Last week's 30 Rock featured a highly offensive, thoroughly stupid plotline (lifted, coincidentally, straight from The Simpsons) that any parent would be loathe to let their children watch: a guy getting his hand stuck inside a vending machine.
Oh, also, there was a faux reality show named after the most annoying consequence of the popularity of American Pie (besides, of course, American Pie 2, American Wedding, American Pie Presents: Band Camp, Etc.–Ugh, eight years later and we're still feeling the backsplash of that thunderous turd of a movie.): MILF Island, a title that the New York Times found "jarring" in its "coy reference to a vulgarity."
Thursday's episodes of "30 Rock" and "The Office," each included coy references to a vulgarity: in one case it was bleeped out; in the other it was winked at in an acronym [MILF Island]. While not unprecedented, the occurrences in the back-to-back prime-time shows were jarring. They also raise questions about the placement of "30 Rock" as an anchor of what an NBC executive, Ben Silverman, has designated the "family hour."
This article presupposes three things: 1. That kids who are watching 30 Rock would be scandalized by hearing the term "MILF," 2. That anyone cares, and 3. That the term "MILF" isn't both tame and completely socially acceptable. There are a lot of things that "MILF" is—irritating, ubiquitous, tiresome—but "jarring in its vulgarity" isn't one of them.