Where are those good old-fashioned values... (Family Guy)

Member Name: MisterReview

Product:	Family Guy
Date:	11/05/09 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny and presnts the truth in an absurd manner

Disadvantages: Some might find it violent, racist, sexist etc if they have a high irony threshold

OK it is a given that if something is going to be written about Family Guy, you can be pretty sure that there will be a comparison with The Simpsons.

They are both about a family, each dysfunctional in their own way.

There you go, now to concentrate on Family Guy.

There was a time when animated cartoons were for kids - all a cartoon really is, is just another medium for telling a story or making an expression. You could call Family Guy a sitcom, you could say it was a soap. There are some outlandish occurrences and over the top situations shown to us. I cartoon form, this allows us to absorb the message that the absurd way in which a point is being expressed.

In some ways it also allows the makers to show the ugly side of people in a way that won't cause uproar, the main character Peter Griffin, the head of the family is often shown acting in unacceptable ways, i.e. he is sometimes racist, sexist etc.

The fact that there is also a talking dog who acts just like a human, though occasionally with doggy traits and a baby who talks very eloquently in Received Pronunciation, makes the unbelievable, believable.

The show is obviously a vehicle for the makers views on society and perhaps sometimes the views that we daren't express.

Aside from that, for those of us who don't really want to make a cultural analysis of the show, it is downright funny,

Summary: Family life in the USA in animation