The Importance of Being Unearnest

Liberals aren’t laughing at Mike Judge’s new show, but not for the reason you think 15

Let me say one thing: I love Mike Judge. Love. I could watch his cubemate gangstas smashing that copier endlessly, and I can still hear Hank Hill’s voice drawling, “Bobbeh!” The man is funneh—which is why I had high hopes for last night’s premiere of The Goode Family.

Mike JudgeMike Judge and Gerald Goode.ABCIt’s the show that promises to skewer cherished tenets of political correctness. And boy, did it succeed. Skewer, skewer, skewer—Judge and his co-writers crammed every possible stereotype into the pilot, from veganism to well intentioned racism. There was so much skewering going on, it hurt.

I don’t mean it hurt my feelings. There’s a reason I work at Grist, whose mission for ten years has been to help self-righteous environmentalists laugh at themselves and the issues they fret about. I just mean it ... hurt. It hurt not to laugh. It hurt to think that Judge had swung and missed.

I’m not the only one who found the show funny-free. With the exception of a handful of positive reviews—Variety called the show a “smart, wryly funny comedy” that is “flat-out good” and the Miami Herald dubbed it a “scathingly funny report from the front lines of America’s culture wars”—most outlets gave it a serious drubbing. Slow, they said. Weak. Doesn’t live up to its name. Doesn’t hit the bar Judge has set for himself.

All of which is true—but this is where it gets interesting. Because as we all know, the media is full of liberal elites. No wonder they don’t like the show! Everyone knows they can’t laugh at themselves!

“Newspapers Bristle at Thought of Liberalism Being Mocked in The Goode Family,” tsks Newsbusters, while Fox News asks, “Can a show that so aggressively tweaks the values and heroes of liberal Hollwyood establishment ever get the guest stars that stop by Tinseltown-friendly animated shows like ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Family Guy’?” The Herald muses that the show “will no doubt be labeled right-wing agitprop by some of its trashed targets.”

Right-wing agitprop? Hardly. So far, it’s just mediocre comedy. (And for what it’s worth, it took shots at the right as well as the left: flag pins! chastity! church!) But this little partisan media brouhaha does beg the question: Who is the show aimed at? One of the most thoughtful reviews—among the only ones that gets beyond whether or not the vegan-dog shtick is funny (hint: no)—comes from James Poniewozik at Time:

... much of the green-culture satire is so microtargeted that—even when it’s dead-on—only a handful of urban neighborhoods and college towns (say, my own Park Slope and Ann Arbor) will get the nuance of it.

Even at that, if liberal neighbors like mine even watch the show, they’ll probably quickly write it off as a mean-spirited anti-liberal screed, whereas the rest of America will largely see it as a show about sanctimonious ninnies. I suspect that the sight of the first gag—the Goodes’ bumper sticker, “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS… AND THEIR OPPONENTS”—will make red and blue Americans turn the channel in droves, for entirely different reasons.

Poniewozik aaalmost gets to the heart of the issue. It’s not that liberals will write the show off as mean-spirited—it’s well within the liberal DNA to want to be pointed at, made fun of, and kicked in the ass, and to show that we’re in on the joke. We’re like the perennial seventh-grade weakling in that sense. But if the show isn’t funny to its targets, and it’s just annoying to people who find liberals annoying, then ... who’s left to watch?

Katharine Wroth is a senior editor at Grist.

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  1. hapa's avatar

    hapa Posted 2:38 pm
    28 May 2009

    it was more thoughtful than "stuff white people like"

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  2. Cacaoatl's avatar

    Cacaoatl Posted 2:40 pm
    28 May 2009

    The compelling thing about King of the Hill was that Hank Hill usually ended up doing the stereotypically "liberal" thing because it was the most practical thing to do. He joined the organic food co-op because he liked the taste of organic food, especially beef. He took Yoga classes because Yoga actually helped his bad back. He went green because it helped save Strickland Propane from bad press. Hank Hill represented a realistic view of the average, lower middle class, middle-American: conservative in the voting booth but downright progressive when it came to doing the "right thing" and giving his fellow American a helping hand regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation. There is nothing Limbaugh-ish about Hank Hill or the America he represents.

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  3. Bart Anderson's avatar

    Bart Anderson Posted 2:53 pm
    28 May 2009

    Don't fool yourself, Katharine. This is psychological warfare and it's dead serious.  Humor is a weapon that propaganda experts wield in any campaign.

    If you can ridicule someone and damage their self-image then you weaken them as a political force. Look at the WW2 propaganda that makes Hitler and the Nazis appear as buffoons.I don't mean the creators of the show are aware of what they are doing.  However they have the social consciences of gerbils and acutely sensitive antennae for what will sell.Bart
    Energy Bulletin

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  4. Cacaoatl's avatar

    Cacaoatl Posted 3:42 pm
    28 May 2009

    On King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead, Mike Judge skewered left and right equally. He's an equal oppurtunity satarist. Let's not confuse satire with fascist propaganda.

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  5. Bart Anderson's avatar

    Bart Anderson Posted 4:40 pm
    28 May 2009

    Cacaoatl, I think the common denominator to Judge's work (admittedly I haven't seen much of it) is that people are stupid and crass, that vulgarity and debasement are the height of humor. It's not explicitly political, but the message is Don't Hope, Don't Try, Don't Trust People, Don't Respect Yourself.It's brain food for couch potatoes and downward mobiiity, like so much else on television.It takes zero courage for Judge to turn out this crap. What a waste of talent.In contrast, there is the humor of Voltaire, Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick. Read these authors and you become a bigger person.Bart / EB 

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  6. Teuthis Posted 5:13 pm
    28 May 2009

    There's a difference between affectunate satire ('aren't people ridiculous...you gotta love 'em'), which is ultimately a celebration of human strangeness, and vicious satire, which seeks to make its victims seem grotesquely worthless for anything but joke fodder.  The humor on Grist seems largely to be the former.  "The Goode Family" seems to be the latter, with the preview's narrator stating bluntly--not even letting viewers reach the conclusion ourselves--that the family [and obviously everyone with their values] "has its head up its own--" Does Judge want us to weep and repent?  Maybe not.  But some viewers clearly do; witness the comments on NPR's critique.  I've wished there were TV show characters with conscience...be careful what you wish for.

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  7. premiumshlock Posted 9:59 am
    29 May 2009

    Here's a good review from the AV Club's TV Club, http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-goode-family-pilot,28504/?utm_source=channel_tvLeonard Pierce gave it a C- for basically the same reasons: much of the jokes just didn't make sense, and there weren't that many good ones to begin with - not because of politics (he's also quite a liberal). I honestly don't think this is some kind of propagandistic and/or cynical message along the lines of what Bart has been perpetuating in the comments section here, good lord. Lighten up a little and just accept that it wasn't funny because it wasn't funny, not because it was wrongheaded and stinging. I imagine for the same reason you don't like Stephen Colbert? Yes, he mainly subversively or subtly makes fun of stereotypical conservatives, but he also skewers the liberal side from a liberal perspective, allowing for us to not take ourselves so seriously. And one last probably irrelevant thing, say what you will of PJ O'Rourke, but he's probably the only funny conservative I know of.Anyway, aside from the pilot being a huge disappointment, the other big shame about it is that Linda Cardellini, the star of the beloved Freaks and Geeks (best show ever), is on it and it appears to have under-utilized her.

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  8. coolate Posted 11:21 am
    29 May 2009

    Wow a show that is less funny then King of the Hill... I watched it on hulu, it is just stupid. I laugh at some of the worst jokes, and find nothing offensive, this show is just unintelligent. B&B were great, and so was office space, has success drained and idea of comedy or creativity??

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  9. atreyger Posted 11:47 am
    29 May 2009

    Wow, you sure pegged it for not having seen much of it...Good job

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  10. nereid's avatar

    nereid Posted 4:13 pm
    29 May 2009

    Hapa:  I totally agree! lol.Bart:  Sorry but you should get used to the fact that the gen Xers find clever, low-brow jokes funny, and the next generations may not, so you'll just have to wait and see. and Bart: Also, even though I don't think the Goode Family is that funny, I think Mike Judge actually has good intentions overall and is not trying to debase the left and uphold fascism or totalitarianism. 

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  11. Teuthis Posted 7:36 am
    30 May 2009

    Bart never called the show fascist.  He did compare it to propoganda which undermines the reputation and self-esteem of a targeted demographic.  I hope that the more optimistic posters here are right instead, but I consider this stuff guilty until proven innocent.

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  12. asamartin Posted 6:50 am
    02 Jun 2009

    Pilots of shows are often not as good as the show itself ends up being. I laughed a few times, but did find the show seemed to be overreaching somehow. I'll watch a few more episodes before I say it's no good.

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  13. duiker22 Posted 9:43 am
    02 Jun 2009

    Wow. Seriously? Facism and totalitarianism? Propaganda? Aren't we taking this all a wee bit too seriously? It's a TV show, for heaven's sake.It is created for the sole purpose of selling the items shown in the commercials during the half hour show. You don't naively think Mike Judge had full control of the content of the show, do you? There were producers and execs with their fingers in everything, so it is just plain silly to assume it is some form of pure art that has political will or an agenda to "ridicule someone and damage their self-image". Obviously, the X-Files were the show for you if you believe there is some kind of conspiracy going on here.Here is my take on good satire: the problem is in the viewer not the creator if they can't step back and laugh at the fact that humans ARE vulgar and stupid, provided the joke is well-crafted and universal. It seems most agree that the jokes were not, in this case.BTW, Vonnegut has some of the meanest spirited humor ever put to paper, albeit beautiful satire, but that said I am not sure comparing a half-hour commercial TV show to a 300 page novel from a man who worked his craft for generations is even really apples to apples.

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  14. atreyger Posted 10:44 am
    02 Jun 2009

    Well,I saw the episode and I thought it was pretty funny. It is very much in the same vein as the King of the Hill series, with similar character relationships and pilot-style developments. It wasn't as funny as many other shows that I watch, but for that matter, neither was King of the Hill. It was still enjoyable to watch the Goode Family, with the S.African-American adoptee being one of the funnier characters by far. I also enjoyed the mom passing out drunk, as well as doing the whole bit about minority conventions. It was not mean-spirited skewering, but rather highlighting peculiarities of a specific culture. If anything, if the center-conservative crowd does watch the show, they will be able to understand that we are all humans and are all motivated by similar things.True, some of the characters were stereotypical, but if you somehow feel offended by them, well, take a look at yourself, and if these characters are like you, maybe you can't laugh at yourself. Or you just don't have a sense of humor. I bet you there must have been at least a few Texans who sold propane that embraced the Hank character, and what does that say about their ability to laugh at themselves?If you don't like the show, tough... But don't state your own beliefs as the ultimate truth. Only time and revenue will tell how the rest of the nation like the show.

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  15. Teuthis Posted 7:41 pm
    02 Jun 2009

    For the last time, no one here is calling the show facist or totalitarian. I will be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't (deliberately or incidentally) cement the popular belief that environmentalists are idiots not worth taking seriously, as the off-Grist comments I've seen indicate that it is doing.  I tend to dislike shows based on insulting people--yes, that's just my own opinion--but will try to enjoy the novelty of identifying with TV characters and hope that their humanity is indeed evident to other viewers.  Heck, maybe one day I'll be a proponent of WWTGD ("What would the Goodes do?") 

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