Monday, February 04, 2013

A list of things more vulgar than 2 Broke Girls

"2 Broke Girls" creator Michael Patrick King has gotten a lot of flak for being vulgar and crass with his show. I watch "2 Broke Girls" regularly (this is something I have to keep secret from my other TV critic friends lest I lose face) and don't find it very vulgar at all. Even more important to note here is that I'm particularly sensitive to vulgarity and can think of a long list of TV shows and films I either find too vulgar to enjoy or enjoy despite the vulgarity (which I view as a distraction). So in defense of Michael Patrick King, here's a rough list of things more vulgar than "2 Broke Girls":
South Park-Duh
Party Down-Particularly Kyle who regularly speaks about sex in very vulgar ways and talks about dicks and female anatomy a lot. One episode takes place at a porn award ceremony and the episode's climax (no pun intended) is Ron's (Ken Marino) penis getting mutilated
Entourage, Eastbound and Down, and The League-The male characters greatly objectify women
Adam Sandler films-They generally have a thematic sweetness and some films like Click or Mr. Deeds are marketed as family films. However, Click has Adam Sandler farting in a guy's face, a father-son conversation about the size of his penis that made me cringe, and a gross-out scene of Adam in a fat suit
Judd Apatow films such as Superbad, Knocked Up and Funny People-The makers of Superbad prided themselves on using the F word more (yes, that's how great literature works, you juvenille nitwits. Maybe if you rewrite Taming of the Shrew as Taming of the Bitch, the Nobel Prize Literature Committe will come knocking at your door) than any other film and that wasn't even the half of it. Knocked Up is about a guy who's life's ambition was to create a website that supplanted Mr. Skin. And watching Seth Rogen plow into Kat Heigl, why in the world did I have to watch that?
"Funny People" starred Adam Sandler as a thin doppelganger for THE Adam Sandler and his routine consisted of a lot of dick jokes and there was kind of a disturbingly fetishistic sex scene with Nicole Parker in which she wanted him to recite his catchphrase during sex. Note, I think two of these three movies are excellent (and Superbad is awful) but they are far more vulgar than 2 Broke Girls.
Get Him to the Greek-All I can say is that a friend of mine watched this film with his wife and in-laws and he felt massively uncomfortable.  As for me, this is one of the very, very few films in which I walked out of a theater.
Weeds-Justin Kirk's kind of a one-track mind ladies man who talks about sex with women in pretty vulgar terms. One episode deals with Nancy's son discovering masturbation in pretty graphic (read: gross) detail (it involved socks and bananas).
Bruno and Borat-I loved Borat in spite of some mixed-up sexual undertones (is an underlying thesis of the film that the more 3rd world you are, the less refined attitudes you have about sex?) but the naked wrestling scene was a bit too much for my eyes. All the talk about anuses and vagines and whether they're tight or not was a little gross for me.  Bruno, on the other hand, scarred me so much. Do not go anywhere near that movie, people, if you have any uneasiness about seeing men having sex with each other.
Ace Ventura-When I was younger, this grossed me out. I should try it again.

Lastly to show I am not completely prude, films/tv shows that talk of sex or show sex in ways that fall on the classier spectrum:
Todd Philips films (The Hangover, Old school)
Dodgeball
Adam McKay's films (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers)
Kevin Smith's films
30 Rock (Hazel comes close to being gross but Kristen Schaal is too funny)
Pretty much every single TV show in the 90's
My Name is Earl and Raising Hope
Austin Powers series (although Spy Who Shagged Me had a few gross-out moments)
James Bond films
It's Always Sunny
Flight of the Conchords
Dumb and Dumber, Stuck on You-Since I mentioned Ace Ventura above. Haven't found the Farrelly Brothers that bad
The Coen Brothers comedies
Bridesmaids
Jack Black's films
Pineapple Express, Cyrus-Since I picked on Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen before
Key and Peele, Portlandia, Kids in the Hall
Juno, Young Adult

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