Those who watched HBO's True Detective last year and followed the debate over the show on Twitter and elsewhere may remember an oddly split pair of reactions. For the first half of the season, or so, everyone loved it: It was groundbreaking, it was utterly unique, Matthew McConaughey was a revelation, the Lovecraftian overtones and the philosophical meanderings were a breathtaking change of pace, etc. Then, in the second half, a very vocal segment of viewers started complaining that it lacked diversity, that it was just another show about white dudes with white dude problems, that it was misogynistic, etc.*
Showrunner Nic Pizzolatto was unimpressed by this variety of criticism:
The most vocal detractor was Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker. In a critique titled "Cool Story, Bro," she railed against the shallowness of his female characters, who serve as "wives and sluts and daughters -- none with any interior life." And Nussbaum wasn't alone. On one corner of the Internet on Sunday nights, True Detective's "woman problem" emerged as a trending topic among bloggers.
Such criticism incenses Pizzolatto. Those who hammer the character of Marty's wife, Maggie, played byMichelle Monaghan, for being flimsy are missing the point. If her point of view had been shown and she had remained a lightweight, he acknowledges, then those jibes would have more validity. But the first season, he argues, was conceived as a close point-of-view show, wholly told through the eyes and experiences of the two male characters. "You can either accept that about the show or not, but it's not a phony excuse," he says, unable to hide his frustration. He adds that he consulted his friend Callie Khouri on the matter: "When Callie, who wrote Thelma & Louise, thinks that that's stupid criticism, I'm inclined to take her opinion over someone with a Wi-Fi connection."
Later in the Hollywood Reporter piece from which the above is drawn, he admits that he started to write season two with that criticism in mind before throwing out the contaminated work and starting again. "I don't think you can create effectively toward expectation," he said to THR's Lacey Rose. "I'm not in the service business."
Nevertheless, those who found True Detective's first season so very problematic were pleased when they heard casting rumors for the upcoming season. Names like Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) and Michelle Forbes (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Rachel McAdams (A Most Wanted Man), fan favorites all, were bandied about. This time it was going to be different! Outrage Twitter had bent the world to its whims! Finally, diversity would triu—
Grievance levels on Twitter went through the roof. A full-fledged tantrum kicked off:
Maybe in the next season of True Detective, Colin Farrell & Vince Vaughn can solve the mystery of the missing female and non-white actors
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) September 23, 2014
So basically this is the True Detective casting call: Must be male, white, tall and great at mumbling.
— Maggie Furlong (@MaggieFurlong) September 23, 2014
At last RT @mckinneykelsey: #truedetectiveseason2 starring 2! more white men! http://t.co/dXUV8B78J6
— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) September 23, 2014
Time is a white male circle
— AdamSerwer (@AdamSerwer) September 23, 2014
Et cetera. Of course, when it was pointed out that casting wasn't done and that the show would, in fact, have a female lead, the aggrieved were not satisfied:
oh well as long as there's a single female lead RT @scott_tanner1 you realize there's another female lead that hasn't been cast yet, right? — AdamSerwer (@AdamSerwer) September 23, 2014
Now, you may feel that the level of angst on Twitter and in the outrageosphere is wholly disproportionate to the transgression committed. After all, the only thing HBO has done is to hire two very good** actors with an impressive pedigree and an ongoing career in the cinema to work on their TV show. That's a casting coup!*** But it's kind of beside the point. The reason for this freakout is a simple one: Outrage Twitter thought it had won. And they were horribly disappointed to find out that their previous tantrum had been for naught. What does one do when a tantrum is ignored?
Scream twice as loud in the hopes that this time someone will, finally, pay attention to them.
*There was a secondary—and far more damning, to my mind—controversy surrounding accusations of plagiarism regarding the character played by McConaughey. But that seems to have been more or less swept under the rug by HBO.
**The strangest undercurrent amongst the very angry was the insistence that Farrell and Vaughn are, essentially, replacement-level actors. As if they could just plug anyone in and get a similar performance. This is foolishness of the first order.
***The content of Vaughn and Farrell's character and their resumes are, apparently, less important than the color of their skin and the genitals they possess. Very sad.