Ted is a simple story about a man longing for his youth and being unable to recognise when to move on into true adulthood. Ted and John hang out in his flat smoking pot and obsessing over Flash Gordon. But when Lori makes it clear she wants him to propose (not a very modern woman is she, why doesn't she propose to him for Christ sake?!) John can't bring himself to take Ted out of his life. More important than any kind of plot though, is that this is a film packing the crude humour in by the spade-load. For those of you out there who have seen Family Guy - as I said already, it's more of that. Drug-taking, drinking, foul-mouthed put-downs, sexual crudity, casual misogyny & racism are all the norm here. It might be the only thing that Seth MacFarlane's capable of doing, so it's a good job that he's good at it. The film drifts into classic Family Guy territory more than once - notably the out-of-context reference gag is on display when the film cuts to a shot-for-shot remake of the Saturday Night Fever parody in Airplane! when John describes how he and Lori's first met. It's unimaginative comedy that has always been the weakest part of Family Guy, but thankfully it's kept to a minimum here.
Crudity is what we're talking about. If you're a fan of the kind of dry humour school of thought that says it's funny to simply be a grouchy old fart shouting obscenities about the world, then you'll be in your element here. The character Ted spouts misogynistic and racist rhetoric by the bucket-load, almost like you would expect of a character who is meant to be 50 years his elder.
So what about the casual misogyny and racism that runs through the film (and - let's be honest - Family Guy)? It sort of undercuts what Seth MacFarlane does, because I spend half the time wondering why he's coming out with it. I'm not sure if he's either trying to be avant-garde by declaring everything fair game or actually just a bit of a bigot. The line between a satirical take on culture and simply being racist isn't that fine. Watch the film and tell me how the Chinese fellow who turns up with a duck isn't racist. Ted even tells Norah Jones "Thanks for 9/11" at one point. Which makes absolutely no sense on any level - apart from perhaps to demonstrate that Ted is an even bigger idiot than we already thought. But then the character is supposed to be a lovable sort despite all his flaws, which kind of implies that we're supposed to accept racism as long as the person being racist is good at heart.
Given that I assume not even Seth MacFarlane intends for his audience to laugh along with Ted's racism. Perhaps the point is that MacFarlane's brand of comedy is simply a collection of anarchic stupidity, living on the edge of what is considered acceptable in the modern age. Though generally I applaud this (it's a logical extension of what Bill Hicks / Lenny Bruce were doing after all), I worry there's might be a section of the audience laughing because Ted / Peter Griffin are saying the things they would like to be able to say themselves but feel political correctness prevents them from doing so. I just hope that MacFarlane isn't one of those people and doesn't end up normalising casual racist language.
Purely as a film, Ted is very very funny in places but drags in others as it struggles to puff its storyline out into 100 minutes. The chase sequence at the end isn't needed at all and the film's final message (if it has one) gets lost as it runs rapidly out of steam. Though it probably would have been better as a shorter film, Ted is still funny enough to make it worthwhile.
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