Professor Ivaliotis
Academic Writing and Research I
24 September 2013
Family Guy and Freud In the article, “Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious”, Antonia Peacocke discusses the struggles that the television series has dealt with ever since it was first aired in April of 1999. She claims that although the series seems extremely immature and crude, it is actually politically correct. Peacocke describes the types of jokes made in Family Guy and explains that if they were to be looked at more in depth rather than just at their surface value, they really possess a more insightful meaning. Family Guy is a show that does not intentionally intend to poke fun at people to make them feel unintelligent, but to describe and attempt to lighten up the issues that take place in every day society of in the world as a whole.
Family Guy’s choice of going about dealing with the world’s issues, is by humor that many believe to me aggressive, ruthless, and downright juvenile. Peacocke begins her essay by recounting the adversities that the show has encountered since being aired on television; for example, it being cancelled twice. However, she states that, “most importantly, each time it [Family Guy] was cancelled, fans provided the brutal force necessary to get it back on the air”. Peacocke also lists the different awards that the show has been presented with to show how dedicated the fan base is; the show has three Emmys and multiple nominations (Peacocke 303)”. Antonia Peacocke then continues and goes into her own struggle with the show—at first she was completely against it, but once she realized that her brother and many of her friends were watching it consistently, she allowed herself to sit down and actually give the show the time of day that it allegedly deserves. Believe it or not, now she claims that she is one of those dedicated fans who refuses to return the five Family Guy DVDs she has borrowed back to her friend (300).
Cited: Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. "Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and Their aaaaaRelation to the Unconscious." "They Say, I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic aaaaaWriting : With Readings. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2012. 299-308. Print.