#the gays and their dingusses | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gt-ridel · 5 years

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Apropos of nothing, I've never really liked Family Guy. I've seen a bit of it, but it just never struck me as very funny. It kind of just made me feel tired and miserable.

My best friend once tried to explain why it's so good by claiming that the horrible things are happening to horrible people who deserve it. And I can understand that. But like...

I'm kind of sick of shows that feature rotten characters, you know? I'm sick of negativity in my comedy. Tired of being expected to laugh at bad things happening to anyone.

Whether it's a vine compilation video on YouTube that shows people getting really hurt (so like, 99.9% of all "funny videos" since the dawn of time), or animated adult shows like Family Guy or South Park.

I hate following the lives of people who are abusive and awful and just don't care about anyone else.

That's why I much prefer shows like Bob's Burgers or The Adventure Zone (okay that one's a podcast, but still)

In BB (I’ve only seen the first seven seasons, because that was all that was on Netflix) the main family is weird, but they love and support each other. Tina writes erotic fanfiction (if you call touching someone's butt erotic I guess) and her parents are happy to let her pursue her creativity.

Bob and Linda don't snipe at each other constantly like every other married couple in television history. Even when they do get into fights, if there are insults they're pretty mild, and they always make up properly.

And I just love the way the family has kind of adopted Regular sized Rudy? The asthmatic social outcast kid with a neglectful single father who in any other show would be nothing but a background punchline.

Also (and I’m going to go on an uncomfortably personal tangent here, so you might want to skip ahead) they use proper pronouns for an obviously trans side character as if it's the most natural thing in the world. Like, I grew up in a very religious home, and despite the fact that the whole issue of gender and sexuality was always a touchy one, especially in the 90's, I was always taught that we do not laugh at people even if we don't agree with their lifestyle choices. Their lives are their own and are not a joke.

When he was a teenager my older brother would always make gay jokes, and it was yet another reason why we never got along. It was disrespectful and unfunny and just an all around nasty thing to do. But those were the kinds of jokes you saw a lot on TV at the time. Gay people are funny. Look how weird they are. Ha ha ha.

Later it would turn out that he was pansexual.

I have a LOT of beef with my older brother, who put me through a LOT of shit when we were growing up and contributed a LOT to the feelings of worthlessness that I still struggle with today (He has also dated and emotionally abused many of my friends, who I tried to warn off but who thought I was exaggerating, leading some of them to actually require therapy. But that's a completely different story. all of this to say, we are not friends)

But on the matter of the jokes I have a little sympathy.

Because everywhere you looked popular media told us that gay people were a joke, and he couldn't stand the idea of being one too.

This stuff matters.

(Okay, the tangent is over)

In TAZ, you have either a big D&D setting with three lovable dingusses trying to save the world, or a modern day monster of the week style adventure with three lovable dingusses trying to save the world. (Two worlds, but who's counting)

Yes, they will rag on each other, but it's done in such a way that you never really get the feeling that they don't care. I mean, let's be clear, the characters are not paragons of virtue in either season, but they do grow and learn and try to be better. My favorite example of this being Ned Chicane (but this post is already long enough without going into his story and I need to start wrapping up here).

That's probably because the whole podcast is basically played out live between three brothers and their father, who all obviously love each other very much.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, can we start moving away from the relentlessly unpleasant in our comedy media?

I think that being taught to laugh at racism and abuse and physical pain does us a huge disservice as a people. Especially if the people consuming said media are younger and still easily influenced.

I'm not saying hey if you watch family guy you are a bad person! That's clearly ridiculous. But I do think that media like it in general, on YouTube or TV or in podcasts or books, effects the way we think about other people in a very negative way.

Standard disclaimer applies. If you feel differently about this subject, that's fine. Like I said at the start, my best friend still loves this kind of stuff. But I think it tends to do more harm than good, and It's just not for me. :/

#this is a rant I guess?#or maybe not #I'm not particularly angry about any of this #just tired #very very tired

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