Davis' post

Shows like the office and parks and recreation are designed to be comedies that also deal with social issues, without stepping over lines generally considered to be uncrossable. It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia is nothing like that. It is incredibly offensive to basically every possible group. An example of this is an add campaign designed by Dennis’ friends designed to kill his political career. It pokes fun at how incredulous attack adds can be, but takes it to an extreme that many, including myself, is not appropriate. The genre of extreme comedies seems to be a growing market, and this one seems to take ques from South Park, a show that is intentionally offensive for the sake of comedy. So, does it have any merit?

The design of the show is intentionally extreme. This allows them to talk about any social issue without the concern of precedence. In one of the first episodes, Mac becomes a pro life protester on the abortion issue so that he can sleep with an attractive woman who is genuinely passionate about the topic.

When she tells him that she is pregnant with his child, he immediately switches sides and tells her she needs to get an abortion. The funny part of this is that republican Tim Murphey did the exact same thing last year and it caused him to lose his reelection. In a humorous way this show showed that a lot of people switch sides on abortion when it has real ramifications for their lives. Without actually pushing a stance on the issue it pointed out an intricacy. Another episode has mac dating a transgender woman, or a man who is in the process of becoming a woman. It points to Mac’s underlying homosexuality

and, again while not actually pushing a stance on acceptance of transgender lifestyles, it puts the issue on the silver screen. This was much more controversial when the episode aired than it is now, and it addressed it in a humorous way. Mac tries to hide his relationship from the gang, who begin to suspect that he is the serial killer on the lose in Philadelphia. He eventually confesses that he was seeing her/him, and they show that they don’t care, while trying to convince him that he is gay. This is a continued story in a later episode where the “tranny” (as they call her) has completely undergone reassignment surgery and has married a man. Mac is furious because he cannot date her and proceeds to read Deuteronomy to them, who then quote the same book on the topic of slavery, and make him furious. Here the show encourages the idea that things like religion are more nuanced than what people like Mac want to believe.