Tuesday 3 August 2021

The IT Crowd, Season 2 (2007)


Content warning: real world transphobia

The much put-upon IT department of Reynholm Industries are back for another series of misadventures involving thwarted relationships, corporate takeovers, lecherous bosses, malfunctioning inventions and German cannibals.  

Pretty much everything I said about the first season of The IT Crowd continues to hold true here.  The cast are still great, and it remains frequently amusing in its absurd hijinks, but writer Graham Linehan does have a tendency to take the cheap and easy route on his jokes.  Homosexuality is not intrinsically hilarious, despite what Mr Lineham seems to believe.

Which brings me to the reason that this season gets a 'Not Recommended' from me.  You see, in writing this review I looked up Mr Lineham on wikipedia and learned that 'being gay is funny' is far from the most harmful belief he espouses.  He is a notorious exponent of anti-transgender bigotry, to the extent that he actually got banned from Twitter.  The apparent catalyst for his crusade of hate?  A season 3 episode of this show being criticised for including transphobic elements.

I know some people will say 'you can enjoy someone's work without endorsing their views'.  My answer to that is that there are a huge number of TV shows out there that aren't run by people running a public hate campaign against transgendered people.  I suggest you go watch one of those instead of this one.  That's what I will be doing from here on.





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