Does Family Guy take the jokes too far?
 

They have a rep. for taking the piss out of everything and I guess that’s all well-and-good to a certain extent (as long as our Brian’s left out of the piss-taking) but do you feel that some of it is grossly inappropriate or that it’s just part-and-parcel of the show?

There's no such thing as a joke being taken "too far". Unless it implies a call to violence, nothing should be seen as off-limits.

Violence isn’t the be-and-end-all for me if there’s a situational/contextual reason for it, it isn’t rooted in discrimination and doesn’t call people (you’ll always get the odd nutters who’ll take anything as their excuse-cue to kick off) to get violent it is what it is. That’s the reality of virtual reality and it starts with video-games (and I don’t have any strong anti-opinions for that in the first place). Jokes about rape and hate-crime should be absolutely off-limits, IMO.

And I love Family Guy at least just as much as the next person (which should be pretty obvious by now) but yeah. Sometimes I feel like they take it way too far and that the jokes that stay within decency-propriety sometimes sorely lack the subtlety of South Park’s ones (and I don’t really prefer South Park to F.G., but their comedy’s definitely superior).

If you take any TV show, especially a comedy, too far, then you should question yourself, because you're the one with the problem.

Why?

Yeah, it sounds like he doesn't want rapists to be ridiculed, it comes across like he wants them protected from that.

So exactly, Why!?

I bet he doesn't think jokes specifically about White people should be off limits.

I'm right on that, arne't I?

It’s just a bit distasteful when the likes of Peter joke about being raped and “violated” when it’s a very serious and unfortunate thing to happen to someone. I don’t find jokes about sexual abuse funny but that’s just me.

You’re not right on anything re. this thread but you crack on.

I'm always right on comedy, I see your thread for what it is, wanting to cancel humour, especially British humour that will makes jokes about anything, including race, war, class. Nothing is off limits in British culture humour and long may it continue.

South Park is much better. Politically South Park is on point.

I asked my girlfriend if we could try my rape fantasy last night, she said no! It was the best night of my life.

Now that is a perfectly funny joke.

Well, that may be but Family Guy’s an American show in the first place so … y’know.

It's all the same, the yanks can do humour the same as us. It's all humour deriving from the English language.

I see you anti-comedy people as no different to those religious types who cry blasphemy.

Taste and humour are subjective, the writers of Family Guy certainly don't seem to be trying to write jokes that make me laugh. But I still think they should be alllwed to keep flogging their dead horse, regardless of how funny or tasteful I don't find them.

If I was that anti-comedy I wouldn’t watch Family Guy in the first place. Chill.

I'm just answering your question in a more dramatic way.

The boring answer to your question is. No, it doesn't.

For me it's not a matter of "too far" or that sort of a sliding scale, it's about what I would call finesse. That's always the case with comedy. There's very little that's too far if it's done right and especially when it's clearly satire/social commentary. No comedian or comedy is going to hit the bullseye 100% of the time - I personally find that the issue with Family Guy is that it can be a bit scattershot, sometimes it hits the mark and sometimes it's waaay wide of the target, and often they do it a bit carelessly. By which I mean, if you're going to have dark jokes about dark subjects you should be at least confident that it's going to land. Family Guy writing seems to knowingly just take "pot shots" sometimes in the HOPES that they'll work, and with little care that if they don't, they're poking at areas that should be handled with a bit more respect.

It's not even like the vast majority land either, I'd say with FG about 40% is funny, 40% is unoffensive but also ... unfunny ... and the other 20% is "head in hands" misfire.

Funnily enough - the Family Guy scene that I found the funniest was Peter trying and failing to flick a dead frog out of the window... which is very PG and uncontroversial (except for maybe vegans or something I dunno). And I think, generally, it's actually funniest when it's NOT trying too hard to be edgy.

South Park is the opposite of what I said above for me, as much as I love it. Their satire is usually dead on target and they tackle things that are more controversial than Family Guy all the time, but because their satire is so good it pretty much always works. From at least S5-ish onwards, anyway, it was a bit more crude for the first couple of years.

But rather than missing the mark with clumsiness like Family Guy, I find that when South Park misses the comedy mark it's because they've leaned too heavily into being openly "preachy" and it just isn't entertaining at that point.

Like I said though it's very rare and, actually, I think there were just a couple of seasons where it went that way maybe 4/5 years back. They're definitely back on form now, and they've mastered season-long "themed" arcs too.

Another ting I don’t like about Family Guy is the fact that Peter’s depicted as the main protagonist because of misogynistic ideas from a certain time that the man, no matter how irresponsible and moronic he is, js the head of the family. Brian, Stewie and Louis are in a different league to him (and I don’t necessarily dislike Peter).

To be fair I always took that to be a satire of the "classic US family sitcom/comedy movie", where the big fat bloke is always "in charge" no matter how ridiculous and bumbling he is. They also play a bit on the fact that they're in a decent sized, detached family house that they own when it seems unlikely that Peter is competent enough to be doing anything worthwhile to earn the money to pay for it, and Lois (I believe) doesn't work (another US trope).

On that vein I thoroughly recommend the show "Kevin Can ****** Himself" - which is a dark parody of sitcoms and plays on the same trope (Kevin is basically Peter Griffin, the protagonist is his wife who is basically Lois if she finally had enough and had a mental breakdown). If you're going to watch it though watch at least the first two episodes - it is NOT what it seems to be in the first episode (a bad sitcom) - it is a dark comedy/drama.

Basically (semi spoilers as it's a reveal at the very end of the first episode)

Is that animated as well TS or not? ^

I do agree actually and they sometimes joke about abusing underage people as well which is pretty suspect. Like SB says a lot of it just feels scattershot as well and serves no purpose

I was amazed a few weeks ago though to discover my 94 year old Grandma knew of Family Guy and she described it as 'an ethically sound program' :skull: can only assume she's only seen a small sample size

family guy has never done it for me so i've rarely watched it. Southpark on the other hand, is great, in my opinion