The upcoming FX television adaptation of Fargo — based on the 1996 hit film of the same name — is packed with stars, who all appear in the show’s new trailer. The cable network has been teasing the series for weeks now with several 30-second spots, but this trailer offers a full minute of famous faces and Minnesotan accents. The show centers on a drifter, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who arrives in Fargo and sinisterly manipulates the town’s people, including Sherlock‘s Martin Freeman, Breaking Bad‘s Bob Odenkirk and Dexter‘s Colin Hanks. Also appearing: Kate Walsh, Oliver Platt, Adam Goldberg, Glenn Howerton, Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key.
Behind bars, Chozen discovers that he’s gay — or, at the very least, he discovers that he’s a thuggish hybrid of a hip-hopper and bear. In his songs, he raps about the big-house pleasures of rough, anonymous encounters with unwilling partners. The first several episodes of “Chozen” would have a viewer believe there is nothing funnier than jokes about prison rape. “Chozen” is far from alone in this. Prison rape is an unfortunately acceptable, and hackneyed, punch line across the landscape of American comedy; worse still, it’s a reprehensible feature of criminal justice in our culture, which revels in dropped-soap jeers directed at the newly incarcerated. I’d be willing to let “Chozen” have its laughs there if it would more quickly move onto its better traits and smarter jokes. The show has a clever satirical premise at its center, in which Chozen must reconcile his warped ideas about gender and success with the warped ideas of gender and success in the rap-music industry at large.
JMG reader Tallulah tips us to an NPR interview with Louis CK is which he discusses his recent Louie episode about the word "faggot." Louis says, "I don't think it matters" whether the etymological definition given on his show is accurate or not, "what matters is having the conversation." It's a great piece, start at around 18:00.
Edgy comedian Louis CK is really breaking new ground with the FX show Louie. In the below clip, a group of poker buddies jokingly question their token gay about sex clubs, but things turn a bit more somber towards the end. Language very super NSFW.
As I was channel surfing last night I came across the new FX animated series Archer. And holee cow, this show is just about the funniest and definitely the filthiest thing I've ever seen outside of pay cable. Stand by for the decency/morality folks to completely lose their shit over this one.
Last night FX aired the first episode of the third season of Morgan Spurlock's dickwad switcheroo series, 30 Days. For those unfamiliar with the show, for most episodes the premise is to take somebody who espouses hate for a particular group of society and immerse them among the people they most detest, ostensibly to show how once the seemingly strange becomes familiar, the hate fades away.
GLAAD gave the series an award in 2006 for the episode in which a homophobic military man is put to work in a Castro gay bar. But GLAAD was singing a different tune about the series on Monday when it issued a "Call To Action" about last night's episode.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) today urged community members to contact FX Networks to express their concerns about a defamatory claim by an anti-gay activist that will appear, unchallenged, in the June 24 episode of 30 Days.
30 Days, FX Networks’ original series produced by Morgan Spurlock, "examines social issues in America by immersing individuals in a life that requires them to see the world through another’s eyes,’" according to the show’s Web site. In 2006, the series won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Reality Program for the "Gay/Straight" episode.
During the June 24 episode, entitled "Same Sex Parenting," Kati, a woman who opposes gay and lesbian parents and their families, lives for 30 days with gay parents Dennis and Thomas and their four adopted sons. The episode includes the personal stories of kids raised by lesbian and gay parents.
Regrettably, the episode also features a defamatory statement by Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, an anti-gay activist organization, who claims: "Homosexuality is associated with higher rates of sexual promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse, and those are all reasons for us to be concerned about placing children into that kind of setting." While there is no credible scientific research that backs Sprigg’s claim - and much that disputes it - the episode presents his assertion as if it were fact and offers no credible social science experts or child health authorities to challenge Sprigg’s assertion. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Child Welfare League of America, and many other child health and social services authorities who support parenting by qualified lesbian and gay parents dispute Sprigg’s claim.
After reviewing a screener supplied by FX Networks, GLAAD and the Family Equality Council, a national non-profit working to ensure equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families, contacted FX Networks last week, requesting that the inaccurate claim be removed from the episode or that a credible social science expert or child health authority be brought in to provide an on-air correction. FX Networks, however, refused to remove the defamatory content or, at minimum, address it during the course of the episode.
I recorded the show last night and here's the bit that got GLAAD so torqued.
Take action with FX Networks if you agree with GLAAD:
Nick Grad Executive Vice President of Original Programming (310) 369-0949 ngrad@fxnetworks.com
