Vegans on TV
I’m recovering from the flu, so I’ll keep this short.
This week’s Superstore ran a joke that resulted in secondary character and vegan bad-A Dina eating meat. And while Superstore typically writes its characters very well, this week they did Dina, and sensible vegans like her, an injustice. I call Dina a “sensible vegan” because while she is a very opinionated, pushy, and outspoken character, her being vegan (well established in season 1) has never been pushed onto other characters or the viewers. In fact, I will praise the writers in writing an actually funny joke, where Dina lets the Salvation Army’s reindeer into the store but leaves the bell-ringer out in the blustery cold, just weeks prior to this episode.
But this week in “Golden Globes Party,” the writers are to have us believe that strong-willed Dina throws away twenty years of veganism in order to please her party host and work colleagues? They have her eating microwaved chicken (that absolutely no one else at the party is eating,) coming to the realization that’s she’s eating bird (she keeps them as pets) as she’s eating it? The whole thing is ridiculous.
I honestly don’t know how to end this note; only to say that the Superstore writers need to work a little harder to get a laugh. We (my family of omni-s, one vegetarian, and even me, the vegan) we already laughing at the site of the disgusting pink microwaved meat sparsely covered in magic BBQ sauce, and the Dina-tries-meat-after-20-years-without-it bit was unnecessary.
