[vijayr]

I am conflicted - on one hand it is a great hack, no doubt. But they also screwed over the producers, who trusted them and paid them for their work.

[frenchman_in_ny]

The producers also admire the hack.

From the show's creator & executive producer: "We wish we’d caught these images before they made it to air. However, as Homeland always strives to be subversive in its own right and a stimulus for conversation, we can’t help but admire this act of artistic sabotage.” [0]

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/oct/15/homeland...

(edited for clarity)

[rsync]

... and there's the hack. It's us.

If you ever needed proof of the adage that capitalism will co-opt even the most accurate and stinging criticism of it, here it is.

The show was criticized as being racist and so the show appropriated that message (by hiring the "street artists" and instructing them to "go rogue") in order to sell more of the show.

[proveanegative]

This seems like a feature that would be generally selected for in types of social organization.

[memonkey]

Indeed, reminds me of The Society of the Spectacle.

[13thLetter]

> The producers also admire the hack.

The producers know that if they publicly complained they would be torn apart on social media and in the press.

[gotchange]

If life gives you lemons, ...

[arbitrage]

If the producers asked for graffiti, then they certainly got what they paid for. Graffiti has been used as a form of protest and criticism for as long as there has been both paint and walls.

[ArkyBeagle]

ROMANES EUNT DOMUS

[anigbrowl]

The producers are doing just fine. artistic subversion of commercial considerations is a norm in the arts industry; if anything, this gives an otherwise shallow piece of ideological entertainment some unintended cultural depth.

[rjsw]

An older example of the same kind of thing could be Melrose Place [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melrose_Place#GALA_Committee

[rmxt]

I'd venture to say this was a pretty calculated move -- no doubt they might not get work with this production company anymore, but they'll surely have quite a few more jobs lined up now with their name out there like this. Also, those jobs might be on projects that more closely align with their political and artistic goals and visions.

[gotchange]

Assuming of course that they knew for certain that they would get away with it and no one would notice it before it hit the airwaves.

It's a risky proposition and not guaranteed to work most of the time.

[ArkyBeagle]

I can't speak for the producers, but this would not offend me were I one of them. I'd be quite happy with it.

If I were a producer of the show I might go so far as to actually discuss this issue with the (graffiti) artists on camera, so long as they agreed to be reasonable and collegial about it.

One of the great opportunities for the producers is to shine a light on the show not being particularly racist, but that characters might be - a little.

Having said that, it sounds difficult.

I think the best example of this is The Americans, which stops just short of making the FBI look stupid while kind of raising its eyebrows at the then-prominent "evil empire" narratives. The ...constraints of Soviet political culture are also shown well.

But the craft level of "The Americans" is extremely high.

[lambdasquirrel]

You mean like how Michelangelo screwed over the Vatican?

[beatpanda]

The producers are making a show about the middle east but can't read arabic. They got exactly what they deserve.