Comedy Central's "Broad City" Is Taking A Unique Approach To Trump's Presidency

Political satire is not a new phenomenon in any way. Politicians have long been the target of comedians, and some light-hearted fun that shines a light on some of the absurdities in our nation’s political system is always a welcome sight. Somewhere along the way, satire has given way to outright political statements. As opposed to making us laugh, a countless number of comedians and programs have taken to the outright bashing of political viewpoints they’re opposed to, and they end up alienating a vast portion of the country in the process.

It seems as if it has been slowly building to this point for a number of years, and it has completely metastasized with the election of President Donald Trump. The never-ending quest to be viewed as ‘edgy’ or ‘provocative’ has led to a complete green light to remove all filters, and that has led to a comedic environment in which it’s perfectly acceptable to cross the line to express displeasure with Trump. We’ve seen a number of cringe-worthy incidents over the past few months in the name of comedy or satire, and it seems like we’ll only see more of them as the Trump administration continues.

As AOL shares, here’s another example of what passes for ‘edgy’ or ‘provocative’ these days. Comedy Central’s ‘Broad City’ is set to launch its fourth season, and the program has found itself in the headlines for the way that it plans to address the Trump presidency. The show will bleep out all references to his name. Co-creator and star Ilana Glazer explained the reasoning for this during a recent interview.

"There's no airtime for this orange [person]," she said. "We bleep his name the whole season."

That opens up a few questions. If there’s no airtime for the sitting president, why not just avoid including any segments in which his name may be mentioned? Glazer’s additional comments provide a few clues.

"We wrote being like, 'Here we go! Hillary for president!'" Glazer continued. She notes that after "this game-show host became president of our country, we rewrote a lot."

Alright. So the show’s creators and writing team were disappointed with the election results. It was a close election, and roughly half of the country walked away feeling similar. We get it. That narrative has been crammed down our throats on a daily basis. As opposed to creating a bit of a distraction and escape for those that may be upset, the creators of Broad City have decided to pile on and increase the divisiveness even further. Sounds like a brilliant strategy.

In fairness to the show’s creators, they’re merely following the precedent that has been laid out. As the public grows increasingly tired of being preached to by an endless number of ‘edgy’ and ‘provocative’ programs, viewers of overly preachy programs will decline precipitously. Many viewers simply want a good laugh when they turn on a comedy program. Many of these same viewers can also make up their own minds when it comes to political choices.

Source: AOL
Photo: YouTube