A Different Type of Medicine

The season finale of House MD has some Republican fans in an uproar. On Monday, May 19th the second part of the episode ran, entitled "House's Head."

House has a "medical conference" inside the hospital bathroom, in a scene parodying the arrest of Senator Larry Craig. House reaches his foot over to the other stall, and after touching the foot of one of his doctors apologizes for having a "wide stance." During this scene a "Change 08'" sticker is clearly present in the background.

Immediately after this scene the House message boards were aflame with people vowing to never watch the show again because of the subliminal political advertising. The first post was from someone who identified herself as the wife of a USAF officer, and said she would boycott the show and tell everyone to do the same. Others are simply annoyed for having to see a political message, stating "I watch this show to relax and get away from the usual BS we hear all day on most primetime news stations."

However most reactions were along the lines of "who cares?" Viewers argued that the writers have freedom of speech and its not an all out endorsement of candidate Barack Obama. Others even approved of the message, saying that the show is obviously liberal in ideology or at least anti-Republican.

My reaction is no reaction. No one knows the reasoning behind the placement of the sticker or who did it. It may have been a writer, one of the actors, or maybe it was a team decision. There is no way to know unless the cast discusses the incident publicly.

And considering the direction and theme of the show, why hasn't anyone thought of this as a shot at "Change 08'?" After all, the sticker is in a grimy bathroom stall during a scene parodying Senator Larry Craig.

Finally it would be difficult to extract a political message from the show. House is more of an apathetic nihilist than a political dreamer. During a previous episode he had a patient who was running for the president, and was black. I'm going to assume he was running for the democratic ticket. House did not have any preference here, instead sticking to his adage of "everybody lies" and accusing the candidate of the worst possible political snafus, corruption, and scandals.

The episode will be online May 27th, for all those who want a medical dose of political trivia.