Self Ridiculing Television

528 Words3 Pages
Self-Ridiculing Television The animated television show, Family Guy, created by Seth McFarlane, is often seen as having crude and inappropriate humor, but in the article, Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, the author Antonia Peacocke explores another take on the popular show. In her article Peacocke speaks to her belief that Family Guy does not merely aim to be offensive, but rather cleverly ridicules American culture. Peacocke also points out that the Family Guy viewers are more intelligent and receptive to the show’s humor than most believe. She reveals the obstacles and hardships the show has gone through as well as the creator’s intentions for the show. In her article Peacocke talks about her own skepticisms about Family Guy, before actually watching it, and she explains how it is easy for the jokes to be seen has ridiculously offensive if a person has not actually seen the show. After being somewhat forced by popularity to watch the show, Peacocke sees the humor is not as crude and inappropriate as many see it, she actually says, “Family Guy intelligently satirizes some aspects of American culture (303).” Meaning, as she sees it, the show is made with the purpose of, in a way, making fun of our own way of life. Due to the show’s content it is not unheard of that the Family Guy viewers be called unintelligent, mindless drones. Many people, even if they have never seen the show, would find it fitting to believe the viewers uneducated and tasteless, but in the article Peacocke argues this stereotype. In response to the negative outlook on the Family Guy viewers Peacocke says, “They are not immoral or easily manipulated people” (304). She sees the viewers as intelligent and able to interpret the program’s humor on a deeper level, rather than taking the crude jokes quite so literal. The article goes on to explain that Peacocke
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