Connotations of the “middle finger” gesture – swearing and being inappropriately rude to a fellow driver. It was censored, as are most swear words and inappropriate gestures in Family Guy, to make it (somewhat) appropriate for children.
Long shot of the family sitting in the car – gives indication of it being a family vacation as they are all traveling together.
Medium shot of Peter talking on the phone – emphasising the fact that the family are not involved in the conversation. Also shows the mirror clearly in the top right side of the screen which gives an indication that the object will be in use in this scene.
Extreme long shot of both cars driving – for the audience to visualise the situation from both characters’ points of view. Then another extreme long shot of the cars parking as both characters come out to fight, audience realise (if they hadn’t before) that it was a misunderstanding between the two friends.
Clothing worn is normal everyday casual clothing that is seen being worn by the characters in most episodes – connotes a casual atmosphere.
Facial expressions are typical of all characters. Meg and Brian both look bored as they are clearly not enthusiastic about this family trip. Chris’ face is typical of his character as he is known to be slow and misunderstanding a lot of the reasons behind why the family do things. Lois’ facial expression is also quite typical of her character, as she is smiling, connoting her optimism about the family trip, yet the audience know that something is going to happen to ruin it…as it is often that she is seen smiling before getting angry.
The sound in most of Family Guy is mainly diegetic. There are very few scenes where non-diegetic sounds are used, but both have their purpose in the narrative. E.g. when non-diagetic sound is used, the audience are aware of something action-packed going on, like music during a fight, which usually fits the movements of the characters. However, in scenes like these, diegetic sound is used to add to the tension of something that is going to happen, or a slapstick joke/action.
In terms of transitions and fade-outs, Family Guy take good care in ensuring none are used, purely for the fact that most scenes cut to others sharply, for example, thoughts and memories of certain events. Therefore, canned laughter is also not necessary in making the audience laugh, as the narrative is constructed in a non-linear form and scenes are short and slapstick.
This text is produced by Fuzzy Door Productions, as well as 20th Century Fox Television for the episodes that are available to watch on TV.
Even though the show is not available in cinemas, it still fits all three areas of the contemporary media landscape. It is available on Broadcast channels in the UK on BBC3 usually at a late hour after 22:30, on FOX in the US and available both on SDTV and HSTV formats.
A film is not yet available for the show, but the director/producer Seth MacFarlane announced in an Interview with The Hollywood Reporter on 22nd July 2007, that he is working on a feature film. He also confirmed this in an interview on TV Week on 18th July 2008.
A spinoff of Family Guy includes The Cleveland Show, which was launched in 2010 by Appel and Fox, introducing one of the protagonists of the show, Cleveland Brown, and his Black-Comedy humour.
There are also video games available for the show on PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Xbox. They have all received varied reviews for the game, even though they have been praised for the humour but criticised for their “short gameplay”.
The creator, director, developer and executive producer of the show is Seth MacFarlane. He also voices the characters of Peter, Brian, Stewie, Glen Quagmire, Tom Tucker and Carter Pewterschmidt. Alex Borstein voices Lois Griffin, Loretta Brown, Barbara Pewterschmidt and Tricia Takanawa. Seth Green voices Chris Griffin and Neil Goldman. Mila Kunis voices Meg Griffin. Mike Henry voices Cleveland Brown, Herbert the Pervert, Greased Up Deaf Guy and Bruce the Performance Artist.
It is not clear whether Family Guy’s genre is Hybrid, or whether it is a sub-genre. In theory, it is known to be an Animation Comedy. However, it has elements of sitcom in the series, especially as the narrative mainly revolves around family life.
In terms of iconography and settings, it could be said that the genre of the series is a sitcom. This is because, even though the narrative is non-linear, elements within different episodes suggest it is nevertheless a sitcom, for example: the introduction of contemporary social issues like drugs, gender, sexuality, social backgrounds – are all foundations of popular sitcoms.
However, the styles and themes that are portrayed by the characters in the series suggest there is a huge element of comedy in the show. As Christy Marx suggested in her 2010 book Write Your Way Into Animation and Games, "It's human nature to like to see slapstick things happen to people with power or authority, especially if they're pompous or misusing that authority”. Therefore we must assume that Family Guy is as much a Comedy as an Animated Sitcom, because without these slapstick effects, the audience would not find the show so inappropriately humourous.
Glen Quagmire’s quotes that there is a “fat-ass” driving slowly, suggests that obese people are being stereotyped in a negative way in this scene. Even though the audience know that the main protagonist, Peter Griffin, is naturally obese and has been so since his childhood, it is often that he is criticised for his weight and his looks on the show. This brings out the dominant ideologies that obese people are more prone to mental health disorders as stated by HealthTree under The Effects of Obesity on August 10th 2010: “Low self-esteem is common among the severely obese. Rates of depression and anxiety appear to be higher; a Swedish study found that severely obese people are three to four times more likely to exhibit symptoms of anxiety and depression, as compared to those with a healthy weight.”
This kind of stereotypical representation is most commonly found in the youth of today’s society, as communities are made aware of the issues surrounding obesity and the importance of keeping fit at every stage of your life. 2010 Obesity Statistics states under USA Obesity Rates Reach Epidemic Proportions that “58 Million” are overweight, “40 Million” are obese and “3 Million” are morbidly obese in the USA. Statistics also prove that “Eight out of 10 over 25’s” are overweight in the USA.
Therefore, it is extremely common in shows that are of a comedy genre to criticise this unhealthy lifestyle in a humourous way, which many would find offensive if it were not for the situation in this scene. The Cleveland Show also makes references to obesity, which is a spin-off of the original character Cleveland Brown in Family Guy. Yet his character was never criticised for his weight in Family Guy. Even Comedy Sitcoms such as King of Queens also includes an obese main protagonist (Doug Heffernan), who is constantly shown being criticised and teased for his weight.
Furthermore, the behaviour of Peter and Quagmire in this scene seems to negatively stereotype today’s male drivers and their impatience. Some could argue that it reinforces this stereotype of male drivers being aggressive behind the wheel, yet others could argue it challenges this by bringing it to the audience’s attention of how silly it is through the use of comedy. Consequently, it is a positive ideology as it is informing the audience of the stupidity of these kinds of actions and thus educating those to use this approach while driving, to be less aggressive behind the wheel. It does this by showing these kinds of drivers how pointless it would be if they were to make a pompous mistake like the one in this scene.
The primary audience for this particular text would probably be adults, aged 16 to 40. This is because the scheduling time for this show is quite late, surpassing children’s bedtimes.
In terms of the gender and ethnicity, the text would be aimed primarily at male drivers. This is because it reinforces the stereotypes of men driving the family car and getting into quarrels with other men on the road. Therefore, males would be able to have a sense of personal identification, especially if they know that they behave in this manner when they are driving. It also allows the audience self-gratification, so that they are able to use humour in difficult situations. Therefore, it allows males to be able to repel their misogynistic attitudes and possibly inform those in this patriarchal society how they can conform to this post-feminist era.
As mentioned before, the show itself follows a non-linear narrative as it contains many flashbacks and short scenes that relate to characters’ thoughts and comparisons. Yet, solely focusing on this one text, it follows a linear narrative as all events happen in order of expectation. The narrative structure for most episodes follows Todorov’s Equilibrium theory, beginning with the Equilibrium, Disruption in Equilibrium, Recognition of Disruption, Attempt to restore Equilibrium, New-Equilibrium.
The show itself contains very little enigma codes. It is possible that this has been deliberately created in this way in order for the audience to be surprised at every episode, as almost all plots in Family Guy are extremely outside of the audience’s expectations and their way of solving problems.
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