Let me start this by saying I’m an avid lover of family guy. Just like any other young person trying to develop adulthood I have plenty stressful days. Family guy is my comical escape I’ve always loved the freedom of the show direction. How the last episode more times than not has no effect on the upcoming one. A show that displays multiple American flaws, stereotypes, and social topics. Doing all these things while focusing on one family and keeping you laughing through the process. The latest episode had me at a loss….maybe it was a bad attempt to attack an issue too big for a show of this kind. The fact I felt more disgusted by decision to recreate the Trayvon Martin situation. One issue that I believe never should be forgotten, but it should never be displayed in this light. I don’t feel as though this was a ploy to further current racial issues in America. I truly believe it was an attempt for the writers to express the situation in the family guy world. To twist the story to fit it as something we would normally see on the show. The outcome was a fail by many peoples standards. It went from a show of 20-25 minutes of laugher for me. To becoming a upsetting display of the mishandling of one of the worst American cases. Jokes in the episode included “unlike you I just dodged a bullet” after Peter shot Cleveland Jr. The character Dr.Hartman stating “sometimes I write descriptions of patients” after calling and seeing the Brown family. Again I don’t feel it was an this was about race it was more so a failed attempt to display how America mishandle situations like Travyon Martin. Particularly the domestic violence scene of Lois beating Peter, while the kids Chris and Meg discussed on the steps how this was common. As they then started to pull out their hair as a response to the pain, a take on one stereotype of white households to make things even keeled somewhat. I feel the show recovered itself during the court scene and reminded me of why I love Seth McFarland’s work. The court scene showed the tiring American way to pin point black victims as thugs. No matter the age or situation America always find its way to show the death of this black kid saved the world of a potential thug. Although Cleveland Jr. doesn’t die I feel as though if this situation happened in real life this would be the exact way this country would handle the situation. The end of the episode had a twist to it, as Cleveland the father of Cleveland Jr. took blame for the shooting. Showing how America currently is more in favor of black on black violence than interracial violence. It’s almost like a comfort zone for some of the people in this country. It showed how the media has little to no emotions towards black on black violence, but become very defensive towards white on black crime. I guess I found the message after all….I recommend people watch the episode “A shot in the dark” with an open mind and watch how the show quickly fall down and slowly rebuild for a certain message.
PS. I wrote this while viewing the episode. You can notice the change of mood as show progressed the in the writing.