I CONFESS. I LIKE comedies.
I don’t watch a lot of tv anymore. There is plenty on, albeit most shows are copies (rip-offs) of other programs that have lasted a full 13-episode season. (Are “seasons” still 13 weeks? It seems shorter; rather like the weight of products “sold by weight, not volume.” A pound is now, maybe, 12 ounces.)
Anyway . . .
MONDAY EVENING I was all set to watch two programs I found interesting during the previous season:
Both programs dealt, last season, with race as a non-issue. Blacks worked with whites, browns, and Orientals. People treated one another with common courtesy.
In “The Neighborhood,” set in in the black area Pasadena CA, the white neighbor and the black neighbor traded generally good natured barbs.
In “All Rise,” filmed in Los Angeles, the black judge’s confidant is a white prosecutor she knows from law school days. Her clerk is Oriental — and definitely in control — the public defender is a Latina who has a black sheriff’s deputy boyfriend and a white female roommate.
But Monday, 16 November 2020, everything changed.
“The Neighborhood” story line was about a black man who was beaten up by white cops.
No reason why the cops behaved the way they did. (At the end of the program, we learn that the cops were brought up on charges.)
There was nothing — repeat, nothing — funny in this episode. The father did make a point of telling one of his adult sons that the son should use his brain, not his fists, to make his point. Good advice, but this was hardly a comedy.
- No one should deny there are bad cops — of all ethnicities — that need have their guns and badges confiscated, but to automatically condemn all cops for the behavior of a few is worse than stupid. “All generalities are lies.”
“All Rise” had the judge jumping out of her car while BLM (only black lives matter?) marchers filled the streets to challenge a white cop who stopped a young black woman. When the woman reached into her purse, the cop justifiably drew his until-then-holstered weapon and the judge stepped between the cop and the woman.
The judge did tell the cop she was a judge, but offered no ID.
She could have pointed out the man still in the car was a DA. She did not.
At that point I left the room.
What prompted the confrontation between white cop and black women (the judge also is black) may have been discovered later. At this point, the show was all BLM. Since no one was breaking store windows or looting — at least none was shown, but the program is set I Los Angeles, so … )
Cops were bashed in both programs.
At least I was spared the obnoxious laugh tracks Hollywood deems necessary to “prime the audience’s laughter pump” when something supposed to be funny isn’t.
When I am expecting a comedy, I want to laugh (without the aid of laugh tracks).
Didn’t get the message
One program managed to keep my attention for the full 24 minutes.
“Bob ❤ Abishola” spared me the racial politics, perhaps because the lead characters are white (Bob) and black (Abishola).
The program is not really “funny,” but it has its moments.
The show is set in Detroit where blatant racial tension would be appropriate, but thankfully the writers dodged the issue.
My Spouse and I will apply our “restaurant rule” to “The Neighborhood” and “All Rise.”
The rule is: if we enjoy our first meal, we’ll probably return. If the second meal is not up to par, we’ll give the restaurant a third try.
Whether we return or not is a 2-out-of-3 possibility.
If cops are bashed or someone put down for the color of their skin in next week’s episodes, I will find something else to watch or read a book, probably the latter.
I expect comedies to be funny.
I don’t expect a “judge” to be making laws in the street or on the bench. (Again, the show IS set and filmed in Los Angeles.)
- To be fair, I DO know good judges in California Superior (County) Courts; I knew one in Tehama county where I worked as a newspaper reporter.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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