Brand X
on FX
By Christopher Gildemeister
Hollywood’s so-called glitterati should thank their lucky stars for the FX cable
network. Where else could they experience non-stop, explicit profanity than on
programs like
The Shield,
Rescue Me, and
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Where else could they indulge their
warped taste for hideously graphic gore and sexual perversion than on programs
like
Nip/Tuck and
American Horror Story? And where else could a self-confessed criminal,
heroin user, and alcoholic sex addict receive his own talk show? For making all
these “benefits” possible – all while forcing every cable and satellite
subscriber in America to subsidize them – the FX network, and the July 12th
episode of its latest abomination Brand X (Thursdays, 11:00 p.m. ET),
deserve recognition for being the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.
Russell Brand first came to widespread attention in this country when he hosted
the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards.
During the course of that program, he exposed (and that word is used advisedly)
the program’s teenage audience to crude sex talk about the Jonas Brothers, L’il
Wayne, and Katy Perry.
Of the Jonas Brothers, Brand said:
“That boy will spend the rest of his life masturbating while wearing a condom
and then he'll probably bury it. The whole idea, in fact, makes the idea of
pledging to God that you’ll remain a virgin ‘til marriage seem like quite a good
idea. So well done, the Jonas Brothers”;
L’il Wayne:
“[He] made me feel much more justified about masturbation even when he's at
work. He thinks it's alright to cup himself, cheered me right up. I should
probably spend the next half hour with the problem.”
While of his soon-to-be-wife-and-14-months-later-ex-wife Katy Perry, Brand said:
“I was so inspired by Katy Perry's songs message that teenage girls will do
anything for the taste of cherry chapstick that I'm currently going through nine
chapsticks a day, and my (muted c***) has never felt more moisturized.”
Earlier this year, Brand again played host on MTV, this time of the
2012 MTV Movie Awards, at which he
aimed his raunchy sex-and-drug humor at Justin Bieber, Alec Baldwin, and Charlie
Sheen (admittedly, the last is
an appropriate target).
Thus, it is scarcely surprising that Brand’s own program is wholly
devoid of wit, being reliant exclusively on explicit sex, drug, and toilet
jokes. While a drunken audience at a third-rate comedy club might find such
material funny, it is unlikely that any sober adult – indeed, anyone over age 13
– would. After relying on such tired bits as abusing a heckler over what he is
wearing (by walking into the audience and thrusting his crotch into the man’s
face) and reading funny newspaper headlines (somehow, it’s doubtful Jay Leno is
worried about the competition), Brand shows the true depths of his originality
by rummaging through a female audience member’s purse. Wow – reusing a bit
originated on Art Linkletter’s House Party in the 1940s! Now, that’s
cutting-edge comedy!
Of course, it’s not the originality of the concept, Brand and his
fellow professional “comedians” might object; it’s the delivery that counts.
Undoubtedly, such is true; but when the “delivery” consists of references to
anal beads and variations on “I have to take a s***,” it is not hard to see why
Brand X achieved a feeble one million viewers – on its premiere episode,
typically the highest-rated episode a new program can expect. Out of America’s
100 million cable households, literally 1% of them watched Russell Brand; yet FX
feels justified in forcing his show into every cable- and satellite-subscriber’s
home…while forcing them all to pay for it.
For dumping garbage into living rooms and sticking homeowners with the delivery
charge, FX’s Brand X is the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.
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