10/10/06: Dexter (2006)

The Democrats may not have a Karl Rove, but let’s salute their clever operative who slipped us a Brent Bozell. The president of the Media Research Center is capable of the occasional fun column. Here’s one that nicely goofs on the idea of a network show worrying about offending Christians. Too often, though, Bozell stays busy as an embarrassment to conservatives—like this typical display where he bitches about Dexter.

The new cable series is about a likable sociopath who’s a crime-scene expert by day and serial killer by night. That’s a fun idea for some fiction. There’s certainly nothing offensive about a network offering that kind of show. Especially a pay-cable network like Showtime.

Bozell still manages to get all concerned about what kind of society would allow Dexter to be aired. He’s even more outraged at the reliably Leftist TV critics who are giving the show positive reviews. Bozell is mainly outraged because he’s got no sense of humor and hates the idea of people who get jokes that he can’t.

Regardless of who likes it, Dexter is good television. The critics like it because it goofs on the idea of normalcy -- personified, in this case, by Michael C. Hall covering his homicidal ways with an all-American demeanor. That’s a lot less offensive than why Leftists love a show like F/X’s The Shield, which is a creepy liberal fantasy of a corrupt cop who’s ultimately sticking it to The Man.

The most lovable thing about Dexter Morgan is that he’s a serial killer who only kills murderers and pedophiles. As a matter of fact, that does make the concept perfectly all right. In a touching development, Dexter was actually taught to use his murderous skills for good by his foster father—who, as a police officer, knew a developing psycho when he saw one.

Dexter (the character) is likable because he knows that he’s a monster, and it’s fun to watch a sociopath try to pass for normal. Remember the Clinton administration? Dexter (the show) also relies on laffs from showing how twisted normal society has become.

Bozell, meanwhile, is so desperate for back-up that he provides a quote from the Miami Herald’s Glenn Garvin. The critic describes Dexter as a series where “murder is virtuous as long as it’s committed within the confines of a rigid but self-imposed code. Of course, that’s just what Osama bin Laden does….”

Brent Bozell and Glenn Garvin believe that Osama bin Laden has a self-imposed code served by the random slaughter of innocents. That’s the most Leftist thing we’ll read all year. These two dolts can’t even tell when they’re making a good case for the death penalty that RightWingTrash adores.

Maybe it’ll turn out that Dexter isn’t so honorable that he won’t kill the sole cop who’s on his trail. We don’t know. We haven’t read the books that inspired the series. Neither has Bozell. For now, we’ll be good consumers and give Dexter a chance.

Bozell will just keep dreaming of an America where we can’t even enjoy Mr. and Mrs. Bland murdering a bunch of pervy swingers in a sweet-hearted film like Eating Raoul. We don’t think we want to live in that kind of America.

Make it your own: The first episode of Dexter was available for download here. You might still be able to find it. And, of course, there are those two books we haven’t read.

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion