Monday, October 20, 2008

When do Writers Go Too Far?

First I want to preface this by saying, I support Barack OBama. I fully intend on voting for him and he is aligned with everything I believe in. However, there is supporting a candidate and then there is pushing your agenda on a unsuspecting world. I am referring to last night's Family Guy. As a whole the episode was good. Nothing overly entertaining by Family Guy Standards. For those of you who did not watch Stewie created a time machine. Mort, the token Jew, got sent back in time to WWII and Brian and Stewie had to "fetch" him.

During their pursuits to save Mort and return home the three needed to dress up as Nazis. Now, I want to preface this by saying, I don't support Nazis. I am a Jew and anti semitism does slightly bother me.
While "suiting" up as Nazi's, Stewie adds a political "McCain-Palin" button to his outfit.



Now I HATE Sarah Palin, but I do not under any circumstances believe the two of them are Nazis. I think Family Guy, known to push Buttons, may have gone too far. Seth McFarland, I respect your personal views but I think you may have angered and upset more people then you entertained. I can take a joke. I actively laugh at Joe and the other down right awful jokes made on this show. But what is the Difference between Republicans calling Obama a terrorist (which we all are ashamed of) and Seth McFarland calling McCain a Nazi.

Primarily I think it was unnecessary and I was a little ashamed Family Guy is a regular show in my house. Comment away.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I think I agreed with you last night, but it hit me today that McFarlane was probably commenting on how McCain and especially Palin are fostering an atmosphere where their rallies are similar to Nazi rallies were. Not sure how accurate he is, but I think that's more his point.

Maggie Cats said...

I think your comparison of some conservatives referring to Obama as a terrorist and some liberals referring to McCain as a nazi is a fair one. And dobber also raises a good point. Watching the footage of those rallies where people are shouting out things like "terrorist" and "traitor" was actually really frightening.

And, wow. I can't believe Family Guy actually did that. Yikes.

Monkey Sri said...

I think the difference between calling Obama a terrorist and calling McCain a Nazi are two-fold:
1. There was a dedicated email campaign by some crazy dude who went on Fox News to "express his opinions." This was one visual reference in a 30-minute cartoon.
2. No one believes McCain is a Nazi (see above: this was a cartoon). There are actually people out there who believe that Obama's "an Arab," (read: Muslim, read: terrorist).

So I say, go ahead an enjoy Family Guy guilt-free! Well, as guilt-free as it was before this whole Nazi thing.

Unknown said...

Oh I thought Monkey Sri was referring to one of fox news's flagship anchors doing a special on how Obama is a terrorist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxMZCTysVW4&feature=related