Daily Archives: November 3, 2021

Remember Family Guy? Fifteen-odd years ago, the Seth MacFarlane-created animated sitcom seemed to be everywhere. After The Simpsons had revolutionised the possibilities of TV animation in the 1990s, Family Guy went one step further. This was The Simpsons grubby little brother. The animation was cheap-looking, the storytelling flimsy and artless, and the jokes were loudly, proudly crass. Racist jokes, homophobic jokes, transphobic jokes, ablist jokes, jokes about rape, about paedophilia; nothing was off the table. It won plenty of fans especially within the young male demographic but plenty of detractors, too, inciting numerous controversies with its shock-factor material. In many ways, Family Guy represented the worst impulses of an era when pushing back against PC culture was considered a cutting-edge comic sensibility.

But there comes a time when every provocateur must meet a reckoning, when every enfant terrible must face trial as a terrible adult. The needle of consensus swings, and jokes that once were hailed as edgy, or outspoken, are found to be, on closer reinspection, offensive, or ill-informed, or simply unfunny. Some series get off with a rap on the knuckles Friends penchant for homophobia hasnt put a dent in its popularity while others have been yeeted into total exile, such as Family Guys erstwhile bad-taste contemporary Little Britain. And yet, next Wednesday, on Disney Plus in the UK, Family Guy begins its 20th season, with a 21st already in the pipeline. You cant help but ask: how has it managed to survive so long in an era of supposedly enforced political correctness?

Well, to some extent, Family Guy has changed with the times, making certain concessions to our changing social standards of acceptability. The role of Peter Griffins Black friend Cleveland Brown was recently recast, for instance, with Arif Zahir stepping in to replace white actor Mike Henry. The character of Quagmire, depicted throughout much of the shows run as a lascivious sex offender, was tweaked in recent seasons, accentuating his other, somewhat less problematic characteristics. The 2019 episode Trump Guy made headlines not just for its bullish attack on then-president Donald Trump featuring a scene in which he sexually assaults the Griffins daughter, Meg but also for the suggestion that it was dialling back homophobic jokes. Many children have learnt their favourite Jewish, Black, and gay jokes by watching your show over the years, the cartoon Trump tells Peter in the episode. In fairness, weve been trying to phase out the gay stuff, he replies, an utterance that was celebrated in the press as a statement of tolerant intent.

Family Guy didnt phase out the gay stuff, not really (Peter even admits in a later episode: That quote was taken out of context and widely misunderstood). Nor did it particularly phase out the racism, ableism, and sexism that make up such a large part of the show. But itd be wrong to suggest it has learnt nothing. Exec-producer Alec Sulkin told TV Line two years ago: If you look at a show from 2005 or 2006 and put it side-by-side with a show from 2018 or 2019, theyre going to have a few differences. Some of the things we felt comfortable saying and joking about back then, we now understand is not acceptable.

Still, some of the jokes that the show feels comfortable about making now still feel like reactionary outrage-baiting. The 2019 episode Bri-da featured a number of crass jokes about transgender people; the 2017 episode Trans-fat, which saw Peter Griffin pretend to be trans to gain social advantages, contained similarly objectionable jokes.

One of the arguments used to defend the politically incorrect humour in Family Guy, and in other bad taste comedies, is that it is satirical: depiction is not endorsement. Of course, this argument never really holds up in Family Guys case; the satire here is usually paper-thin. Even if the character of Mort Goldstein is in fact satirising antisemitism, the satire is indistinguishable from antisemitism itself. Besides, even if the show itself isnt fundamentally approaching its material from a right-wing viewpoint MacFarlane is a major donor to the Democratic Party, and some of the shows writers are vocally liberal a good amount of its viewers are. When Trans-fat first aired, a subset of Family Guy fans lambasted the series on social media for supposedly capitulating to PC culture, thanks to an ending in which Peter Griffin apologises for mocking trans people.

Family Guys enduring survival could be down to a gradual maturation in other areas. The animation, a full-blown eyesore in its early days, has improved ten-fold. Increasingly, the humour has scaled back the frenzied, puerile cutaway gags, and increasingly takes a more self-aware tone. More risks are taken, too, with its format, such as an entire episode devoted to a fake in-universe DVD commentary, or a triptych emulating the filmmaking aesthetics of Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Michael Bay. This long-term creative stamina is nothing to be scoffed at: by its own 20th season, The Simpsons was over a decade past its peak and had already lost all trace of what made it such a monumental piece of TV. Regardless, Family Guys viewing figures have declined substantially over the years, at least on traditional TV. In 2000, and 2002, Family Guy was twice cancelled by Fox for low viewership ratings, before being revived due to high DVD sales and the popularity of Adult Swim re-runs. Now, it draws less than half of what it did at its lowest pre-cancellation ebb. Maybe there just arent enough people still watching to really cultivate much offence.

Glenn Quagmires transgender parent, Ida, has been the subject of numerous offensive jokes on the series

(Fox/Disney)

All of these factors may be overlooking the obvious answer. Family Guy hasnt been hogtied by the PC police, run out of town on a rail, because the PC brigade doesnt really exist. For all the talk of being unable to say anything anymore, the fact is that you can, by and large, say whatever the hell you want. Dave Chappelle complains about being cancelled for his jokes about trans people, but hes still given high-profile Netflix specials. Theres a place in the market for bad-taste comedy, and Family Guy is dutifully filling that hole. Its a show that prides itself on saying the unsayable. Thankfully for most people, what its really saying is the easily ignorable.

Family Guy season 20 begins on Disney Plus in the UK and Ireland on 3 November

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How on earth has Family Guy survived for 20 seasons in the supposed era of political correctness? - The Independent

Remember Family Guy? Fifteen-odd years ago, the Seth MacFarlane-created animated sitcom seemed to be everywhere. After The Simpsons had revolutionised the possibilities of TV animation in the 1990s, Family Guy went one step further. This was The Simpsons grubby little brother. The animation was cheap-looking, the storytelling flimsy and artless, and the jokes were loudly, proudly crass. Racist jokes, homophobic jokes, transphobic jokes, ablist jokes, jokes about rape, about paedophilia; nothing was off the table. It won plenty of fans especially within the young male demographic but plenty of detractors, too, inciting numerous controversies with its shock-factor material. In many ways, Family Guy represented the worst impulses of an era when pushing back against PC culture was considered a cutting-edge comic sensibility.

But there comes a time when every provocateur must meet a reckoning, when every enfant terrible must face trial as a terrible adult. The needle of consensus swings, and jokes that once were hailed as edgy, or outspoken, are found to be, on closer reinspection, offensive, or ill-informed, or simply unfunny. Some series get off with a rap on the knuckles Friends penchant for homophobia hasnt put a dent in its popularity while others have been yeeted into total exile, such as Family Guys erstwhile bad-taste contemporary Little Britain. And yet, next Wednesday, on Disney Plus in the UK, Family Guy begins its 20th season, with a 21st already in the pipeline. You cant help but ask: how has it managed to survive so long in an era of supposedly enforced political correctness?

Well, to some extent, Family Guy has changed with the times, making certain concessions to our changing social standards of acceptability. The role of Peter Griffins Black friend Cleveland Brown was recently recast, for instance, with Arif Zahir stepping in to replace white actor Mike Henry. The character of Quagmire, depicted throughout much of the shows run as a lascivious sex offender, was tweaked in recent seasons, accentuating his other, somewhat less problematic characteristics. The 2019 episode Trump Guy made headlines not just for its bullish attack on then-president Donald Trump featuring a scene in which he sexually assaults the Griffins daughter, Meg but also for the suggestion that it was dialling back homophobic jokes. Many children have learnt their favourite Jewish, Black, and gay jokes by watching your show over the years, the cartoon Trump tells Peter in the episode. In fairness, weve been trying to phase out the gay stuff, he replies, an utterance that was celebrated in the press as a statement of tolerant intent.

Family Guy didnt phase out the gay stuff, not really (Peter even admits in a later episode: That quote was taken out of context and widely misunderstood). Nor did it particularly phase out the racism, ableism, and sexism that make up such a large part of the show. But itd be wrong to suggest it has learnt nothing. Exec-producer Alec Sulkin told TV Line two years ago: If you look at a show from 2005 or 2006 and put it side-by-side with a show from 2018 or 2019, theyre going to have a few differences. Some of the things we felt comfortable saying and joking about back then, we now understand is not acceptable.

Still, some of the jokes that the show feels comfortable about making now still feel like reactionary outrage-baiting. The 2019 episode Bri-da featured a number of crass jokes about transgender people; the 2017 episode Trans-fat, which saw Peter Griffin pretend to be trans to gain social advantages, contained similarly objectionable jokes.

One of the arguments used to defend the politically incorrect humour in Family Guy, and in other bad taste comedies, is that it is satirical: depiction is not endorsement. Of course, this argument never really holds up in Family Guys case; the satire here is usually paper-thin. Even if the character of Mort Goldstein is in fact satirising antisemitism, the satire is indistinguishable from antisemitism itself. Besides, even if the show itself isnt fundamentally approaching its material from a right-wing viewpoint MacFarlane is a major donor to the Democratic Party, and some of the shows writers are vocally liberal a good amount of its viewers are. When Trans-fat first aired, a subset of Family Guy fans lambasted the series on social media for supposedly capitulating to PC culture, thanks to an ending in which Peter Griffin apologises for mocking trans people.

Family Guys enduring survival could be down to a gradual maturation in other areas. The animation, a full-blown eyesore in its early days, has improved ten-fold. Increasingly, the humour has scaled back the frenzied, puerile cutaway gags, and increasingly takes a more self-aware tone. More risks are taken, too, with its format, such as an entire episode devoted to a fake in-universe DVD commentary, or a triptych emulating the filmmaking aesthetics of Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Michael Bay. This long-term creative stamina is nothing to be scoffed at: by its own 20th season, The Simpsons was over a decade past its peak and had already lost all trace of what made it such a monumental piece of TV. Regardless, Family Guys viewing figures have declined substantially over the years, at least on traditional TV. In 2000, and 2002, Family Guy was twice cancelled by Fox for low viewership ratings, before being revived due to high DVD sales and the popularity of Adult Swim re-runs. Now, it draws less than half of what it did at its lowest pre-cancellation ebb. Maybe there just arent enough people still watching to really cultivate much offence.

Glenn Quagmires transgender parent, Ida, has been the subject of numerous offensive jokes on the series

(Fox/Disney)

All of these factors may be overlooking the obvious answer. Family Guy hasnt been hogtied by the PC police, run out of town on a rail, because the PC brigade doesnt really exist. For all the talk of being unable to say anything anymore, the fact is that you can, by and large, say whatever the hell you want. Dave Chappelle complains about being cancelled for his jokes about trans people, but hes still given high-profile Netflix specials. Theres a place in the market for bad-taste comedy, and Family Guy is dutifully filling that hole. Its a show that prides itself on saying the unsayable. Thankfully for most people, what its really saying is the easily ignorable.

Family Guy season 20 begins on Disney Plus in the UK and Ireland on 3 November

View post:

How on earth has Family Guy survived in the era of political correctness? - News Nation USA

When one thinks of a Board of Education election, or boards of education in general, it is not common to associate them with political drama.But the 2021 election cycle has shown that no assumption is safe.

In Randolph, the culture war bubbled up when Columbus Day was taken off the school calendar, only to be met with a backlash from the public.This, in turn, led to the knee-jerk reaction where all school holidays were erased, replaced with a simple day off.Another uproar followed and when all was settled, Columbus and all the other holiday names were returned as before.

The Randolph school kerfuffle was picked up by Jack Ciattarellis campaign as an example of political correctness run amok.The Passaic County Republican commissioner campaign even used the decision of the Paterson School Board to swap Columbus Day out as a sign that Democrats were out of control. The Democrats later fired back on social media, saying the county government does not have anything to do with what the schools choose to call their holidays.

Columbus, however, has been stirring controversy for several years.More recent, and more imperative, is the matter of COVID-19 defense and policies which best serve childrens health and education.To keep the focus on Passaic County, the Wayne school board meetings have been a manifest microcosm of the bigger debate on masking. Tensions have run high between those in support of and against keeping kids masked in school. Parents have also raised concerns regarding the content of what they describe as inappropriate, explicit literature in the schools with respect to sex education.

In the summer, the governor issued an executive order requiring all pre-school through high school personnel to be vaccinated or undergo COVID testing every week.Executive Order 251 required all personnel as well as students to wear masks while in school for the 2021-2022 school year.The NJEA, the powerful teachers union, supported the governors decision.

The messaging on mask requirements coming from Trenton has changed over the course of the year, with the government often saying that decisions are determined by the data, reserving the right to issue such executive orders as he deems the coronavirus situation requires.Not everyone agrees, however, with requiring students to wear masks in school.Executive orders from the governor bind the school boards, but there are other areas where the board can exercise control.A group of parents opposed to mask mandates wanted the board to send a letter to the governor, asking that school districts be allowed to set this policy on their own.Initially, the suggestion was taken up, passing by one vote.Then, the decision to send the letter was reversed.

The drama continued when a raucous school board meeting in early October saw a woman condemning certain books in the schoolillustrated books which demonstrated particular sex acts.Parents cheered for her as the board turned off the microphone and a man approached the board itself, being escorted away by police.

Former New Jersey State Senator Norman Robertson (R) took an interest in the developments in Wayne, getting to know many of the parents opposed to the controversial literature.Wayne is a harbinger of things to come in New Jersey, Robertson said.With virtual learning required during most of the pandemic, parents at home were privy to the details of their childrens educational experience in ways that they had not been before.For some, this sparked their concerns and brought them out in large numbers to protest to the school board.Parents became involved because of the things that they saw being taught to the children online, Robertson said.He was unhappy, however, with the way some of the board members have handled the parents concerns.

Matters came to a head in Wayne most recently when the Board of Education meeting was not held because there were an insufficient number of board members to constitute a quorum.A sizable gathering of people had met to make themselves heard, and were angry no meeting would take place.This, of course, with Election Day right around the corner.According to local news, the absent board members all offered reasons they could not attend, but some parents felt it was a deliberate act designed to silence them.

What I would say is, unfortunately, it appears that some people believe in public education, Robertson said, as long as the public has nothing to do with it.

The election, according to the veteran senator, will not put the matter to bed in Wayne, however, and he expects more conflicts between school boards, school administrations, and families going forward.Wayne, in a sense, is the canary in the mineshaft.

THE MUNICIPALITY HAWTHORNE

Elsewhere in Passaic County, the borough of Hawthorne represents one of the battlegrounds of the county with respect to the mayor and council race.Hawthorne is also the only municipality with a Green Party candidate running for local election.Craig Cayetano is running an independent campaign to capture one of the three council-at-large seats.Madelyn Hoffman is the Green Party candidate for governor.

Hawthorne is politically famous for the forty-year reign of Republican Mayor Louis Bay II, whose administration stretched from 1948-1988.Afterward, the borough changed to a Faulkner Act strong-mayor municipal government.All mayors since Bay have been Republican and the council has also reflected a majority of Republican control.However, for the first time, Hawthorne now sees a slight advantage in registered Democrats than Republicans and the Democratic party has new municipal leadership.Hawthorne in the 21stCentury has not been able to return more than 1 Democrat to the council which comprises 4 ward councilmen and 3 at-large seats. A largely ineffectual Democratic Party in Hawthorne, combined with the historic majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning unaffiliated voters meant that the former grew stagnant and the latter became complacent after easy victories, with re-elections a near certainty.

Mayor Richard Goldberg, with some 13 years in the mayors seat, is a distant second to Louis Bays record, but nevertheless is the longest serving mayor the town has seen since 1988.Under his watch, he has appointed a number of Democrats to posts within the town, including the Municipal Alliance, the borough administrator, and the recently-formed Hawthorne Pride Alliance to address matters related to the LGBT community.Goldberg has strong bipartisan chops.

Hawthorne is also the home of former NJ State Senator John Girgenti (pictured, top), a man who, in the past, would have been the strongest Democrat to run against Goldberg, although he did not run.With no other meaningfully competitive Democrat, Goldberggenerally popular and noted for his sense of humorwas able to handily win re-elections that the opposition put in his way.In this cycle, however, he has decided not to seek re-election and a competitive mayoral race began.

Councilman Joseph Wojtecki, the Democrats only voice on the council, threw his hat into the ring.This is his third time running and Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh at a recent fundraiser dinner lauded his effort, saying, This is your time.Sayegh noted that he won the mayors seat on his third try, and was confident his Hawthorne counterpart would do the same before hoisting his fist into the air like a champion pugilist.

The Republican candidate seeking to succeed Goldberg is Council Vice President John Lane, a man who has served on the council for the better part of two decades and made an unsuccessful primary bid against former Mayor Fred Criscitelli in the past.

Both Lane and Council President Frank Matthews sought to run for mayor, but rather than risk a divisive primary election, they agreed to allow the County Committee to decide which of the two would be the mayoral candidate.Lane prevailed.

The incumbents united, the Republicans nevertheless still faced a primary in June, where former school board member Michael Doyle and tavern-owner Jay Shortway ran as a ticket, while a third Republican, Phil Speulda, ran his own campaign.

The incumbents were solidly victorious in the primary and moved toward the general election.The defeated Shortway, however, filed to run for one of the school board seats, running on a policy of maintaining the status quo.

The Hawthorne race has attracted the attention of county as well as state operatives looking to see whether or not the red borough will have become so purple that it might, in fact, turn blue.If it did, it could well serve as another feather in the cap of former state chairman (and still Passaic County chairman) John Currie.Curries tenure as Democratic chair saw the establishment of Democratic dominion on the county level where Republicans have consistently been frustrated in their attempts to gain freeholder seats.

If Wojtecki does not win he will still remain on the council since he represents Ward 1, and only the at-large council seats are up for grabs.The stakes are higher for Lane who, as a councilman-at-large, would no longer serve as a public official should he lose.

Hawthorne, a sleepy suburb which seldom makes headlines in the Garden State, has become one of Passaic Countys must-watch races.

DISTRICT 39

Senator Holly Schepisi, representing the 39thDistrict of Bergen and Passaic Counties, is running with Robert Auth andDeAnne C. DeFuccio on the assembly ticket.Given the bloodbath which marred the relationship between Auth and Schepisi after the passing of Senator Gerald Cardinale, their names together validate the late-great Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.The PM is said to have told Queen Victoria that Great Britain had no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests.In this case, a demonstration of party unity must prove somewhat astounding to insiders, given the bitterness of the Schepisi/Auth break.

LD39 Democrats looking to displace the incumbents are senate candidate Ruth Dugan, who served on the Saddle River Board of Ed and is the wife of former state senator James Dugan, while Demarest Mayor Melinda Iannuzzi and Senator Loretta Weinberg aide Karlito Almeda try to dislodge Auth and DeFuccio.

The district is very close in terms of Democratic and Republican voters, and the unaffiliated voters will fundamentally make the difference either way.Schepisi, seen at several Ciattarelli rallies in North Jersey, demonstrated her tenacity and iron will.This was shown when she overcame her former assembly partner Auth, beating him out for Cardinales seat, but also in the highly charged 2019 election where she beat Democrat John Birkner by some 5,800 votes.

Auth, a longtime Cardinale acolyte, brings local name recognition through his incumbency, and DeFuccio a new face and fresh perspective.The Republican and Democratic assembly tickets are, in a way, reflective of each other.Iannuzzi, as a mayor and with her own local name recognition, represents the executive experience and political establishment to give balance to Alemda, a 26-year-old Filippino-American who has served Senator Weinberg, reflecting the growing diversity of the districts constituents generationally and culturally.

District 39 represents a unique palette of experience and continuity along with varied perspectives, all served up with a hefty-dose of New Jersey political diner booth chatter to make the raceand its consequenceswell worth monitoring.

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The Board of Ed Elephant in the Room and Other Passaic Elections Nuggets - InsiderNJ

I have had several people ask why I do not write some ridiculous and funny columns as I once did. You must understand that I am older, likely not wiser, and often confused as to the reasons for some of my current dilemmas and interpretations. It is difficult for me to find much funny material in my puzzling and perplexing everyday world.

History teaches us that what goes around usually comes around again. In the 1970s, my wife would take me to work and then go and sit for hours in gasoline lines, often witnessing fist fights, vulgar frustrated finger salutes, names called not found in most dictionaries and even one instance of handgun waving.

I realize that my reasoning may have slipped a bit, but I understood just a few months ago that America was fuel independent and selling energy resources to other countries. I asked someone who I really trust concerning their accuracy on current world affairs for his opinion. He said something about our oil production having been drastically reduced and that we were dependent once more on Arab suppliers and their high selling prices and current availability. An explosion in bicycle, skateboard, roller skate and walking shoe sales could be in the not- too-distant future.

Allow me to relate some of my recent experiences in the race for refueling my vehicle. Any conclusions, especially political, drawn by the readers are entirely up to their informed, nonjudgmental and intellectual judgment. The gas lines are not especially long just yet, but my memory, although spotty at times, remembers those long lines of bygone years.

One of the basic so-called automotive improvements in modern times is that different cars and models have the gas filling port on different sides. In my youth and even beyond, the gas cap was in the middle, often under the license plate, so the driver did not need to be on a certain side of the pump.

Recently, after sitting in line for some time, I observed a person getting out of their car to see which side the gas cap was on. As they were in the wrong lane, it became a major traffic operation to rescue and remove the errant driver. Car horns and loudly vocalized words of dissatisfaction floated through the fragrant gasoline aroma in the brisk autumn air.

On another occasion after waiting in line, I finally reached the right pump only to find an elderly woman approaching the same pump coming in my lane and direction. I was always taught to be respectful of the elderly, but I had several cars in my rear-view mirror, the nearest nearly touching my bumper. The elderly obstacle pilot had no one behind her, and I presumed she would politely back up.

I think she must have been influenced by the current standard of I am what and who I am, and no one can change me. She defiantly turned off her engine, crossed her arms with a snarly grin, and the battle of wills was on. I couldnt help thinking, I wish Joe Manchin were here to break this tie.

I do not know how they did it, but two or three caring souls behind me somehow managed to allow me to retreat or relocate, if you prefer current political correctness, with honor, dignity and purity of intention, of course.

Some speak of karma or eventual retribution, but I was not raised by that belief. I will let you judge from the following scene. As I searched for another place in the line, I heard car horns and those nasty words being yelled. On observation, it seems my defiant gas line combatants car would not restart, and the situation was nearing a violent (often called peaceful) demonstration of total frustration.

Because of my upbringing, my first instinct was to feel sorry for this dear woman in distress. After quite a bit of mental and emotional discipline, I did just for a moment. But sneaking around the curves and corners of my inner self was the mental image of a fellow who looked a lot like me with one arm pumping the air and softly exclaiming YEA! You must forgive me, but there are so few times to celebrate, no matter how shortly or gently, in this crazy world in which we find ourselves.

I think these green electric cars will have the same trouble plugging into chargers unless they have a very long extension cord. I have not been able to figure out what fuel will be used to manufacture all the batteries to propel these gasless automobiles. That is another story for future thought and contemplation.

I suppose my one small YEA moment will last me until some other earthshaking event in my mundane and often uneventful maturing existence while trying to keep up with all the craziness and confusion in which we daily find ourselves. Remember: Be kind to the elderly, for you are rapidly on your way to that hard-earned distinction, accept it or not. Age is a matter of mind; if you dont mind, it doesnt matter, so some say. I havent found that to be personally true yet.

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Deadlock at the pump | Opinion | wvnews.com - WV News