#304: Link watched Netflix’s We the People, a short animated musical series about US government, and wanted to discuss it with the team. We talk about how, while similar to Schoolhouse Rock, it ultimately feels more like visually attractive propaganda than useful educational content.

Josué Cardona 0:11
Welcome to gt radio on the Geek Therapy network here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Josué Cardona joined by Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:21
Hey,

Josué Cardona 0:23
and Link Keller.

Link Keller 0:23
Hello?

Josué Cardona 0:26
Link What’s up? What are we talking about today?

Link Keller 0:28
What’s up? Hey, howdy. I watched yesterday and today, a new short series on Netflix called We the People. And it came out on Fourth of July very fitting an

Josué Cardona 0:49
educational,

Link Keller 0:50
educational and I wanted to talk about it with you guys.

Josué Cardona 0:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Why? Why, though?

Link Keller 1:02
Because it’s something that I watched.

Lara Taylor 1:07
That’s the name of the episode.

Link Keller 1:11
Um, because I thought it was it was very cool. It’s in in the vein of Schoolhouse Rock. It is educational, short. Music videos, basically. And it was produced by the Obamas, which is a big a big selling point for some people.

Josué Cardona 1:37
My neighbors.

Link Keller 1:38
Yeah?

Josué Cardona 1:39
yeah. Their house is a couple blocks away.

Link Keller 1:42
Oh, right. Yeah, look at you. Yeah. But yeah, I thought I thought it was really interesting. Um, I, you know, it’s me. So of course, I have some criticisms, but overall thought it was gorgeous animation. And the songs are fun. And some of them are legitimately earworms. So, yeah, I wanted to talk about with you guys and see what y’all thought and yeah, try and process it together.

Josué Cardona 2:15
Okay, where do you want to start?

Link Keller 2:20
At the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start. let me get my notebook.

Lara Taylor 2:27
Now that song is stuck in my head thanks.

Link Keller 2:29
I know, right?

Josué Cardona 2:31
which one?

Lara Taylor 2:32
From the sound of music.

Josué Cardona 2:38
What are in your notes, Link? What’ve you got?

Link Keller 2:40
honestly, I did. I did not take very extensive notes. I got really hung up on wanting to know anything about the animation, because that was not something that was being promoted very much focus on the Obamas. And then the the musical people, some of whom are very well known. Special shout out to Janelle Monae is my personal favorite.

Josué Cardona 3:04
no way!

Link Keller 3:08
but yeah, yeah, I was I was interested in the animation stuff. I had to fight with Netflix to actually watch through the credits. To find them,

Lara Taylor 3:24
because they wanted you to, like watch a new thing or watch the next thing or whatever.

Link Keller 3:29
Yeah, this this is a real aside, and not related to the topic. But by God, you’ve given me an opportunity to talk about Netflix. What the hell that was. Awful viewing experience for me. My housemates had watched it first. So they like watched it, and it auto played through all 10 episodes. So when I watched it, it showed that they had already been played, but except for the very end of it. And so I was like, Oh, what is it going to do? At the end of every episode, instead of playing the next episode, it showed me a trailer for a different show. Every. one. every one of them and then I went back to rewatch it again, and that time it did autoplay. And then today, I watched it again and it was very inconsistent. Sometimes it autoplayed sometimes it showed trailers. Sometimes it wouldn’t let me like it wouldn’t even give me the watch credits button. Like it just it just wouldn’t give it to me at all. Man. I got real I got real mad at Netflix about it. Oh, okay, rant over

Lara Taylor 4:30
you can write an angry letter.

Link Keller 4:33
That’s what I said. I’m like, I’m going to write a strongly worded email to Netflix about this. very infuriating. I just want to see who the heck animated this thing, beautiful piece of animation.

Josué Cardona 4:45
First of all, why we’re using someone else’s profile. That’s messed up.

Lara Taylor 4:49
You can have another profile on a Netflix

Josué Cardona 4:52
I’m just saying. I’m just saying if the first time you went through and someone had already watched it, and you can see that they had already watched it. That’s um yeah I dunno, I don’t think that’s polite to use.

Link Keller 5:03
Oh, no, I like sharing.

Josué Cardona 5:04
Oh, no,

Link Keller 5:05
I’m all about sharing

Josué Cardona 5:07
get your own profile.

Link Keller 5:09
It is my profile. they were watching it on mine nyehh

Josué Cardona 5:15
Somebody being disrespectful is all I’m saying. And I want to point that out. Yeah, yeah, seriously. That’s not okay.

Link Keller 5:25
I thought it was fine. It’s I put blame on Netflix, whoever, whatever system they’re using to program the autoplay and trailer watching features. I don’t understand them, and it frustrates me. Yeah, just want to watch the credits without having to fight you for it.

Josué Cardona 5:47
So I had feelings going through it. Um,

Link Keller 5:53
yes. Back Back to We the People, the actual topic at hand here. Tell me your feelings Josué. How did you feel about it?

Josué Cardona 5:59
So, obviously, at some point, I was like, oh, okay, is this trying to be like Schoolhouse Rock? This is trying to be educational. At one point, I thought, there were a few things I thought I thought I’m watching and going through all 10 I was like this is this is why we have 20 different podcasts and we don’t do everything we want to talk about. On one feed, because they feel so different. That it doesn’t feel… it feels it feels strange, right? And then the many times I was thinking about Hamilton and I was like, Why Why doesn’t this feel as good as Hamilton? Like Like there’s production quality here there’s there’s known artists there’s money behind it and

Lara Taylor 6:44
There’s no Lin-Manuel Miranda,

Link Keller 6:45
there is a Lin-Manuel Miranda!! He’s in the fourth song

Josué Cardona 6:52
and he went hard

Link Keller 6:53
about the three branches.

Josué Cardona 6:54
He’s very excited. in that song too.

Link Keller 6:55
yes

Lara Taylor 6:57
I’m sure he is.

Josué Cardona 6:59
He’s super into it

Link Keller 7:00
Hamilton was definitely also inspiration for for the series. I think the big difference is that Hamilton was telling a story.

Josué Cardona 7:12
Yep.

Link Keller 7:13
Over over and you know, an hour to two and a half hours however long the play is that these were like three and a half minute songs. So even though some of them had a story element to them. Most of it was the content was not a story. The content was providing information to a sick catchy beat. Some of the animation had stories to it. I one that comes to mind is the First Amendment. I felt like the story that the song was telling. It didn’t match. It didn’t it didn’t did not match up....