I haven't seen Bob's Burgers, so I saw the opening as a great callout to A History of Violence more than anything else, right down to the choreography. Good episode, hope they can keep it up.
NOOOOOOOO I loved Olyphant in that ep. How awesome would Archer be if Raylan Givens showed up though? EVEN MORE AWESOME, LANA.
I laughed so loud at the final shot and I believe it's the first time a show has made me feel so bad after laughing so much.
They had their chance last season when Ray and Archer went to Ray's backwater hometown. They really should have done something with that. And come on, they're on the same network. SYNERGY, PEOPLE!
Archer may not be, but Archer sure is. I don't get offended by it just like I don't get offended by most of South Park's shenanigans and tomfoolery, because I know a lot of it is done just to get a reaction from olds like me.
Yeah. I don't think having a character who includes 'comically homophobic' as one of a long list of personality flaws automatically makes the show homophobic. That's missing the forest for the trees. The article is referring to an episode I haven't seen, so maybe it crosses some line there, but that piece struck me primarily as a way of filling space and driving page-views moreso than delivering insightful commentary.
The better question is: is Mark Joseph Stern trolling with this article, or is Slate trolling by publishing it?
Same here. But Ray raping Cyril*... the article has a point there. I think the question to ask is not "Does the show portray homophobia and sometimes even playfully espouse it to get uncomfortable laughs?" - the answer to that question clearly is "yes" - but rather "Is it worth getting worked up over?" Not so sure about that. But I'm too lazy to get worked up about much of anything. * Maybe it was mitigated somewhat by Pam also raping Cyril**, because pretty much everyone on this show is despicable except MAYBE Lana. ** Did I just use the words "mitigated" and "raping" in the same sentence? DO YOU SEE WHAT THIS SHOW IS DOING TO MY MORAL FIBER?
I hope you were not about to call him a Family Guy Fan, cos we do not tolerate that kind of abuse here.
Lana's hands are despicably huge. And her aim's pretty despicable too. Plus poor organizational skills.
I dunno. The first gay guest the show ever had (the Cuban) was done pretty damn sympathetic. For that matter the gay villains from that episode were some of the few people who were decent to Wodehouse. But I tend to be pretty skeptical of anybody trying to read a fundamental message of hate out of really anything done as comedy. Not that it doesn't happen, but the kind of musculature it takes to laugh and hate at the same time tends to narrow the direct appeal of any of that sort of thing beyond any level that a network would be comfortable playing to these days. Also, FX is the maybe one network where the terms "retard" and "faggot" are both held to basically the same standard as "nigger" (as a racial epithet - The Shield used the hip hop pronunciation liberally). You can use them, maybe, but you'll have to get lots of permission and you'll need a good reason. I find it hard to think that one of the tentpole programs for that network out-and-out hates anybody.
I had to look that one up ;-) Archer (the character) makes some pretty funny obscure references at times. I'm pretty happy with the way the episode ended up, the character Ray had been pretty cruelly "punished" considering the usual consequence free suspension of disbelief that passes for the norm in Archer.
We have now, however, established that he is infinitely re-leggable, since Krieger is apparently Hitler + Magic. This is a good thing. Might also explain why Brett Buckley is still alive. If he is.
I'm no expert by any means but I think for a show to be homophobic you're either supposed to agree with the homophobia, or it's just accepted as the norm. In Archer they are clearly all terrible people with many many flaws and their attitude towards homosexuality is presented as another flaw. You're not supposed to agree with them and even the characters think other characters are terrible for saying such things. And it's not the norm: we aren't laughing because "haha gay" we are supposed to laugh at the actual insults and jokes constructed around the fact that a character is gay (or has giant hands, or is promiscuous, or Hitler). In fact I can't think of a single joke where the joke is "this character is gay" instead of "this person has a terrible attitude towards homosexuals" or "your momma" style gay jokes. I'm no expert though, I just don't get the same South Park/Family Guy "Haha this guy talks funny/wears funny clothes/loves showtunes" mean spirited humor that I find homophobic.
I've been wondering for two seasons now when we were going to see more of Conway, seeing as his last line was, "You haven't seen the last of Conway Stern! Which is not my real name!"
It's a little bit bizarre. I recognized Conway's voice in the original episode but didn't put a face to it, so I thought maybe he was too expensive, but he's just Coby Bell, otherwise known as the guy that nobody really understands why he was added to Burn Notice, so I'm stumped. I'm starting to think that maybe it's a goof on Reed's part and we're never going to encounter him again outside of a single-scene callback or two. That would be funny. Now, of course, he'll show up this week or something, but it would still be funny.
