One of my guilty pleasures in younger days were the early series of Hustle. It can be interesting seeing how stories deal with trying to make heroic or hero-adjacent characters from unrepentant criminals. In this particular case, it was just to make their marks a collection of the most unbearable inflated pricks that ever acquired obscene wealth. Sure, our guys were criminals, but nobody got themselves ripped off who didn't deserve far worse.
Except that only worked up to a point. The long con each week might have been targeted at gibbering turdwhiskers, but there was no shortage of low-level theft perpetrated against decent law-abiding folk so Mickey could fund his next heist, which rather ruined the cheeky-chappy avenging angel vibe of the whole thing.
So let's have another show in a similar vein, but without the ripping off of everyday folk on the way to targetting colossal gits. Also, let's take out the idea that the targets have to be utterly horrible human beings. The only criteria for a fleecing should be that they're disgustingly wealthy, and doing little to nothing to help anyone with it. Let's dispense with the thinking that says curling up on your disgraceful wealth like a tax-dodging dragon isn't despicable behaviour all on its own. Stealing from those people would be a great idea, socially speaking. You get the money back into circulation, meaning more revenues for the government and a stimulus effect on your local area. The increased paranoia of Scrooge McDuck or whoever will mean hiring more security and so forth, which will bite into unemployment. And of course if you chuck a healthy percentage of your scores at assorted charities, who know how many orphans and puppies you could help?
Obviously social justice is the bedrock here, so let's see some variation in the cast here. None of Hustle's "you can have one non-white guy and one white non-guy" here, thanks very much. I don't want to see a single white cishet man on the team, unless it's his job to make the tea.
All of which leaves us with only two problems. First, we need a catchy name. Fun though it is to say, "White Arseholes Get What's Coming To Them: The Series" lacks a certain punch. But the second problem is much bigger. An assembled team of women, people of colour, trans* people and LGBT people? Who the hell could we possibly trust to actually write that?
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