Still Looking for My Ron Swanson

Interesting article from Matt Lewis at The Daily Caller about two successful shows that mock progressives.

For all the talk about Hollywood’s liberal bias, they still produce the best artistic critique of liberal culture. This is both sad and encouraging. Sad — because conservatives devote a lot of time and energy to creating much less effective satire — but encouraging because it means humor and a profit motive still trump political ideology.

My favorite recent examples come from NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” and IFC’s “Portlandia” (available on Netflix and Hulu, etc.)

If you missed last week’s episode of “Parks and Rec,” it was a terrific takedown of crony capitalism. After big government advocate Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) fights to bailout a failing local video store (in order to preserve Pawnee’s entertainment culture), the video store owner (Jason Schwartzman) takes the town’s money and turns it into a porn shop. Of course, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) who opposed the bailout on philosophical grounds, finds this hilarious.

Aside from being funny, it’s a terrific illustration of why government meddling distorts the free market and brings about other unintended consequences.

 

He has more examples from Portlandia here.  I’m glad some people in Hollywood know that the best comedy has an element of truth.  The stereotypical Bible-beating, anti-gay, racist conservative characters?  Not funny because most of us don’t encounter them in our circle of friends and relatives.