The Comical, Animated, American Family
by Amanda Busch
A popular topic in any medium that covers American culture is the american family. In particular, television comedy tends to portray the american family in a unique way, especially animated comedy. "Family Guy," created by Seth MacFarlane, draws more people, namely young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four, than the late night shows of CBS's "Late Night Show With David Letterman" and "Jay Leno" on NBC. Lasting just forty-nine episodes on FOX before moving and being rerun on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim nightly, "Family Guy" gains its popularity highly from its irreverant nature, where no topic is taboo (Weinraub, 2004).
With bold, controversal, in-your-face humor, "Family Guy" finds crude humor in religion, race, sexual preference, feminists, ethnicity, disability (Weinraub 2004) and the typical american family. Using obscure pop-culture references (Gordon, p. 11), "Family Guy" puts the typical american family in the spotlight, overemphasizing the ignorance and unintelligence of a white, middle class family. The show pays special attention to common characterstics expected to be seen, such as whiney teenagers, hassled mothers, a hard-working yet nearly brainless father, with more comic relief from random personalities personified through a dog, and a talking baby, with the intention of mere comic relief. (MacFarlane, 2004).
The family of "Family Guy," the Griffins, consists of six members and a talking dog. Each of these characters reflects a stereotype of the american family. Peter Griffin is the moronic patriarch--the father of the family. He is a middle-aged blue collar toy factory worker. He is characterized as being overweight, ignorant, and unintelligent (MacFarlane, 2004). The cartoon's theme song even spoofs on the importance of Peter's character, saying "But where are those good old fashioned values on which we used to rely? Lucky there's a Family Guy! Lucky there's a man who positively can do all the things that make us laugh and cry! He's a Family Guy!" (Family Guy, n.d.).
Peter's wife, Lois Griffin, reflects the stereotypical, stay-at-home, american mother. She dreams of being an entertainer, but overlooks her own wants to take care of her family (MacFarlane, 2004). Housewives are typically viewed in this manner, always putting their family's needs before their own, working hard to be caring and loving. These woman tend to be characterized as care-givers and motherly.
The Griffen family children are stereotyped just as badly as the Griffin parents. Chris Griffin, the son, is seen as a slacker (Weinraub, 2004) and extremely unintelligent. He always appears dazed and confused by the simplest of subject matter (MacFarlane, 2004), which seems to overplay the ignorance and unintelligence of average american male teenagers. Chris' sister, Meg Griffin, is seen as a whiney teenaged girl (Weinraub, 2004) who has no self-confidence. She cares too much about being popular and is constantly picked on for not being cool enough by the standards of her peers (MacFarlane, 2004). American teenage females today seem to be reflected in these characteristics, because so many also care about what they look like as well as how many friends they have.
The seemingly most intelligent characters in the family appear to be Stewie Griffin, the one year old child bent on world domination (Weinraub, 2004), and the family's smoking and alcoholic pet dog, Brian. Stewie is extremely intelligent and proper spoken, and Brian is just as intelligent, as well as very cultured (MacFarlane, 2004). With characters such as these that do not seem as if they should have the aformentioned characteristics, it does not give a highly respectable view of the rest of the family. It makes the rest of the family appear ignorant, unintelligent, and uncultured.
Animated comedies can take comedy to a new level, allowing characteristics, such as those mentioned above, to be relayed in its content that could not be relayed as well in a normal family sitcom. The american middle-class white family tends to be over-stereotyped to make the cartoon comical, and so people can laugh at what is at least half true in american culture. Even though some of the characteristics may be over the top, the fact is that some of it at least is true; it is just overdone in a comical manner, which gives animated comedies their initial appeal.