Unequal
Opportunity Offender
Comedy Central's animated version of reality TV missteps with dull take
on racial stereotypes.
There is
a difference between being offensive within material that is funny on
its own merits and just being offensive to be offensive, and the first
episode of the new block of “Drawn Together” debuting 10:30 p.m.
Wednesday, January 25 on Comedy Central falls on the wrong side of that
line.
The show trots out numerous racist stereotype cartoon characters
commonly seen in cartoons from the 1930s through 1950s, especially a few
black stereotypes, as part of a plot in which the show’s Foxy Brown
character gets transformed into one such character. “Drawn Together”
tries to hedge its bets in this exercise by having the other characters
trying to save her from being erased along with the other stereotypical
characters -- by a megalomaniacal Darth Vader-like Mickey Mouse, if you
can imagine that.
While such a villain does ring funny, the show’s creators end this
episode with a tacked-on moral delivered by the male chauvinist pig
character about the incorrectness of trying to erase history. The
episode’s lazy parody hasn’t earned the right to moralize about
anything.
It’s too bad, because all the same there are certain equally sick or
wrong jokes that do fly, like the superhero character’s becoming
wheelchair-bound like Christopher Reeve and repeatedly failing to save
the day as a result. Overall though, this “kick-off” episode is
irretrievably marred by its dull trafficking in stereotypes. |