Kelly Hales WST 3015
March 17, 2010
Nina Perez
Word Count: 453
Family Guy is a television show created to suit all audiences, but makes jokes that only certain crowds will appreciate. While it is one my favorite television shows, it does contain some content that is offensive toward many different walks of life. Regarding Feminist ideas, Family guy certainly is successful at perpetuating society's common ideas about a woman's expected domesticity.
While Meg frequently sustains mental abuse from her family members, Lois is commonly the woman to which all oppression is directed. Lois is commonly portrayed as the caretaker of the family, while Peter gets drunk and watches television. By setting up the family structure like this the show is essentially perpetuating the system of Patriarchy. As consumers, we watch this television show and begin to repeat what we see. It is common known that"the media have a powerful influence on our idea of reality" (Seely 102). It is easy for a viewer to consider the message behind a television program too seriously.
In the episode "Go Stewie Go" Peter makes negative statements about Lois' outward appearance. In the opening scene of the episode Peter points out that Lois has a gray hair. He continues to make comments about it further upsetting Lois. At a later point in the episode he makes a joke about her genitalia and further insults her appearance. The degradation of her appearance fuels Lois' poor self esteem and leads her to cheat on Peter. When Peter finds out about the incident he is upset and slightly angry. It is interesting to me that Peter expected Lois to remain happy and faithful in their relationship considering the way he treats her. Their marriage is extremely one sided and provides a poor image to society of a lasting relationship/the institution of marriage. It is stated that "marriage provides the ultimate form of acceptance for personal intimate relationships in our society" (Ettelbrick 317).
The appearance of the two main married characters is also quite interesting to me. Peter is fat and is of rather average appearance while Lois is depicted as a sexy and desired mom. She is even referred to as a MILF in this particular episode. She is depicted as better looking than even the teenage daughter. I think that this plays into the roll that every man should remain "fat and happy" while his good looking wife caters to his needs, takes care of the family as well as his sexual desires. Lois generally accommodates all of the listed needs, however there are other episodes where Lois can be seen taking a stand for herself.
March 17, 2010
Nina Perez
Word Count: 453
Family Guy Analysis
Family Guy is a television show created to suit all audiences, but makes jokes that only certain crowds will appreciate. While it is one my favorite television shows, it does contain some content that is offensive toward many different walks of life. Regarding Feminist ideas, Family guy certainly is successful at perpetuating society's common ideas about a woman's expected domesticity.
While Meg frequently sustains mental abuse from her family members, Lois is commonly the woman to which all oppression is directed. Lois is commonly portrayed as the caretaker of the family, while Peter gets drunk and watches television. By setting up the family structure like this the show is essentially perpetuating the system of Patriarchy. As consumers, we watch this television show and begin to repeat what we see. It is common known that"the media have a powerful influence on our idea of reality" (Seely 102). It is easy for a viewer to consider the message behind a television program too seriously.
In the episode "Go Stewie Go" Peter makes negative statements about Lois' outward appearance. In the opening scene of the episode Peter points out that Lois has a gray hair. He continues to make comments about it further upsetting Lois. At a later point in the episode he makes a joke about her genitalia and further insults her appearance. The degradation of her appearance fuels Lois' poor self esteem and leads her to cheat on Peter. When Peter finds out about the incident he is upset and slightly angry. It is interesting to me that Peter expected Lois to remain happy and faithful in their relationship considering the way he treats her. Their marriage is extremely one sided and provides a poor image to society of a lasting relationship/the institution of marriage. It is stated that "marriage provides the ultimate form of acceptance for personal intimate relationships in our society" (Ettelbrick 317).
The appearance of the two main married characters is also quite interesting to me. Peter is fat and is of rather average appearance while Lois is depicted as a sexy and desired mom. She is even referred to as a MILF in this particular episode. She is depicted as better looking than even the teenage daughter. I think that this plays into the roll that every man should remain "fat and happy" while his good looking wife caters to his needs, takes care of the family as well as his sexual desires. Lois generally accommodates all of the listed needs, however there are other episodes where Lois can be seen taking a stand for herself.
In summary, this episode portrayed what almost every episode of Family Guy does: the degradation of women in a relationship and as a mother.
References:
Seely, Megan. Fight Like A Girl. New York: New York University Press , 2007.
Ettelbrick, Paula. "Since When Is Marriage a Path to Liberation?". Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009.
Family Guy really does do a great job of degrading women, relationships, marriage, and motherhood pretty much every episode. The whole idea of "the dumb husband with the hot wife who loves him anyways" seems to be used pretty often in media. I wonder if this is because this is really want men want? To be fat and lazy and horrible people and still have hot women love them enough to send their lives with them...
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you when you mentioned how some people laugh and take these episode into account and begin to live their lives based on what the television says even if its a cartoon. Lois does depict the image of what many women go through in their married life. Women who are, in some cases, better looking than their husbands, subjective, and who still manage most or all of the house work duty. I see the power that this has on people. The character, Lois, is seen as "taking the path of least resistence" while excepting her husbands comments and degrading herself to cheating. Since many people are glued to the television and either directly or indirectly follow what they see, I believe that if the characters are portrayed as not taking the path of least resistence, that is when change in our society will begin. Even though people may laugh and poke fun at the jokes, they all no that its real and true because that is what they can relate to.
ReplyDelete