MacFarlane

I'm not surprised this didn't go well.  I know Family Guy is supposed to be the current marquee animated comedy inheriting that mantle from The Simpsons and South Park.  I watch it and I think it's a funny show. But it's also never struck me as being quite as smart or even sweet as each of those other two shows can often be.

If you're a fan of this kind of comedy you've likely got a high tolerance for crudity.   But Family Guy often falls into a trap where the meanness of a gag overtakes any other aspect of it.   This is a difficult distinction to describe. But when, for example, a crude South Park gag posits that Bono is literally a walking piece of poo, one never loses sight of the fact that Bono is the object of a pointed ridicule.   A Family Guy gag like that often quickly jumps off the rails into something that sounds like, "Oooh look at us! We said poo! Aren't we naughty!"

I'm not saying this is always the case with Family Guy, but it does happen.  And this problem doesn't necessarily relate directly to the show's "blue" humor either.  The show's other trademark, its frequent de-contextualized random pop-culture references, often fails for the same reason.  They seem designed to impress via the strength of their own trivia rather than their relevance to a narrative. And I know that's MacFarlane's schtick, and I often find it funny, but there are times when it seems... overly nerdy... like he's just trying to impress the audience with his recall of ephemera rather than put it to any use.

And this is why I'm not surprised he bombed last night.  I like Joan Walsh's take in the article I've linked above.

Still, I don’t entirely blame MacFarlane for his insulting, sexist shtick. It’s a symptom of the people who run the awards ceremony – they still call themselves “The Academy” though the awards now have the folksy name “The Oscars” — utterly losing their way. The Shatner bit mocked the way the show, sadly, has become all about the host, and how badly he or she bombed. Or maybe didn’t bomb, but didn’t do well enough to come back the next year. And let’s face it: The main thing hosts are judged on is whether they skewer the winners, and the entire process, with exactly the right tone. But no one has decreed exactly how nasty that tone should be: How much are we supposed to hate these people, anyway?

Where I depart from that, though, is if the Oscars really wanted to roast themselves they brought on the wrong guy to meet that purpose.  MacFarlane is, in essence, a shock jock. In a strange irony, irreverent humor needs to be grounded in sincerity in order to be effective. And MacFarlane isn't sincere enough about anything apart from making an impression. I think if you're actually looking for a host with the "daring" to be deliberately nasty to the entire scene, then you'll have to hire someone who actually hates it enough to sell that instead of someone who really just wants to be liked for his nastiness. But what person meeting that criteria would accept... or even be offered... that job, really?