Like a lot of nerds, I regularly watch Fox’s Sunday-night animation line-up. This means that I have been exposed to the new series Sit Down, Shut Up on two occasions now. I didn’t want to make a decision about it after the first episode, since pilots are not always the best way to judge television shows, but after seeing the second episode … uh, well ….
Maybe I’m starting to turn into a sentimental fool as I get older, as soft as a rotten peach, but man this show is heartless. All the characters spend the entire show getting their asses kicked, and then it all dribbles to a grim ending. So the lesson is learned: Life is a pointless, humiliating journey through a meat grinder and then we all die. Bravo.
Okay, I know that this is the kind of criticism (or, petty sniping if you prefer) that could be leveled at anything from, say, 90% of all independent films or 99.9% of reality television, but hang on a second because I do have a point.
See, there is a place for dour explications on the pointless misery of the human experience. There are probably people out there without the slightest twinge of existential angst, and they might want to sample a little bit of how the other half lives. Or, perhaps they might want to look upon these strange creatures who are cursed with the knowledge that, even if all lives are ultimately pointless, it is still better to have a meaningless existence of unearned pleasure and luxury than one of struggle and abasement in the thrall of amoral forces they cannot begin to understand, and, after observing, the fortunate can bask in the warmth of complacency and lack of regret.
But then, Sit Down, Shut Up is ostensibly a comedy. And there are rules for constructing a cruel comedy. It might seem like it’s a good idea to just make everybody a hateful pile of crap, but it’s a blind alley, comedically. See, you’ve got to have at least one person who projects a genuinely good spirit. Someone that anybody would care for, who deserves to be empathized with and –dare I say it – liked. And then you’ve got to crush that person as violently and repeatedly as possible.
Do you know why Harry Potter, Annie, and The Rescuers aren’t comedies? Because those little girls escaped from their dire, miserable existences. Imagine how much funnier those movies would be if the leads spent the rest of their films being wailed on by their torments, starved, and kept out of the sunlight until they developed crippling vitamin deficiencies. Comedy gold, folks.
I suppose that Jason Bateman’s character is supposed to be the one who we’re supposed to like and whose humiliation we laugh at, but I don’t know – he’s pretty hateful, if you ask me. Judgmental, shallow, manipulative; these characteristics do not strike me as belonging to a person who doesn’t deserve to be shat on by a cruel universal will that hates all human life. How is that supposed to be funny?
