There's nothig "edgy" about rape, Family Guy.

Feministing has a blog post up today about a rape joke in a recent episode of Family Guy. It's a very short scene involving Peter and a bull. You can read the transcript over at Feministing and watch the scene on Hulu but basically Peter is a bullrider who is sexually assaulted by the bull he's riding. It's pretty disturbing. I'm not a survivor of sexual assault or rape and so it wasn't a trigger for me, but even my stomach was turned. Viewing anyone, even a ass like Peter Griffin, being attacked and having their pants ripped off while they scream, “No! No!” is not fun nor is it funny. I don't understand why Family Guy and its producers don't seem to realize that. Maybe they do and they just don't really care.

Seth Mcfarlane's point of view is that the humor of Family Guy comes from the fact that Peter is so oblivious to the horrible things he says. I get that. In fact that's what I generally use to defend Family Guy from some criticism that I don't think it deserves. But that defense only goes so far. Example 1: Peter saying, upon hearing that three college women were raped and murdered, that “Everyone is getting laid besides [him]”. Possibly funny because you're supposed to laugh at how asinine Peter is. Example 2: Stewie telling a human, alternate universe version of Brian that it's a good thing Brian is white because “that's kind of a big thing here”. Funny because it speaks a truth about how while it's supposed to be funny that Stewie thinks like that it's actually the truth. Example 3: Peter having his pants physically ripped off while he screams and scrambles to get away from a bull who calls him “fatty” and says they're “going to have a real good time”. Not funny because that shit happens every day. In this case we're not laughing at Peter; we're laughing at rape. (Example 4: Peter lassoing Meg, dragging her downstairs, pulling down her pants and attempting to brand her as his property. Not fucking funny partially because I'm sick and tired of seeing Meg physically beat up and I don't find it funny that Meg is treated like a piece of property. Isn't the humor that Peter's a jerk and we should laugh at him? No, the humor is that we're beating on Meg again because that's the “thing” to do in Family Guy.)

The argument that the humor is always that Peter is obtuse so he says horrible shit that no respectable person should say is valid but I really wonder how often it gets taken that way. I've obviously not done any reception studies on Family Guy viewers and I don't want to stereotype the 18-34 year old male audience that Family Guy is primarily aimed at but for all the people who understand that Peter is an ass and you shouldn't ever think it's okay to be like him there have to be people for whom Family Guy reinforces their existing ideologies about race, class, gender, etc. Shit like this rape scene is exactly what contributes to the rape culture in America. Sure, we all know rape is wrong and aren't going to go out in the streets and rape people just because we saw it on Family Guy. But when rape is put on the television as humor and entertainment it makes fun of the thousands upon thousands of individuals who lived through such real life horror and desensitizes us into thinking that “rape just happens” as if it's normal. Not cool, guys, not cool.

What I wish, though, is that more blogs outside of the race/class/gender/sexuality world would talk critically about Family Guy/other entertainment. It's great that feminist blogs will bring up these issues but these conversations would get a lot more attention if some straight white male blogger starting saying things like, "Hey, I like Family Guy but could we kill the rape jokes and start writing better stories for Meg? Would that kill us? No." It's not as if we need that proverbial blogger to take up this issue for us (And save us from Bowser even though we're in another castle) but the power of allying yourself to a community that you're not a part of is that it shows that an issue isn't just the concern of that one community, but is the concern of all of us.