I’ve come late to Ozark, perhaps the name kept me away or I simply didn’t know what it was about and imagined the worse. The worse is here.
After viewing three episodes, I’m horrified by what I’ve seen. On the most basic level, the show’s portrayal of rural culture is offensive. While it’s meant to be a caricature and comical, it really goes overboard. Does every local character have to be repulsive?
Anti- heroes are popular in American fiction. All we have to do is watch a Western or a series like Breaking Bad. There, the character Walter White had a reason for brewing meth. He was dying with a son with cerebral palsy. In Ozark what was the motivation for Bryd’s character to get involved with a drug cartel? Money? Greed? How did this accountant get in so deep and why? There is a total lack of logic.
At a time when there is so much distrust of government, why is the FBI agent shown as such a creepy figure? To top it off, is he gay? Another negative portrayal is here.
Media affects us in innumerable ways. We need to move towards educating the population as was done with soap operas in Africa during the AIDS epidemic. In the US soap operas were often the first places to deal with complex themes like contraception, gay rights, and abortion and presented them as normal. Ozark and most series are our present day soap operas and instead of promoting violence and glorifying wealth, they could represent challenges that people actually face.
https://theconversation.com/soap-operas-can-deliver-effective-health-education-to-young-people-new-research-175087
