Family Guy and Postmodernism:

Family Guy:
y Family Guy is an animated Television

series created by Seth MacFarlane and developed by both him and David Zuckerman ,for the Fox broadcasting company. y The whole series centres on the dysfunctional Griffin family and their trials and tribulations, the family is composed of 6 main characters: parents Peter and Lois and their 3 children Stewie, Chris and Meg as well as the family pet dog Brian.

How is Family Guy Postmodern?

y Family Guy is Postmodern for a number of reasons, principally its

numerous references to pop culture which often mock it, even the main idea of the show is a mockery of the generic family sitcom genre which is stereotypically comprised of a nuclear family and their problems and achievements and this idea in itself is heavily imitated and exaggerated in family guy. y Additionally the characters can be described as works of bricolage (construction or creation of work from a wide range of things) as according to the producer they are based on previous animations for example Brian Griffin looks similar to the famous cartoon Snoopy and Stewie to the 1991 comic strip character Jimmy Corrigan: The smartest kid on earth (this in itself exhibits the Postmodern notion of pastiche- imitation, specifically when considering aspects of Stewies personality in terms of his genius).

How is Family Guy Postmodern?

y Additionally Family Guy often plays heavily with generic

boundaries for example time and space, bridging into hyperreality. In the episode Road to Multiverse the characters travel from one parallel dimension to another after a mishap occurs with Stevie's time machine and therefore the boundaries between time and space are heavily distorted. This is further played on by the use of numerous flashbacks within episodes which often are sparked by lines such as that was worse than the time... and thus creating confusion between time and space (specifically as each episode is stand alone) and linking to the overall decay in boundaries in Postmodernism .

How is Family Guy Postmodern?

y Family Guy also plays heavily with the concept of realism (which

links to the overall decay of generic boundaries) which connects to the Postmodern belief of hypereality. In many episodes the story line strays away from realism while fundamental aspects of the shows such as characterization are in itself unreal for example Stewie, the talking genius baby and Brian, the talking family pet who arguably throughout appears to exhibit the most normal human characteristics and this is ironic (another feature of Postmodernism). Also when characters like Jesus and death make appearances in episodes they are accepted as everyday citizens and this can be described as fragmentation in terms of real life and a hyper-real world where we can't distinguish between the real and the fantasy.

How is Family Guy Postmodern?

y At its worst Postmodernism has been described as being offensive and

racist and some episodes of Family guy have also been criticized for this. The series throughout is ironic and an example of satiric comedy however some of its storylines have sparked controversy in terms of moral criticisms due to its use of black humour for example the depiction of a man with Aids and his diagnosis in one episode ( where a barbershop quartet including Peter sings and dances around the mans bed singing you have aids) sparked controversy from several Aids organisations. Additionally the episode Road to Multiverse was criticized due to its anti religious sentiments where a world without Christianity is depicted as being happy and advanced to the point the dark ages didn't even exist while God is constantly mocked on the show. Due to offensive nature Family Guy has been banned in Taiwan, China, Iran, Egypt, Malaysia, South Korea, and Vietnam.

Analysis of one episode- Season 9, episode 9And I am Joyce Kinney:

y The beginning of this episode has a direct intertexual reference to

the 2003 film the Hulk and parodies it, imitating its storyline and making fun out of the characters within the film however the fact that after this opening sequence the episode goes straight back to normal family life presents a belief in the hyper-real where we are unable to consciously distinguish fantasy from the real ( which links to the overall decay in boundaries). y Additionally this episode centres on mocking religion and this can be perceived as Postmodern in terms of rejecting meta narratives which are seen as totalizing theories of universal truth. The episode mocks the ceremonies which take place in church as well as the congregation and priest and such parody is fundamental in representing a distrust of such meta-narratives.