Pop Culture Thursday--Disability On King Of The Hill

I think that "King of The Hill" is one of the great underrated satires on television, despite constantly losing column inches to the more gag-centered "Family Guy(although the talking dog and evil baby sometimes kill me too.)

I happened to catch one of my favorites on repeats last night, although if you are cautious regarding "King Of The Hill" and disability humor after the painfully unfunny set of ADA- mocking jokes in season 3's episode"Junkie Business" you are not alone.

I think Mike Judge is a comedy genius but the idea of a whole office finding justification in the ADA to not do their jobs still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Although I look forward to any occasion in which Judge brings back Anthony, the painfully literal and essentially humorless social worker with the matched set of carpal-tunnel wristbands because it is a stereotype I can believe in.

In "Ceci N'est Pas Une King of The Hill" the humor is turned toward the art world and its marketing of art by people with disabilities or other disadvantaged backgrounds, called "outsider art."

When Hank needs some art to help his father-figure boss, Buck Strickland, he's embarrassed by the stuff he sees in the galleries, and is pleased when Peggy starts making statues out of propane tanks.The people at the city council aren't impressed, though, until a gallery owner sees dollar signs and offers Peggy her own art show

There is a catch; he peps up her life story by giving her a deprived life in Appalachia and no education, making her headline a show called "I Ain't Got No Learning". The show is a huge hit, but it leads much of Arlen to treat Peggy like the illiterate the show's copy says she is, like her neighbor who is intellectually disabled and turns down money in favor of being paid in soda cans. The gallery people say that art from a married substitute Spanish teacher like Peggy won't sell at all; it's the exotic hooks that lead to success. They tell Hank that if she isn't liking ignorant hillbilly, they could sell Mrs. Hill as "criminally insane"

Maybe working for an arts journal obsessed with attracting "marginalized voices" made this funnier.

Anyway, Peggy thinks about quitting, but goes back to making "probots" on her own terms.

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