ALWAYS THE PADAWAN, NEVER THE JEDI: Sepinwall recaps the penultimate Michael Scott episode of The Office and pretty much captures my thoughts -- it was uneven, the whole Will Ferrell thing is indulgent, but damn that ending had me verklempt.
I just want to ask about a side question: have we really reached the point as a culture where, half-bleeped, you now can say the word motherf**ker on network television at 9:25 pm? Between that and Amy Poehler's bleeped "F*ck you, Ann!" a few minutes later on P&R, I'm wondering whether it's time to just abandon the whole bleepin' business and let tv creative types, and the audience, just decide together what's appropriate for each show. I don't think anyone who watches either show was offended by either term, but nor would they be if the words were unbleeped either. Or are there still lines one cannot cross in terms of what we expect from network tv?
Added: The video, below the fold.
I will say, as I mentioned in my review, that often the bleeps are funnier than the regular profanity. "Action" loses a ton on DVD when you can just hear Jay Mohr curse, and "Arrested Development" really mastered the art of making the bleeps themselves part of the punchline.
ReplyDeleteBut to answer your actual question, I agree that it's somewhat silly at this point. Either these shows shouldn't be allowed to feature profanity, bleeped or otherwise, or they should. This is fooling no one any more than when, in the newspaper, I had to write "f--k" when using a direct quote from "The Sopranos."
I really enjoyed "The Office" last night. I thought it was a fine moment for the return of the Dundees. (Though I would've enjoyed seeing the bosses try to deliver a nomination to Creed...under his desk? in Canada?) I'm really glad that they are building Ferrell to be a different kind of boss instead of another Michael. Dwight finally gets what he wants, acknowledgement of being "Assistant Manager", and he chucks it in the trash. The episode made me laugh in a way that the show hasn't in quite a while.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much fodder for offending touchy people in any Office episode that it seems silly to latch onto a specific utterance of a single profanity (bleeped even) as objectionable. If you let everything else slide, but someone dropping the MF bomb gets your dander up, then you have no business watching it and probably don't even think it's a funny show.
ReplyDeleteI thought overall it was a good episode if only for the Jim-faces. And the Seasons of Love adaptation was really sweet.
I may be forgetting my communications law (it's been a while), but under Pacifica, such thngs can be, and are, regulated, no? Motherf***er is still one of the infamous seven words, right? I think the FCC or Congress would have to change the regulatory scheme in order to eliminate the bleeping. Something tells me that's not likely in the near future.
ReplyDeleteThey are still regulated. The line just keeps shifting a little, year by year. It's unimaginable that NYPD Blue would have featured "fuck" in bleeped form a decade ago, though there may also be a comedy/drama line in play here.
ReplyDeleteWherever the line of profanity exists on TV, Steven Tyler sure was trying his damndest to cross it Wednesday night.
ReplyDeleteOn the theatrical front, still perfectly fine for folks to say any word they want in a play, but Stephen Adly Gurgis' "The Mother****** With The Hat" has now effectively been retitled "The Mother With The Hat" in most ads, with some just going with "Mother/Hat." The Playbill cover and the maquee refer to it as "The Motherf**ker With The Hat."
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to say that kids whom you don't want hearing MFer shouldn't be watching TV at 9:30 anyway but it's still only 8:30 in the central time zone, a time at which watching TV is appropriate, in a lot of cases. I certainly wouldn't want my elementary schooler hearing MFer on TV before bedtime.
ReplyDeleteWhat's weird to me, though, is that the -hole of asshole gets bleeped. Isn't ass the dirtier part, semantically speaking?
See also Jimmy Kimmel's great moments in unnecessary censors***.
ReplyDeleteThe hole is dirtier because of what it's attached to. Your face-hole is your mouth, and is not inherently dirty. (Or your nostrils.)
ReplyDeleteI believe The New York Times uses "The _____ With The Hat." Which just seems like such a copout to me. I think it's a pretty fair bet that anyone reading the Times' arts section is a mature adult, and should be treated like a mature adult, not coddled like ______ infant who is too fragile to hear a nasty word.
ReplyDeleteD'Angelo is a puzzling character, I don't get how he's even relevant in these episodes, unless he has a nervous breakdown in the finale.
ReplyDeleteI think the bleep works here since both shows are supposed to be documentaries. So in the fictional world where this is a real documentary about a real company and a real municipal government agency, their standards would have been to bleep those words when showing this to their audiences. I don't think the bleeps work as well if these are just straight up one-camera sitcoms about their respective subjects.
ReplyDeleteOut here in the heart of flyover country (MOUNTAIN time zone), I know a lot of people that would have gone bat-**** crazy if Michael Scott had said motherfucker. I think part of it is that Carrell is seen as a family man- voicing the lead in Despicable Me pushes him over there. I know many of them would "expect that sort of behavior" from pot-smoking Amy Poehler.
ReplyDeleteEither way, I don't know that NBC would be the network to cross this line first. They can't risk the viewers. FOX would still be the network I'd expect to go first (Follwed closely by CW)