IFC’s ‘Brockmire’ Seemingly Takes Cheap Shot at Flint in New Promo [VIDEO]

I was watching that James Franco ape movie last night on IFC and while I was tuning out the commercials and scrolling through Facebook, as one does, something caused my "Flint Sense" to start tingling. I looked up to see an ad for the show 'Brockmire' and quickly jumped back 30 seconds.

Sure enough, it was the incredibly talented actor J.K. Simmons saying the line "It was like the Flint, Michigan of broadcasts" with a huge grin as if he was taking a cheap shot at our city. Sure, we do that all the time, but we can. We're from here. I'll be damned if we're gonna let J.K. Juno Jameson skate like that, even if he is a great actor and was just reading his lines.

I jumped another 30 seconds back to see the full context of the "joke" and it looked even worse. They show Hank Azaria's titular character totally bombing during a broadcast of a baseball game and then cut to J.K. Simmons saying that line, as if to imply that Flint sucks. Not cool, Brockmire. Not cool.

Initially, I had trouble finding that 20-second version commercial that airs on TV (seen above). The first video I found of the scene was a more complete version, as seen below.

It turns out that the reference is edited slightly out of context in the shorter promo, as the longer clip of the Flint reference included here clears things up a bit. He actually says:

"It was just an endless parade of suffering with no one offering any help. It was like the Flint, Michigan of broadcasts."

Seeing the fuller context, I went from being kind of pissed to being okay-ish with it. The show is still making light of a terrible situation, but at least they're acknowledging the struggle and not saying that we suck.