Chick-fil-A cooking up new “family-friendly” video streaming service

Fast-food chain is paying up to $400K for unscripted content, Deadline reports.

See full article...

 

[Thunderracker]

And will it work on Sundays?

I came here wondering if this was not the first or second comment.

You have restored my faith.

 

[gersto]

And will it work on Sundays?

Nope, at least not til after the customary, after-sermon, iHop luncheon!

 

[gersto]

I expect it to be full of christian non-sense...

 

[The Sheep Look Up]

Yeah, it seems bland vanilla pablum sells, the sheep like to graze on it.

Hey now. We like pumpkin spice pablum about six weeks out of the year, followed by peppermint and/or gingerbread.

 

[sarusa]

Oh my god (har). Well, I guess there's a large market of white christian Karens who might watch this facile pablum.

 

[kinpin]

Are you such a cultist that you are calling publicly available lawsuit lies?

Can we just make Texas a massive insane asylum and put all the mentally deficient right wingers in their own padded cell.

They have 4/5 employee rating. Should we ignore all of that because of lawsuits? What happened to nuanced arguments ? Can’t it be bit of both ?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

No, I know they're just employees but they all look like they're victims in a cult. You either want to save them or avoid them. It would be like being irate at Christian door knockers as they're just in a cult tasked with recruiting more members to the cult and don't know any better. It's why I have a big dog in a fenced yard to reduce foot traffic to my door.

It's not even close to the same thing. Employees are doing what they do just to earn a paycheck from day to day. They don't "believe in the company values", except that ONE guy who genuinely smiles all the time and wants to high five everyone at the end of his shift for "another day well done everyone!". That guy gives me the creeps, but everyone else is really just doing a job. They aren't trying to proselytize or convert you. PLEASE don't sic your dogs on them.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Oh, I get that. I was just making a joke about how many American kids of the time were more or less raised by Mr Rogers, so who raised kids in other countries that didn't have Mr Rogers?

Mr. Rogers taught a lot of kids good values, but no I can't say I was "raised by" Mr. Rogers, just that he was an influence, and if the spiteful angry and hateful rhetoric a good percentage of our populace is any indication, his influence was utterly swamped out in many families by other more vindictive influences.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm wondering how someone that makes shitty sandwiches thinks they can do video.

The 'New Christians' don't believe in that crap anymore. It's more hatred and treason now.

I dunno, Veggie Tales is actually pretty good. I mean no I don't accept their religious messaging, but of all the Christian media I've seen, it's the most truly genuine and, well, kind I've ever seen. Well, it WAS anyway. I haven't seen whatever new stuff they're pumping out. My point is, it's technically possible. That animated Egypt movie was also pretty good, that 90's one?

 

[Deleted member 1061767]

The Hallmark channel started out as a channel for charismatic tv evangelists.

I honestly didn’t know the backstory here, so I looked it up. What you’re saying is technically true, but it’s similar to saying modern Republicans have their origins in Abraham Lincoln. They want you to believe that means something, but…

 

[The Lurker Beneath]

"Moralizing stories rarely make good art."
What about M.A.S.H.? All in the Family, ... or pretty much every sitcom from the 70's and 80's. (of course it depends on your definition of art though)

And there are different interpretations of 'moralising' too; the morals it promotes do not have to be traditional. Though in general I think it is true that a heavy hand on the moralisation tends to be damaging to art, unless it's the whole theme. Art employs words, images and storylines to do a job; and it is likely to do a poorer job if some of those words, images and storylines are moralisation hires.

Then again it seems that their initial intentions have little to do with high art anyway.

Hopefully at least they will develop their own properties that people may ignore if they can bear to. It would be terrible if they started buying up popular IPs and turning beloved gay characters straight, or something like that.

 

[The Lurker Beneath]

I was offered a tech job by the chicken man before accepting another offer in a totally different industry. Would have been developing some in-house security suite. Got the impression that they were blowing huge amounts of cash on unusual tech projects.

The 5G chips were in the chicken sandwiches all along!

 

[Dark Jaguar]

The 5G chips were in the chicken sandwiches all along!

5G of saturated fat at least, since we're talking about deep fried fast food restaurant chips.

 

[The Lurker Beneath]

How about knights of the round table, but instead of being white men, they are each one of the LGBTQ+. Their task- bringing down an evil christo-fascist corporation. Plus, the team has an attack moose.

"One more suggestion like that and you're fired! But... hold the attack moose."

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

Because Chick-A-Fil isn't sure whether there isn't still someone out there who doesn't know what they're all about - peddling anti-LGBTQ bigotry and religious horseshit while pretending to be a fast food franchise?

If their new "channel" doesn't turn out to be bigoted agitprop wrapped in a thin layer of advertising, color me surprised.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

Contrary to popular opinion here, in the minds of their demographic the opposite of "woke" is not "anti-woke" or "racist", it's just not woke.

Good on you to pick up a long-debunked old stormfront talking point and running with it. The alt-right's desperate attempt to denigrate the concept of "Woke" always was just an attempt to rename their older words for this phenomenon. Words such as "N****r-lover" which, to their great surprise, stopped having traction back in the 1950's.

I'm honestly getting slightly tired of people not understanding the dictionary-definition of words trying to rewrite them. To be Woke is to be aware that there is gross inequality dependant on race, gender and sexual orientation - and to oppose this.

To be the opposite of Woke has always been to be the guy who is unaware and/or OK with the existence of such inequality. That is, by definition, to be a racist in an age where it is utterly impossible to be unaware of the existence of systemic bigotry.

 

[klnn]

I can't predict the success, but the play is "a streaming channel that parents can just turn on and not worry about what their kids will encounter"

Fact is, religion aside, there won't be a lot of objection to family oriented programming. I don't think there will be religious content but perhaps. So if it that's it, it will just be brainless and non-controversial. The only reason that someone would object would be "I won't watch that because it doesn't include "X"" in other words the content will be objectionable for what it doesn't include, not because of what it does include.

so religious brainwashing is family friendly to you? wtf.

there will be tons of objection against their bigoted bullshit. i don't want my kid anywhere near a church full of pedos but to teach their own i guess.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

How about they take all this money they have burning a hole in their pockets and invest it in their employees, instead?

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

you do know that it is human nature to not want to be around people who make you uncomfortable. it's literally part of humanity to want to be around people you find comfortable and not around people you find uncomfortable. I don't know why we think we can engineer this out of ourselves. it's very weird to me that people even try. You also realize that disliking someone because they don't approve of some arbitrary behavior is the same as disliking someone because they do approve of some arbitrary behavior? You can dislike someone and also support their right to do whatever they want.

To summarize your spiel, then;

"It's human nature to be bigoted and racist and I for one can't conceive of the insanity of trying to be a better person who doesn't subscribe to racism and bigotry. That's just unnatural. It's just weird that people don't want to be racist. On top of which you're a dumbass because you think that the guy who wants for all black people to die and the guy condemning the guy who thinks all black people should die aren't really just one and the same".

In this the age of Poe I actually can't be sure whether your argument is that of a troll fishing for reactions or that of a bona fide bigot trying to defend their right to be a bigot. Either way is not a good look for you in a forum where the usual participants have fairly high levels of reading comprehension and aren't easily fooled by cheap stormfront-style rhetoric.

If being around people who are black, gay, or of another gender than you makes you uncomfortable? That's on you, not them.
And if people consider you the scum of the earth because you condemn people because of how they were born? Well, then, you're just being judged by your actual behavior, not because of some immutable characteristic you happened to be born with.

Racists and bigots don't get to complain about being judged because they chose to be horrible people.

 

[Litazia]

How about they take all this money they have burning a hole in their pockets and invest it in their employees, instead?

What are you, a Satan communist?

(/s in case it wasn't obvious)

 

[cgo_12345]

@mjohnson27401 shoo shoo bigot, shoo shoo.

 

[CrystalCowboy]

Yeah, it seems bland vanilla pablum sells, the sheep like to graze on it.

I protest the stereotyping of vanilla as "bland."

 

[Ceedave]

Nope, at least not til after the customary, after-sermon, iHop luncheon!

Luby’s or go straight home!

 

[CrystalCowboy]

When a corporation has 'religious values', why is it always the owner who gets to choose those values, and not the employees?

 

[balthazarr]

What would constitute "anti-woke" serious question, Would you expect them to actively denounce DEI in dialog? (I'm not saying impossible. I just don't think that would happen) Do you think they will have show where people are openly racist? I don't know what they would do, but if your definition of "anti-woke" is the promotion of meritocracies or the promotion of "not judging people by their skin color" then we're in a bad place as a society. There will not be a show that has a plot line where they kick a kid out of a school because he's gay" There probably will be a plot line where all the kids are not gay. If that is objectionable, fair enough.

For starters, everything will be so white no amount of brightness/contrast adjustment will stop blazing screens from burning out pixels.

 

[sword_9mm]

So Hallmark channel 2; electric boogaloo?

 

[tidbits]

Why does this headline read like an Onion article....seriously though, does anyone actually think that this is a good idea and will work? I mean if so I have some stocks to recommend.

 

[Hopefully Smarter]

Christian Nationalist company. Against women’s rights. Against LGBTQ+ protections.

That this publication would cover these guys is beyond me.

 

[JBinFla]

I was like "It's August, right?" For a minute there I thought it was April 1.

 

[Ushio]

Unscripted?

Junk food and junk programmes. Two great wastes that go together.

Unscripted is an incredibly broad category and in TV is basically anything not a drama, comedy or sports. So documentaries, make-over/renovation, reality, game shows etc.

All of which are also much, much cheaper per hour than dramas. Take the BBC's The Blue Planet 2 7 60 minute episodes and the total cost was just over half the cost of a single The Acolyte episode.

You can get a lot more for your money with unscripted than scripted and as broadcast networks and cable TV show unscripted has a lot of fans.

 

[Eldorito]

I protest the stereotyping of vanilla as "bland."

I hate being called vanilla. I'm a seriously white guy (my parents did those genetic tests, we're a mix of english, irish, scottish and a bit of norwegian) who was a tax accountant and now works in IT, has deep feelings about star wars, can play wonderwall on guitar and whose christmas wish list contains a lawn edger.

You're trying to tell me I'm the equivalent of beautiful french vanilla ice cream? Please, I have nothing on vanilla and it did nothing to deserve such an insult.

 

[macduff]

So, they're launching their own Hallmark channel, but with more evangelicalism?

 

[StikyPad]

Instead of this, they should use the money to open on Sunday. The only time I eat fast food is when I'm traveling, and fully half of my traveling is on Sundays.

 

[StikyPad]

Do they say "my pleasure" at the end of a show?

Of course.

 

[StikyPad]

I was offered a tech job by the chicken man before accepting another offer in a totally different industry. Would have been developing some in-house security suite. Got the impression that they were blowing huge amounts of cash on unusual tech projects.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

 

[Kiddluck]

Plot twist: first show is about a family business trying to make lollipops that taste like fried chicken, called Cocksuckers

Barely wanted to read this but came here for the comments -- they did not disappoint.

 

[Kiddluck]

Kinda weird. But then again, I didn't think an online book seller (Amazon) would be become one of the world's largest cloud service providers (AWS).

Difference being that Amazon started AWS because they were addressing the needs of one of their core business - bullet proof reliability and scalability especially during high volume shopping events. (EG: Black Friday)

They got so good at it that they started offering their solution to other companies, hence AWS and the rest is history...

 

[sebnukem]

When this reality timeline couldn't get any weirder.

 

[Rick C.]

Mr. Rogers taught a lot of kids good values, but no I can't say I was "raised by" Mr. Rogers, just that he was an influence, and if the spiteful angry and hateful rhetoric a good percentage of our populace is any indication, his influence was utterly swamped out in many families by other more vindictive influences.

I’ve never liked the word ‘values’. I prefer to think Mr. Rogers simply taught everyone how to be decent human beings towards each other.

 

[Asecondname]

I fully expect their shows to be full of bigotry and/or "anti-woke" horseshit, given the company history and their customer base. No fucking thanks.

Yeah, I don't know if there's a Christian streaming service, but it seems like it would an open and lucrative market.