NBC Primetime Show Plays Bestiality for Laughs
In the name of comedy, there appears to be no topic too perverted to air on primetime, including the hilarious act of bestiality. NBC's Thursday night show "Outsourced" featured a character who thought it appropriate to detail his "horsemen" skills to the entire office.
"Outsourced" follows the misadventures of a young American businessman, Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport), overseeing a customer service representative call center in India. The comedy plays upon the cultural divide between the United States and India and, in its debut season, has scored a spot on the back end of NBC's Thursday night comedy lineup following Emmy-award winning "30 Rock."
The Feb. 3 episode featured American boss Dempsy's attempt to boost morale at the office by taking his employees on a relaxing retreat. When he told the staff about the activities featured at the retreat, which included horseback riding, token buffoon employee Gupta (played by Parvesh Cheena) eagerly shared his experience with handling horses.
"I will be in my element," said Gupta. "I come from a long line of horsemen … not horse riders. Ah we braid the tails, clean the hooves, masturbate them for breeding ..." As if that line wasn't enough to totally gross out viewers, Gupta concluded with sick glee, "When they whinny, you know you've done a good job! Naaaay!"
Later in the episode, while the staff is supposed to be bonding, they turn on each other and air their grievances. Gupta accused Manmeet (Sacha Dhawan) of chewing on all the office pens, and Manmeet's retort was to bring up Gupta's lurid behavior with animals saying, 'Well you masturbate horses!' Gupta proudly defended himself saying, "And they are the happiest horses in all of India!"
The show has not escaped the media's notice as it has received mixed reviews from critics. The comedy has been praised for its "smart writing" and heralded as "quite charming" by the New York Times, but also has critics concerned that it could be 'insensitive' and possibly "an excuse to mock Indian people and culture."
"Outsourced," not typically associated with a lewd narrative or overtly questionable dialogue, premiered last fall with modest ratings (averaging 6.3 million viewers per episode) and was picked up by NBC for a full season in October 2010. However, Thursday's episode had 3.7 million viewers, which is a 5 percent drop from last week's episode, tying its season low viewership.
Perhaps viewers displayed their disgust with the bestiality reference in the first three minutes of the show, by turning the dial.
