Review of Portlandia

Portlandia (2011–2018)
2/10
Typical Cable Television
2 March 2014
Naturally cable television slipped too far into the realm of low-budget content long ago, relying on little more than shock value and mockery rather than wit or quality writing, but today most of cable television just insults your intelligence. This series normally airs on the IFC Channel.

I viewed this series on Netflix, watching the pilot and the second episode expecting something different, but it is simply wasn't funny. Some reviewers would argue that I haven't given it a chance and that the last couple of seasons have improved, but I simply have better things to do.

Whether one calls this series "satire" or "mockery", it relies on "poking fun" at such a tiny sub- culture of urbanites normally found in only a couple of small neighborhoods in a normally easy- going, small city that it is just plain boring. Whether a series devotes itself to poking fun at "San Francisco leather daddies" or Dallas suburban "bubbas" or outer Laramie, Wyoming libertarian cowboys, the same "satire" of the same sub-genre, of a subculture of people gets boring fast. It would be one thing if the show was actually witty, whimsical, creative, or just plain odd, but it fails at all of the above. Maybe for typical reality TV viewers this is the closest to humor that they have seen in some time, but really, there is much better out there, and it probably airs on regular network television.

The question too is at what point does endlessly mocking the same population of people to the point of promoting disturbing stereotypes become more than a little tasteless? But whether it is rural Louisiana or New Jersey, that is how low cable television has gone today.
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