To be honest, I'm still puzzled by/uncomfortable about "gay" used in this way, if only because I grew up in a town of 800 people, and to call someone "gay" (or "faggy") in that context is to suggest that they deserve contempt because they seem to share some of the characteristics that the inbred speaker associates with being gay. (This is hardly relegated to kids on the school playground either; it's just as common among adults.) So, I still blanch at your use of it, although I've never lived in what you would call a major metropolitan center, so I can't speak to its use in that regard. I know the kind of person you're talking about, though. What springs to mind for me is the kind of person who would go to a Daniel Johnston show hoping to see him crack up, or who would gladly attend a Michael Alig party (the "Party Monster" guy) were he ever released on parole. These people may not be uniformly witty or urbane, but it seems like a similar principle.

As for Heather's article, I'm disappointed that "Kath and Kim" seems to be so lazy and uninspired. Not that this would fix the show, I suppose, but the presence of Selma Blair can't be helping. I've read snippets of interviews with her, and she seems like an interesting enough person, but she hasn't given a single performance (that I've seen at least) that hasn't grated on me. But of course, she has nothing to do with the rote "laughing at small-town American boobs" premise. Network execs seem to forget that "Roseanne" was once the number-one show on television, and depicted its small-town characters with compassion and intelligence. But naturally, that first characteristic in particular would be alien to such "vampires", wouldn't it?

"It's not the quality of each presentation I'm arguing, only that they're all promoting greed and selfishness."

You make some good points, but there's a difference between promotion and depiction. I haven't seen "Breaking Bad" or "Dexter", and I certainly won't defend "Desperate Housewives", but with shows like "The Sopranos" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm", where exactly does that cutthroat, selfish behaviour lead? Closer to oblivion ("The Sopranos") or further into antisocialism ("Curb"). In either case, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement.