Could a sitcom like this exist?

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Okay...

Wolf Yeager is about a teenager with Aspergers and his sleazy misadventures with his extremely dysfunctional adoptive family in the town of Cox, South Carolina. Every single character on the show is violent, perverted, sociopathic, self-absorbed, nihilistic, materialistic, or any combination of them. Many characters commit heinous atrocities "because they can", which is essentially a catchphrase of the show. The adoptive parents, played by James Woods and Molly Ringwald, ruin everyone's day every episode, doing stuff like raping and murdering Wolf's girlfriend ON CAMERA, stuffing kilos of cocaine in his locker, hiring gay strippers for their biological daughter's seventh birthday party, and at the end of the opening credits, pointing guns at their kids heads during a family photo. The humor is pitch black, with a lot of blue. And Andrew Dice Clay is actually the nicest person on the show.

Probably only on HBO

It might do well on Iranian TV.

I doubt you could get those actors, and it'd probably be hard to get it funded, and aired on television. You could probably do it as a web show independently though, if you just get the money (provided you have the skills for it or know who to hire). Write a pilot script and start a Kickstarter campaign?

..huh...
Not on Disney, I guess.

Sounds like you'd get arrested during filming to me

Ever heard of freedom of speech? (And acting?) Obviously if there's real rape and murder, there'll be trouble, and if there's nudity, there might be "anti-obscenity" laws in certain places, but nobody's going to arrest somebody for implying rape or murder as a subplot in fiction. Though, if you show it on network television in the US, the FCC will issue a fine against the broadcaster for breaking their content restrictions...which, by the way, are completely unconstitutional, so why haven't you Americans brought down the FCC yet?

Last edited by Vince on 11 Jan 2012, 10:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

As far as I know, even if it's not real, showing a rape on camera (as opposed to it just being implied in the plot) is illegal (in the UK at least).

Even without showing genitalia?

I don't know for sure but I'd assume so. The law targets depiction of the act rather than how pornographic the depiction is.

That is ridiculous. I don't think it should be any of the government's business to police what acts are depicted in fiction. The point of depicting horrible acts in fiction can often be to show how horrible they are, to raise awareness. Or, for that matter, to enhance the menace of an antagonist. Watering that down is not the job of a government.

I agree entirely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting that kind of legislation, I'm just saying it exists.

It reminds me of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but taken to the absolute extreme.

I don't think it quite does in the US. There, you just get slapped with an NC-17 rating or something if it's a movie, though I'm not sure what the rules are in cable television. Also, probably depends on the state.
In Sweden, we have no equivalent. It's pretty much all self-censorship here. There's a law against hate speech, though, but that doesn't apply to having a racist character in a piece of fiction, for example, just to intentionally and publicly spreading hate against a demographic based on ethnicity, skin tone, nationality, sexual preference or religion. This doesn't include discussing/debating the subjects factually, nor privately expressing prejudice, but it does include putting up a sign that says "NO GYPSIES ALLOWED ON THE CAMPING GROUNDS" or spreading flyers condemning homosexuals as "HIV-spreading, promiscuous pedophile-enablers" (these are real, albeit translated, examples of cases where hate speech led to a fine) et.c.. Certain aspects of the law are argued to be limitations of freedom of speech, and I think it might be. The people making hate speech are a**holes and idiots, but perhaps they should have the right to express their idiocy as long as it doesn't restrict the freedom of others. Not sure silencing idiots is better than being able to identify them.

I agree, and I think the less censorship the better. I know that in the UK, if the film rating authority thinks something is "too much" for an 18 certificate, it'll get banned, and that has happened before in the few rare cases. Same with a few books and magazines I think.

Doesn't sound all that much different from "Shameless" which is a UK TV show, which has, I think, won awards.