Seth MacFarlane
Ted

I have never shared the mass ecstatic adoration for Seth MacFarlane's animated products. Family Guy is a copy of The Simpsons, as pallid as it is shameless, that has painstakingly tried to find its own expressive autonomy by emphasizing two or three elements (the irreverent wickedness, the continuous recalling of anecdotes, the citation of celebrities...) that were already present in the much more refined prototype. This resulted in an animated series that seems tailor-made for the times we live in, with its excessive vulgarity, unreasonable cynicism, and fragmentary nature (perfect for sharing on YouTube) made of perfectly self-contained gags grafted onto an irrelevant underlying plot.

After milking dry the cow of Simpsons-style mannerism in other TV series as vacuous and inconsistent as they are praised by the audience, MacFarlane has now played the cinema card as a director, screenwriter, and (as always) voice actor. Obviously, the idea of changing his highly successful style has not even crossed his mind, and so he has done nothing but shoot a sort of long "live-action" episode of one of his TV series, where on a narrative framework even offensive for its conformism and predictability (the usual story of the eternal immature who refuses to grow up and commit...) are grafted the now-famous Griffin-style gags. The novelty is that, having to give up by necessity that extreme, ungraceful, and vulgar wickedness that at least made Family Guy recognizable, Ted demonstrates a dismal inconsistency not only on a narrative level but also on a purely comedic level. Not that there are no laughs during the viewing, but they are vacuous and inconsistent laughs reminiscent of Neri Parenti's films, which are forgotten as soon as one gets up from the seat, so predictable is the comedic mechanism, seen and revisited. In 2012, do we still have to die laughing over sitcom stuff like the flashback recalled in opposite versions or the paradoxical brawl? Is it possible that simply mentioning current nonsense like Twitter or Katy Perry's off-key notes immediately triggers laughter? Not to mention the millionth repetition – now a trademark of the author – of the character doing things that contrast with their innocent appearance (here it was Ted, there it was Stewie). Enough already, for heaven's sake.

One wonders how it is possible for characters like MacFarlane to receive unanimous praise, even in the face of such blatantly poor results. And here the explanation can only be sociological: it is evident that the guy has hit upon a formula capable of somehow resonating with the young generations of our times. A veneer of flashy wickedness, some harmless quirks, the coolness ensured by the timely citation of some current event, piles of vulgarity and sexual references grafted onto a sentimental plot whose banality would embarrass even Garry Marshall, and there you have the comedic genius of the 2000s (and 2010s).

Bleak.