When Did Comedy Get So Mean?

 

I guess I could have been asking that question the last several years.   But the query raised its ugly head again recently as I sampled a new HBO "sitcom" called "Hacks."

My interest level?   Well, I noticed it starred Jean Smart, a likable and very dependable actress whom I have enjoyed for years.  According to the log line, she was playing a Vegas comic, a persona perhaps borrowed from the late Joan Rivers.  Jean works a lot and for good reason.  She is quite talented.  Go back to the old "24" series and watch the season where she played the boozy First Lady of the US.

Okay, I was in.

And I still am as four episodes have rolled out to date.   I am engaged.  Sort of.   I am laughing.  Sort of..

I have lots of reactions.   Sort of.

But the overriding impression is...well...look again at the title of today's post.

The thing with "Hacks" and its show biz setting is that no single character is somebody you would like to have in your own life.   They are all mean and nasty and bitter.

Again, this is a comedy?

Smart plays Deborah Vance, an aging Vegas stand-up who has a very lucrative career but everybody knows that it is inching to an end.   As a result, she is matched with a bitter 25-year-old bi-sexual comedy writer named Ava whose own career has been upended because she tweeted something nasty about a public figure.   Ava is played by somebody named Hannah Einbender and my research tells me she is the daughter of former SNLer Laraine Newman.   That essentially is just a note of trivia.   Ava as a character is also mean and nasty and bitter.

Again, this is a comedy?

Oh, don't get me wrong.  I have laughed.  Quite a few times.   But the insulting humor here is more vile than you have experienced before and makes Don Rickles look like Mister Rogers in comparison.

I am hoping the characters grow and emerge and soften as we learn more about them.   But my fear is that the producers and writers in charge here are the real angry ones and the tone will never change.  

Come on, folks.   We need laughs these days and not the nasty, leering ones.   TV comedies need to put a comfortable smile on your face.  Otherwise, the product becomes exhausting.   I had the same reaction watching "Schitt's Creek."   It was funny but I could only watch no more than two episodes in a row.   The meanness of the younger characters had to experienced in the smallest of doses.

I am hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.  After a few episodes of "Hacks," I needed a cleansing.   I went into Hulu and watched the first season premiere of "Rhoda."

And I laughed again.  And smiled again.   Even though I knew it wasn't going to really work out for Rhoda and Joe.

Dinner last night:  Leftover eggplant.