Earl
There’s been a lot of talk about this season’s bumper crop of serious message movies about the Iraq conflict, and how they’ve landed in theaters with a series of resounding thuds. Undoubtedly this is because they’re serious message movies, and who wants that?
Last week’s episode of My Name Is Earl, on the other hand, marked a true shift in the cultural zeitgeist. Holy mackerel! It was another of their COPS episodes. (Strained a bit by its expansion to an hour-long episode, but that’s neither here nor there.) The wild thing about it was when it was set-in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Added to the show’s trademark mix of cheerfully madcap dark humor were plenty of expected shots at the Bush administration, Homeland Security and so on. But the writers of the episode went further than that to make fun not just of the government, but of ordinary Americans’ reaction to 9/11. What would have been unthinkably out of bounds just a few seasons back is now comedy fodder on a popular, major network show.