Dan Harmon's "Community"
How Far is Too Far When it Comes to Comedy and Satire?
This is probably a better question posed to Family Guy or The Simpsons as they have tackled and harangued nigh on every topic lewd, ludicrous, and impossible in their animated series.
But Community Holds a special place in my heart, because it’s one of my favorite comedy sitcoms and because of the well-thought out jokes and dynamic relationships in the cast (for like the first 3 seasons at least. The last ones were…rough. Like loofah made out of steel kind of rough).
Except for Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase). I could’ve done without his misogynistic and racist quips but as a fan of story structure, I could see how vital he was to creating high-end-stakes in a low-stakes environment.
Community follows a gang of found family losers attending Greendale Community College. And they are losers because of their flawed characters and personalities, not for the basis of their situation taking place at a CC.
Each character from Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) to Troy Barnes (Donald Glover) is deeply flawed and the purpose of their journey isn’t to fix those flaws, but to work around them. This isn’t a show about becoming a better person and learning from their mistakes.
This is a show about learning to love and accept your flaws (in the nicer field of explanation) while also shaming and berating others when their flaws compromise and come into conflict with yours.
The dialogue is fun and quirky.
The character dynamics are relatable and reasonable.
The shenanigans they get into are just random enough that I could believe them actually happening at a CC, for better or for worse.
Some of the jokes didn’t age well, but that’s the product of time and a media landscape that not only accepted inappropriate commentary, but also encouraged it as a form of comedy.
A lot of the content still holds up and the jokes poke fun at character stereotypes we see espoused by the main cast.
And then there’s the first Dungeons and Dragons episode: S2 E14 “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.”
Which was considered so offensive as to be removed by Netflix and Hulu and is currently only available on Amazon Prime Video.
There’s only about 5 minutes of it, but Ken Jeong’s character Chang is seen to be sporting blackface because he is playing a “Dark Elf.” This was not taken too kindly by audiences and streaming platforms and was pulled from almost everywhere because of this crude depiction.
Watching the episode, the blackface seems to be in poor taste, but Chang is all about doing things that are borderline offensive and racist, while claiming an immunity card because of his ethnicity, and this seems really in-character for him.
Potentially editing Chang’s scenes out could be used to bring the episode back to streaming services, but it takes too much away from the plot: the death of his character at the beginning of the episode raises the stakes. Abed (Danny Pudi) is an unforgiving and realistic Dungeon Master and expects and maintains these rules no matter what (no matter how abrasive and abusive Pierce becomes).
In a sense, it is a satire on blackface in Hollywood because Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) even comments on that in that 4th-wall breaking style we love and expect from Abed, but it’s a short lived one-liner that is said and then left as is.
However,
This is still my absolute favorite episode of Community, in spite of its less than savory backlash history (my favoritism on par with the paintball episodes which are *chef’s kiss) because of the narration style and the double entendres here. The sound design really brings their Role-Playing adventure to life and Pierce does what he always does:
He raises the stakes. The stakes are already pretty high because the gang gets together in this episode to play DND and make sure that Fat Neil doesn’t commit suicide, but every attempt they make to encourage Neil is met with a brick wall and verbal abuse in the form of Pierce Hawthorne.
But it does question how far comedy and satire is allowed to go. If it’s too far, do we cancel the entirety of the work to demand reparation?
Do we remove that one sliver of what some have condemned and pretend like everything else is all right?
Because at the end of the day, Community is a comedy. While film and media have the opportunity to be something more and share experiences and teach others about life, at the surface level and in every way it is expressed, it is entertainment. For your viewing pleasure.
It’s not trying to break boundaries or redefine genres (though it can try, that’s not Community’s main purpose). This show is about how many jokes can land and how fun it can be. The fact that it utilizes character stereotypes and story archetypes and actual human problems makes it relatable, but these problematic people are the last people we should be taking advice from.
Community is a show. It’s not a cult, it’s not a playbook, it’s not a guide on good behavior.
Sometimes the jokes don’t land or they don’t age well, but is it right for us to condemn the art as we look at it from a later, more progressive lens?
No. It’s not. I’m actually working on a long form series of articles about humor.
This and the episodes of always sunny, and mr show are all completely fine. The line is so arbitrary. Black face it self is such a uniquely American based on a negative and complicated history with vaudeville and early film. Which was bad for the most part. But why we are still paying for it is beyond me.
The reason blackface is historically considered racist is because it was used so Hollywood would not have to cast actors of color. That’s the offensive part. These modern examples didn’t actually do that. It was also used historically to make fun of what people considered “stupid black people”. Which is not what is happening in any of these circumstances.
The jokes. Especially in community, which as a d&d player I find funny because that’s kind of what dark elves look like. It’s such a deep unnatural shade of black. The whole joke in the scene is that the line is arbitrary and completely based on a sort of social semantics.
The whole banning of all of these episode is essentially corporate guilt. And while corporations have a lot to be guilty about this is low hanging fruit so they can say “see, we are cool. We don’t like racism”. Even though none of this has to do with historical marginalization. It’s simply referencing historical marginalization in funny ways.
Is that Allowed? To crack a few jokes about it? The thing about the style of humor you talk about. Edgy and provocative is that there’s a reason for it. It shocks.
I don’t think any of these episodes are offensive. No more than swearing in public is.