Stereotypes In Family Guy

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“I will be as untouched as the turn signal in Asian women’s car.” Offensive? Stereotypical? I realize that to most individuals, the first line of this paper can be both stereotypical and offensive. Some would even argue that a comment such as that has no place in our society today. However, I wrote down that line while watching an episode of Family Guy, the popular cartoon with millions of viewers. Family Guy is known for their racist and stereotypical comedy. The show pokes fun at races, religions, as well as cultural customs. Constantly pushing the envelope on what can be said on national television, Family Guy has seen great success even though there is heightened sensitivity to race and racism. My question is why? Why can Seth Macfarlane and the other show writers get away with such raunchy and offensive comedy? I am not saying that Family Guy has been able to glide under the radar without anyone making a big deal of what they are saying. The show has been sued on more than one occasion. There have been many…show more content…
Like it or not our culture has created many stereotypes about all sorts of people, religions and other cultures. Family Guy exploits these common stereotypes that people try to ignore and makes light of them. In a way they try and talk about “the elephant in the room”. The more people are uncomfortable with the topic the funnier that the skit can be. During a track race in one Family Guy episode, we see an example of this. The starting gun goes off once for all the white runners so they can have a chance of winning and then off again a few seconds later for all of the black runners. Although this is not true, there is a common stereotype that African Americans are better athletes than White Americans. By utilizing this stereotype, the show is able to create a funny scene that isn’t necessarily
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