THIS IS THE TERRIBLE REVIEW OF REACHER WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR:
Reacher spends most of his time in the books saving damsels from genuine distress and teaching murderous bad guys they are not the toughest kids on the block. But given the times we live in it was inevitable that this light entertainment would eventually be labeled racist. Today, Vulture published a very belated review of the series which does exactly that.
Wallpaper TV is marked by an easygoing approachability and a low lift for concentration. These are series propelled by vibes that you can groove to as a viewer but whose characterization, narrative, and visual dimensions hew toward simplicity, if not banality. Amusement is tantamount, but these shows don’t ask much of the audience,and they certainly don’t challenge their fans. They’re perfect in the background, half-watched while sweeping the apartment. This is what I was expecting from Reacher: a mildly appealing series that required little of me, spoke to my mother’s televisual interests, and featured a tank of a man who was easy enough on the eyes. But swiftly after starting the series I realized there was something more complex about Reacher, a glaringly white fantasy that can’t help but crack under the weight of its conservative values. This isn’t merely hackneyed wallpaper TV; it’s uncanny fiction that exemplifies just how intensely Hollywood has returned to whiteness after years of feigning interest in diversity broadly and Blackness with a particular extricative zeal.Watching Reacher isn’t easygoing; it’s like watching a frightening manifestation of the free-falling American empire on a loop…
My prior knowledge of this literary franchise was admittedly shallow, mostly informed by my experience of the dim Tom Cruise movies. But this Reacher adaptation is a different beast. And beast is exactly the right word for it — featuring as it does a Dodge Charger who’s achieved human form (actor Alan Ritchson). When Reacher, who refuses to be addressed by his first name, Jack, saunters into the fictional town of Margrave, Georgia, the show portrays his masculinity as exceedingly powerful yet good-natured; something to be obeyed but also preserved and exalted. In the premiere episode, Reacher wordlessly halts a domestic-abuse incident on his way into a diner, where, once inside, he doesn’t get to enjoy his cup of black coffee, or the slice of peach pie marketed as the best in the state, because he’s soon arrested for a murder he didn’t commit. He asserts his innocence at the police station, refusing to cooperate unless someone releases him from the zip ties encircling his wrists. (The handcuffs are too small, of course.) “Get the box cutter,” the routinely disrespected police chief says. “It’s okay. I got it,” Reacher says before popping the zip tie by sheer force. He picks up the fallen plastic. “Do you guys recycle?” A knowing smirk never leaves his face. Reacher knows that if a white man is tall enough, the world will bend to his whims.
I just have one question for this author. What did she think of the Equalizer series of movies? That series is based on the same exact sort of pulp storytelling, i.e. a heavily trained fighter/killer who lives off the grid but who also abides by a personal code stumbles upon a group of bad guys who he decided to bring down because he doesn’t like what they do. The outcome is usually very brutal for the bad guys. Those films all starred Denzel Washington instead of Alan Ritchson and they were successful enough that they made three of them.
We’ll get to the modern-day Equalizer franchise in a moment, but first, Christian Toto adds: Vulture: Reacher a ‘White Power Fantasy.’ Readers roast op-ed attacking Prime Video series, American conservatives.
The writer repeatedly conflates “white power” with conservatism in crude fashion. The two are interchangeable, giving the author wiggle room to explore these observations.
Vulture, the pop culture arm of New York Magazine, stirred up trouble within its readership. Its Facebook page visitors overwhelmingly shredded the “white-power” argument.
I spent 26 years in journalism, and this is just embarrassing. I have never seen a piece miss the mark this badly. There is nothing “white-power” about this character or the series. The character’s best friend is a woman and a person of color. He loves old blues music and hangs out at a black-owned barber shop (in season one). He isn’t hateful or racist in any way, shape or form. This is so far off the mark that the author comes off as both projecting and desperate. – Jeremy D. Bonfiglio
In her twisting of the series, she deftly ignored one of the main characters who appeared prominently in both seasons: Reacher’s former army lieutenant, Neagley (Maria Sten). Neagley is mixed race and fully trusted by Reacher. Her prominent role in season 1 is only enhanced in season 2. Odd how her character is entirely not mentioned in the Vulture review, perhaps because it doesn’t support the false narrative she is trying to push.
– Ryan Littlefield
The genre that Reacher works in, which Rob Long dubbed “The Good Psychopath” in the April issue of Commentary isn’t even sexist these days, let alone racist:
The Equalizer entered American culture as a television character in the eponymous CBS Network series starring Edward Woodward as Robert McCall. In the original television series, which ran from 1985 to 1989, McCall is also a former intelligence agent with a shadowy past who fights for the little guy—in a realistically rendered crime-riddled New York City, so it was no fantasy—but the body count is much, much smaller. The show was rebooted in 2021, this time with Queen Latifah as a gender-adjusted Robyn McCall, and has been a steady performer for CBS for four seasons. Wait, The Equalizer reboot has been on TV for four seasons? I can hear you asking.
So there’s a feature-film version of Robert McCall that’s blood and guts and revenge, and there’s a broadcast television version that’s tamer and less violent, but the key elements are the same: utterly powerless victims, utterly remorseless villains, and a hero who settles the score and emerges without a scratch.
There’s also a streaming version of essentially the same character. Reacher, which can be found on Amazon Prime. It doesn’t have the polish or production values of its feature-film cousin—the dialogue is hilariously awful, the sets are spare and overlit—but it’s got the same basic tick-tock. Reacher, played by the mountainous Alan Ritchson, is, you guessed it, a morally upright and highly skilled warrior with a shadowy paramilitary past who helps the powerless fight bad guys. The bad guys in Reacher are super-duper nuts. The first season featured disembowelings, a crucifixion, a sneering psychopathic rich kid, and a villain who inexplicably carries a crystal-topped walking stick.
Reacher is the number-one title on Prime Video, and it’s available across the globe. The first season was hugely popular with audiences of all descriptions, and the second season became Prime’s top show within six days of its release. In other words, Prime Video discovered what Sony and CBS already knew. People like morally upright heroes with shadowy paramilitary backgrounds who use their warrior skills to help the little guy and kill the bad guys. Or the shorter version: Audiences love a Good Psychopath.
For decades, there have been gnostic film critics who can see racism everywhere, no matter how sensitive Hollywood has been on this issue since at least the early 1960s. With the popularity of streaming offsetting the woes of the big screen, no one should be surprised to see them attacking the wares available inside the Roku box instead these days.