HBO's 'Vice Principals': School Administrators Behaving Badly

HBO's Vice Principals is not a comedy for the current climate of political correctness in America. Actually, Vice Principals is the opposite: a foul-mouthed, foul-tempered satire that pulls no punches in its quest to poke fun at its juvenile-humored characters. That no-holds-barred attitude is proving to be a bit too much for some critics, even as they admit that the series is, at least occasionally, very funny.

Vice Principals is the creation of Danny McBride and Jody Hill, the team behind the similarly raunchy Eastbound and Down, which ran on HBO for four seasons between 2009 and 2013. In Vice Principals, McBride plays Neal Gamby, the vice principal of a South Carolina high school who wants the recently vacated job as principal. He faces competition from Lee Russell (played by Walton Goggins), an equally uncouth adminstrator who think the job should be his. As the pair struggle over the job, they conspire to undermine the woman (Kimberly Hebert Gregory) who is hired into the position.

The series uses the uncensored platform of HBO to deliver jokes and gags that rely on sexism, racism, homophobia and every other hot-button issue imaginable. The critics who've been most outspoken against the show's crude and often offensive humor concede that, a few episodes into the season, the series' satire - the writers are not really asking us to like Gamby and Russell - begins to surface. Getting to that point, though, could be a struggle for some viewers.

Vice Principals premieres July 17 on HBO.