Rod Serling: human rights activist as science fiction showrunner

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/08/gullivers-travels-moderne.html

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You can see his statue in Binghamton New York.

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Paid for by big tobacco!

The world is complicated.

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But then, didn’t Serling undermine his sponsors, by destroying his own health and dying at a young age? Now that is commitment to social awareness.

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Human rights? How quaint! This was back in the 50s?

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This, from a ‘Tobacco Control’ paper: “As late as 1960 only one-third of all US doctors believed that the case against cigarettes had been established.” “There are still many myths surrounding smoking—that the dangers have long been ‘common knowledge’, for example, or that legitimate scholarly doubt about the reality of hazards postdates the Surgeon General’s report of 1964.”

To be fair… due to Tobacco industry lies and propaganda (especially) back in the late 50’s/early 60’s, there was a general lack of understanding and info out there as to the effects of tobacco smoking as perceived outside of the industry. Twilight Zone ran from 1959 to 1964, and I vaguely recall (from my TZ DVD set) that Serling’s ciggy pitches ended before the end of the last season.

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Even human rights for HIDEOUSLY DEFORMED PEOPLE?

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Please, use the spoiler function before posting such shocking images! I almost lost my breakfast.

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As an example of what we’ve lost, consider this show, a contemporary of The Twilight Zone, that CBS was willing to run in prime time.

From the article:

“Topics featured in the series included abortion, capital punishment, “no-knock” searches, custody rights of adoptive parents, the insanity defense, the “poisoned fruit doctrine”, immigration quotas, the Hollywood blacklist, jury nullification, and Cold War visa restrictions.”

Sounds about right for 2018. Maybe someone should rerun it. Of course,The Defenders is now a show about superheroes who use magic to beat up bad guys or something.

Also William Shatner:

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You took it with you on to the patio, as I recall.

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Speaking of Rod Serling, why is one season of The Twighlight Zone NOT on netflix?

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Holy hell I need to track that down.

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Amazon has the first season on DVD.

From what I gather, the complete series is hard to find.

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via Imgflip Meme Generator

Rod was one of the good guys.

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