After posting about the upcoming NBC drama about a renegade, philanthropist billionaire I realized that I had some more to say. To be sure, the show does sound like an aid worker wish fulfillment fantasy. This guy gets to travel the world and really see his beneficiaries, and NEVER has to write a funding proposal, program report, or success story. He never has to manage a budget or decipher the Fly America policy. Who wouldn't love that?
But obviously NBC doesn't make TV hoping to appeal to the aid worker demographic. They make shows that they think will appeal to a broad US audience. I’m assuming that superhero stories are about wish fulfillment, and that the nature of the wish stems from what the audience feels it is lacking. If that common wisdom is correct, then I think NBC's plan suggests that Americans are feeling trapped in a world full of war, poverty, and death. That there is so much suffering in the world that we can't possibly change it, and the institutions set up for us are either ineffective or corrupt. In response, here is a man who has the power to skip past that system and really DO something. At least, that is what NBC is banking on.
I may be reading too much into this.
