Malcolm in the Middleman
Eileene made me watch a bit of a new show today, as part of her practice of fishing about for shows that I might enjoy. I confess I’m not a very fruitful soil for such plantings, I have little patience for mediocre entertainment, despite what would for others be redeeming features. Tut this one, a television program called “Middleman,” looks rather promising.
There’s no way I could catch the whole nature of the show in the span of five or six minutes, but from my brief glimpse, it seems to be a very tongue-in-cheek tale of a young, semi-employed art major encountering the hypercompetent Middleman and dispatching or concealing treats to society. I could be way off in my understanding of the premise, but the premise is probably less important than the tongue-in-cheek, of which I’m certain.
Which is good. I almost turned up my nose at the worrying “ABC Family” logo in the lower right-hand corner. When it comes to entertainment, “family” rarely means “something your family might enjoy watching together,” but is instead usually shorthand for “sanitized of anything that might offend dogmatic Christian parents.” “Family” programming is terribly dull, because almost anything is guaranteed to offend dogmatic Christian parents. Scary images might frighten children. Friendly images might give them the wrong idea, if they include strong female characters, or mixed-race relationships, or homosexuals, or homosexual actors, or vaguely effeminate characters, or anyone wearing pink. Moral dilemmas might confuse their understanding of a Manichean universe, where the faithful are good and everyone else is evil. In a world where even Sesame Street and the Teletubbies have come under fire as “unsuitable for children,” there isn’t much left. (Although I suppose wholesale slaughter of the Philistines, crucifixion, and the death of every firstborn Egyptian, including innocent newborns, would be acceptable.)
So I was astounded to hear, within a few minutes’ viewing, a joke about hentai tentacle monsters (“Hentai” means “perverted” or “unnatural” in Japanese, and usually refers in the US to pornographic Japanese comics and cartoons, which include gigantic tentacle rape scenes with alarming frequency.), a reference to John Shaft (one bad dude), an illegal sublet, blood-flinging animal rights protest, and the use of the word “lesbian.”
Now I don’t have an ethical problem with any of these appearing in a TV show, even a family TV show. I’m not sure they qualify as family entertainment, because so much of the show, including the general weirdness, is likely to fly over children’s heads, but I wouldn’t have any concerns that the material would corrupt my hypothetical children. In fact, I’m rather happy to see them pass muster as “family” entertainment; perhaps they signal a sea change, in which families who aren’t chipper picket-fence white Christians eager to deny depiction of uncomfortable truths can participate. But I sure am glad I don’t work the ABC customer service lines right now. They must be handling a mind-boggling host of believers who have grown used to “family” meaning “congruent with my own particular faith.”