Watchmen detractors who call the show too political are ignoring that the source material itself was a politically charged text

Vox

"Despite glowing reviews from critics, HBO’s adaptation of Watchmen is proving to be divisive among some comic book fans," says Alex Abad-Santos. "It’s not the acting or cinematography of the TV drama follow-up to the influential superhero story that they have a problem with. Instead, some disdainful viewers are outraged that showrunner Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen is too 'political,' too entrenched in 'identity politics' — too 'SJW' ('social justice warrior') — in ways that they think writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’s original comic wasn’t. Watchmen currently has a 46 percent audience approval score on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to its 96 percent critic approval rating. On Metacritic, it has a 6.8 positive audience score, with 35 negative reviews. In contrast, not one professional outlet listed on Metacritic gave the show an outright negative review. The same is true on social media, where some fans have been talking about how they find the new Watchmen far more political than the one they grew up with. But the story here isn’t about how critics and audiences perceive quality differently — enjoyment, after all, is subjective. Rather, viewers who bash the HBO show for being too political seem to ignore that the source material itself was a politically charged text, and that Moore was deliberately admonishing American power politics. But in Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen, those scathing criticisms that Moore embedded into the comic series become impossible to ignore."

ALSO:

• Watchmen is the latest target of "review-bombing" over claims of the HBO drama being "woke propaganda": "What’s notable about the Watchmen campaign, or the anti-Watchmen campaign," says Kevin Fallon, "is that it appears to be fueled by seemingly passionate fans of writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’ 1987 graphic novel who have misinterpreted the story’s themes and character motivations."
• Watchmen is more connected to the comics than you think: HBO offers four different PDF in-world documents that will give you a better understanding of the show
• Tim Blake Nelson's voice is the breakout sex symbol of Watchmen