Wednesday, April 17, 2013

McFarlane's Regrets Ring Hollow

Seth McFarlane has proven beyond doubt that he is not interested in anything or anyone save himself. His cartoons, Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show regularly prove it.

Episodes are often so unbelievably gross and so downright crude that it is difficult to imagine he truly sought to entertain his audience. He more likely wants to insult our decency and intelligence, first by employing repugnant story lines, and then by trying to make a statement on the meaning of life (or lack thereof) afterwards. There is no actual comedic purpose to the former, and no worthwhile insight on the latter.

Yet he has the gall to complain about what someone has done with an unaired episode of Family Guy centered around one of his characters massacring runners during the Boston Marathon. While his anger is understandable after this week's tragic events, it is all the same hypocritical in light of his routine and uncharitable lambasting of people, events, and institutions which he has displayed through his aired episodes of Family Guy and his other creations. He would not have been upset with the entire version of his show if nothing unusual had happened at this year's Boston Marathon; why is he upset that a cropped version gets spread around the web? Because it's crass? That hasn't stopped him before.

He clearly believes that as a Big Cartoon Producer he has the right to say and do whatever he wants, and that it should pass as decent intellectual fare. Or he is snidely playing his audience by going so far off the path of creative entertainment, knowing that they'll watch and praise his avant guarde attitude? Where has his arrogant attitude gone now, now that his work might be immediately offensive? Either way, it demonstrates not artistic merit or any real concern for the folks in TV land or folks in general. It is little more than the arrogance of a small mind.

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