“Rooster” had to go there eventually.
It’s hard to set a comedy on a modern campus without showing how students walk on eggshells for fear of offending someone.
And so do the professors … especially if they’re straight white males.
So Greg Russo (Steve Carell), a straight white male visiting professor at the fictional Ludlow College, eventually ran afoul of the woke bylaws.
Twice in a single episode of the HBO Max comedy. Three times, in a way.
Mild story spoilers ahead.
Greg finally steps into a classroom in the show’s third episode as part of his visiting professor duties. He’s nervous and relies heavily on prepared notes, but in the middle of one conversation refers to a slim blonde student, who previously taunted him, as his “white whale.”
It’s an obvious reference to “Moby Dick” and that story’s iconic obsession. Except the student reports Greg to his higher-ups and he’s dragged through a meeting to apologize.
The administrators essentially shrug at Greg’s alleged thought crime, and he goes back to class without suffering any punishment.
Just be careful, they warn him.
The second time features a weakly choreographed pratfall that finds Greg groping a female student’s chest by accident. He slipped and tumbled into her.
Again, his college superiors gather to assess the “crime,” and even the alleged victim admits it wasn’t on purpose. Greg still has to go through the meeting, groveling for forgiveness.
“Don’t do it again,” says his superior, a possible love interest played by Danielle Deadwyler.
Later, Greg runs afoul of the PC police a third time. He drops by the college’s hockey game wearing a uniform from his playing days. The team’s logo includes a Native American figure in a headdress. Once he realizes the imagery might offend some students, he turns the shirt inside out to protect himself from even more trouble.
Deadwyler’s character points out that the image’s outline is still visible.
Now, conservative viewers will cheer these scenes, knowing it’s rare for Hollywood to acknowledge, let alone critique, woke university madness. Heck, if they can’t update “PCU” from the ’90s, at least “Rooster” is addressing the issue in a small but significant way.
But is the show mocking Greg, the easily offended students, university culture or all of the above? So far, it’s option D. – all of the above.
That might be the most convenient approach, but it also shows a lack of cultural courage. The just-wrapped “Landman” season 2 approached similar material, but the storyline involving a nonbinary college student zinged woke nonsense while granting the character in question her humanity.
It’s not a simple balancing act in today’s culture, and perhaps the rest of “Rooster” seaon one will find a way to both mock woke students and give Greg the humanity he deserves. Or, it can call out college insanity for exactly what it is.
College insanity.
Stay tuned.
