LIV AND MADDIE/DADS

*1/2 (out of ****)/*(out of ****)

One of the very few things that offends me is the overuse of the word “offended.” Almost every time someone says it, I think (or say) “Shut the fuck up, you fucking baby fuck.” What kind of weird person would give someone else the power to offend them? They say something about something that is important to you, and you let it make you angry. I appreciate the fact that your religion or your mom or your country or your girlfriend is important to you, but maybe someone else doesn’t, and their going to let you know, either directly, or by making a joke, or choosing a particular cover for an issue of Rolling Stone. Or, Zeus forbid, they are trying to make you think about that thing you hold dear, and how dear you hold it. It seems like South Park made a career out of delivering one simple message: settle the fuck down. Too much faith or belief or love or passion – feelings, really – can be a dangerous thing. What will most people remember South Park for? Being offensive, and only for assholes. It’d be hilarious ironic, if it wasn’t so sad.

FOX’s Dads premiered on Tuesday, and if you had heard of this show before it debuted, it was probably because of one of these two reasons: you watch a lot of football on Sundays, or you’ve heard how “offensive” it is. The pilot features the two main characters, who run a video game design company, lightly forcing their hot Asian underling to dress like a stereotypical Japanese school girl for a big meeting with Asian investors. People fucking freaked. They were offended. Had they seen the show yet? It’s very, very, very, very unlikely, unless the offended are also television critics, who will often receive screeners of pilots before they debut. And this moves me to the only other thing that offends me, besides people who get offended: a complete lack of the desire and/or talent to tell a story.

Let’s start with the aforementioned Dads. The fathers of Giovanni Ribisi and Seth Green, who play the video game designers, are awful, disgusting lowlifes that have decided to move in with their successful sons. PUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRREMISE! All of that slowly, methodically gets established in the first episode. In the mean time, we have to make some jokes, or as I call them “jokes,” in which you at no point laugh, but an audience in the background screams with hilarious delight, as if they were being tickled and lit on fire at the same time. Jokes, or “jokes,” can be hard to write, so the show makes the bold idea to set-up two (TWO!!!) different segments where the writers set up a situation where the actors just trade one-liners. (This can also be known as “line-o-rama” or “You know how I know you’re gay.”) Example: The four main characters stand around a cell phone, looking at a picture of an Asian guy’s tiny penis. They go around in a circle, each making a “joke” of what the penis looks like, or how small it is. HOW SMALL IS IT?!? The rest of the episode is then filled with things that would offend people who get offended. One of the dads assumes that because someone is Latino, she must be the maid. One of the dads uses the fact that the word “shanghai” is a verb as evidence that you can’t trust Asian people. It’s all very heady stuff, there to fill time, make hillbillies laugh, and give the show an edgy vibe that will get people to talk about it. THIS AIN’T YOUR DAD’S DADS. People, I want you to stand up. I want you to be offended. I just want you to do it right. Be offended at their inability to offend. Their inability to tell a single offensive joke with even the slightest new spin or thought. It’s unfortunate that Dads came out so early in the new Fall TV scheduling. I’m now, more than ever, dreading this entire exercise

On the other end of both the television spectrum, and the Offensive spectrum, is Liv and Maddie, from the Disney factory. Dove Cameron plays Liv…and…get this…Maddie! That’s right, for the first time in television history, one actress plays two different people – and they’re sisters…and they’re twins!!!

I’m not going to write about a show on the Disney Channel, and be upset or offended that the jokes were tired, or the format was played out. I’m not going to shit on it for having a simple, well-worn premise. The show wasn’t good, but that’s fine. No one wants it to be, no one expects it to be. The reason I AM going to shit on it, though, is for the same reason that I shit on Dads: it at no point has any desire to tell a story well.

It’s easy for ulterior motives to just become motives, and if Dads’ motive is to take a swing at being offensive, Liv and Maddie’s motive is Dove Cameron. You see, Liv is a 15 year-old tomboy who is just trying to make it through the hell that is high school. Maddie, however, is just returning home from a four year stint in Hollywood, becoming a superstar on “one of those shows where highschool kids start singing for no reason.” The second I heard that, I thought “Uh-oh.” Is this show making fun of Glee three years too late? Or is it…no, it couldn’t…but why…of fucking course. Maddie then pulls out an iPad and shows Liv (and all of us!) a scene from the show, featuring Maddie sing a song in its entirety. I don’t blame Disney for wanting to cross-platform their properties; it’s the only way they can continue to jump off their diving board into a silo of gold coins. My problem comes when you sacrifice everything – every single means of telling a story – in order to cross-platform. Disney doesn’t even attempt to cover up their priorities anymore. They spent almost no money making this show, and now they are going to force this Dove Cameron chick down little girl’s throats, forcing them to spend all of their money regardless of whether or not they like the show. I don’t care if that’s what Disney wants to do. It’s their right. But at least make it seem like you are thinking about attempting to make something a little less transparent and manipulative. I guess the good news is that we’ll be seeing Dove Cameron on the 2019 VMAs, doing whatever the 2019 version of twerking is.

-Ryan Haley