Dark Side of the 90's takes a deep dive into the decade's untold history, revealing secrets, and perspectives. |
||
Ratings: | TVMaze: 6.2/10 | |
Released: | July 15, 2021 | |
Runtime: | 60 min | |
Countries: | United States | |
Companies: | Railsplitter Pictures Vice TV | |
Trailers (1)
Episodes
Search on other sites
Streaming Services
Popular PlaylistsMore
Similar TitlesMore

Why is it dark side? I dont see any dark in those topics.
Also, the 90s aren’t generally known as some idyllic decade to begin with. politics, economy, civil rights. All a terrible mess.
It wasn’t perfect, but compared with the last two decades, it was a walk in the park, lol. Back when we thought the internet was going to liberate society from all its woes, rather than cause them. . .
Also, for a few years, it didn’t feel like humanity was doomed. That was cool.
Very true
Not a mess to me. Best years of my life. I will say that the Oklahoma City Bombing was horrible, but the economy among other things was on the up for me and my family/friends. The 2000’s have been exciting, terrifying, upsetting, weird, HOPEful for a bit, then down, down, down the drain: a mess.
I’ve never heard anyone say the 90s were bad to live in. You must haven not lived in them. One of the reasons 9/11 shook so hard is because it represented the end of the utopia days.
The “civil rights” bit is exceptionally confusing. I don’t know what decade homey is talking about, but it sounds more like the 60’s/70’s than the 90’s.
You must have not heard of the No WTO movement, which was a predecessor to the Occupy movements, but its momentum was cut short due to 9/11.
I knew people who were at the protests in Seattle. But that has nothing to do with “civil rights.”
Well, considering civil rights are “guarantees of equal social opportunities and protection under the law, regardless of race, religion, or other characteristics”, and the WTO directly infringes on countries’ sovereignty and the environment and, therefore, on the citizens’ freedoms, opportunities and rights, I would say it did have to do with civil rights. The world is not only the US.
I actually agree with your political perspective but the term simply does not apply to the WTO.
“Civil rights” are issues that deal with equal protection of human beings under the law. Insofar as the WTO is an economic organization regulating economic interactions between states, it does not deal with the equal application of human rights to individuals or groups. The WTO, while it certainly is discriminatory in treatment of developing countries as a whole and individually, does not single out racial or ethnic groups, or any other subdivision of their population for differential treatment under the law.
It is most definitely a tool of economic control by economically-powerful states against less-powerful ones, and is used as a means of enforcing protectionist policies on a global level, but it does not prevent groups of people within countries from voting, or affect the application of criminal laws as it applies to individual humans.
To reiterate: the WTO is a regulatory economic body amongst states, not a body that affects the rights of individuals or groups within those states to have equal access to democratic processes or other basic human rights. It may secondarily affect those, in a broad sense, but not in a way that could be regulated under the rubric of international human rights laws, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights or the International Covenant on Civil and Poltiical Rights.
Once again, I agree with you that the WTO is a terrible thing. As I said, I had friends that were involved in the protests. But the objection to the WTO was over their economic policy towards developing nations, not their effect on individuals’ political rights.
I’m not going to get into this kind of debate with a stranger on a pirate streaming page. Personally, I think you are overlooking serious aspects regarding the power and influence of the WTO. Mainly, that if they can overrule a country’s sovereignty, they ARE undermining that state’s democracy and therefore, invalidating citizens’ voting rights.
“April 29, 1992. There was a riot on the streets. Tell me, where were you?” Civil Rights have been an issue for every decade since the Civil War. It’s 2 steps forward, 1 step back. In the 90s cops used a technique called “profiling” where, basically, if you looked a certain way you would get stopped for a fishing expedition. And if they didn’t find anything, they’d antagonize you until you lost your temper, rough you up, toss you in a cell and drag you in front of the magistrate the next day. Things eventually reached a boiling point. Rodney King, a dude who was too drunk to be driving, led police on a high speed chase for a good minute before they stopped him, dragged him bodily from his car and took turns beating on him for 10 minutes. Someone happened to video tape it and the result was a firestorm in Los Angeles. Ice Cube said, in his song called “Wicked” we’d see a sequel to April 29th. And we sure did.
Hey man, I remember Rodney King, too. But nobody’s calling the 90’s the “civil rights” decade. We’ve had more movement and attention on that front in the last decade and way back in the 60’s than ever happened in the 90’s. And police still profile minorities to this day, such as Border Patrol/other law enforcement having legal exemption to stop people who “look Mexican.”
I agree that the LA Riots were an important part of history in America, but (unfortunately) no major national legal changes or societal movements occurred as a direct result. Most of the criticism and reforms were focused on the local level, and on the LAPD. Not saying that’s how it should be, just saying it didn’t come to symbolize the decade (or take on national importance) the way BLM or the civil rights movement have come to symbolize their respective periods.
Edit: I don’t want to undercut the merit of your post, so I hope you don’t take it that way. I do think it’s funny that this conversation has gotten way more historically “real” than any episode of this silly TV show, haha.
I agree with you. The Rodney King thing didn’t inspire country-wide protests and were specific to the LAPD. There was no George Floyd bringing of people together. It was a big event, though, and one well documented in the OJ documentary, as well. As I mentioned, compared to the breakneck cycle of the internet and cable news of today, the 90’s seemed a breeze to my average American kid coming of age self. If anything, we were too innocent.
Every decade has had it’s bad / good. But I can no say at no time has it been a utopia. It’s just unless you sought out to be more informed you wouldn’t neccessarily hear what was going on. I recall listening to the BBC world service on CBC radio Canada to hear about conflicts in the world.
I admit I wasn’t well-informed and that there were surely other things going on. But this is an American 90s show. Not a lot of dark things happened in America in the 90s, or at least not as you say to my knowledge. I stand by my people’s rose coloured glasses being broken after 9/11. There was a lot that happened then but the internet wasn’t big enough and the news media wasn’t as big as they are so you just didn’t know about it like you can now. Also, this series doesn’t hold back. It’s Vice and their wrestling ones are pretty real, so if there were bigger, juicier issues, I’m sure they’d have done those instead.
A person could be easily fooled by the titles of these episodes who hasn’t watched full thru & think it’s solely about that, but they do a good job of weaving in the more darker things into the show.
First WTC & OKC bombings,Columbine. First Iraq conflict, Rodney King + LA riots just to name a few of the f’d up things that went on. I mean you wanna throw in finding out that the CIA put cocaine / crack into the streets as well it was the 80’s but the 90’s it came out I believe.
Enjoy the remaining episodes!