When you (should) know you're being insulted

Simon's post below about the prince among men who was his teacher reminds me of something I wanted to say about Channel 4's nasty comedy drama Shameless.

My wife watches it; I don't like it. When the mot recent series started, the opening scene was of the main character pissing in a urinal. Gross enough, but they made it worse by offering a "urinal's eye" view of the event. So the opening scene was of someone figuratively pissing in the audience's face.

It's like a challenge from the Yeah-No people. How much can we insult the audience, how far can we go, and people will still watch this shit?