TV dialogue can function to convey thematic messages and ideologies. For example, characters sometimes explicitly comment on social reality or social issues. More rarely, a whole storyline can work as a critique of a problematic aspect of society, as in episode 16 of season 4 of the sitcom Brooklyn 99, which tackles police racism and racial profiling:

In an interview with a Washington Post reporter, Showrunner Dan Goor said ‘This is an episode or an area that I wanted to explore, I think, as early as season 1 or season 2. But I just had so much trouble finding a way in and then figuring out exactly how to pull it off.’

Another Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode thematically explores the process of coming out and what it means to be bisexual (and how people react), and concludes with this message from Captain Holt about the importance of being ‘out’:

Example (1)
CAPTAIN HOLT: Diaz, you should be very proud of yourself. I know things aren’t exactly where you wanna be right now, but, uh, I promise you they will improve.
ROSA: Thank you, Captain.
CAPTAIN HOLT: Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world becomes a better, more interesting place. So, thank you.
(Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 5, episode 10, “Game Night”)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine has also tackled sexual harassment in a dedicated storyline in season 6 (episode 8, “He said, she said”). However, sometimes it is not the whole storyline but individual stretches of dialogue that function in this way. An instance where a piece of TV dialogue challenges hegemonic ideologies in relation to gender/sexuality can be seen in  example (2) from the crime dramedy Castle:

Example (2)
RYAN: I’m telling you, true commitment’s a thing of the past. I mean, name one happily married couple.
CASTLE: Degeneres and de Rossi.
ESPOSITO: Ooh, he got you there, bro.
(SydTV, Castle)

This conversation between one of the main characters, (male) crime writer Castle, and two male detectives challenges hegemonic assumptions about marriage, by referencing Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi as an example of a happily married couple. Castle contradicts Ryan and forces him (and perhaps some viewers) to re-think who it is we think of when we think of a married couple. The extract also functions to create realism by referring to a well-known real-life celebrity couple (see references to the ‘real’ world).

Explicit messages to the audience are occasionally conveyed through written text that is superimposed on the screen and that directly encourages the audience to act, as in example (3) from Jane The Virgin, which thematises immigration laws in the US.

Example (3)
IMMIGRATION LAWYER: I screened your application, which looks [very brief pause] mostly good.
ALBA [in Spanish, with English subtitles]: Mostly?
IMMIGRATION LAWYER: Well, Jane communicated to me that you’re on the cautious side.
JANE: Yeah.
ALBA [agrees, then in Spanish, with English subtitles]: Tell him about Maria’s mother.
XIOMARA: There was this girl in my grade school, she came home one day, her mom was deported. It was [very brief pause] pretty traumatic.
JANE: So what’s the issue with my grandmother’s application?
IMMIGRATION LAWYER: Well, it came up in your [pointing at Xiomara] background check, actually. Since you’re Alba’s sponsor, your felony conviction could be a problem.
[Jane and Alba, aghast, look at Xiomara; camera briefly shows us Xiomara’s perplexed face before fading out to black.]
[Fade in]
XIOMARA: This is crazy! What felony?
IMMIGRATION LAWYER: For grand theft, back in the ’90s.
JANE [in overlap with XIOMARA]: No, there must be a mistake.
XIOMARA [in overlap with JANE]: You mean the jewelry store?
JANE: What jewelry store?
XIOMARA: No, th-this is a mistake. I-it was a misdemeanor, shoplifting. A felon is, like, a murderer.
IMMIGRATION LAWYER: Or, in the state of Florida, anyone who steals in excess of $400, which is what you pled guilty to.
ALBA [in Spanish, with English subtitles]: What did you steal?
XIOMARA: It was this guy I was seeing, Zed. We-we worked together at Slushie [Alba groans] Palace. He stole this ring that I liked. I took the fall for him, because he had a prior conviction. I was 18 and in love. I got community service, I thought it went away.
ALBA [in Spanish, with English subtitles]: Well it didn’t.
JANE: Okay, so… is this gonna make it harder for my grandmother to get a Green Card?
IMMIGRATION LAWYER: Possibly. It’s hard to say for sure, immigration laws are constantly changing.

[The words “#vote, #vote, #vote” appear in turn on screen in red, white and blue, accompanied by a ‘thumping’ sound.]

IMMIGRATION LAWYER: But I know that your grandmother is cautious.
[Scene continues]
(Jane The Virgin, season 2, episode 5, “Chapter Twenty-Seven”)

Immigration policies and procedures (and racism) are also critiqued in the following example from the prison drama Orange is the New Black (Netflix), in which many storylines and conversations can be interpreted as offering social criticism (especially of the prison system, but also of many other aspects of contemporary America):

Example (4)
[Polycon ICE Detention Center kitchen. GLORIA, LORNA, FLACA, NICKY, and RED are already inside the kitchen, when Polycon guard WANDA enters.]
WANDA [Polycon guard]: Welcome to the PolyCon ICE Detention Center kitchen, ladies. You got 75 detainees out there waitin’ for grub. Most of them don’t speak English, but they all speak Hungarian, so chop-chop. Who’s in charge?
GLORIA: Uh, I’ll get us started.
[two turns between RED and GUARD]
GLORIA: Hey, you wanna chop?
NICKY: Uh, I’ll help. Looks like a two-person job, huh?
GLORIA: All right, let’s see. Uh, we have, uh, expired vegetables in a can-d uh, expired meat substitute. Uh, onions that are sprouted and mealy garlic. All right, look, at least the rice looks good. Lorna – peel the garlic, cut all the bad parts out. Flaca, start boilin’ the water for the rice.
LORNA: I know they’re bad kids, but don’t they need more food than this to grow?
NICKY: This isn’t juvie, sweetheart. It’s different kind of detention.
FLACA [quietly]: Yeah, immigrant detention.
NICKY: Hey, do you wanna live in the USA? Are you white? Preferably Western European or Australian white? No? Wait here. Have some old, fake meat prepared by felons. Welcome to America!
LORNA: Well, it’s better than Ellis Island, where they just let everybody in. I mean, now look.
NICKY: Yeah, now look. You’re here ’cause your family came in through… Ellis Island. Back when the thought of America becoming a fascist regime with one party ruling behind a .. radical authoritarian was unthinkable! Huh – how times have changed!
LORNA [addressing Gloria]: Did you have to go through a detention center when you came from [announcing slowly/carefully:] Puerto Rico?
GLORIA: I’m an American citizen, Puerto Rico is part of America.
LORNA [surprised]: Oh!
GLORIA: It’s a poverty-bound outpost with Latin food and limited job prospects, but still part of the US.
FLACA: Sounds a lot like the Bronx.
[Scene continues]
(Orange is the New Black, season 7, episode 4, “How to Do Life”)

In an episode from the comedy The Good Place (Netflix), Eleanor directly addresses various aspects of US society, from selfishness, to environmental damage, to the health care system. While she is ostensibly talking to an Australian bartender, this can clearly be interpreted as a thematic message to the audience:

Example (5)
[The scene takes place in an Australian bar. Eleanor, already drunk, is sitting at the bar by herself, finishing a cocktail, and talking to the bartender. She has just explained her ‘rules’ to him, including her wish to do whatever she wants and that others leave her alone.]
BARTENDER: So you just take care of yourself. You don’t owe anything to anyone else? [He scoffs.] If people lived that way, society would break down.
ELEANOR: Yeah, in America, everyone does whatever they want, society did break down, it’s terrible, and it’s great. You only look out for number one, scream at whoever disagrees with you, there are no bees because they all died, and if you need surgery, you just beg for money on the Internet – it’s a perfect system. Now get me another drink, tomorrow is my birthday.
(The Good Place, season 3, episode 4, “Jeremy Bearimy”)

The British TV series Happy Valley includes an interesting conversation among policewomen about misogyny and sexism in the force:

Example (6)
CATHERINE: It was wonderful! It was really every day was a misogynistic delight from start to finish. The best thing when I joined up, this is like 300 years ago, in the 1980s, you didn’t get a truncheon if you were a woman, you got a handbag! Thanks!
OTHER WOMAN: No, you did get a truncheon. You got one of them, little, you know, little doodah things.
CATHERINE: That’s right, yeah! Like a vibrator. A handbag and a vibrator. Great! What you gonna do with that when someone’s coming at you with an Uzi and a machete?
OTHER WOMAN: They were big enough to keep a brick in, them handbags.
BOTH: Just!
[…]
CATHERINE: And skirts. There were no trousers. [to younger woman at table:] You don’t know you’re born, you lot. We used to freeze our knackers off on a night shift.
OTHER WOMAN: Ooh, and do you remember, “Stockings or tights?”
CATHERINE: Oh!
OTHER WOMAN: You’d, you’d run the gauntlet every time you walked through the CID office. They’d have their hands up your skirts, twanging your suspenders to see if you were sharp or flat.
CATHERINE: And you just took it!
OTHER WOMAN: You had to.
(Happy Valley, season 2, episode 5)

In example (7), from the Australian serial drama The Heights, teenager Mich discusses a sexting incident with his mother, a conversation that includes explicit thematic messages about victim-blaming and toxic masculinity.

Example (7)
MICH: So Sabine was seeing this guy, Dane.
LEONIE: The brat you had a punch-on with at the pub launch?
MICH: Right, he’s a knob. [Leonie nods] Sabine took a pic when they were together and sent it to him.
LEONIE: What sort of pic?
MICH: You know, [miming] a pic.
LEONIE: Oh, do kids really do that?
MICH: Mum.
LEONIE: OK, yeah.
MICH: Alright, so anyway, they broke up and Dane sent them out.
LEONIE: Without her permission?
MICH: Now they’re everywhere, and people are saying stuff.
LEONIE: That’s terrible.
MICH: Mm, well, she shouldn’t have sent them.
LEONIE: What?
MICH: If she didn’t want anyone to see it, she shouldn’t have sent it to him. You know, she shouldn’t have taken it in the first place.
LEONIE: Mich, I have never in my life wanted to slap your face but I am that close right now.
MICH: I can see that.
LEONIE: Sabine trusted someone she was in a relationship with and he completely betrayed that trust. For you to turn it around and make it her fault is inexcusable.
MICH: Alright, I’m sorry.
LEONIE: Listen to me because I mean this. That attitude is toxic. Women are never responsible for men harassing them.
MICH: OK [in overlap], OK.
LEONIE: Am I clear?
MICH: You’re extremely clear. But in my defence, I didn’t actually do anything wrong. I didn’t send it to anyone.
LEONIE: Not doing anything isn’t neutral. That’s still a choice. And do you think it’s the right one?
MICH: No.
[conversation continues]
(The Heights, season 1, episode 19, “Learning How to Trade”)

In example (8), from the British drama Years and Years (episode 6), the character Muriel Deacon gives a strong message to her family (“it’s all your fault”), which also seems to be directed at the audience, with a searing critique of recent developments in capitalism (such as the 1-pound T-shirt, and automated check-outs replacing cashiers).

Example (8)

Thematic messages can veer into the educational, as evident in example (9) from the Australian serial drama The Heights, which explains the concept of ableism:

Example (9)
[After watching him rehearse for a play, Sabine (who has Cerebral Palsy) is talking to Johnny, an actor with a physical disability. The encounter was set up by Sabine’s mother after Sabine decided to give up a major acting role in a school play.]
[…]
SABINE: It’s alright, you don’t need to do this.
JOHNNY: Do what?
SABINE: This is my mum’s way of going, “Here’s a person with a disability who hasn’t let it stop him from achieving his dreams.”
JOHNNY: [chuckles] I’m only doing this because Sani’s a mate. Okay, if you wanna act, act. If you don’t, don’t.
SABINE: I do, but it’s hard.
JOHNNY: [scoffs]
SABINE: There’s a big costume change I really struggle with.
JOHNNY: Tell the director you need extra time.
SABINE: Or someone else can play Eliza and problem’s solved.
JOHNNY: [scoffs] That fight sequence you just saw me rehearse? I needed twice as many hours with the choreographer as the other actor. Do you think that the production would be better off with an able-bodied actor in my role?
SABINE: No, that’s, not what I’m saying.
JOHNNY [interrupting]: The implication’s certainly there. In fact, everything you’re saying is kind of … ableist.
SABINE: How can I be ableist when I have CP?
JOHNNY: [inhales] It’s internalised ableism. Okay, you see your disability as a negative – as something that you have to disguise in order to fit in. [pause] Look… I know where you’re at, alright? I’ve been there too. But you’re only making life harder for yourself if you hold on to that attitude.
[Later in the episode, Sabine is talking to her friend Mich about the encounter]:
[…]
MICH: What’d he say?
SABINE: He said I have internalised ableism.
MICH: What’s that?
SABINE: Apparently it’s this thing that people with a disability can sometimes do? Try to hide it so people around them don’t have to deal with it. [sighs] I’m not explaining it right, just google it.
MICH: On it. [clears throat, before reading from his phone] “They internalise the prejudices of society, see their disability as something to be shunned and pitied.” [looks at Sabine]
SABINE: Go on.
MICH: “This makes them despise themselves and their bodies.”
SABINE: Maybe he had a point. I don’t know.
MICH: You don’t like yourself?
SABINE: No, I love myself [smiles].
MICH: There you go. [topic change, conversation continues]
(The Heights, season 2, episode 19, “Written in the Stars”)

Thematic messages are also often communicated via voice-over. In the final example, from Star Trek: Discovery, this takes the form of an audio diary entry (personal log) by Michael Burnham (female character), which the audience hears at the end of the episode (Star Trek: Discovery, season 1, episode 7):