Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2015-06-01 Where Are Those Good Old Fashioned Values? Family and Satire in Family Guy Reilly Judd Ryan Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons, and the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Ryan, Reilly Judd, "Where Are Those Good Old Fashioned Values? Family and Satire in Family Guy" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 5583. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5583 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Where Are Those Good Old Fashioned Values? Family and Satire in Family Guy Reilly Judd Ryan A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Darl Larsen, Chair Sharon Swenson Benjamin Thevenin Department of Theatre and Media Arts Brigham Young University June 2015 Copyright © 2015 Reilly Judd Ryan All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Where Are Those Good Old Fashioned Values? Family and Satire in Family Guy Reilly Judd Ryan Department of Theatre and Media Arts, BYU Master of Arts This paper explores the presentation of family in the controversial FOX Network television program Family Guy. Polarizing to audiences, the Griffin family of Family Guy is at once considered sophomoric and offensive to some and smart and satiric to others. Though neither judgment of the show is necessarily mutually exclusive, the intention of this study is to reconcile those disparate viewpoints in order to measure the show’s purposefulness. After all, if Family Guy succeeds in its satire, it is full of social purpose, offensiveness notwithstanding. This thesis focuses on arguably the main point of contention in Family Guy: the family. Those critical of the show denounce the Griffins for their less-than-exemplary behavior. Proponents of the show—while not exactly disagreeing with that perception of the Griffins— differ in their approach, as they consider the Griffins satiric characters meant to be models of misbehavior. Reformative in nature, satire attacks vice and folly directly and indirectly, and it is in its combined use of direct and indirect satire that Family Guy, at times, misses the mark. By directly satirizing other families in its trademark cutaway transitions, Family Guy places its own family, the Griffins, in a position of superiority, which complicates matters when the Griffins indirectly become objects of satire. Especially regarding the relationship between Griffin family patriarch Peter and his daughter Meg, Family Guy oftentimes presents an imbalanced “satire” that would best be described as “abuse.” Keywords: Family Guy, family, satire, animation, television, FOX Network, cutaway, indirect satire, direct satire ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of this thesis, I am most indebted to my wife, May, whose unwavering love and support helped me stay on task over the past year. I am grateful for Darl Larsen and his expertise in animation, satire and television; as my thesis chair, he provided constant helpful feedback to my work. The other members of my committee—Sharon Swenson and Benjamin Thevenin, as well as Amy Jensen, who was not on my committee—were invaluable in providing me the support and the theoretical frameworks for this thesis. Lastly I would like to thank the members of my cohort—Bob Bauer, Emily Flinders, Mindy Nelsen and Amy Roskelley—who have struggled together with me over the past two years. Table of Contents ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv Chapter One .................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Purpose ........................................................................................................................................ 1 The Family and Satiric Misunderstanding .................................................................................. 6 Satire: Contexts, Definitions, and Production........................................................................... 11 Subsequent Chapters ................................................................................................................. 20 Chapter Two.................................................................................................................................. 24 The Subversive Look and Feel of Family Guy ......................................................................... 24 The Anarchic History of Animation ......................................................................................... 25 Family Guy’s Anarchic Essence ............................................................................................... 34 Chapter Three................................................................................................................................ 42 Other Families in Family Guy................................................................................................... 42 Cutaway Parodies...................................................................................................................... 44 Cutaway Satires ........................................................................................................................ 48 Cutaway Abuse/Lampoon ......................................................................................................... 58 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 65 Chapter Four ................................................................................................................................. 67 The Griffin Family as Indirect Satire ........................................................................................ 67 Poor Behavior as a Means to a Satiric End ............................................................................... 68 Peter and Meg ........................................................................................................................... 73 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 85 Chapter Five .................................................................................................................................. 90 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 90 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 105 iv Chapter One Introduction Lois Griffin: It seems today that all you see is violence in movies and sex on TV… Peter Griffin: …but where are those good old-fashioned values… Griffin Children and Brian: …on which we used to rely? Griffin Family: Lucky there’s a family guy…1 In tongue-in-cheek fashion, the theme song of Family Guy presents the Griffin family as an antidote to the ills of modern media debauchery. Anyone familiar with the program, though, easily recognizes irony in the song, having witnessed the less-than-exemplary qualities of Peter, Lois and company. The family that longs for “good old-fashioned values” is the same family that sells their daughter to pay off a pharmacy tab; they are the same family in which father nearly marries son, because the latter has recently inherited a large sum of money; perhaps most famously, they are the same family in which a diabolical baby schemes to murder his mother, at one time seemingly accomplishing his goal.2 The extremity of such acts suggests the Griffin family should not be taken at face value. Their outrageous actions veer into the symbolic, the satiric. However, does Family Guy hit its satiric target? Those critical of the show—most notably, the Parents Television Council—point to the Griffins’ depravity as a sign of society’s and the media’s increased desensitization and looser morals .3 Neither critics nor fans of the show can argue that the Griffins are a good family; what is debatable, though, is whether there is a purposefulness to the Griffins. This analysis will examine the presentation of the family on Family Guy—via the Griffins—in an attempt to reconcile the disparate viewpoints of the program and to analyze the effectiveness of its seeming satiric intentions. Purpose The conflict that forms the basis of this research centers on two opposing viewpoints of Family Guy, one being that the show is brilliant, and the other that it is reprehensible. Our study 1 intends to uncover the diverse factors that lead to such varied responses. The debate about whether a media text is good