It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Mac, blackface is never appropriate

I’ll say it  right now, the first half of the episode was pretty slow and the pacing was way off. The best part of the episode, hands down, was the screening of Mac, Dennis, Charlie and Frank’s film, Lethal Weapon 5. Charlie uses his Borat accent for one of the henchmen. Frank plays the villainous Indian casino owner, whose evil scheme is to taint the city’s tap water. He also has an unnecessary and completely disgusting love scene with a breathy blond (worst love scene ever). Top it all off, Mac and Dennis switch parts half way through the movie. And then there are the little touches, like Dee walking into frame as she tries to take out the trash, the 10 second gun salute at the end and Frank credited as “Love Scene Choreographer.” Lethal Weapon 5 kind of represents every low budget fan film that’s still bad, but helped by the misguided enthusiasm of the people in it. It’s kind of why Plan 9 from Outer Space is laughable, but more-or-less watchable.

I wasn’t sure how the boys’ debate about blackface would go, but it was pretty funny for the sheer stupidity of it. Even when taking on a racy subject like this, what keeps Always Sunny charming is that the characters aren’t trying to be racist. In fact, there’s a whole scene where Frank, Mac and Dennis try to figure out what is actually appropriate. Mac’s attempt to rationalize blackface is so misguided, “They’re actors, they’re trying to create an illusion. You know, in the Lord of the Rings movie, Ian McKellen plays a wizard. Do you think he goes home at night and shoots laser beams into his boyfriend’s asshole?” Come on Mac — 0f course blackface is inappropriate. Your performance as Danny Glover just proves that. But watching the confused Frank be told that James Earl Jones was not wearing blackface — that Darth Vader is actually a black man — was great.

Dee and Charlie get fired from the school by the end of the episode, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. What do you expect when you bring teenagers to a bar and offer to wash one of them from head to toe? I feel so bad for Dave Foley‘s principal — he seems to have given up after dealing with the gang. It seems few normal people stay sane after encountering these people.

Clacked by Katie Schenkel
on Nov 12, 2010 @ 09:00 EST5EDT