The Cleveland Show, "Who Done Did It?"

It seems like American Dad has been faltering in recent seasons, leaving The Cleveland Show to take the title of "Best Seth MacFarlane Show." But this was resoundingly not the case last night, with a mystery-based episode that was nothing but weak sauce. As if aware of this fact, FOX shunted the episode to the final slot of the night, putting a re-run in the show's usual time slot.

The basic premise of the episode was a murder mystery. Except that it was hardly a mystery, with the culprit - as well as the means of death - being telegraphed well in advance. (Kudos to FOX for choosing the re-run that they did; I had forgotten about the origin story behind the little white dog, Rock Hudson.)

Worse, really, was the show's homophobia. Relative to other Seth MacFarlane properties, The Cleveland Show is usually better at handling homosexuality. But "Who Done Did It?" is basically one long gay joke, from Freight Train's insistence on dressing in drag to play the part of his nom de plume female mystery writer, to the obligatory cross-dressing prison rape joke at the end.

This is what people mean by "rape culture." It means that shows like this one present rape as part of a shared joke, which has the effect of normalizing it. 1 in 10 rape victims are male, and many of those rapes occur in prison.

You would think that if there was one place we could control sexual assault it would be in a prison lockdown-type situation, but the opposite is true, and why? Because we as a culture condone this behavior in a million tiny ways. Not least by dropping a character into a prison cell and then obviously he's going to be raped by his cellmate because that's just how life works, right?

Ha ha, it's funny! Everybody laugh at the rape joke. Isn't rape hilarious? It sure is!

Come on, Cleveland Show. You're better than this.

Image copyright The Cleveland Show/20th Century FOX Television