Posted on 02/20/2010 9:16:41 AM PST by ricks_place
Family Guy, the Fox animated comedy series, is either irreverent or crass, depending on your tolerance for unmannerly humor. Viewers come for its pop-cultural free associations and flatulence gags, not necessarily to debate pressing issues of the day.
So it is probably the last program that anyone expected to serve as a catalyst for a continuing fight about the depiction of disabled people on television, and whether they are fair game to participate in and be the subjects of satire.
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The argument was started by a Family Guy episode shown on Sunday night, in which the teenage character Chris woos a classmate named Ellen, who has Down syndrome. During a dinner date, Chris asks Ellen about her family, and she replies, My dads an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.
Though the joke was more or less in keeping with the offend-everyone spirit of Family Guy and its 36-year-old creator, Seth MacFarlane, it quickly drew the disapproval of Ms. Palin.
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Mr. MacFarlane said in an e-mail message that Family Guy was proud of the way that the Ellen character was portrayed. She is headstrong, outspoken and, at times, almost domineering, he wrote. The fact that she has Down syndrome was deliberately played as a secondary element to her character.
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Within Family Guy, the character was fully included, well-rounded, dynamic, not dealing with stereotypical Down syndrome issues, Ms. Williamson (note: executive director of the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles) said. She added: Am I a fan of that kind of humor? Eh. Its beside the point.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Laughing at ourselves is one thing, making fun of a little boy born disabled is another. What did Trig do to warrant this kind of derision? Do these people hate Sarah Palin so much they are eagerly willing to savagely attack a defenseless baby? This is all truly sad.
I am glad Andrea Fay Friedman likes to laugh and have humor and sarcasm, and it would have been well within bounds if she had laughed and mocked at herself and not at the expense of others who care for loved ones with physical handicaps. These loony lefties are so blinded by hatred of Palins that they have lost even basic human decency.
I just didn’t see the mock or humor in the clip but I am not the most sensitive guy in the world.
....”we” need to laugh at “our selves” and then things hurt less...
As long as you laugh at yourself, and at your own expense, nobody is hurt. But the same is not true when you decide to laugh at others, at their expense, or other people decide to laugh at you, at your expense. One can not say he or she has a right to laugh at others but others have no right to feel offended - that they should just take a chill pill and it would make it hurt less. Liberals have built the PC culture around such arguments and they hold even their opponents accountable to it. But in a rage to mock the Palins, liberals are violating every one of their own PC codes and taboos. Palins are having fun exposing every one of them!
Liberals would be appalled if Obama’s family and children were to be mocked or politicized or subjected to media. They are off-limit, liberals would assert. Than how come Palin’s family is not off-limit? For liberals, everything is a fair game, and they are exempt from all rules.
you got it.
me telling Disabled jokes on my self is one thing someone picking on the Pailens disabled son is quite another thing.
but personal attacks in a political debate indicate that their being out classed by their opponent, in effect conceding the debate.
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