[CLEVELAND SHOW] and Why Pans from Pulitzer Prize-Winning TV Critic Cannot Convery its Suckiness
Terrence Briggs
Cannot Convery its Suckiness
Tom Shales doesn't get The Cleveland Show. (I pretty much get it, but
I just don't find it very funny.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/09/25/DI2009092502153.html
On a Washington Post chat, Tom Shales makes the following
observation:
"swearing on The Wire vs the swearing on Cleveland show. WELL FOR ONE
THING, THE WIRE DID NOT INVITE CHILDREN INTO THE TENT. I don't care
WHAT language is used on a show aimed at adults. "
Shales' official review of TCS isn't much better:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR2009092804049.html
It's pretty much a list of grievances. The Pulitzer Prize-winning,
Spongebob Squarepants-loving TV critic clearly didn’t get the show,
and he was clearly grasping at generic, content-based offenses (black
people as “others”, mutilation, toilet humor, etc.) to express his
distaste for the show.
In fairness to Cleveland Show, I must ask: Is it possible for an
animated show to not invite children into the tent? I asked the same
question during an American University forum several years ago. MTV's
2001 analysis of the Neilsen ratings stated that some of the most
popular shows among teens were Monday Night Football, American Idol,
Survivor, and X-Men: Evolution. With the exception of X-Men, all of
those shows were popular among adults, as well. So I asked the
question: Is it possible to target young adults without targeting
minors (specifically, teens)?
That's the problem with shows such as Family Guy, Simpsons, and South
Park: They are shows made by adults with a sense of humor that teens
also admire. (Compare to a high-toned British sitcom, which may have a
sense of humor that most ADULTS probably won't get.)
McFarlane pitches a big tent (if you'll pardon the double-entendre).
It's too bad that what's playing is such a freak show.
But that's a conversation for another time; the conversation seems
pretty heated, already. I'm not really sure what I can say about The
Cleveland Show that can't be construed as racist, so I'll say it
anyway: It's no worse than Boondocks.
Yes, that Boondocks, created by black University of Maryland alum
Aaron MacGruder. The guy who (kinda) stated in a C-Span youth lecture
that Boondocks about pretty much about angry black politics. The show
that spent several minutes defining the "n*gga moment". The show
whose second season spent more time on non sequitir action sequences
than Family guy did with the big chicken. Oh yeah, the show that had
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr rise from the dead... to castigate
partygoers for attending an urban radio station's shindig. (Imagine
Bill Cosby chastising dancers at a high school prom for embarrassing
the race.)
So no, TCS isn't all that. It's not a misanthropic headshake, like
Boondocks. It's not an ironically bland sitcom like American Dad. It's
certainly not as freewheeling as Family Guy, which used brown-tinted
variations of its characters to coyly observe that incompetent black
MVA employees were the price America paid for slavery. (What would
Matt Groening's Patty and Selma say to that?)
TCS feels more like a capitulation to the (inevitable) forces of
humorless resistance to rudeness. Instead of making a black Family
Guy, they've made a black, depoliticized American Dad with more non
sequitir cutaway gags. To put it more simply, it’s frat boys farting
while shooting the breeze about the cultural detritus they observe.
(When Cleveland painfully shouts "Ow! I sat on my nuts!", it's a
punctuation without a sentence.) Despite all of Tom Shales' lazy
handwringing, that's basically all it is. For Tom’s sake, I wish TCS
engaged in less scatological, more mannered clownish behavior, but
that’s Saturday Night live’s game, and that’s largely why American Dad
is such a dead zone. In the end, it’s boring behavioral humor and
facile irony protracted beyond its breaking point.
Look, I "get" McFarlane. I get that he's rollicking in Monty Phython-
esque absurdism for its own sake. I get that he's smutting it up for
effect, because bawdiness in legitimate currency in many circles. I
get the mindblowingly hilarious irony of seeing spicy content
ramrodded into notoriously sphincteral media: American sitcoms and
American cartoons.
I just can't bother myself to get bent out of shape about it. Unlike,
say, Boondocks it's doesn't provoke any real response. Despite the
jokes about blacks as others, genital mutilation, and human toilets,
my only response is "ho-hum".
Which is not to suggest that McFarlane and company should try HARDER
to get a reaction out of me. They should try SMARTER. Try to EVOLVE
from what Family Guy accomplished. Imagine that: A black Family Guy
that actually more sbutle, more character-driven, less scattershot,
and more focused than the white Family Guy. What would MacFarlane's
critics say then?
Terrence Briggs, never thought the explosion of prime time broadcast
animation would be synonymous with the impolosion of Saturday morning
broadcast animation.
Peace to you...
Terrence Briggs
> [CLEVELAND SHOW] and Why Pans from Pulitzer Prize-Winning TV Critic
> Cannot Convery its Suckiness
>
> Tom Shales doesn't get The Cleveland Show. (I pretty much get it, but
> I just don't find it very funny.)
>
> On a Washington Post chat, Tom Shales makes the following
> observation:
>
> "swearing on The Wire vs the swearing on Cleveland show. WELL FOR ONE
> THING, THE WIRE DID NOT INVITE CHILDREN INTO THE TENT. I don't care
> WHAT language is used on a show aimed at adults. "
>
Jim Sumner
McFarlane is doing classic leftist comedy that hasn't been cutting
edge in 40 years, he's an overrated bore.