Dawn Slusher
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NBC’s Will and Grace took on the issue of illegal immigration and the border wall on Thursday’s episode, “Tex and the City,” as well as painted Texas as a “homophobic” state that beats up gay kids “for sport.” A jailed illegal immigrant is also advised to “do what other immigrants do to try to get in legally, like…be white, or look white, or...marry the president.”
In a rare move for a network sitcom, ABC’s new comedy Single Parents poked fun at feminists and the Women’s March in Wednesday’s episode, “A Leash is Not a Guinea Pig.” The show focuses on a group of single parents whose kids are all in the same class as the parents lean on each other for support through the challenges of raising their children.
Well, can’t say we didn’t see this coming. After a season filled with anti-conservative politics in almost every episode, the season finale of HBO’s dramedy Ballers Sunday night, “There’s No Place Like Home, Baby,” went out with a liberal bang. This time, the infamous Mr. Liberal T-Shirt character TTD (Carl McDowell) wore a “Make My President Black Again” hat, Sarah Huckabee was called a liar, as was President Trump, who was also called a “moron” who “bullshitted his way into the Oval Office by doing nothing more than lying and doubling down.”
HBO’s Ballers continued their political, race-baiting and pro-Kaepernick storylines Sunday night, with fictional L.A. Rams General Manager Charles (Omar Benson Miller) saying of fans who are angry over the National Anthem kneeler protests, “Fuck ‘em,” and equating such protests with the fight for equal rights for blacks in the ‘60s.
HBOhhh no they didn’t! Unfortunately, yes, they did. Again. HBO’s hit dramedy Ballers can’t seem to stop with the race wars and heavily leftist storylines, it seems. Only this time, they really upped the ante, saying "Fuck Trump," calling President Trump a “racist-ass bitch,” and praising controversial Colin Kaepernick for “leading a movement” which should be respected.
NBC premiered its new comedy, I Feel Bad, Wednesday night with a two-parter that could have been lumped into one, hour-long, male-bashing episode titled, “What Would Men Do Without Women?” And, for good measure, there’s a bit of pedophile-friendly, inappropriate dancing performed by very young, female, child actors that even makes the other characters cringe, but not enough to stop showing the little girls doing raunchy gyrations and thrusts.
From the endless mockery of Christianity and Christian beliefs, to the promotion of all kinds of sexual and gender identity exploration among minors and adults alike, to liberal issues like abortion, Netflix’s newest teen dramedy Insatiable is definitely not anything I would have let my kids watch when they were impressionable, teens. The series is rated TV-MA, but it's clear they're aiming for a much younger audience.
TBS's Wrecked continued the longstanding tradition, lampooning rich, white men on Tuesday’s episode, “Six Feet,” as “monsters,” misogynists and sexual harassers who look down disdainfully on the poor and treat them horribly. Oh, and they make people hunt and kill each other for sport, too. Because, of course.
To paraphrase the late, great President Ronald Reagan, there they go again! HBO’s sports-centered show Ballers, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, featured yet another anti-Trump T-shirt on Sunday’s episode, “Don’t You Wanna Be Obama?” (The episode title alone gave us a hint that the show might throw in more anti-conservative bias as it’s been known to do in the past.)
Last season HBO’s sports-centered dramedy Ballers, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, left no doubt how the writers feel about conservatives, and the season 4 premiere may have given us a hint that they plan to pick right back up where they left off with their anti-Trump sentiment in the form of a not-so-subliminal message on a t-shirt.
Hulu’s lascivious drama Harlots debuted its second season last week, and the show picked right back up where it left off last season with grotesque, violent and pornographic depictions of life for prostitutes in 1700s London. Wednesday’s “Episode 3,” the show decides to get more digs in at Christianity and one character’s fall from grace in a particularly offensive scene.
Season Two of Netflix’s original hit show GLOW premiered last Friday with ten episodes to binge on, and the season was thankfully tamer compared to season one. But that’s not saying much considering how season one was one big “f--- you to the Republican party,” and was filled with rampant sex, foul language, abortion and more.
Freeform’s teen dramedy The Bold Type took on the issue of affirmative action and diversity in the workplace in Tuesday’s episode, “Stride of Pride.” Given the network’s extremely liberal bent, you can probably imagine which side of the controversial topic the show defended while shaming a main character for not “checking her white privilege.” All amidst a backdrop of gratuitous sex scenes and a story pitch on "How to Turn Your Walk of Shame into a Stride of Pride."
Season two of NBC’s comedy Marlon premiered Thursday evening with two back-to-back episodes, both of which took digs at esteemed Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, portraying him as a “sellout” and the polar opposite of hero Martin Luther King. Two other famous, black conservatives were also painted as sellouts and anti-heroes: former Apprentice star and Trump administration staffer Omarosa Manigault and actress Stacey Dash.
Freeform’s dramedy The Bold Type is (unfortunately) back for another season, and it’s disappointingly more of the same extremely liberal, sex-obsessed, storylines.
We’ve, sadly, not come a long way, baby! In Thursday’s premiere of Paramount Network’s American Woman, “Liberation,” we got a glimpse of how the script was flipped on the topic of abortion back in the disco decade.
Mindy Kaling’s ultra-liberal comedy Champions on NBC has three favorite targets - Christians, whites and men. The show’s double-episode finale on Friday (“Opening Night” and “Deal or No Deal”) was no exception, insinuating that Christian congressmen are just gay men who didn’t have anyone to confide in when they were young.
Adult cartoons may be known for poking fun at just about anyone and anything, and it may be good to keep a sense of humor and not take them too seriously, but still, there are times when their lampooning can be a bit much. Case in point, Sunday’s episode of Fox’s The Simpsons, “Flanders’ Ladder,” which labeled Christianity a “dopey religion” and fetishized the crucifix.
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” This famous quote attributed to Dr. Seuss applies to many things in life, but NBC’s high school drama Rise is not one of them. If anything, we should cry because it happened, and smile now that it is finally over. Unlike the show’s title Rise, every episode in this debut season continued to sink to new lows, so we can also smile over the news that the curtain has been lowered for good on the series.
It may be cliché to say, but in the case of NBC’s high-school drama Rise, it’s true: Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, Rise hits a new low.