It was funny watching through Ted Lasso this year. The first two seasons were tolerable. But then the third just shit the bed with wokeness. Almost every episode felt like “this time, on a very special episode of Ted Lasso …”. What was really funny was how toothless it simultaneously was. Like in the one that focused on homophobia, they actually censored out the word “faggot.” I remember back in the 90’s there was a special episode of A Different World about racism. In it, some white guys begin spray painting the word “nigger” on a black character’s car but get stopped partway. At the end of the episode, after everyone’s learned their lesson, they go back to the car and find someone finished the graffitti (signifying there’s still much to be done on the road to understanding; a great bookend to the story). These days, they wouldn’t even dare to show the start of word, let alone the full thing, and instead make allusions to the car being vandalized with something offensive (a dick? a swastika? the “ok” hand gesture?) to rob the message of its impact.

It was funny watching through Ted Lasso this year. The first two seasons were tolerable. But then the third just shit the bed with wokeness. Almost every episode felt like “this time, on a very special episode of Ted Lasso …”. What was really funny was how toothless it simultaneously was. Like in the one that focused on homophobia, they actually censored out the word the word “faggot.” I remember back in the 90’s there was a special episode of A Different World about racism. In it, some white guys begin spray painting the word “nigger” on a black character’s car but get stopped partway. At the end of the episode, after everyone’s learned their lesson, they go back to the car and find someone finished the graffitti (signifying there’s still much to be done on the road to understanding; a great bookend to the story). These days, they wouldn’t even dare to show the start of word, let alone the full thing, and instead make allusions to the car being vandalized with something offensive (a dick? a swastika? the “ok” hand gesture?) to rob the message of its impact.