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It's no secret: Mike Judge's latest television project The Goode Family may not survive its first season. After lackluster ratings for the debut and second episode, ABC moved the show to Friday, entombing it deep in the summer lineup and making the odds of renewal slim at best.
And that's a damn shame, because it's a funny and thoughtful take on a certain slice of American life in the same vein as Judge's laudable King of the Hill. The show's premise is solid enough: a lampoon of a liberally-minded, vegan, environmentally-conscious upper-middle class suburban American family that lives by the credo WWAGD (What Would Al Gore Do?)
There's a lot of great moments and set pieces here: the Goodes' extreme political correctness leaves them tongue tied when searching for the right hyphenated appellation to address their black neighbor. The family adopted an African baby and ended up with a white South African, but resolved to raise him to "show that the offspring of two racist, criminal Afrikaners could grow into a gentle, socially conscious young man." Their hybrid has a bumper sticker that says "Support our troops... and their opponents." And their dog's name? Che (Guevera), natch.
King of the Hill cut to the heart of Americana, giving audiences a humorous and meditative snapshot of life in the South; Hank Hill's family and friends were nuanced to the degree that it was obvious Judge was basing the characters on real people. And like King of the Hill, The Goode Family constructs characters that defy simple "liberal" stereotypes. Here's the problem: the majority of the show's detractors have totally missed the show's point, expressing either glee or revulsion at the idea of someone mocking the left's sacred cows.
The Goode Family isn't about making fun of environmentalism, multiculturalism or vegetarianism. It's about the empty-headed, materialistic and self-aggrandizing American co-option of these causes: a funhouse mirror image of someone who might adopt faux-populist conservative swagger for its cultural significance, rather than purposes of real solidarity. It's about good causes being used for competition, rather than progress.
The show's tagline says that "it's hard to be good," and there's no better summation of environmental and socially conscious causes as they relate to the rat race. So, why isn't the show doing that well? Could it be because its target audience, the liberally-minded American that the show artfully skewers, can't laugh at themselves? Quite possibly, because we're hard pressed to think of a different reason why a quality series like this isn't doing well.
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Since the Left seems to skew younger than the right and the center, is it not wise to include younger media for ratings reports. Translation: Wait a month then add the online/HULU numbers to get a real idea of the viewership.
If the show is anything like King of the Hill, it's probably getting canceled because it's not funny. KotH was never funny, and if this just pokes fun at liberal leftys the way KotH pokes fun at redneck conservatives, then yeah, it should be canceled.
How about absolutely none of the scenarios or bits you describe seem funny in the least, no matter what your orientation. C'mon, white S. African? Sad. Awkward. Lame. Tired. Judge has been overrated from the beginning, it seems to me. He's a perfectly adequate imitation of a cartoonist comedian, now available at a steep discount from K-Mart.
If ABC were smart, it would fire Diane Sawyer, and give GMA to John Henson, to be a 2 hour morning-Daily-Show.
I'm one of those liberally-minded Americans, and I think it's pretty good--& I don't really like any of Mike Judge's other stuff all that much... Small doses are fine, but too much KotH or B&B and my brain goes numb & squishy, like those folks in the HULU ads. (The Simpsons, Family Guy, or my long lost Duckman are more my speed, animation-wise.)
I'm not blown away by it, but I do think it's Mike Judge's best work, and I will watch it until it's demise... unless I need to go protest against injustice and imperialism somewhere that night, or something.
I love KoTH so much, It's a damn shame it got canceled. I haven't seen this, but if it's anything like KoTH, it deserves a long, happy life.
The Goode Family's failure is only proof that networks no longer give show's time to gain an audience before deciding their fate. I'm liberal, I thought this show was pretty fun (not hilarious, but funny). If anything this humanizes those on the furthest left and allows people to understand them in a similar way that King of the Hill humanized the "redneck" stereotype.
If anything, I could see the problem being that the ultra-conservative dickwads thought they were "too nice" to the liberals and that they shouldn't have humanized them at all, instead just making fun in every episode.
I like the show more and more with each episode as the characters come into focus. I consider myself liberal and do not feel slighted at all. The thing is Mike Judge's humor is not about one side being pitted against the other. Like all great humor, it is a reflection of the collective absurdity of being human. King of the Hill is one of the greatest shows ever.
There are essentially three almost funny characters in the show, and the rest of the animated cast are almost sickening. Helen's father brings in some decent humor with his occasional wisecracks about how nuts the rest of the family is. Ubuntu is relatively funny even though his voice acting leaves him sounding semi-retarded. Last but not least, Che the dog brings a few chuckles to every episode.
I don't think this show is suffering from any one group becoming offended by any of the content in the show. I think people just don't find it funny, and most of the supposed humor in the show is bordering on assinine.
To quote Matt on June 24th :
"If anything, I could see the problem being that the ultra-conservative dickwads thought they were "too nice" to the liberals and that they shouldn't have humanized them at all, instead just making fun in every episode."
I'm a conservative and I have no problem humanizing Liberals in real life, they are after all human. But in this satire, it's just not funny because in "humanizing" them, judge removes the effective and obvious ridicule. That these people and there ideas are truly selfish and stupid... albeit human.
What's left after each sympathy demanding conclusion is a whimpy statement that "they're just good people... and can't we all just get along?"
Hey Judge, take a lesson from Team America... you have to be merciless to be funny. These people are destroying the country, and you are "humanizing stupidity" to no great effect ... by your either tepid and velvet, or all too subtle, yet biting condemnations.
I've never watched the show, but if it dares to make fun of anything leftist then the humorless left will not watch it. I don't mean to generalize, but the left is largely an intolerant and nasty group when it comes to politics. I think this is also why "King of the Hill" is getting canceled because it's the only other sitcom on TV that mocks an adoration of the pop-culture oriented, politically-correct, and superficial lifestyle adored by the left.
The right, on the other hand, has the ability to laugh at itself (look at the universal adoration of the "Family Guy" and "American Dad" as proof), but if you make fun of the "tolerant" left you immediately cut off a sizable portion of the viewing public from your show.
The Goode Family is a hilarious show that deserves a wider audience.
My favorite episode is A Tale of Two Lesbians. In that episode Mr. and Mrs. Goode want to join the in crowd at their university town and two of the gate keepers are an up-scale lesbian couple. The Goodes, and their friends, are the type of people who want to be seen by others as gay friendly. Unfortunately, Mr. Goode makes a remark that can be viewed as anti-gay by hypersensitive liberals and they immediately find themselves shunned by polite liberal society. In an attempt to regain street credibility with their liberal brethren, Mr. and Mrs. Goode publicly embrace a down-scale lesbian couple who are quite butchy. Eventually, the University town in-crowd and the down-scale lesbian couple come into contact with each other with each other at a party in the Goodes home. Predictably, the in-crowd starts making very insulting and snobbish remarks toward the down-scale lesbians and Mr. Goode comes to their defense. I liked this episode because it captures the conspicuous consumption aspect of modern liberals.