Before I dive in to the meat of my column this week, a few caveats: 1. I understand that 'I Hate My Teenage Daughter' is a sitcom and therefore not to be taken overly seriously. 2. Like everyone else, I adore Jaime Pressly and think she is enormously talented.

With that said, let me begin.

The premise of 'I Hate My Teenage Daughter' is this: two moms -- best friends -- were nerds growing up, and they spoil their daughters in an attempt to provide them with the perfect youth they didn't have. Instead, they've raised monsters. The show gets going when both women are called into school because their daughters have locked a wheelchair-bound fellow student in the bathroom.

Because this is a comedy, what follows is the revelation that these women are in fact intimidated by their daughters, desperate for their approval and incapable of disciplining them appropriately.

But let's go back to the part where the two girls lock their fellow student in the bathroom. Fox is calling them "mean girls" but I'm gonna go ahead and call them what they are: bullies. And considering the climate right now, I'm having a hard time giving this multi-cam comedy a pass. I'm so done with laughing this kind of stuff off. I know there are people who will say I'm being alarmist writing this, but here goes: teenagers die of bullying.

The one on my mind right now is Jamie Hubley, the openly gay son of a Canadian politician who killed himself last month. He'd been verbally bullied at school. He noted in his blog that his school was nothing like McKinley High on 'Glee.' There was also Buffalo's Jamey Rodmeyer, who recorded an 'It Gets Better' video before he took his life at 14. According to his parents, the bullying didn't stop after his death. There were chants of 'We're glad you're dead' at a school memorial service. And lastly, Tyler Clementi, who was secretly filmed by his dormmates, and killed himself when he found out about it. None of them, so far as we know, were locked in a bathroom but I think we all know what was done to them was done in the same spirit. A belittling, hateful spirit.



Because 'I Hate My Teenage Daughter' is a comedy, we'll never see the adult women in this situation punish their daughters appropriately for their bullying, because it wouldn't be funny. It's funny if the girls actually succeed in bullying their mothers, which they do. They manipulate them by withholding affection and giving them the silent treatment, and shaming them by calling them fat, ugly and badly clothed. (To be honest, this isn't funny either, but it's easier to set a laugh track to.)

When news of Hubley's suicide broke, Canadian broadcaster Rick Mercer recorded one of his famous 'Rick's Rants' asking whether it was time, finally, to stop talking about how it gets better after high school and start making it better now. And how alongside the grief counsellors pouring into the school Hubley attended, maybe it was time for police officers to go in too, and start holding some of the bullies accountable. It is in this context that I watched what I could of 'I Hate My Teenage Daughter,' and what I saw were irresponsible parents condoning morally disgusting and potentially dangerous behavior in their kids by not nipping it in the bud, right pronto.

I wonder what happens to the mean girls when they grow up. You never hear an adult woman say 'Oh yeah, I was pretty and popular and tortured other kids when I was in high school.' I sometimes wonder how many of the people who claim to be former nerds or tomboys are mean girls in self-imposed witness protection. In the adult world, the bullies are the ones no one wants to be around. I wish we could somehow extend a little of that dynamic to teens, instead of creating a bad sitcom that shrugs and accepts the status quo.

I'm done. I'm done laughing about this -- or in the case of this show, not laughing.

There's been some chatter about the title of this show. A lot of TV critics and fans are uncomfortable with any show using the word 'hate' in the title. Some pointed out that all four of the lead female characters are either weak or mean, and the show might be better titled 'Hollywood Hates Women.' But I have no problem with the title 'I Hate My Teenage Daughter.' I hate their teenage daughters too.

(Read Mo Ryan's review of 'I Hate My Teenage Daughter')