The Lazy Comedy of Exaggeration in ‘Vice Principals’

Season Two of HBO’s “Vice Principals” picks up exactly where it left off—Neil Gamby (Danny McBride), one of the titular vice principals hoping for a promotion, has been shot. He believes that it was Belinda Brown, the former principal, who shot him. However, Russell (Walton Goggins)—another vice principal and Gamby’s friend—confirms that it was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time: “It was a stereo thief, and you spooked him.” Gamby’s desire to figure out who shot him despite Russell’s better suggestion becomes the driving plot device of the episode.

Unfortunately, the show relies too much on exaggeration to contribute to the humor and often fails to deliver comedy. The music and the acting is overly dramatic. Often the scenes are played in slow motion, and montages add to the juvenile silliness of the comedy. There were a few lines that were very quotable, but that alone could not transform it into a workable piece of comedy.

The episode heavily relied on the over exaggeration of certain actions the actors take or words they say. Gamby plays up the fact that he was shot: “Perhaps but I’ll never be the same again.” In another scene, he sits in front of a heavily used detective board as he attempts to solve his shooting. It is meant to be funny because no one else cares to continue the investigation—the police have already solved it. However, the overt absurdity of the scene kills any chance of funniness.

The music also added to this over exaggeration by being purposefully slow or overly exciting. The music deliberately played up cliché tropes. For example, as he looks at the murder-suspect board, fast-paced yet soft music reminiscent of the score from a spy or detective movie plays in the background. After Russell calls Gamby “a beached whale,” the music turns into a motivational mantra while Gamby gets up without the aid of a wheelchair. This is all ridiculous since the audience, as well as the characters, know that Gamby can walk. This is presumably meant to add to the humor, but it is only exaggeration without comedy.

Furthermore, the episode takes advantage of slow motion to bring more false drama into the episode. The episode begins with Gamby having a dream in which he is wearing a Native American feather headdress (which is problematic appropriation), and school officials, teachers, and students are running around him. Then, a tiger appears. All of this is done in slow motion until he is woken up. This continues to add to the purposeful exaggeration of events. Yet, it continues to fail to bring humor to the episode, instead dragging out an unnecessary part of the episode.

However, there were a few very quotable lines in “Tiger Town.” For example, Gamby tells Russell off at the pond where they discuss Gamby’s future at the school, “I don’t need your artificial painkillers. I have my ducks.” These lines are the only parts of the episode where the exaggeration actually works to construct comedy. They straddle the line between funny and ridiculous.

Ultimately, however, the episode failed to attain its goal of comedy, and relied too much on exaggeration in the acting, music, and effects. A few hilarious lines saved the episode from being a total disaster.

—Staff writer Kamila Czachorowski can be reached at kamila.czachorowski@thecrimson.com.