[s1 spoilers] I really wish that Zaun and Zaunites got treated with more respect in the show.
If you're bothering to read this, please read till the end where I explain my thoughts.
The Juicy Part
The image above is the original pitch for Arcane, which, to me, seems to just simplify Zaun into some backwater city filled with criminals and vagrants instead of an oppressed group of people who, under unfortunate circumstances that are literally caused by the oppressors, are forced to resort to crime and violence to sustain themselves. Now obviously, the original pitch is different than what we got nine years after, but I think it shows an underlying problem with how the showrunner and writers view Zaun.
I will say they did a pretty good job the first season, but I'll mostly spend time on the things I didn't like. Firstly, I really didn't like was how they automatically treated violence as something inherently bad. An example of this would be with Vander's idealogy. Although Vander is technically right that a war with Piltover would absolutely destroy Zaun, the show seems to prop him up as the ideal, saying "yes, even though you are treated like shit, retaliating would just make it worse, so just be a good dog and keep your head down." The fear of not improving society and fighting for a better future because it would somehow lead to a worse future is so fucking stupid and is literally fucking propaganda that keeps the oppressors in power. A Zaunite freeing themselves from captivity is not the same as an enforcer throwing someone through a window. Violence of the oppressed is not the same as violence of the oppressor.
Here's another thing I didn't like. Just when I thought that they were going to try to show how Vander's ideology is flawed, they do another annoying trope, which is juxtaposing the docile pacificist to the violent revolutionary, which is Silco. Silco is interesting because he's propped up as a revolutionary fighting for Zaun, but he literally becomes a drug lord that significantly reduces the quality of life of the city that he's fighting for? No revolutionary would purposely do this. This is like if the Black Panthers started selling crack to Black neighborhoods or like if the LGBT community actually did child trafficking in order to gain power. What the fuck? Obviously even if Vander's ideology is flawed, it looks like heaven when it's compared to this fucking idiot's idea of a revolution. See the thing is, Silco isn't even a flawed revolutionary, he's literally just an opportunist. He doesn't educate people, he doesn't organize them, he just uses their discontent with the way things are to gain power. But can the average person really come to this conclusion, or when compared to Vander, do they just think that all revolutionaries are inherently violent. Lemme give you a quick lesson. Revolutions are not violent because of the oppressed. They are violent because of the counter-revolution brought by the oppressors, and then violence from the oppressed is necessary to counteract the counter-revolution.
At the end of the day though, the core part of Vander's and Silco's characters isn't their politics but their personalities. So really, I don't think either are good examples because quite frankly, they just don't care about Zaun itself. They only cared about it because that's where the people they loved were.
One final thing I didn't like in season 1 was how the independence of Zaun came from Piltover and not, y'know, fucking Zaun? This kinda goes back to Silco being fucking stupid and not actually fighting for Zaun in any way that matters. After Jayce commits child murder like a boss, he realizes the immense power that Piltover has over Zaun. That Jinx's attack on Progress Day is a small drop compared to the ocean of blood that Piltover can bring and has been bringing to Zaun for, like, 200 years. Also, Jayce has Viktor, his homoerotic lab partner, a brilliant mind from the undercity that literally saved Jayce from suicide, who is now dying because of Piltover's neglect of Zaun's air quality. With all of this in mind, Jayce, the Man of Progress that he is, offers Silco the independence of Zaun. Jayce, the literal face of Piltover - even though he's an immigrant, which is ironic - is more beneficial to Zaun than Silco, the "revolutionary" Zaunite. Goddamn it, I'm killing myself. Don't get me wrong, I think Jayce is one of the best characters in the show, and I loved him defying the council and literally trying to dismantle it. It's just that his deal with Silco seems to suggest that oppressed people aren't capable of making things better for themselves and that they need someone to come down and fix things for them. Also, sidenote: I don't understand why they had to take in Jinx and not Silco, like surely there could've been a court trial with witnesses, an investigation with proof, or something that literally prove that Silco is responsible for everything because, y'know, he fucking is? Even Silco is fine with it. Anybody wanna explain that for me?
The Parting Words
Okay, that's everything. Like I said, I did like some things from Season 1. Caitlyn's prejudice slowly going away as she falls in love with Vi. Ekko educating Heimerdinger on the reality of life in the undercity. Viktor's desire to help people stemming from his background as a neglected Zaunite. Hell, even a bunch of smart people, like Ekko, Jinx, and Viktor being from the undercity was good rep I think. I'm sure there's more things I liked that I can't think of, but let me know what you liked. The problem for me is that I feel like the show was pussyfooting around, either due to studio interference or because of uneducated ideas.
This was originally supposed to include Season 2 as well, but this shit doesn't need to be any longer than it already is. I think I'm just gonna make it into another post when I can.
Finally, if you wanna know why I'm so passionate about this shit, it's because I'm a Vietnamese immigrate who was born with a heart defect caused by the United States' use of Agent Orange in the Viet Nam War. So yeah, I fucking hate oppressors. I hate em.