I agree there’s an aspirational thing here and also that’s he’s a piece of shit and shit president. But the real dyed in the wool full on Trumpers suffer from a surfeit of self esteem (a perfect e.g. is the aspiration) not an insecurity that leads to wanting someone who clearly hates them.

Not really, it’s the same thing in this case.

Hybrostophilia is a thing.

Well it was the 80s, the hair was on point for the decade. Which says a lot about the 80s.

Narrator: It did not in fact explain Trump's base.

It also attracts others overt narcissists and this is a good example of that. Let’s forego denying this journalist agency and lumping them in with brainwashed cult members.

No you're missing the main point is that he's rich.

Lmao imagine thinking most critics and audiences are going to sympathise or empathise with Lauder now you've made him a proto incel who doesn't even have any reason for him being shunned and bullied in the first place. I mean difficult enough to do it anyway for but removing his own emasculation and otherness before…

Seeing as what constitutes problematic varies from person to person, culture to culture and from year to year and that artists aren't omniscient then they literally can't be responsible for that.

Yeah they're also people who should have been abolished.

If The Crown was actually Weird Fiction about the royal family I'd actually give it a watch.

Fiction doesn’t have a responsibility to accurately reflect history.

Id say he’s down the dark path before that really. Since he started fantasising about sex slaves etc. It's when he gets to Boulder he starts redeeming himself but Flagg knows exactly how to deal him down by sending Nadine.

Definitely agree there’s other things that will make those emotional scars yes. But this adaptation doesn’t seem to go into what that is, well from the couple of clips and reviews I’ve seen. And sure some people are just assholes but they are the ones who go to Vegas from the off, like what makes Lauder an interesting…

Yeah logistically that's a good point. But now you just have a guy who's an asshole and traitor for no underlying reasons.

Yeah good point. He even gets a nickname of “Hawk” from some of the guys on the workcrew he's on ffs. 

And he almost does get over it all. It's only because Flagg sends Nadine to seduce the poor fucker that he cracks.

Which is why the decision to not cast a fat guy to play Lauder has already ruined this adaptation especially as he seems to have a more prominent role. It’s incredible really that one of the major qualities for what makes him such a mess and a bullied loser is considered too unpalatable for the audience. It’s almost…

It doesn't. It does make the institutional and systemic the subject under its lens salient and prevalent in a clever but acid way.

How about just no sympathetic portrayals of pedos? That would be a good start.