Scientology News and Propaganda > Scientology - The Hollywood Edition

[Yahoo] Is 2 Broke Girls too offensive?

(1/1)

News Thetan:
Is 2 Broke Girls too offensive?
13 January 2012, 12:43 pm
By Alex Strachan, Postmedia News

Every so often, something breaks through the plastic facade of Tinseltown. A shard of reality pierces the bubble of hype and ego, and, for once, no amount of spin can control the message....

....2 Broke Girls is about two single women, one formally wealthy, the other not so much, who find themselves working together in a low-end diner to make ends meet. 2 Broke Girls is heavy on sexual innuendo and light on meaning — like many sitcoms on the broadcast networks. Reviewers have complained that the workplace scenes, in which the waitresses ridicule their regular customers behind their backs, is a litany of racist, sexist, homophobic jokes, where cardboard caricatures are set up just to be torn down. Ironically, 2 Broke Girls won the People’s Choice Award last night for best new TV comedy.

Viewers really seem to like it: 2 Broke Girls has settled comfortably between second-year hit, Mike & Molly, and the ageless Two and a Half Men, as one of TV’s most-watched comedies. 2 Broke Girls has helped bolster its parent network, CBS, to the top of Monday’s ratings, by a wide margin. 2 Broke Girls airs on Citytv in Canada; Two and a Half Men and Mike & Molly air on CTV.

The news conference, which was supposed to be a birthday party of sorts for a breakout comedy CBS says is the most-watched new series of the season, comedy or drama, started on a downbeat note and went downhill from there.

2 Broke Girls has become known for its broad racial and ethnic humour, King was told, right off the top.

“Thank you,” he said icily.

That view of 2 Broke Girls is stereotypical in its own right, King suggested.

“I think our show is a big, ballsy comedy, but it has a bigger heart than it has balls,” King said. “I feel that it is broad and brash and very current. It takes place in Williamsburg, New York, which, you know — well, if you don’t know, all you have to do is Google it — is a mash-up of young, irreverent hipsters, old-school oldsters and different nationalities from different ethnic backgrounds. Our show is about two very young, smart girls surrounded by a wide range of supporting characters.”

King took umbrage at the word “sassy” to describe his female lead characters. While “sassy” fits on one level, the word itself is lazy, superficial and meaningless, he implied.

“In order to be sassy, you have to have an intellectual point of view that gives you some sass,” he explained patiently. “So we like to think that the characters are both smart.”

King didn’t stay patient for long, though, as the temperature — and the tone of the questions — heated up.

One critic, noting a reference in last week’s episode to the infamous 2000 John Travolta film Battlefield Earth, based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, asked, “How far back do you like to go to drop your insults on people?”

The characters’ references come from their lives, King replied: They’re simply saying what a person of that age and cultural background would say.

“We’ve done everything from Battlefield Earth to Bugs Bunny,” he said. “Humour is basically our way of having Max (Dennings’ character) survive.”

The characters were one-note from the beginning, King was told.

“I don’t think the characters were one-note,” he replied. “I thought the characters were the first note. As a writer — I mean, I’ve had a lot of experience being on shows over the years — and what you try to do as a writer, and what we are trying to do as a writing staff, and what the actors are doing every day, is grow.”....

more at http://www.canada.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Broke+Girls+offensive/5991822/story.html

Navigation

[0] Message Index