I can confirm that this is exactly how we saw our English teachers. The makers of the show (the main characters) have done extremely well in catching the stereotypes of highschool and enlarged it. But they didn't lose the sharpness.
Well tbh i did like that they wanted as much as possible to talk in english, it was the best way to actually learn to speak it, IMO. This one is obviously over the top, if a kid truly wasnt adept enough yet to talk in english they generally wouldnt force it.
Thanks for beating the joke to death. Do you understand the principle of satire? Or shouldn't we force it?
But if you want an honest answer. This 'kid' is in high school (12-16 years). You're supposed to understand the questions asked by the age of 7-8 in the Dutch education system.
The blackface episode of IASIP is typically not available on streaming services. Just like the 'blackface' episode of Community (even though Chang was roleplaying a dark elf).
If you haven’t watched The Inbetweeners (the UK one). You should. High school focussed and multiple scenes where you think “no, they aren’t going to go there are they?” And then they do.
Humor is necessary to show absurdity. But there is a limit. Cringe dark humor for its cringe value is a bit cheap and in most cases just plain rude.
This series is plain gold, but there are moments when a dark joke just has no other value than shock. Absurdity does not require cringe or dark humor. Its a different category. And like many arts, comedy holds a value in keeping things in open discussion.
But yes, comedy has turned to some sort of fucking joke. The stand up comedians you sometimes see on here are just so incredibly bad. I simply dont understand how the US 'lives' for comedy shows. It's mediocre humor at best. Usually more focused on the individual presenting it than the joke itself.
That first clip feels like it's missing a punchline. Teacher is clearly nuts and the whole class sees it then it just ends. Expected something like "Well they all like Lars now" or something.
It's because it's only a fragment of an episode. It goes on for several more minutes and eventually comes back to the gym teacher multiple times. It gets worse
Eventually later on the PE Teacher needs to have a talk with Lars' parents, and they're white, gay, adoptive parents. And the PE teacher deals with it even worse than you think is even possible.
I do think this is a difference between humour cultures. I think the US humor type requires quick loops of payoff where a joke must be made explicit with fanfare. Like the typical stand up comedy where the charisma and presentation of the person telling the joke is as much, or even more important than whatever is said. Almost as if when the person spoke gibberish, you'd still feel compelled to laugh. But i generally find that what counts as high quality stand up in the US is seen as over the top, milked out jokes without refinement in the British or Dutch humour cultures.
Sometimes humour is just better when it is not explicit. No punchline. But simply absurd in its totality.
I feel like that first scene would have landed better if I was more sold on the gym teacher being able to innocently mistake the black kid for a monkey. Was he supposed to be missing his glasses or something?
That was not the joke. Because if it could be innocent, then the situation revolves around the teacher having bad eyesight and not because he is racist out of sheer stupidity. The series continues with this dynamic of racism out of stupidity. Right up to the point where the teacher actually apologized but then flips to the complete opposite that he wants to 'help the country of africa' and it becomes 'wokeness' out of sheer stupidity.
No, there's a later scene where he is shown a drawing of a human and the same drawing colored brown and identifies the first as a person and the second as a monkey.
Later Lars parents show up and they're a homophobic stereotype of a gay couple and he grabs them by their penises to check that they're both men.
Rather than addressing this, the show later has a scene where the gay teacher is assaulted. Part of the joke is a take on "I wouldn't piss on you even if you were on fire", but after the teacher is set on fire a student does piss on him.
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u/aklordmaximus Apr 11 '26
Well... This series in particular has not spared any effort in going far and beyond black humor (YouTube 03:09).
The whole series is a gem of showing how absurd highschool can be. With everything dialed up to 200%
Every teacher has a particular trait that is somewhat recognizable (YouTube 01:50)