Hazbin S2 Review Part 48
Ep 8 Subconscious Prejudice (yes it's another rant)
Ooookay. *intakes breath*
Soooo. This is, yet again, another in a long history of stories about undeserving men being pushed into positions of power based on (historically most often nepotism but also sometimes just) good old fashioned unexamined favoritism to raise up someone unqualified when there are frankly usually many other possible candidates who would be better for the role and actually want it. You're in heaven. There are no other angels or human souls who might be in any way equipped for this?
Like, why were you picked to lead? The lives of many others are in your hands and no one seems to care that you're completely unqualified.
It's great that he came through in the end, but it was complete incompetence on the part of Sera and Emily letting him take that post, honestly to the level of reckless negligence. I can buy that they thought he was a better choice than Lute, but they literally looked no further than nepotism? And we know it's not a hereditary position because Lute was clearly expecting the role. So why was his opportunity prized over the actual safety of everyone else?
It's the "potential" problem. White men get promoted based on "potential". Women and minorities have to show an actual proven track record of success to get the same promotion. The people doing this don't think they're showing prejudice. They might even be women and minorities making these decisions! It's unconscious prejudice, and it's one of the major problems we have still to deal with in the current day.
It plays out in media as being A GOOD THING because it's helping someone grow into their own and find their own strengths. Okay. But if the qualifications for the role were LITERALLY NOTHING and DOESN'T WANT TO BE THERE, then it's still a problem because no one else was considered for the role!
The role which has huge consequences and often huge benefits!
Just choosing someone based on "a feeling that they can do it!" and because of their family is NOT behavior we should be modeling in media—it is literally prejudice and nepotism and an Old Boys Club mentality being PRAISED as A GOOD THING because SOMETIMES it works out.
Should Lute have been promoted? No, obviously not, but there's no way those were the ONLY TWO OPTIONS.
There's nothing wrong with giving people a chance to develop. There IS something wrong with praising unexamined favoritism as, in the real world, guess what, those "instincts" of who to mentor, who to promote, who to train, and who to take a chance on? They go hand in hand with unintentional racism, sexism, and nepotism.
This is the kind of insidious mentality that leads to people who honestly think they're not prejudiced still ending up with an all-white, all-male executive board because, well, those were the young, up and coming employees who caught the attention of the senior staff.
They see their past selves in the unqualified and think, if I did it, so can this one, they just need a push!
And they're not wrong! Those guys probably could become great in many cases!
But it doesn't mean they are the only ones that could be great! And it doesn't make it fair or right, or anything close to a responsible choice!
It's not fair to everyone else who actually already got the experience, did the training, got the education, etc, but DIDN'T get picked for that internship. Didn't get mentored by that executive. And didn't get fast-tracked for promotion because of "potential".
You'll see this in movies all the time especially when there's some young guy main character who does not want to be leader, but by the end, is thrust into being the king or team leader or chosen one or whatever because everyone around them thinks they can do it!
Even when half the time, there is literally a better qualified person in the team who actually wants that position and would objectively be more likely to do a better job (often it's their love interest, which is also gross that both the male character agrees to take the role when he should be able to see that she's better suited for it, and that she just steps aside and comes to agree that, yeah of course, his "potential" is more important than anything like "proven experience" or even just "wanting to FUCKING BE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE". Sometimes they even call this out, but then still just go ahead and have him take it in the end.
Look out for it, and you'll start seeing it EVERYWHERE.
It's also disappointing that this is so ubiquitous that, as an audience, you can watch this whole thing and not realise what they did. You can just think, oh it's great that he came into his own.
I've even seen a lot of people sympathizing with "poor Abel"—but no one forced him to take this position! He knew he wasn't prepared for this role. He should have offered to help find other candidates.
And there's some situations where someone really is the only option even though they're unqualified. But it's astounding how many times that logic is implied in both fiction AND IN REAL LIFE, when it's in no way true. And it's to the detriment of everyone if we don't examine that tendency.
They could have solved this with a one sentence line, something like, "I know Adam was planning on training you for decades before you took over this role, but if we put someone unknown to the Exterminators in charge, they will just go back to Lute!" Or "It's a shame that all our best have left heaven, but you're all we have now Abel!" Which would also give some context on why no one in heaven seems to know what's going on.
This part of the song is good though.
WHAT? Lute just LEAVES after this??
That was WEAK AS SHIT.
THAT'S ALL IT TOOK FOR LUTE TO BACK DOWN? I kept hoping she was coming back. That was pathetic.
I could honestly see her becoming the big bad by the end of this show. That would be fun character development.
I also dislike the idea that Abel called her a bitch. He was obviously channeling his dad because he didn't know what else to do, but this better be shown as a sign that he's going down the wrong path to find his confidence. He's ostensibly a "good angel". There's no need for him to ever call someone he's ON THE SAME SIDE WITH a bitch, and definitely not to their face. From his perspective, this is his COWORKER that he's swearing at AND in a misogynistic way.
Hazbin Season 2 Full Review Part 1 | Part 47 | Part 49
Gravity | Ep 3 | Ep 4 | Ep 5 | Diversity Rant | Ep 6 | Losin' Streak | Easy | Ep 7 | Fashion Critique | Ep 8 | Subconscious Prejudice | Overall | Soundtrack Review
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