this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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Risa: Your Home Away from Spacedock
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I think when people talk about fiction being too "political" nowadays, they usually mean one of three things:
Personally, I can get behind #3 because boy howdy there's some bad writing out there.
And I'll admit I occasionally fall prey to #2. Some things I watch today feel too "on the nose" in regard to current events, and sometimes it's hard to tell if it's truly worse writing than my old favorites or if I was just too ignorant, naïve, or credulous to pick up on it when I was younger. It's also sometimes hard to tell when re-watching old stuff because I don't feel the zeitgeist of 30 years ago in my bones the same way I do today's (naturally).
For example, I can watch an episode of Futurama that's literally about the world being nearly destroyed by a giant ball of 20th-century garbage, and somehow it doesn't feel overtly topical, while the new episodes about bitcoin and AI feel more like a sermon than a sitcom. Maybe the writing is worse, or maybe I'm just old now. Who's to say?
I think some of it is that the "political element" of the past became mainstream. Partly because it was a political element once.
People now, who most likely watched Trek in reruns 20 years after the fact don't see Uhura or Chekov or the Black Flag Admiral as political, because it no lomger really was when they watched.
But then they see a gay character on modern Trek and flip out. But others just see, another character. And in 20 years, maybe no one will even think it is or realize it was polotical.
That sort of thing.
Even on your futurama example this applies to some extent, though we do kimd of still have a garbage problem.
Popular political tropes are low hanging fruit for writers and easy for the common folk to digest. Throw in some spaceships and you have something that looks like sci-fi if you squint your eyes.