If anyone could innovate a way to approach the sore subject that is Donald Trump, it would be the brilliant fused minds of Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson. Rather than acknowledging him as a full-fledged human being, the innovative duo has decided, appropriately, to treat his name as a four-letter word a.k.a. a profanity. It’s a more than fairly fitting move considering how foul and obscene Trump is as a human being. Though, of course, those that support him would feel that the sound of the word “fuck” is far more offensive.
While not wanting to totally gloss over the travesty that was his election back in 2016–which came as a particular blow to the Broad City girls considering Hillary Clinton made a rare cameo appearance in season three–Abbi and Ilana also know that not to address it at all would be a missed opportunity. Ergo this unique and comedy-rife decision to simply bleep only his name out in lieu of all other obscenities.
Conversely, T%&*! is the type of person that would much prefer to censor words like “trans,” “gay” and “woman.” To highlight the dark epoch in which we’ve all entered–what Glazer has dubbed not overly dramatically “the beginning of the end of our democracy,” the show is, for the first time in its run, taking place in the winter, which, as any longtime NYC resident can tell you, is a stark and depressing tableau.
To give viewers a sense of just how politically-tinged the fourth season is, a clip of Abbi and Ilana reacting to news of T%&*! being sworn in features a slew of swear words that are all left intact save for the one name that has proven a true desecration to all languages.
