Television analysis essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Television analysis - Essay Example The show turns values upside down and illustrates the American family as acting in ways that are completely opposite of what they preach and pretend to believe. Family Guy is a show that tells us that we are all dysfunctional and our world is not as we would like to believe. The setting of the show is in Quahog, Rhode Island, a not so subtle suburb of Providence. Here is the seat of the founding of America portrayed as a town where anything is possible and Peter Griffin can act out in ways that would lead to arrest anywhere else on earth. According to critic Ahsan Haque, "Some of the most offensive jokes ever attempted on Family Guy were featured in this season". Though Rhode Island is rich in American history, the only view of it that is offered to the viewer is the bar where Peter and his disturbing friends drink. The Griffins are shown to be the average American family, with three children and a dog. Peter is an Irish Catholic and supposedly hard working blue-collar type. However, we never see Peter working or engaging in anything productive. The show teaches the viewer that the white American working class is crass, mentally disturbed, and probably unemployed. This is no doubt founded in some truth, but Peter Griffin relishes in taking on one hair brained scheme after another, with little regard for the well-being, property, or life of others. If this were a sitcom involving a minority race or ethnicity, it would be picketed for stereotyping outside the cultural foul line. The demographics of the Griffins may be average, but the portrayal is certainly not. It is satirizing the cultural and religious values that the country was founded on. The fashion that Peter disregards the health and well-being of others is magnified by the shows treatment of women. Here again, the white American male is shown to be a rude and uncompromising misogynist. Peter constantly berates his wife Lois, as well as belittling