Yes, another clip from my favorite show, Family Guy! If you have ever watched the show, you can identify this character as Quagmire. Quagmire, the pervert. You can find countless episodes that poke fun at the fact that Quagmire is always simultaneously having sex with multiple women, underaged girls, and even the physically disabled. He is quirky, always making sex jokes and then saying "giggity giggity goo oooh right!"
A lot like my last episode I would like to challenge those who watch and enjoy the show in asking, why do we find this funny? Lets think about what we would characterize today as "perverts" Men who have sex with girls under 18 or that are just interested in children in general. Normally this is not a laughing matter. Quagmire often pushes himself upon women which we would consider sexual assult, yet we still laugh.
Does rhetoric allow us a way of laughing at things that really shouldnt be funny? Why is this okay? As previously stated, Family Guy makes fun of a lot of different real world issues. Yes stereotypes are sometimes funny when imitated, but being a pervert? I ponder what it is that makes us okay with this as people. Family Guy remains one of my favorite shows, but the more I write about it, the more I wonder why we can be okay with them going so far. I am not sure if it is because it is a cartoon, if it is because it is clearly a joke, or simply because we are able to identify that these are some real world issues. What do you think?
I said before how I think that cartoons make people perceive these serious issues as much more lighthearted, but I do think there's more to it. Shows like Family Guy allow us to laugh at situations or characters we would not be allowed to laugh at in real life. As you stated, laughing at a sexual assault or statutory rape would be heavily frowned upon. Is laughing when these situations are presented in shows like Family Guy a way to confront issues we otherwise would not be able to comfortably discuss? Or is it simply making fun at issues that should not be made fun of? I like to think it's for the better, and allows us to better approach these situations in the real life, because at least it gets us to think about them, even if it's in a laughing manner.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about people laughing at situations that would, in real life, be considered extremely serious and sometimes disturbing matters. Maybe we can squeeze out a few laughs because we are really laughing at the awkwardness. Obviously, if experiencing many of the things you mentioned in real life, awkward would be an understatement, but when there is no risk involved and no harm able to be done, maybe we can just laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of what we see on T.V. I would say too that the way the characters present their idiosyncracies helps us. Script writers, producers, etc. have to choose carefully so they don't cross the line between funny and mentally disturbing or sick. The same idea can apply to some scary movies we see where we laugh more than fear. I think it is all about perception.
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