FX
“Mayans M.C.” co-creators Kurt Sutter and Elgin James addressed the amount of violence depicted in their FX series in the wake of two mass shootings over the weekend, including one in El Paso that police believe was targeted towards Latinos.
Sutter argued that the violence in “Mayans” is always done with a purpose and it’s never meant to be glorified.
“I feel like we’re sort of an easy target up here, because our show is really gritty it leans with what it is,” he said Tuesday during the Television Critics Association press tour. “It’s uncomfortable to watch sometimes and it’s not being portrayed by pretty white people.”
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Sutter then called out comic book films for portraying the same amount of violence as his series, but not facing criticism.
“Every superhero movie is loaded top to bottom with violence, but because it’s done with lasers by f–king pretty folks in tights, somehow that’s more palatable,” he said. “I would say that shit is more irresponsible than the stories we’re trying to tell. Because within those stories we saw the ramifications of that. We see f–king people shattered. We see families shattered, we see the pain. And it’s never done in a gratuitous way. It’s never done in a way where I feel like we’re making it sexy or glorifying it. But it is the world, it’s the world… I don’t write about doctors or f–king lawyers or firemen. “
“Mayans M.C.,” a spinoff of Sutter’s popular FX drama “Sons of Anarchy,” features a cast that is made up of almost entirely Latino people. A year ago, Sutter and Elgin James addressed their reason for using the all-too-common trope of depicting Latinos as gang members on television. The topic was brought up again on Tuesday due to the two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.
“The fact that it’s been almost 20 years fighting white supremacists — literally fighting white supremacists — so it’s trying to figure out now, how to do that through art,” James added. “With this show, we inherited a very heightened very hyper-violent language to tell our story.”
In El Paso, police have said they believe the suspect wrote a document that was filled with anti-immigration language and hatred towards Latinos.
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