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Role of humor
Reflection essay on the series family guy
Role of humor
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We all know that Family Guy by Seth McFarlane does show offensive content. Most people do not pay much attention to age rating on the corner of the television screen unless they are a parent. As children get older, there are always those certain shows that parents do not allow them to watch. However, once they start to develop mature minds, they begin to understand the reason of restriction from watching the shows in the first place. Kids tend to watch the show even though it is restricted to viewers over the age of fourteen. I agree that Family Guy presents a lot of offensive content such as bad behavior and language and can greatly influence kids to react to what they are viewing and copy their actions or things they say on television because they don’t quite know what’s right from wrong. But we should also need to take into consideration as to why the show Family Guy displays content that may be offensive to many viewers as well, but better yet to see it from a broader perspective.
Kids can just see through the crude humor, misunderstanding it is simply another one of the cartoons they are already used to watching, when in reality kids are introduced with adult humor at an early age from shows like Family Guy. There is a right time and place for everything, and adult humor and that Family Guy should derive along toward the mid or even late teenage years. Antonia Peacocke, the author of the article “Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious,” clarifies in her writing that Family Guy is a show that is focused on toilet humor but then again is very fascinating by its unique humor behind it. I strongly believe that it is not a show to be taken seriously, it is carried by its own unique humor, and that the ag...
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... there other people in other countries suffering from starvation. With the fact that there is offensive content presented in this episode, it leaves me questioning, is this that rich people in high societies view other parts of the world that are below them, as being “hilarious?” This also proves Peacocks idea that Family guy does reveal aspects of American culture.
There’s much more than what meets the eye. There are hidden messages on the show that requires a bit more of critical thinking in order to understand what is being perceived on the joke. Family Guy should not be mistaken as being extremely offensive because it is purposely on television for our entertainment, they don't differentiate a specific individuals but the society as a whole which makes it equal for everyone to watch and to be entertained, and that they display intellectualism in a crude manner.
Sitcoms like The Simpsons, are used to show that the traditional family is not what it is played out to be on other shows like Father Knows Best, The Jetsons and Leave it to Beaver. The Simpsons challenges and upholds the traditional sitcom while representing the American nuclear family as a unique and lovable family. Like most shows that come out of Hollywood, The Simpsons is pro-Democrat and against Republican views. This show suggests that not following the traditional family roles will you give you a happier life. Gender roles are often used in the show to demonstrate masculinity and femininity. Through satire and parody, The Simpsons addresses gender roles and the typical problems and behavior of an average American family.
My humor consists mainly of a mix of high and low comedy, and sarcasm. One element of humor that does not appeal to is caricatures. An example of this is a terrorist joke. The terrorist was holding a pencil and saying “Where is the trigger?” exaggerating the fact that, in the news we hear about terrorism, and when the terrorists come to America they would not be able to decipher the language or the meaning of objects. The joke did not appeal to me in anyway and didn’t make sense. A certain part of an element of humor that does not appeal to is disgusting anecdotes. In the passage, Brothers by Jon Scieszka, a family goes on a roadtrip and stopover to eat. A brother drops a piece of candy and the cat eats it and yacks it up. “Tom burped a bit of Stuckey lunch back on Gregg.” The bodily functions and them throwing up and spilling out of the puke wagon had made me lose my appetite for lunch.
It was hilarious whenever Fred Sanford of the hit series Sanford and Son used to fake his heart attack saying that famous phrase, “I’m coming Elizabeth” or what about him telling Aunt Ester how ugly she was. No one took that type of comedy to the heart and it was intended to hurt no one. It was all for a laugh. Now in today’s time there are new shows on television such as The Chapelle Show, which is hosted and directed by the comedian Dave Chapelle. The object of this show seems to be how much fun he can make of a different race. Times have changed and so have peoples’ since of humor. People went from the laid-back type sitcoms such as Sanford and Son, The Three Stooges, and The Little Rascals, which are all types of shows that people can watch with their entire family, to shows even adults feel turned away from. Some examples include The Chapelle Show and In Living Color.
Psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists study humor because it is a fundamental culture value, but they still can’t determine why certain things make some people laugh and others not. There are “humor quotient” tests that are designed to measure an individual’s sense of humor, but these tests are questionable. These tests aren’t accurate because almost all humor depends on cultural background knowledge and language skills. Not every person in the whole world, or even in one country share the same background knowledge and skills, therefore they cannot have the same type of humor. “The fact remains that individuals vary in their appreciation of humor” (Rappoport 9). Since humor varies from individual to individual, humor lies in the individual. How successful or funny a joke is depends on how the person receives the joke, humor cannot be measured by a statistical
Since television came into existence, it has evolved into a useful tool to spread ideas, both social and political, and has had a great effect on the generations growing up with these heavily influential shows. To these younger generations, television has taken the role of a teacher, with the task of creating a social construction by which many of us base our personal beliefs and judgments on. This power allows television shows take the opportunity to address problems in a manner that many audiences can take to heart. Many television shows present controversial topics in a comical matter, in some ways to soften the blow of hard-hitting reality at the same time bringing attention to the issue being addressed. In the television show, Everybody Hates Chris, season one, episode four entitled “Everybody Hates Sausage”, the stereotypes that continue to fuel racism are examined in a satirical motif, and class is presented in a comical way, but carries serious undertones which present a somewhat realistic view of the different social strata within the United States.
It can be seen in the first episode of Full house that many of the jokes were just the characters joking around as a family, some jokes even surrounded sexual references, but none of the jokes talked about politics or current events. For example, Stephanie tells her uncle Jesse to play ballerina with him. This by itself is funny because the audience sees a grown man dancing. The real joke comes at the end of the dancing when Stephanie tells her Uncle Jesse that he “needs practice” and that they will “practice together every day” (5:04). This kind of humor is family oriented funny to all ages. In Fuller House, there are jokes made on Donald Trump, and other “adult” topics. For example, Max (DJ’s second son) tells his mom not to worry, and that he “knows all the bad words: darn, booger, and Donald Trump” (7:01). Granted, this could be taken as a funny statement to many people, it can also be seen as extremely unnecessary for a television show to get involved with politics. Therefore, the family fun jokes have changed into jokes about politics and real life
“Morreall argues that, if we want to answer these questions, we shouldn’t focus on whether the joke happens to trade on a stereotype. Instead, he takes the primary problem with some humor to be that it involves disengaging from things with which we ought to be engaged.” (Morreall, 529)
Now, the new sitcoms have introduced new family situations, and controversies around them. However, these family members aren’t the sweet, funny, semi-normal characters that were adored in (Full House). They seem to have very different, weird and somehow funny personalities. (Modern Family) introduces the typical “mom, dad, and three kids” family along with an old man married to a younger Columbian woman and gay men with an adopted Asian baby. These new sitcoms like Modern Family introduce family diversity, something that wasn’t exactly present in older sitcoms. Another difference between the old sitcoms and the new is that the humor is a bit more old school. Now the older sitcoms were very seldom and profane and they relied on more classic, clean cut direct humor. Current sitcoms often include less G-rated humor, relying on crude humor to get laughs. There’s not much harm in that though, as long as it doesn’t go overboard. Older sitcoms were based on more functional families, where newer ones tend to be based on dysfunctional families; new sitcoms, Modern Family especially, rely on this dysfunctionality to make their viewers laugh. Older sitcoms, like Full House, had a lot of feel-good moments of bonding between family characters, but new sitcoms seem to take away from that
In all reality, people do watch Beavis and Butt-head and other anti-family television shows. The power we feel in the act of criticizing and the seemingly harmless antics of these shows gives us a reason to keep watching and criticizing TV despite the irony of it. Because we know TV characters have no power to change their situations in the TV world we feel we are above them and can watch TV with harmless effects.
Unfortunately, for many parents, the offensiveness of the written content completely overshadows the educational substance. They presume that it is more prudent to keep these things from tainting children’s minds than it is to allow them to thoroughly explor...
Over the years, several cartoon series have been chosen as the object of study for different researches. The world most famous animated family, The Simpsons, has been studied by Meskill (2007) focusing on their discourses about education. The author concluded that the satirical portrayal of schools in The Simpsons- teaching, learning, administrating- is brilliant in the cleverly suggested conflicts it portrays and provokes. These contradictions, according to Meskill, can illuminate the humanistic side of the society in which we live and help to improve its institutions. Another cartoon series that has received many critiques is South Park. Schulzke (2012) analysed the episode “The F Word” to illustrate how the show uses sophisticated strategies
Family Guy, an animated sitcom about a New England family and their everyday dilemmas, is a way for viewers to see the comedic side of a dysfunctional family. The Griffins consist of Peter and Lois, the patriarch and matriarch, and Meg, Chris, and Stewie are the children(Family Guy). Every character is different from the next character. They are also weird in their own way. The television show itself displays feminism, structuralism, and gay and lesbian criticism. Each character in the show also displays those criticisms in a certain fashion. Family Guy can be offensive to viewers with its satire, and the way the show delivers its message can make the family and the other characters in the show seem dysfunctional.
...g to have profanity, it always has a warning before it begins. It is not the producers fault if the show is a bad influence on kids if it is the parents fault for letting them watch it even after the warning speech it gives at the beginning. if you dont have children and just dont like that kind of television genre, then its okay because everyone has their own opinion. Reality tv should not have regulations. It is up to the viewers on whether they want to watch or not so if they don’t like it, well then just change the channel.
mainly with the content of the shows. Many of the shows on television portray violence, drugs, sexual activity, and profanity. People who watch these shows see what the actors and actresses are doing and then feel it is all right for them to do the same things. If a kid is watching a show were one of the actors or actresses use profanity, they will feel it is all right for them to use the same language.
Humor can be used like a sniper's gun, picking people off when they least expect it. When we use humor to hurt, we abuse the fundamental essence of this wonderful gift. We must teach our children the difference between what is funny and what is cruel. A joke is never humorous if it is at the expense of another.