New American TV Series

The essay Philosophy and New American TV Series by Paola Marrati and Martin Shuster claims that new American TV series “claim the right to be taken seriously as legitimate objects of philosophical teaching and research” (7). This statement suggests that the new TV series are in some way more profound and philosophically as well as intellectually acceptable and of interest than old series. Trying to prove their statements they mention some TV series which got popular during the last years (8), yet they do not give any examples of older series which would not adhere to these ‘newly found’ public and philosophical interests. 

In my opinion, most of these new American TV series only serve an entertainment-purpose rather than making the viewer think and philosophize about the different problems. Video games are actually a much better approach to analyze morality, since in many games the player has to make decisions and thus really gets to think about morality, even if it’s only fictional. Too bad, video games are publicly still avoided by most self-proclaimed intellectual philosophers.

Marrati, Paula; Shuster, Martin. MLN. "Philosophy and New American TV Series." The John Hopkins UP, 2013. p. vii-ix.