly it got. I’m just mad that discussions about class don’t include the idea that people are being punished for being born in a world where nothing they do has positive consequences. And that goes far beyond modern society.
Your limited take to avoid spoilers defeats the exercise, since the twists are meant to rip the carpet out from under the audience’s biases the show was playing into. Yes season 1 was does frame people of privilege as more deserving of paradise.... until it doesn’t. The biggest reveal further in the series is that no one gets into the good place at all because the last 500 years of history (I.e. the period of history shaped by European colonization) has made living an ethical life impossible because of the economic ramifications of all actions in life - i.e. there’s some sort of unnamed system in place under which there is no ethical consumption.... GEE I WONDER WHAT SYSTEM THAT COULD BE!?
It is true that the show works to subvert the notion of objective morality even being possible in the context of a globalized capitalist society. However, the underlying cultural notion of "virtuous class" still pervades the series through little gags deriding certain "low class" activities as being inherently immoral. The demons, for example, are constantly portrayed as having "boorish" behavior, enjoying classless things, and *also* being morally reprehensible.
We also see this in the "impartial" accountants' department, who concern themselves with deciphering the morality of such things as "Impressions (Borat)", "Songs With Specific Dance Instructions", and "Weird Sex Things." The fact these cultural signifiers with no material impact are even considered up for debate about their "goodness" is meant to signify that the project of calculating goodness is not simply about ethics in a class-neutral way. It's about assessing whether in total, a person is "well-behaved," and is advancing a societal-level cultural purity.
Dude calm down. He wanted to limit spoilers for those who haven’t seen it and were just curious. If you get it all already, go away
Also yes through capitalism it has become so much harder to be good but the point is still with different classes and the typical actions of those as even if you’re rich enough like tahini to shop as ethically as you possibly can you can still be in the wrong but not having the right morals, by the way you behave or act. If that makes sense. His points are valid
Although, when you consider that no one has gotten into the Good Place, the whole point system starts to break down completely.
Well between the lines it says that the people in heaven are assholes who place arbitrary hidden values on everything. Even if these arbitrary values weren't all exceedingly harsh, they are indeed extremely arbitrary, this is made as a tool for jokes multiple times, like anything french being worth negative points. The afterlife of this universe, not understanding morality if it bit them in the bum.
At the same time, the show never directly says this, none of the characters never directly go "hey this is random BS".
*_SPOILERS_** head*
Even when they are tasked with proving people can be good and fighting against the concept that the point system has made it so that no one can get to heaven, even then they never take these celestial beings to task for their arbitrary nonsensical morale value system. Even that judge, her tests made a bit more morale sense then the average point system regular people go through, she's still arbitrarily deciding what is good and evil, and what is sufficiently good and evil to decide someones eternal fate.
And of course beings who set people to be tortured for eternity really especially have no right to decide morality, because I can imagine no more wicked a deed.
I feel the show values the jokes much more than the plot, and as things go on, this becomes notably more of an issue as the plot becomes a hot mess IMO.
I may be extremely wrong but I genuinely think that the general progress of the show was planned from the beginning, at least to a certain point. Since the first season we start to question the system that keeps score and the polarity between the good place and the bad place, so I do think this was done on purpose.
I've gone back and forth on this a lot because you're totally right that, particularly at this level, a showrunner will have multiple seasons planned out prior to even pitching a pilot.
Ultimately, however, as I've written in response to someone else below, I'm not sure the show's eventual critique of society's tendancy to conflate class and morality forgives (for want of a less-loaded word!) the fact that so many of the jokes are intrinsically based on the idea that to be working class is to be lesser. To repeat what I've written below (sorry, being lazy!), I'm not sure very many people who laugh at Jason's love of Jacksonville (including me!) are laughing at the manner in which our culture frames certain places as intrinsically less meaningful than others, I think they're (and, again, me included!) laughing precisely because we consider Jacksonville to be unworthy of such devotion.
I totally think you're right that the show critiques rigid notions of good and bad, however I'm unsure it totally undoes all the class stuff it sets up in season one.
Happy to argue it out though, haha! Thanks for watching!
@@Tom_Nicholas I think part of the comedy falls on the contrast (as comedy so often does) between him and both his Buddhist monk fake persona, and his pairings (both Tahani and Janet). But regardless it'd be awfully naive for me to deny how classism plays a huge roll in it , love the video 💖
Oh absolutely, the contrasts between Eleanor and Chidi and Tahani and Jason are pivotal. In fact, I did spend quite a while trying to find moments where Chidi or Tahani were the butt of a contrast-based joke to see if the fact that (by that point in writing the video) I was actively looking for class-stuff might have been clouding my judgement but came up fairly short.
Thank you for saying so and for taking the time to let me know your thoughts! The best part about making these is always reading people's alternative takes in the comments!
@@Tom_Nicholas What about the fact that most if not almost all of the jokes at Tahani's expense revolve around her shallowness, egotism and disconnect with the reality of the situations she finds herself in as a result of her upper class upbringing and lifestyle, which directly mirror the way Jason is framed ?
I think their pairing in the first season is intended precisely to highlight the classist slant of the common cultural understanding of Good and Bad by juxtaposing the "Florida trash bag" with a wealthy socialite who's just as vapid and out of touch and even more self-obsessed as him while presenting both as redeemable.
As for the creators planning the whole show as a critique of the classist capitalist system from the very beginning, I think it's evidenced by the fact that the conclusion of season 3 about what's wrong with the whole point system was already foreshadowed as early as episode 3 of season 1 during one of Eleanor's flashback.
I thought this was really interesting, but doesn't encompass what the good place was going for. I think the idea that we're supposed to think of "lower class=bad" isn't so clear cut. I thought the end of season 1 was designed so we'd question that premise. I found who eleanor used to be was not great but I thought jason was frankly awesome. Tahani started out unbearable and chidi had great theories but was a pushover. Chidi's parting gift to eleanor was a mailman catalog and this is supposed to be seen as something eleanor likes in a positive way. Jason didn't become high brow, but he did become a better Jason. Eleanor didn't become high brow either. In fact tahani joined the working class for her final arc because she needed to earn things. I think if you wanted to tackle these issues I'd look at killing Janet and how Derek is treated; rebooted repeatedly, used as a living sex doll as a joke, etc. I'd also be interested in the fact that bad place overlords and goodplace overlords and neutral place overlords and the judge can't die even if they're bored or being mistreated or are unable to manage their place properly. These might allow for a more substantiative analysis on class structure in the good place.
I really think this analysis is not accurate The criticism of the character of Tahani is brutal in the series. The narcissism of her class is yet another running gag, which points out that Jason and Eleanor's low-class genuineness is actually refreshing by comparison while her manicured pompousness is a sign of deep moral degradation. I don't see this as unbalanced. Eleanor and Jason have their flaws as well, obviously. But so do they all - including Cheedi, the seemingly pure academic. That's the point of the series. Seemingly "fine" people might have equally deep flaws as the "lower classes" who might "seem" to be "worse." I personally love how they play all this without making anyone into the hero or the villain.
As a north american anglo whose class background and adverse childhood experiences were a couple degrees worse than Jason and Eleanor combined, I watched the show with a keen awareness of the class commentary. I also assumed that the audience was expected to see Eleanor as our self-insert and find it completely plausible that Tahani actually is terrible. I definitely don't think this show was written to turn off working-class people.
Ditto
I remember season 3 when Jason is able to casually through his own life make a great point that affected the higher power by saying how much poverty affects the ability to ‘do great good’
You make a good point about how we think about good and bad behavior in general. However, in 5:45 you can see a bunch of "cheap" good actions (carefully stepping over a flowerbed, remember sister's birthday, fix tricycle for child, remain loyal to Cleveland browns) while some of the moderate bad actions are only available to the rich (ruining the opera) or more likely to be practiced by the privileged (overstating personal connection to tragedy).
Possibly the later season where it is revealed that no one has gotten into the good place in 500 years (in essence because 'no ethical consumption under capitalism', though they don't explicitly say that) might have more to say about this. It seems like you should be able to avoid the problem with unintended effects if you still lived in a rural area that still produces most things locally, while in the more 'developed' world one should be able to avoid at least some of the bad points if you could afford to buy, say, organic fair trade products.
you'd think that, but no. Organic food is often worse for the environment and people than the alternative, due to a slew of reasons primarily to do with land use, and there isn't really such a thing as an area so remote that it doesn't run into problems with all consumption being negative, other than uncontacted people such as north sentinel island
Mainly rich people would be able to raise kids who disdain capitalism so much they instinctively avoid it.
To add to @thalia storer 's comment, this is pointed out in the good place too! the whole thing with Chidi and his oat vs almond milk is that even someone clearly trying to eat the most ethical foods can't win, bc every supply chain is at least a little forked up. Like w organic foods, some things bought specifically for being better as equal to or worse than the generic thing. And even if there were perfect options for everything a human needs, no one is able to find all these things, being aware of all issues, while also being able to live and work to afford those things, and also stay sane. It's an impossible ask of anyone- that's the problem the good place puts to us.
The problem with analysing the good place up until the penultimate episode of the first season is how interrelated the entire series is. All the criticisms brought forward are directly dealt with in future episodes...
what i like about the good place is when they finally reach the good place in the finale and are shown to be the best versions of themselves, eleanor and jason's (especially jason's) working class cutlural touchstones and behaviors haven't simply disappeared. they're the best versions of themselves without having to pretend to be upper class. they still talk the same way. eleanor still likes hot mailmen. jason still plays videogames and loves the jacksonville jaguars. AND they've reached self actualization. i think this is what makes the good place's commentary effective. to actually be better people they all have to change the way they treat people and see each other and themselves, but they don't have to change unrelated behaviours. because the system WAS wrong. and reading trashy magazines was never morally bad.
I had similar complaints about the seeming moral litmus test of the show, until a friend pointed out that [SPOILER]
in the season 1 finale, we learn that this is not the true morality of the afterlife but something created to reassure Tahani and Chidi that they belong while proving to Eleanor and Jason that they do not. The true/false test, in particular, is designed to make certain Eleanor feels unworthy of The Good Place while simultaneously feel superior to the people she would "join" in the Bad Place.
That said, later seasons continue many of the trends you identify, complicating that objection.
"Technically speaking, we're supposed to shut down the bank if anyone from Florida sets foot inside" indeed.
One thing that always drove me CRAZY about the show is the idea of these "Good Place" residents fighting for human rights all of their lives and then get to the afterlife and are fine with eternal suffering for 99.99% of people absolutely infuriating. But that fits in well as a critique of the upper philanthropic class that thinks of themselves as moral for benefiting from an absurdly cruel system because they do other good things in their lives.
EDIT: I wrote this comment before watching the last 30 seconds of the video, but since you said you're still skeptical of this viewpoint, I'm leaving this up in the off chance I can convince ya
So I can definitely buy that some of the jokes in the show (at Jason's expense especially) reflect class prejudice and reinforce those boundaries, but I think that limiting the conversation to the first season and not discussing the big twist skew this discussion a lot.
As you noted at the end of your video, Chidi and Tahani are also "bad," but I have to hard disagree on their characterization. Chidi can definitely be considered "well intentioned," but of course, the issue here is the consequences of his actions, which hurt him and the people around him. It also points out the way academics or professional class folks who view themselves as "do-gooders" can often be unintentionally harmful if they don't pay attention to the world around them. In Tahani's case, it is literally explicitly stated in the show to her face that the reason she's in the bad place is due to her false intentions. She did philanthropy for clout and that was what was wrong with her, which, again, I think is saying something pretty important about class and ethics.
I also don't really see how we're made to believe Eleanor has changed and Jason hasn't. Sure, Jason is still the brunt of a lot of jokes about his lack of intelligence, but he helps the groups out on numerous occasions, often proves to be devoted to doing the right thing, and offers emotional support to his friends. And just like Jason still loves Bortles and shitty EDM, Eleanor still fantasizes about hot firefighters and acts snarky. In becoming "better," they don't really lose their identities and I think that's great. We also see Chidi learning to connect more over the three seasons while retaining his inquisitive nature and... well, I'll admit I think any "transformation" Tahani has been through is pretty underwritten.
But, more to the point, I also think developments in season 3 offer even more evidence against some of your claims. The list of bad and good things you discuss at the beginning of the video is, in my opinion, pointing out the absurdity of such minor behaviors being calculated into some type of moral score. Whether this list is real or not is unclear after the season 1 finale when we learn it's actually the bad place, but the series thoroughly trashes the whole damn system in season 3. By this point, the show is saying the way people are being sorted into good or bad is fundamentally flawed so even if the list IS accurate, our main characters goal at this point is to shred the thing up anyway.
The discovery in season 3 that the system is so flawed no one has been admitted to the good place since the 1500s as well as the explicit linking of this phenomenon with the development of a modern, globalized, capitalist economy was WILD to see on network tv, even if they don't use those words specifically. The show, at this point, is really saying that the world is too complex and interrelated to isolate individual's actions in the way we thought things worked. They point out the futility of attempting to buy ethically and live a "clean" lifestyle through the character of Dough Forcett, which is a rather pointed statement in an era where buying or destroying a lot razor counts as an act of resistance.
I appreciate a lot of your points about class identity formation and the social barriers that creates and I fully admit, I'm likely ignoring a whole host of jokes that play on class distinctions in later seasons. But I think that thematically and character-wise, the writers have gone to great efforts to subvert the expectations set up in the premiere and interrogate just why we view some people as moral and others not. I think it presents most of these characters as fairly complex and limiting the scope of discussion to barely a third of the show's run really hides that.
And finally, just an anecdote. Based on my interactions on Twitter and discussions with friends, Jason is commonly cited as a fan favorite and although most love all the characters, I definitely see the most hate for Tahani. I think the sharp class distinctions between the two of them serve to highlight Tahani's hypocrisy and pretentiousness a lot more than they serve to paint Jason as "bad."
Hi Krish. Wow, thanks for taking the time to write such an in-depth response, I really appreciate it!
I think, as with anything but perhaps particularly with regard to the politics of aesthetics and the representational act, there’s a lot of nuance to be acknowledged here.
For example, I totally agree with what you say about the manner in which the later seasons change our appraisal of the first. Particularly the way season three links the impossibility of behaving morally with colonialism and the rise of capitalism. From that position, we’re certainly invited to reassess some of the stuff that we are complicit in through our laughter earlier in the show. As you say, this is something that goes largely undiscussed on our screens (and particularly in mainstream sitcoms!).
Nevertheless, I’m still skeptical of the idea that this undoes the manner in which class is used (and, as I say in the video, likely unintentionally) as a shorthand for being immoral/unethical/unrespectable and the use of those socially sustained preconceptions as the basis for humour. Even if we’re later invited to reconsider them, all the jokes which rest on Jason’s low aspirations, for example, still do so.
Again, I think it’s far, far more nuanced than the show’s treatment of class (or anything else for that matter) being “good” or “bad” and more just a case of acknowledging the presence of this stuff within it. (Also, I’m under no illusion that just because I think something it’s correct, haha!).
Sorry, I feel like I’ve barely touched on some of the really astute points you’ve made there but it’s late and I wanted to make sure I at least responded with something!!
This topic is brilliantly explained in a video called *Opulence* by *Contrapoints* .
God no
God yes!
Hell yas
Yeah I think the choice was deliberate to subvert our classist ideas of morality
I think that's a totally valid opinion, however I'm not sure it's that black and white. I think there's certainly a critique of overly-rigid moral frameworks which happens to end up subverting some of classist ideas about morality (by which I mean I'm doubtful that the creators would neccesarily have considered it in those terms even if that is the result). Nevertheless, I think the jokes themselves still very much play in to classist stereotypes. For example, I'm not sure very many people who laugh at Jason's love of Jacksonville (including me!) are laughing at the manner in which our culture frames certain places as intrinsically less meaningful than others, I think they're (and, again, me included!) laughing precisely because we consider Jacksonville to be unworthy of such devotion. Therefore, although our conflation of class and morality might eventually come up for critique within the show, I'm not sure that eventual critique entirely forgives (for want of a less-loaded word) the stereotyped humour at the expense of working-class people which punctuates the series.
And that, I think, is the longest response I've ever given to a comment, haha! Thanks for watching!
True to a point. But while the overall story punches up, some of those jokes do punch down, and it might be the result of the social class most writers are from (upper and upper middle class) where we tend to have a polite disdain for other classes (including the too stuffy upper upper class, but mostly the lower class).
Same. Eleanor and tahani end up in the same place despite their vast class differences. As a viewer, we assume that tahani is morally superior because of her class but the show actively subverts that by the end of the season
@@maximeteppe7627 Was thinking exactly this. A writer's room is famously over educated Ivy League grads, of course their moral qualms (small ones) would be opera etiquette over working class issues.
This is true from shows to The Simpsons and Frasier, both taking part in the same classism as most shows on tv as they are written by literal cultural elites whose education is way higher than the average person.
it could also be commentary on how "morality" is often only available to the upper class
by having money and resources, one has greater opportunities to be charitable and greater options for media which they consume
salt and pepper, sun and moon, British people and class discussions...
I come from a very comfortable middle class background, and it's interesting looking at things from this point of view. I was completely BAFFLED at the season one finale. I didn't see it coming at all but it seems some others were questioning. My classism is one of those things that I've not completely unlearned yet, and this video helped me ponder it, so thank you for the good work!
You forget the fact that they're (BIG SPOILERS) actually in the bad place for the first two seasons. I balk at the idea that Schur would be saying (on purpose or not) that ethics raises a person's social class. If you were to examine the later seasons you'd see ethics and charity (as in love) applied to people across the board, on all levels of 'class'.
It's important that you still treat a program you love critically, and it is even more important that you don't mischaracterize what it is saying and doing.
Probable spoilers.
It is never implied that, like Eleanor and Jason in the first season, that Chidi and Tahani were in the bad place by mistake. Chidi is in the bad place because his indecisiveness made life harder for everyone around him--something that has nothing to do with classes. And with Tahani, her sins were sins only a rich person can commit. She raised billions of dollars for the sole reason of making herself feel better in a misguided competition with her sister.
Also, you look at the presentation in episode 1, and assume that the pluses and minuses are how the universe actually works. That buying a trashy magazine drops you a fraction of a point. But as is revealed in the second season, these are all frauds carried out by demons. They are what we might expect are "good" things and "bad" things, but there is no statement within the series that the points they show in episode 1 are actually the points being used. They could just be things the demons thought would convince Jason, Eleanor, Chidi and Tahani.
So yes, the demonic approximation of The Good Place is a classist nightmare, but partially, that's because it's a demonic approximation. The first season of The Good Place was supposed to be torture. So maybe, by putting our four condemned souls into a classist system as torture, they were saying the exact opposite of what you claim in your video.
I more so think the show is being reflective on how we as a society think that way and by them showing that they all end up in the bad place is meant to make us critical of the idea. Like the that list of good and bad deeds was made to literally torture lower class people who felt as though they shouldn't be in the good place and upper class people who felt entitled to.
Exactly this.
I think you misread the scenes where it’s revealed Chidi and Tahani should be in the bad place. They’re not trying to make you sympathetic to them, they’re saying in Tahani’s case, that she just happened to have the resources to help people. She didn’t actually care about them and she did it for purely selfish reasons. They’re criticising her, and rich people like her who think they’re morally superior to others just bc they have the money to sometimes help people purely for fake and acclaim. In Chidi’s case the whole point of his character is to show a person who’s always desperately trying to do the right think but it just results in him doing more harm than good due to his fear of doing the wrong thing. The result of his actions were bad, even if his intentions were good. Unlike Tahani, who is the opposite. The results of her actions were great but she didn’t have good intentions and was only capable of doing what she did due to her social status. I agree that they maybe equate lower class “hobbies” or “things” in general with bad as humour but overall I think they do a pretty good job of giving you backstory of Jason and Eleanor and making you sympathetic to them, including Chidi and Tahani. At no point do I feel like they try and make Chidi and Tahani out to be morally more virtuous without critiquing that assumption. Again, I think it’s the jokes about the things that associated with lower class ppl as bad is what’s maybe giving you this view. It’s a great video in general, I think maybe you just misread that particular area. Like I say, the whole point of Tahani’s character is to tell you she’s not better than anyone else just bc she had more money, thus was able to do “more good”.
You point of the video is good tho, I’m going to watch out for that a lot more in the tv shows I watch. There in general is obviously class structure in even the things we like. It’s a very interesting topic.
I think the trashy magazine was meant to show that she was buying into a system of circulating rumors.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment! I think that's an entirely valid way of reading it. My question would be why the immorality of rumour-spreading/-listening is specifically concentrated into "trashy" magazines rather than anything else. Obviously, again, it's a joke so we do have to bear that in mind but, alongside everything else, it does seem to be part of a broader suggestion that immorality and being working class are in some way intrinsically linked. As always, happy to debate these things and be convinced otherwise!
@@Tom_Nicholas Because trashy magazines have a tendency to exploit, to lie, to try to make things worse instead of better to have more flashy titles. Buying a trashy magazine is giving money to people who will do immoral things and hurt people, and you know it, and you don't care. Tahani did many great things, but was prime Bad Place material, because she didn't care about how her actions affect others, only about beating her sister and getting seen by her parents - she even failed the test, because she cared more about her own wants than her friends getting into the Good Place. And it is only an example, noone ever stated that other forms of feeding rumor culture are not negative points.
They don't just spread rumors they ruin lives, invade privacy, break laws (be they stalking, peeping, slander, photographing without consent, distribution of images of minors without consent) and dehumanize their subjects to a degree that creates a commodity out of real people's lives.
@Tom Nicholas
Rich people can also buy trashy mags honestly I think the whole point of that was to put a product or action to a feeling: Schadenfreude. Rich people can equally take part in that, maybe moreso. People of all classes buy those magazines.
Loved the video and I would like to add a topic of discussion just for the sake of argument: There are several articles that have investigated the proclivity of people to commit crimes, do generous acts, abuse substances, etc. Many of this studies have shown that people with more resources and education do actually behave in more "ethical" or "moral" ways. This has to do with the pyramid of human needs: The idea is basically that if you have your needs met consistently through out your life, you are more preoccupied with behaving in a way that sustains the social relationships that help you maintain your resources. On the other hand, if your basic needs aren't met consistently (or are scarce), the risk of not being "good" is not much more greater than doing whatever you can to meet your needs. This might explain why in most countries it's been demonstrated that cops and judges show leniency towards rich, educated, attractive people.
To paraphrase Chris Rock.... A poor man may steal your wallet but a rich man will steal your future. There may be a kind of middle class morality based on a tenuous level of comfort that provides one with the necessities of life but it’s always in jeopardy from those with more power so being careful becomes more important. Being super rich removes such inhibitions it is also said that every great fortune begins with a great crime. So there's a bell curve of sorts. Low income with low risk, medium income with high risk, and high income with low risk.
Pierre Bordeaux sounds like a soc. students quiz team :P Cheers!
While this video is really well-supported and discusses relevant class bias beautifully, it overlooks the main thesis statement of the series in an effort to not spoil it. Yes, the characters are all actually in the bad place, and they've been set up to drive each other insane, but more importantly, no one has gotten into the good place for decades because the algorithm has become inapplicable to the modern world. Eg, buying a rose for a loved one is a negative action because it supports a major corporation and environmentally destructive practices. I don't think The Good Place overlooks classism as a factor in how we perceive morality, I think it actually argues that being a genuinely "good" human being is impossible in such a complex society if you don't have absurd amounts of money (and that's our fault!). It's not that wealthy people are inherently more good, or even good at all, it's that the capitalist institutions pushed on lower-class people are suffocating and preclude any benefit from meaningful efforts to make the world a better place. Their lack of respectability means nothing about what they deserve, but what they are capable of doing for others in their society if the default state is oppression
Wow this was a great write up. Thank you for sharing your perspective I honestly thoroughly enjoyed it!!
You know what else Michael says in his orientation speech? "what happened to everyone else? don't worry about it"
Saying that to a crowd of actually good people would be a big mistake. The defining characteristic of good people is that well...they care about others. They would want to know what is happening to the other people, why, and how they can help those people get to the Good Place. Michael says "don't worry about it" knowing that his audience won't ask those questions because they are all actually self-centered assholes. He says it to let them off the hook, because although they all know that they are supposed to care about other people: they actually don't. Heck, one of the very first things Michael says is "in cases of traumatic or embarrassing death we erase the memory". Why would a good person want their memory of something embarrassing erased? They wouldn't. Right from the beginning the show tells you that all is not as it seems. But the show also believes that it's audience is too self-centered to notice that, it believes that you will buy into the fiction it sets out. This is a show intended to call out it's viewers, whom Eleanor is a substitute for.
And there is nothing "working class" about Eleanor. You're putting British working class stereotypes on her (the sexualized images on the wall, for example). That's not a class stereotype in America: rather it's meant to speak to her age. Eleanor was killed while buying margarita mix. She definitely wouldn't be drinking cocktails if she was working class. Cocktails are absolutely coded as middle-upper class here (rather than just feminine). She'd have been buying a six pack of Bud Light if she was working class. Eleanor is meant to represent the viewer of this show, who is assumed to be a middle class young white hipster. If you're that person, you'll buy into the show's fiction whole hog and then be shocked by the twist. If you're anyone else, you'll be in on the joke from the beginning.
On top of all the counterpoints other comments made, I would like to add a single thing about the low-art / high-art dichotomy. Thorughout the 4 seasons Eleanor and Jason improve dramatically, by the end becoming arguably better people than Chidi and Tahani are, and the show remarks on this often. However their love of low art and identification with lower class signifiers never disappears: instead it is reframed, from telltale signs of their unworthiness to endearing humanizing traits. At the end Eleanor is basically the moral paragon of the show, and she still has sex in a closet, likes trashy media and fun. It's Tahani who is considered in the wrong by the story for still giving negative value to these things by the end of season 3. Which is all to say: Tom's criticism stands for season 1 if taken in isolation but is addressed and subverted by the show itself in later seasons.
I still think the show could have used a harsher critique of the point system (i.e. individual responsibility in ignorance of systemic problems and the practice of punishment in general) and of social inequality (which is never directly addressed), but overall I think this is one of the best left-leaning shows in mainstream tv
Thanks for making this thought provoking video. I watched through the whole of the good place without thinking about this for a second. And now I'm looking at it from a totally different POV and questioning why I took it all for granted.
I thought we all thought the upper classes were morally suspect. You know, with the greed and ruthlessness that gets them there.
This is unrelated to the politics but I just have to say, the most solid and subtle joke I have ever hear is when “real” Elenor said “...yadda yadda yadda I learned English from watching Seinfeld yadda yadda yadda”
I think I disagree with the overall premise seeing as Tahani is revealed to also belong is hell, but I'm SO glad someone brought up the scene in Jason's flashback where the cop says "I think he got pretty much what he deserved" and he's the correct straight-man in the conversation, with Jason's friend being the idiot. Like holy, shit. I know Michael Schur
's shows tend to be full of bootlicking but that scene was just so strange to me, the implication Jason deserved to die when he didn't even do anything that immoral
i think it was less the morality and more the stupidity of trying to use a snorkel in a safe
@@magica3526 Hmm hopefully. As I said Michael Schur shows have a neobliberal tendency to praise cops and make them the voice of reason
Yeah big agree. In Australia there's a popular show called Housos that's a comedy about bogans in Australia and being a bogan living in public housing it's definitely right about a lot of things but it's laughing at us rather than with us often times. That's especially obvious compared to say, Sasha Baron Cohen whose comedies rely on us seeing the prejudice of the characters as ridiculous
Hi Tom,
As a PhDer who is familiar with Bourdieu & Skeggs I loved this! If you ever get around to a follow up it would be great to take a look at how the show handles the idea of the transformation of identity amongst the characters. Does it present a transformation of identity to one that fits with middle-class dispositions as the ideal? Does it do anything to address the psycho-social difficulties that may present themselves as a result?
Spoilers:
I like that the reason nobody’s gotten to the Good Place in 500 years was because of capitalism lol
Very good video ! I think discussing about series is so important and I agree with a lot of your points here, but there is one point about which I really disagree : I don't think the show is made such as we see the position of Chidi and Tahani are more unfair... as I watched the show, I felt like Chidi's flashbacks and Tahani's attitude show pretty clearly that their presence in the Good Place is not so obvious... but yes in our society they are viewed as more virtuous because of their social situation and therefore they both feel entitled to be there, whereas Eleonor knows that she is not a virtuous person so their torment works best by using those assumptions. For Jason, I really felt like he was the one presented with good intentions !
Very interesting take! It would be interesting to see what you think about the series now that it is completed and if it has changed or developed considering the way that the show criticises the way that the system that judges whether people go to the Good Place or Bad Place in season 4. I wonder if the show maybe was less self-aware about its classism in the first season(s) but gradually become more aware of it? I haven't re-watched the show in its entirety but I feel like especially the thrid and fourth seasons began dealing with it more.
I'd say they were completely aware.
You need the contrast the show creates in order to have something to reflect upon, which is why I partially disagree with his analysis.
Having watched the whole thing, I think maybe an update is in order. Turns out the inherent classism in the “system” is the point of the show, and not at all a failure on the part of writers and creators. You’re not holding the show to task, as you put it, but actually delivering basic thematic information as if it’s super deep and critical. Jason didn’t need an education to explain it succinctly to the judge, and neither do we.
Yeah, it bothers me how much Jason's character and interests are played for laughs. Then again, he is one of the kindest ppl on the show, then again I don't remember how much of that was revealed in later seasons.
Could you do another video now that the show is over?
I would like to hear more of this persepective, considering the rest of the show and the solution they ended it with.
I must say that i did like the ending, but i felt like there are too many questions left unanswered. Like.. besides the good/bad place stuff.. like Kristen Bell's daughter asked her "why is earth?". I wanna know why the fuck is earth.
The good place committee, and the bad place demons crew.. the office with the neutral Janets that manages the point system.
Thats it? The highest being we get is that judge? i did like her, but there's no explanation about whats behind all this.
What is the whole point of it all? The system didn't work well for hundreds of years and no one seemed to care? Or pay the price (Except humans)? Or answer to a higher status figure?
What if it was part of a plan? that michael and team cockroach were in the right place at the right time to fix things? It just.. happened. Oops, we tortured beings who are capable of learning to be better for hundreds of years.. and they were all saved by.. chance? Luck?
And also, i think it was clear that the good place committee allowed the bad place to sabotage the system because they had nothing to do with the people who did get there since the begining of time.
Interesting! I actually read it as heavily and obviously (to my perception) satirical when I watched it, and took it that Tahani was clearly supposed to be seen as obnoxious!
I might be giving this show too much credit here but doesn't the season 1 twist and the whole subsequent plot kind of undermine all this? I know you said you were skeptical about it but I was really close to letting go of the show precisely because of all you said but the following twists I think did a great job at subverting those notions and I might even go as far as saying this more cliche and trope-dependent start becomes a good thing cause it forces people to confront what they were laughing at and why if they want to keep watching.
it's not all black and white. I mostly agree with you, but by the end, it seems the best way to become moral is to live a life in a context of material abundance that still gives you moral challenges (not all scenarios are necessarily like that by the end, but most of what is presented as opportunity for moral growth in the show fits this framework). which is not necessarily a classist Idea (the movie parasite has a similar framework of money "ironing out" the flaws of people, implying that a more egalitarian and solidary society would allow individual growth). But it also is often framed as a moral person appearing as such by conforming to the canon of the upper class.
Yes! And this is why I can't agree with his dissection of the show, because it's literally doing the exact opposite of what he's saying.
Remained loyal to Cleveland Browns, +50 is my favorite and objectively true good thing
The background music made me think I was about to zone out and enjoy cereal for 30 minutes 🥣
I've never encountered a video with so many points that I can't help disagreeing with, while not being able to be deleterious toward any points made, and even agreeing with most characatures.
I believe this show is uniquely American in it's parody of morality and ethics, and even Brits won't get every single thing.
Brilliant, though. :D
Yes I'm three years late. I know.
While I agree with you on many points, the show later very clearly points out how the circumstances of their lives affected their actions in ways they could or could not control, and that's very important.
By only analysing the first part of the show, you completely miss how the show tells you that your actions and the following consequences aren't solely a result of your own moral/ethics, but also the circumstances of your life. It's supposed to make you question the supposedly inherent morality and ethics of different related to your life's circumstances.
For instance it's very clear that Jason is at heart a good person with the potential to do good, but the environment he was born into tilted the scales against him and pushed him towards the "bad things" he did.
Tahani would never have to suffer the consequences of the same environment, which in turn meant that the "bad things" she did would be of a different nature.
This brings up the question: Is stealing always bad and Is it always the same "amount" of bad, unrelated to the scale of the effect and the circumstances of the person?
Jason stole because of his upbringing (or lack thereof), poverty and other circumstances of his life, but if Tahani did the same it could arguably be perceived as worse, because of her circumstances.
By this logic, if Tahani did the exact same thing it would not only be inherently worse, but considering her circumstances she would probably get away with it also.
Realistically, a person like her wouldn't even turn to petty crime like Jason, but steal on a greater scale that affects a bigger number of people, with a greater chance for getting away with it. And because she already had more than enough capital and opportunities to live comfortably, unlike Jason, her reasons for committing either of those crimes would arguably be morally worse.
All of their "bad" actions had to be befitting of their background, but also morally comparable in the context of the show, in order to make us question relative morality.
The value of Tahani's actions wouldn't be the same for Jason, because they are Tahani's actions affected by her circumstances, and not his.
That's why showing that her "good work" was in the end self serving, could be comparable to Jason's stealing.
Stealing food when you're poor, does not have the same moral value as stealing food if you're rich.
The show forces us to compare, in order to think about how morality might be more relative than we think, and I'd say your analysis misses this point completely.
The show literally subverts the idea that rich people are more "good" because of their seemingly good actions, because actions don't hold the same value for everyone.
I always thought the idea of punishing someone, for having Good Intentions, but who's actions end up having a Bad Outcome, completely ridiculous.
That's, literally, what a: 'Mistake,' is.
What if someone tried to save a chipmunk, but somehow (I'll leave You, to figure out the details, if You'd like), caused the destruction of the Planet.
Now, most likely, their Points are now screwed for life, because of a Mistake.
And, it's this flawed System's Mistake, that the entire Human-Race, is now screwed. (Cough! Season 3)
carealoo744 I’m a utilitarian so I believe that the consequences of an action are more important than the intent. Mostly I think about this in terms of voting, people who choose to vote for someone who will cause suffering amongst the poor instead of someone who will lessen the suffering of the poor did an immoral thing. As did the people who chose not to vote because their moral purity was more important than stopping the lesser of 2 evils from taking or keeping power.
It’s my head cannon that Chidi never voted. He probably went to the polls every election but when he was in the ballot box couldn’t decide and just left it blank
Ryuk Is god it sounds good in theory but consequences cannot be calculated in advance in many, if not most case. Some actions have immediate and clear consequences and some have consequences lasting for ages, even thousands of years, or causing a chain reaction with very weird turns. It is a very complex thing to evaluate which cannot be expected from many. I am on a middle ground, intention and consequences both count, but depending on the situation. However if you think it more through, if you know there is a bad consequence then how can your intention be pure and good? No way. So I think I lean towards more to the importance of intention afterall. You cannot judge a person based on the consequences they were not able to foresee. (Sorry if the message is not clear, English is not my first language and I am not used to discuss ideas on this level to ensure my message coming across)
I strongly disagree with the beginning and end of this video but you made some good points in the middle about respectability vs class. The ending is easier to argue with - you say that it's implied that Eleanor and Jason were intentionally immoral people, whereas we are encouraged to view the others as well intentioned but failing. I don't believe this is an implication for anyone except Jason. The entire point of Chidi and Tahani's characters is that they are trying to be good people (Chidi for to purpose of being good, Tahani for her own gain) but miss the mark. The entire point of Eleanor's character is that she doesn't care about ethics, until effectively being forced to learn about them and subsequently seeing the virtue. Jason's character is about the question of whether unknowingly immoral acts are immoral - he just straight out doesn't understand any ethical consequences of his actions that take thought. I think you could reverse the social classes of the characters without changing any of that, and in fact you may even draw in a particular section of the left-wing audience with that take on it, as it would look like bashing rich people.
At the beginning you point out that the good actions are more available to the upper class, while the bad actions are more available to the lower class. You use the trashy magazine as an example, which I think is a bit weird as trashy magazines are definitely available to all classes...Anyway it definitely can't be argued that more good actions aren't available to wealthy people, but more bad actions are as well - poison a river was in there, and I read that as targeted at CEOs of companies which pump waste into rivers, or maybe careless farm owners. I won't go so far as to say that the upper class doesn't have it easier, but you imply a very strong tilt that I never saw in the show.
Except that The Good Place is an American produced show written by Americans. American philosophy has a strong thread of Calvinism running through it. This is the concept that wealth is a sign of God's favor. The wealthier a person is, the better morally they must be, God is pleased and rewards with wealth. Of course, much of this comes from the Bible. In the Old Testament, for example, whenever the Hebrews are obeying God's laws they are prosperous and safe. When they stray society decays and invasions occur. Carry this to the past 400 years and we tend to believe that the wealthy and prosperous are morally upstanding people who deserve their wealth. The Native "heathens" deserved to be pushed off of their land and slaughtered, they are poor after all. Slaves deserved to be slaves. The landowners deserved all of their wealth and privilege, they were godly people. Etc...
The Good Place merely reflects this kind of thinking, even though, as it is pointed out, everything is free and anyone can "own" anything.
Trashy magazines are available to all, but they are cheap and easily assesablenand more likely to be purchased by someone whondoesnt have more money to spend on some other pursuits.
Like... tv used to be free to all, but rich people spent less time watching it because they had money for other things.
If I was in the good place I would probably spend my entire day asking Janet questions to try to figure out how the good place and bad place works.
I know this is a little late to the party, but I would posit that The Good Place uses our understanding of class to help pull the wool over our eyes. The twist at the end of S1 treats the sins of all 4 characters as equally bad. While Jason does commit crimes, he is also presented as genuine person without malice and didn't bear any ill intent from any action. I think this does counterweight perfectly with Tahani where that is completely flipped, as she disingenuously performs actions of charity. While Elanor and Chidi are opposites as well, they more show the overall unfairness of the binary afterlife system that someone who dedicated their life to this pursuit still ended up in the same place as someone who ignored it. And, as the season went on and her point total had been improving, she retains the same interests. She never stops loving the hobbies and passions associated with her class, but instead becomes a more considerate and thoughtful person.
Still, regardless of intent, this show does reveal some culturally ingrained views on class and morality.
Does any of this still hold up after you know this isn't the real "good place" at all and that Chidi and Tahani were both in hell just as well as Jason and Eleanor the whole time?
moonlily1 this reads like an intentional spoiler
@@fatymah1138 Well, you know, the show's been on the air for three years. I don't think people have to avoid talking about shows forever for the benefit of people who might not have seen it.
I cried so hard when they went through that arch at the end. Such a good show and all good points in your video. On TVTropes it was said that the points system was what the writers found personally irritating so yeah class politics spring from that.
Tou should do another video on the good place but with all season present in the argument. Now that the show is finished it would be cool to see how an argument may hold up in comparison to the whole of the show
I could not agree more on your last statement
After watching the entire show so far, I do believe that the setup on season one was done intentionally in order to criticize such shallow approaches to morality in later seasons. I do love the show btw, but also find it's overall approach to morality and human development a little bit simplistic, especially the discussion around the actual good place.
Very interesting video! Definitely see your point, though I always viewed it more as depicting the ways class changes the ways you can be immoral. Tahani's flaw wasn't that she tried in the wrong ways or too much, but that she tried for the wrong reasons. She was a high flyer, with all her philanthropy done for her own image while reaped the benefits of being v rich and rubbing shoulders with other rich people.
Chidi did maybe try too hard, but his flaw was that he had the privilege not to actually do anything, he could just talk and theorise till the cows came home; something that is discussed a lot these days.
Jason's major difficulties in his flashbacks are from a lack of opportunity, education, and support, while Eleanor's whole thing is that she's out for herself and doesn't empathise with folk; but this shows up in that she's happy scamming old ppl in a shitty job, or she'll abandon her friends when she's the designated driver but wants to drink, instead of them all just getting ubers.
Eleanor would be a very different bad person if she was from a different class, as would the others. The fact that the two more working class characters have to be told they stole someone spot in the good place, and the other two don't, was to me speaking to how lower class folk are always on blast for every little 'bad' thing they do, whereas middle/upper class folk pay to plant a tree in Madagascar and feel like moral beings while driving their new range-rover around town. Again though, I totally see your point on it, but this was just how it read to me!
Amazing take, man. I'm not close to what maybe is your political ideology, but I sincerely enjoy these videos. Keep it up! :)
Thank you, that means a lot!
Good points, but I'll forgive the show because of its later reveal that the real reason absolutely everyone is going to the Bad Place is not because of the moral value of their individual actions based on their intentions or their class, but because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. I thought that was a pretty bold point to make on a corporate channel. Of course, they did not state it directly. They talked about society being more "complicated" but that is what their examples of this "complexity" came down to: exploitation under capitalism.
This theory is fine if you take the first season in isolation, divorced from the rest of the show, which is damn near impossible. I agree with Quinton Reviews when he says that the show will eventually reward you for seeing the first season as classist.
I like how the average length of the comments is higher compared to other videos. I also like how I reduced it. :)
Between the lines The Good Place says that the people in heaven are assholes who place arbitrary hidden values on everything. Even if these arbitrary values weren't all exceedingly harsh, they are indeed extremely arbitrary, this is made as a tool for jokes multiple times, like anything french being worth negative points. The afterlife of this universe, not understanding morality if it bit them in the bum.
At the same time, the show never directly says this, none of the characters never directly go "hey this is random BS".
*SPOILERS head*
Even when they are tasked with proving people can be good and fighting against the concept that the point system has made it so that no one can get to heaven, even then they never take these celestial beings to task for their arbitrary nonsensical morale value system. Even that judge, her tests made a bit more morale sense then the average point system regular people go through, she's still arbitrarily deciding what is good and evil, and what is sufficiently good and evil to decide someones eternal fate.
And of course beings who set people to be tortured for eternity really especially have no right to decide morality, because I can imagine no more wicked a deed.
I feel the show values the jokes much more than the plot, and as things go on, this becomes notably more of an issue as the plot becomes a hot mess IMO.
i would say that tahani and eleanor both had selfish, bad intentions, except tahani had a positive impact on people and eleanor didn't. chidi had good intentions, but a bad impact on people and jason had no intentions at all, yet still had a negative impact on people.
I think a big part of the reason "upper class" and "middle class" activities are seen as inherently more worthwhile than those of the "working class" is because things like literature, philosophy, theater, etc, are things that aren't just less easily accessible, they're things that require taste. In the same way you would find it odd if someone only ever ate fast food, but couldn't enjoy something with more subtle and nuanced flavors, it's really off putting to be around people who only listen to readily available pop music, and only ever watch trash and network TV. Things that are meant to appeal to your baser desires and preferences aren't inherently bad, but for a lot of working class people, that's entirely what their tastes consist of. So yea, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I do think that failing to cultivate any sort of taste beyond what you're presented with and or immediately gratifies your primal instincts and engages you without offering any sort of substance, is trashy and if that's all you like and partake of, then you yourself are trashy as a result thereof. It's not that you can't EVER enjoy those things, but I see too many people who ONLY enjoy those things, and that's the issue.
I sincerely believe that the things you bring up a re intentional plot elements.
There's also a smattering of utilitarianism in the Good Place's moral algorithms, apparently. The fact that artists don't make it to the Good Place, that folks like Mozart and Bach aren't there, further casts doubt on the notion that the Good Place's algorithms reward virtue, and have a narrow, materialistic conceptualization of utilitarianism. This isn't about love or virtue (as in traditional religions), it's about performativity.
What I think happened is that the writers wanted to do a whole Upper Class People Can Be Assholes Too thing, but for the reveal to be effective they had to keep it a surprise from both the audience and the characters themselves until later on. They wrote this out, figured it sounded good and didn't look to much further into the potential issue it caused, which isn't an excuse as much as a "sympathetic backstory" or whatever you want to call it
I know you don't explicitly ask for suggestions but, can you do one of these "politix" on The 100?
Very, very strange take. All of the dynamics with moral judgement and class, poverty, and trauma were thoroughly addressed in the later seasons, and frankly even in the first season. This was all very clearly deliberate setup to critique the bias behind the idea of absolute moral judgement. I can’t imagine watching the first season, let alone the whole show, and not understanding that. I feel like I could write a thesis on the lack of wholistic understanding of theme in this video.
My biggest issue with TGP is How Chidi is labeled the moral centre of the show. When Eleanore tells him she doesn’t belong in the good place, he encourages her to turn herself in to presumably be sent to the bad place and tortured forever. That is never a morally acceptable thing to pressure someone into.
In the season 1 finale Eleanore says ‘I understand why Jason, Tahani, and I are in the bad place but what about Chidi?’ I hated that. Chidi is the most immoral of the 4 of them because his own moral purity is usually more important than others safety
That's literally the point of his character.
He's intentionally camouflaged as the morally good to subvert our expectations. There's a a reason why he's actually in the bad place after all.
Severinsen but even after finding out that Chidi is no better than her or the others, Elannore still wants him to guide her morally, and still believes he is as good of a person that he convinced her he was before they found out they were in hell
@@ryukisgod2834 It's only because he is the most educated in terms of what makes a moral person. He is literally a moral ethics professor. You also gloss over why he is listed as a bad person: he cannot apply his knowledge because he is stunted by his inability to make choices, and harmed others due to his indecision. His indecision stemmed from the fact that he was trying so very hard to weigh right from wrong.
He wasn't outright evil, his indecision was negligent, and even within it it wasn't out of malice or spite. He genuinely wanted good for himself and others, and it's out of this place that he gets asked to teach moral philosophy. Not because he himself is a paragon, but because what he knows is specifically tied to what Eleanor needs to learn to be a good person. She isn't following his example: she comes to her own conclusions from his teaching.
B Z I’ll just never be able to get past him pressuring Elanore into going to the bad place. I don’t think his intentions matter in those scenes. “He genuinely wanted good for himself and others” if that were true he would have immediately seen what was wrong with there even being a bad place, like elanore did
@@ryukisgod2834 He thought there was a legitimate heaven. He thought he was judged to be there by objective standards, and that the system was legitimate.
I think demanding perfection from any one person, from any one piece of media, or any one system in general is unfair. Anyone will be able to abuse any given system, and no one person is so righteous that they are moral perfection. Chidi was not written to be perfect and he is far from a "moral center." He is a moral resource, which is far different.
this is a really good critique
Hearing you talk: like this.
Hearing afk arena realizingI left a really really quiet video playing: HEY HOPE YOU WEREN'T DOING ANYTHING! LISTEN TO THESE RANDOM SCREAMS.
P.s. your videos are very hard to hear at times. I love the content though!
the thing about cultural capital is that once you know what your doing you can game the system, you can pretend to be of a higher class than you are.
(Edit: 12:53 Okay, this is a good point; it's a problem that persists throughout the show. But examples of it persisting throughout the show would have strengthened the video's argument a lot and kept it from feeling oversimplified due to the focus on season 1. Also, 15:35 is a really good point, too, that could be extended to a lot of common "cosmic justice" narratives we find.)
I think a discussion of the morality of "The Good Place" and the actual Good and Bad Places, that doesn't take into account the season-1-finale-twist and its implications and consequences, suffers a lot by not including those, because the show goes on to subvert a lot of the stuff set up in season 1. As a result, any discussion of the show's morality or class implications that doesn't at least address this, ends up feeling fairly simplistic and even unfair to the show, to say the least.
There probably are actual classism issues in "The Good Place," and it would be interesting to hear about those, but by only looking at season 1 and its premise, we end up having a discussion of the class issues and morality of an almost completely different show.
Like, one of the overarching plots of the show turns out to be that a lot of the activities characterized as "bad" using the Good Place's points system, are actually often unavoidable, and the premise of the two Places and the method of deciding who goes where is fundamentally flawed (I think that hopefully doesn't spoil too much).
So criticisms like this video seem like if you watched Star Wars, and then said it could be interpreted as encouraging a militaristic, fascistic view of the world or conflicts or life... because of the Galactic Empire. Like, those issues may exist in the work and should be discussed, but that's a fundamental mischaracterization of the story. The narrative is not trying to glorify what the Empire does. You're not supposed to imitate or cheer for the Empire.
I actually didn't know we were supposed to feel like Chidi and Tahani ending up where they originally did was a "miscarriage of justice." Tbh, any of the human characters potentially going to the Bad Place is a miscarriage of justice, as is the existence of something like Hell or the Bad Place to begin with... the only one who I was really surprised at, and think the show is still wrong about, is Chidi. Being indecisive is not a sin, and that's literally all he ever does "wrong." With the other three characters, I was like, "well, I don't think they're worthy of eternal damnation, but I can see how someone who does think Heaven or Hell is appropriate as a divine/cosmic justice system could make a case for this, if you only look at their actions and have 0 sympathy for anyone's motives or psychological state/issues." But I still have no idea why, under that logic, Chidi would ever deserve to go to Hell.
Maybe an interesting take on the first season and its premise is what it shows about the ideas and systems of morality we tend to already take for granted socially, as an audience, such that we could buy this premise and run with it enough to suspend disbelief and watch the show. It seems like this video has some thoughts in that direction, which is cool (15:35).
This could have also led into a fascinating criticism of conventional Heaven and Hell and similar "cosmic punishment" narratives that often lack compassion/empathy, and include disproportionate consequences for behavior that's either genuinely not a problem, or only a very minor misdeed, or even behavior that's really bad on a human level, but still infinitesimally minor from a cosmic perspective compared to what any Divine Being in this system is also doing, such that it still doesn't merit eternal punishment.
Maybe even a discussion of the problems with the "Law" of Attraction, or of retributive vs. restorative justice. Idk.
12:53 Also, I think this is a really good point about the way Eleanor and Jason in particular get played for laughs, in terms of their backgrounds and behavior, throughout a lot of the show even beyond season 1, which is a problem.
To be honest, Jason's apparent cognitive ability makes it hard for me to believe he's liable enough for his own actions for him to "deserve" the Bad Place, anyway.
("no, he's just comedically stupid, he's not intellectually disabled!" nope, no takesies-backsies. As I once told Stephen King (in my head), if you're going to write disabled/neurodivergent characters, it's your responsibility to actually look at the consequences of a character being classed as "disabled" in society through that writing. If you write a character as being unable to understand a lot of concepts and do a lot of cognitive reasoning, that should have consequences in terms of what the narrative/the work's positioning of "right" and "wrong" expects from him.)
Haven't seen or heard of this but, oh well I've got 20 mins to spare.
I will take a look at it since they do display the really pronounced imagos up against which they fail to alienate. Agressivity in Psychoanalysis. One does get the feeling of beatings within a beatinh in a continumm between 0 and 1, and all the infinite sub-sets that may serve as the geometrical enviroment that betrays the laws of the warping motion of their existance. I do look foward to hear from their lawyers with all their documents of the history between us.
Ive also given thought of how subjective the idea of what makes someone ‘worthy of the bad place’. There is no room for cultural relativism or understanding of class analysis. But its bc the premise is philosophy, particular greek western philosophy which was v focused on ultimate moral good and truth, with Plato among others sectioning others off on the ideal person as an ideal upperclass greek male, not slave to their short termed passions
excellent points
oh i love this. this is very good.
Oh damnnn. Great video
I don’t think this video in particular should have been spoiler free. The other comments already went into detail on exactly the sort of criticism of capitalism the show is making. Even looking at just season 1 though it’s clear that Tahani is not being presented positively despite her seemingly having enough points to be there
To be fair, Season 3 takes the classist morals of the first two seasons and subverts the hell out of them.
Great video! :)
At around 10:00, a discussion of Bourdieu's "forms of capital" misses Bourdieu's pointers about the conversions of forms capital between financial capital, cultural capital or education, and social capital or participation in social networks. Although the conversions are difficult to identify in some cases, and downright contradictory in others, there is some validity to this association. Having more money permits people to go to college, and even more money opens up opportunity to more expensive colleges and higher degrees. However, Bourdieu addresses some obvious problems, namely, the school failures in the wealthy families. What are these families to do when their offspring fail or reject college? Also, there is the phenomena of 'poor boys with money,' as you specify, but there is also the problem of 'rich boys without money!' But, the totality in question, the "good place" still harbors the main ideological problem of contestation or social antagonism. This problem is represented but not interpreted or explained. In a similar key, Talcott Parsons addresses the conversions between forms of the media of exchange by which he meant money, power, influence and commitment. Although it might be obvious how money and power interconvert, how power converts to influence is not clear and commitment, as in following certain norms, often seems entirely distinct from the other media. Perhaps, this show is pointing out how the conversions from one form of capital or media does not slide easily.
To paraphrase Wisecrack Edition: the afterlife of The Good Place is a secular one, but that somehow makes it even more elitist.
Isn’t the whole point that the points system is ridiculous, specifically because it doesn’t account for social conditions? I know the show explains it in a more broad or simplistic way, but that’s what i felt it was trying to get across
7:45 the crazy part is that Marx said that class included portrayal and social status in like p. 5 of the communist manifesto
You do good work.
This video is so frustrating to me, because I think you're missing the point, later seasons straight up say that the system is broken; like a character literally defends the choices of the poor. Not to mention that the show takes time to show that NONE of the characters deserve to be in Hell. Incidentally, how do you get Tahani being in hell is a "miscarriage of justice"? It was very clear to me that she was a bad person from the beginning
THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE MORAL PHILOSOPHERS.
lol... not really it just needed to he said.
This is brilliant. Its difficult to hear through. Anyway, its somewhat off base because a lot of this does get addressed later and turned on its ear. (Really the whole point system has a lot of problems in my opinion).
But I feel like what's important is that we are thinking about these things, moreso than having the *right answer.* so even though it maybe is and maybe isnt a fair criticism of the show, its brilliant simply because it is a springboard for deep reflection which you've done well. (Also can you list your references because I'd lile to study more.)
Not a robbery.
I know, even the show calls it a robbery. But they're wrong.
Robbery is theft by force or threat of force (e.g., a mugging).
What Jason and Donkey Doug did was attempted burglary of a business... i.e., breaking and entering, or entering and remaining after closing without permission, with the intent to commit a felony within.
Burglaries are considered MUCH more serious.
Fun at parties, aren't you
@@finnianquail8881 Occasionally. but I'm a blast at the jail.
Another way to put it: In Virginia, Burglary is a 20-year max as long as you're just stealing.
Robbery is a life max, even if you don't use a gun.
i massively agree or disagree with what you're saying
*jason voice*: "actually, it's pronounced ethnics"
I never thought of Tahani as middle class. Her milieu seemed far more upper class. See 14:07
🙏🙏🙏ALGORITHM🙏🙏🙏
Should have watched the rest of the show..