The animated
sitcom Family Guy has been the target
of numerous complaints and criticisms. Throughout the multiple seasons it has
taken a beating with viewer numbers and ratings. Family Guy may possibly be one of the only shows to take so much
hatred after its first airing in January 31, 1999 after Super Bowl XXXIII that
channel FOX would soon put Family Guy’s air
time in limbo, giving the show terrible time slots and giving other competing
shows the upper hand.
Family Guy has been cancelled twice and while many
people despise the animated adult cartoon, a high amount of DVD sales and
viewer support seemed to make the show come back to life. What is it about Family Guy that makes half of the
audience uneasy and critical while the other half is rolling with laughter back
in their seats?
Family Guy focuses on an abundance of topics;
whether it involves race, religion, or gender. Family Guy is a show that literally turns everything into a joke and they
do it because, well, they can. There is no reason that Family Guy should not be able to use stereotypes and
discriminations in their episodes. Family Guy takes jokes and puts them
into an animated cartoon, after all they are just jokes, right?
One of the main
issues I believe people have with Family
Guy is not so much the content of what is being said but how it is being
said. It is no secret Family Guy
thrives off of its use of derogatory messages that inherently bash an
assortment of areas within the series of the show. It’s the pedestal the show
is placed on! Take for example this conversation between Lois and Peter after
they are done watching a Pawtucket Patriot Beer commercial. Lois, “Typical male
fantasy, women drinking beer. I guarantee you that a man made that commercial.”
Peter, “Of course a man made it Lois, it’s a commercial not a delicious
Thanksgiving dinner!” (Zuckerman, MacFarlane, & Young, 2000) Peter uses his
banter to bash the idea that women would not appreciate such a commercial
because it did not have cooking involved in it. Lois, on the other hand, bashes
the entire male gender, insinuating that only a man would come up with such a
demeaning commercial about women.
Family Guy uses this demeanor because it is funny,
women are teased about their cooking and men are teased about their obsession
with beer and women who like to drink beer. According to a recent study, in
regards to the usage of derogatory messages within the Family Guy series, derogatory messages are found within 9.2% of the
scenes, which comes out to being 553 out of 6,030 scenes from the series that
were analyzed (Ricke, 2012) now, if you ask me, that does not seem like
a big enough percentage to have such a strong hatred towards this show.
What else could
it possibly be about this show that always has everyone’s undies in a bunch? Maybe
it has to do with the audience that is watching it. The show’s initial target
viewer demographic was males ages 18-49, with the shows popularity staying
within the younger age range. (Oldenburg, 2005) Well, I can tell you one thing,
last time I checked I was not male but I certainly started watching this show
before I was the age of 18. The thing about Family
Guy is that, although the jokes may be tailored to certain topics and
subjects, the younger demographic is not going to understand half of the jokes,
heck, I am 21 and I still do not understand half the damn jokes!
This show does
not single out one stereotype and continue to just hammer away at in every
episode. There are episodes that make jokes that could be tailored toward me and
yet, I am a huge fan of the show and find it extremely comical and
entertaining. The show was made for an adult audience and it has become
available to the younger population, so be it. One show is not going to derail
the young population’s intelligence.
The hatred
towards this show is and will always be baffling. Family Guy uses its unique humor to attract a variety of audiences around
the world and by doing so attracts a wide viewer demographic. I will admit it
uses humor that is so unique there will always be people who “just do not get
it” and others who believe the young audience should not be able to view such a
show so easily or even at all, since it did get cancelled twice.
What makes Family Guy obtain hatred from so many
viewers, in my opinion it is that people simply do not understand it. Family Guy is not there to solve your
problems, to make your life better, or to teach you something that you may be
able to use later on in life; it is there to entertain. It is there to break
the mold of the ordinary television show and bring you something you may have
never seen before. After all, it seems today,
that all you see, is violence in movies, and sex on TV but where are those good
old fashion values, on which we used to rely? Lucky there’s a Family Guy!
Works Cited
Today. Retrived from
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-07-11-
cartoons_x.htm
Ricke, L. D. (2012). Funny or harmful?:
Derogatory speech on fox's family guy. Communication Studies, 63(2),
119-135.
Zuckerman, D., MacFarlane, S. (Producers), & Young, M. (2000). Family Guy. [Television
Show]. United States: Fox Television Studios
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