“He’s Adorable”: Representations of People with Dwarfism in Family Guy

This paper examines how people with dwarfism1 are represented in the American animated sitcom Family Guy. Using autocritical discourse analysis, this paper reflects on my own response, as a person with dwarfism, to scenes featuring characters with dwarfism. Whilst the show has been criticised for its controversial humour, this paper argues that the show actually exposes negative social attitudes that people with dwarfism encounter from other members of the public while refraining from encouraging stereotypes of dwarfism. The paper builds upon Fink’s (2013) suggestion that animated comedies are a source of both humour and social commentary. This paper suggests that Family Guy has the potential to challenge social attitudes towards people with dwarfism and the way they are perceived in society through directing the humour towards those who mock them as opposed to those with dwarfism. However, how the scenes are interpreted depends on the audience, which can be related to Hall’s (1993) reception theory.

Amusing Abusers and Humourless Survivors: Analysing the Role of Comedy in Media Representations of Sexual Violence

This article reflects on the importance of comedy when considering media engagements with sexual abuse themes. This approach is informed by how closely the study of humour is rooted in the analysis of power relations, with comic theorists, both historical and contemporary, grounding the work.The comic figures of both the child sex (CS) abuser and the sexual violence survivor are first identified, before exploring what exactly about these tropes evoke laughter, and what this means for wider conceptions of interpersonal abuse and victimology. In analysing examples of CS abuser themed British and American comedy, animated adult comedies such as Family Guy (1999-present) and Monkey Dust (2003-2005) are considered in the context of early 2000s anxieties towards the suburban dirty old man and online child safety. In the case of the sexual violence survivor, Saturday Night Live’s 1993 ‘Is It Date Rape?’ sketch is considered within the context of 1990s anxieties regarding feminist campus politics, and is paralleled to the mid-2010s media panic surrounding British and American university students and trigger warnings through examples including The Simpson’s 2017 ‘Caper Chase’ episode and early to mid-2010s online academic polemics on the humourless feminist, such as Mark Fisher’s ‘Exiting The Vampire Castle’ (2013) and Jack Halberstam’s ‘You are Triggering Me!’ (2014). The article concludes by considering the changing consensuses for sexual violence themed humour in the Me Too era through the 2018 episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005-present) ‘Times Up For The Gang.’

Postmodernism: The American T.V. Show, 'Family Guy, As a Politically Incorrect Document

Postmodernism is a movement that grew out of modernism. Movements in art, literature, and cinema focused on a particular stance. The visual artists who created entertainment focused on expressing the creator herself/himself beginning from German expressionism to modernism, surrealism, cubism, etc. These art movements played an important part in what an artist (literature, art, and visual) portrayed to his or her audience. As perspectives played an important part, an understanding of what the artist needed to portray was critical. Modernism dealt with this portrayal, which came about due to the changes taking place in society. In terms of the industry, where the overall product dealt with features like individualism, experimentation and absurdity, modernism dealt with a need to overthrow past notions of what painting, literature, and the visual arts needed to be. "After World War II, the focus moved from Europe to the United States, and abstract expressionism (led by Jackson Pollock) continued the movement's momentum, followed by movements such as geometric abstractions, minimalism, process art, pop art, and pop music." Postmodernism helped do away with these shortcomings. An understanding of postmodernism is explored in this paper. The main point which sets it apart is concepts like pastiche, intersexuality, and spectacle. Concerning pop culture, an understanding of referencing is a constant trait used by postmodern art. Postmodern television and the central part of this study applied to the popular animated American TV show, 'family guy' is a postmodern show in its truest form, while attempting to use certain aspects of postmodernism tropes to help emphasize that visual art can be considered a historical document while doing an in-depth analysis of the visual text of 'family guy by itself, several other research papers were used to help further put in stone that 'family guy' is a true representation of postmodern television. It is divided into two phases of data collection: context analysis, which involves a qualitative study. The second being in-depth interviews (also qualitative) which in itself helps give a subjective view of participants between the ages of 20 and 28. These comprise students who are familiar with the show and the concepts of the show. All of them, both frequent viewers of the show and those also politically informed of world politics, helped further emphasize the concept of the paper, which was the idea of how a television show in all its absurd narrative and pastiche functions as a historical document. The purpose of this study, along with the results for this research, is to help bring about the comprehension of how postmodern shows are influenced by other past events, figures of history, etc.; this understanding can explain how a television show like 'family guy could be considered a historical document – by its narrative, by the cultural references connected to these said events, and also with the help of paintings, which the makers of the show use to design the episode of the show, and which reflect and refer to the actual historical figures. Historiography is being proven to be biased in more ways than one, which leads us to an understanding of a different narrative depending on one’s own opinions of history and historical documents as we know it.

Benign Violations in the Suburban Ensemble Dramedy

Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren’s benign violation theory (BVT) argues that humor is produced when three conditions are met: we perceive a situation as potentially violating, we perceive it also as benign, and the two perceptions occur simultaneously. This chapter mobilizes BVT in describing the cognitive dissonances inherent in comedy spectatorship, using a particular case study in dramedy cinema: the suburban ensemble film, including such works as The Kids Are All Right, Little Miss Sunshine, and American Beauty. After surveying some of the key humorous stimuli recurrent across the genre, I turn to other comedic texts that deal with family and domestic studies with a striking lack of pathos—in particular the television series Family Guy. This comparison underscores an analysis of the ethics of benign violations in narrative media that is centered on the resolution of its fundamental affective incoherence and the way this resolution might guide later critical thought. The chapter ultimately demonstrates the uses of BVT as a hermeneutic tool, and one that might help us isolate an ethics of comedy in media.

The association of animated sitcom viewing with humor styles and humor types

Recently, animated sitcoms such as Family Guy and American Dad have generated considerable interest internationally. This genre is known for its portrayal of controversial political and social issues combined with strategies of malicious humor, exaggeration, and stereotyping. This study addresses the question of whether humor styles and humor types predict viewer interest in animated sitcoms. A total of 1,052 Hungarian adults (41.6% male, M age = 24.7 years, SD = 7.2) participated in an online survey focusing on animated sitcom viewing habits and the use of humor. It was found that males and younger individuals were more likely to watch animated sitcoms regularly than females and older individuals. As a result of multiple regressions, it was also found that individuals with high levels of self-enhancing and aggressive humor, and low levels of self-defeating humor were more likely to view animated sitcoms. Regarding humor types, individuals with low levels of all humor styles were less likely to watch animated sitcoms regularly. These findings can possibly contribute to a more nuanced understanding of media selection preferences in the level of individual differences.

Searching for Humor in Dehumanization

During the last two decades, to varying degrees, some American sitcom writers have depicted Nazism and the Holocaust humorously. This sort of activity is visible on such shows as South Park, Family Guy, and Robot Chicken. Many of the writers associated with these comedies are of Jewish heritage; but the joking has stirred only limited controversy. This chapter examines the messaging, delivery, and impact in Holocaust humor. It answers questions such as: What are American comedy writers signaling with these absurd stories? How does their comedic employment contribute to a wider process of misremembering distorting, or diluting known Holocaust accounts? It also analyzes how computer-mediated communications—website like Hulu and Youtube—have transferred these false accounts beyond American audiences.

Situating Netflix’s Original Adult Animation: Observing Taste Cultures and the Legacies of ‘Quality’ Television through BoJack Horseman and Big Mouth

This article aims to expand upon a key aspect of Mareike Jenner’s work on Netflix original comedy by considering how the streaming network’s original adult animated series reflect developments occurring within the sitcom format post-TV III. Using Netflix original animations BoJack Horseman (2014–) and Big Mouth (2017–) as case studies, this article will consider how thematically complex, ostensibly ‘smart’ animated shows illustrate changing industrial dynamics and taste cultures. While exhibiting qualities found in preceding key adult animated shows such as South Park (Comedy Central 1997–) and Family Guy (Fox 1999–), including lewd humour, metatextual in-jokes and topicality, the knotty storytelling and ambiguous characterizations of the shows under discussion reflect links to other contexts of TV production. Exploring these links, this article uses BoJack Horseman and Big Mouth to explore current trends in animated television, situating their characteristics and reception within a broader network of influences. The author argues that the turn towards complex storytelling manifests both in inherited production tactics, changing taste cultures and in the multifaceted and multifarious potentialities provided by the medium itself.