In days gone by when one spoke of television animation, one immediately thought of a certain duck by the name of Donald, or a mouse by the name of Mickey, or perhaps even a duck named Daffy or a mouse names Jerry, but these days the genre of television animation has adopted a whole new persona.
The era of Disney and Hanna-Barbera has given way to a new generation of comedic, angst-driven animated sitcoms, the content of which is sometimes more suited to viewing in the bedroom than the playroom. The last two decades have seen the emergence of such animated shows as The Simpsons, South Park, Futurama and Family Guy, which are aimed squarely at an adult audience.
The humour invariably revolves around the politically-incorrect musings of some of the characters of these programmes, and it seems that the more politically-incorrect the musings, the greater the popularity of the respective programme. Perhaps the relatively anonymous nature of animation, as opposed to a show with real actors, lends itself to an approach which requires fewer boundaries.
Family Guy is a perfect example of this new model of television animation. Family Guy was created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show has won three Primetime Emmy Awards, three Annie Awards, and one Golden Reel Award.
It first graced our tv screens in 1999 and has now completed its eighth season. Family Guy is set in a fictional town called Quahog, Rhode Island. It tells the story of a superficially normal family that not far beneath the surface is morbidly dysfunctional.
The family consists of Peter and Lois Griffin and their three children, Chris, Meg, and baby Stewie, and the family dog, Brian. Chris matches his father with respect to his intelligence (or lack thereof) and obesity level, Meg is on a never-ending and never-succeeding quest for popularity amongst her peers, and baby Stewie is an evil genius who lusts for power and works tirelessly towards the destruction of his naïve mother, Lois.
The family dog, Brian, apart from possessing the remarkable ability (for a canine) to talk, sips martinis and attempts to deal with life issues, of which there are plenty in the Family Guy scenario. His intelligence presents a stark contrast to that of most members of the family.
It seems that sometimes the raison-d'etre of programmes such as Family Guy (apart from making oodles of money) is to court controversy, and how better to do that than to offend people. The producers of Family Guy certainly did that when they depicted a young woman with Down Syndrome, who was supposedly the daughter of a former female Governor of Alaska.
The real former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, is the mother of a young child with Down Syndrome and was justifiably offended by the depiction. Of course this publicity did the programme's ratings no harm, and unfortunately the behaviour of the makers of the show is rewarded.
