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Stick it out till 4:35 for a great defense of Hillary. I heart you Colbert.
Thanks to Claire for the heads up.
Seth MacFarlane, writer of the Family Guy a show filled with dirty jokes and political anti-correctness announced on a panel at Comic Con that he is producing an episode about abortion in the upcoming season of Family Guy, but it looks like 20th Century Fox will not air the show.
MacFarlane revealed he's producing a controversial episode about abortion for the upcoming season. But he and others on the panel said that Fox was unlikely to air the episode."20th Century Fox, as always, allowed us to produce the episode and then said, 'You know what? We're scared to f--king death of this,'" MacFarlane said.
The episode will probably be available on DVD, he added.
A Fox spokesperson said that no decision has yet been made on the matter.
There were few details offered about the content of the episode, but given the show's penchant for political incorrectness -- it has in the past featured a character wearing a McCain/Palin button on an SS uniform, among other flourishes -- it's unlikely Planned Parenthood would use the episode in a PSA anytime soon.
They are not sure if they will air it or not and it doesn't surprise me that Fox would be "afraid" to air it. I wonder if another network would air it. This is brilliant marketing for them, since Family Guy is known for pushing the envelope and if they release it on DVD, they will sell that many more.
I guess no one is seeing the real humor in that unless you are avidly pro-life and anti-women's right to chose, abortion is not really a fringe topic that is so edgy it must be banned from TV. Again not shocking, but maybe they should try something easier like period jokes, until they can get with the really big scary stuff.
Update: Fox released a statement that they will not be broadcasting the episode.
We often celebrate the brilliance of Sarah Haskins on this blog. Her Target Women series on Current TV is just one more example of how women are, indeed, funny. I feel stupid even writing that sentence, but apparently the mainstream media has some doubts--evidenced most obviously by Christopher Hitchens' January 2007 Vanity Fair piece Why Women Aren't Funny.
I have a few friends who work in the comedy business and I've had disturbing conversations as of late about the gender dynamic therein. For example, did you know that there is not one single female writer at The Daily Show? Not one. (Samantha Bee is a correspondent, and does some writing, but is not an official writer. Kristin Schall is only an occasional contributor.) When I think about how many women adore Jon Stewart, myself included, it makes me really sad to know that we're not also pushing him and Comedy Central, more broadly, to hire more women.
Another friend told me that she auditioned for a stand-up series on Comedy Central recently and they told her that they will only sign five women maximum. Not minimum. Maximum. And this was a show that needed something like 30 comedians total.
She also reports that some of the late night hosts, like Jimmy Kimmel, don't even audition women. If he's avoiding ladies because they remind him of his ex, Sarah Silverman, then that's just silly. What other reason could he possibly have?
This is beyond annoying. This is straight up, unfunny sexism. So what the hell are we going to do about it?
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