Comedy TV isn’t necessarily known for bringing up the elephant in the room, unless they’re poking at it.
Before 1953, it was forbidden for a TV show to utter the word “pregnant” let alone have a pregnancy storyline. That taboo broken on Jan. 19, 1953, when Lucile Ball was pregnant and writers had no choice but to include her pregnancy in the storyline of the hit TV show “I Love Lucy.”
Freeform – formerly ABC Family – owns the popular sitcom “Black-Ish,” a comedy about a black American family trying to make it in a white world. Their most recent episode covers the issue of police brutality and whether or not kids should be exposed to the awful truth.
CBS sitcom “Mom” focused on another growing problem in America. The TV show centers around the quirky mother/daughter relationship between Anna Farris and Alison Janney. Both characters suffered from some form of addiction, and their sobriety is a big topic for the show. On April 9, 2015, the show revealed that Ms. Janney’s character started to relapse.
There’s also “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” or “The Nightly show with Larry Wilmore,” who parodies news networks. Some find these shows to be more reliable than their usual news resources.
Very few sources know how to handle polarizing issues in a tasteful way without being disrespectful. Today’s TV shows don’t care if it’s “inappropriate” to talk about the taboo – they don’t see a point in ignoring it.
