Did anyone watch Family Guy tonight and see the Vietnam Memorial "joke"?

[proteus_lives]

I understand in Family Guy nothing is off-limits ala "South Park" but occasionally it feels like it's trying too hard to be offensive. Which is a point shows like FG usually get to around the 4th or 5th season.

I usually let stuff like this bother me but I'm the son of a Vietnam Veteran and it struck me as crude, pointless and it made me angry.

I don't know, just needed to vent.

[TheMightyFavog]

1. Here's what he's talking about:

http://www.mediaite.com/online/too-far-family-guys-vietnam-veterans-memorial-joke/

[proteus_lives]

2. Oh, thank you. I completely forgot to look for a link.

[Juche]

3. Meh

I'm jaded. I didn't find it any worse than when South Park killed of John Stamos's brother.

[patrice]

4. Not funny. More "anything for a buck" whoring at the expense of those whom we took ultimate

advantage of.

[Quantess]

5. Family Guy kind of sucks, in my opinion.

Actually, it really stinks. I have no idea why it's so popular.

[pipi_k]

39. I have to admit...

that my sense of humor is often strange and somewhat rude, but I agree with you.

"Family Guy" is just crude in a 15 year old boy type of way, and not even very funny.

[wtmusic]

6. Seth McFarlane in Vietnam soiling his pants

Now *that's* funny.

[Dogtown]

37. Few of us actually soiled ourselves.

Well, except for those losing bowel control whilst dying.

Do you find that amusing? Your "joke" is on the par with prison-rape humor.



So, where did you perform your service, wtmusic?

Did you soil yourself?

[Dogtown]

40. My 1st response to you was unduly harsh.

Apropos your PM, I wasn't personally insulted by your post and respect your apology.



I think many are unjustly interpreting McFarlane's gag. I believe it actually ridicules those RWers who (even though many didn't actually serve in the conflict) try to maintain that Viet Nam was a glorious adventure.


The reality is that most of us were poor kids trying not to get killed by other poor kids. We were tricked or forced into being there.


I was too late to edit my rude comments to you. if it helps, I rescind those remarks.

:hi:

[wtmusic]

41. .

:patriot:

[pinboy3niner]

43. Gracious second thoughts

If only that happened more often around here. Good on you!

:patriot:

[Dogtown]

46. Thanks, pinboy3niner

:hi:

[Mind_your_head]

7. We're all "expedable.......just don't "expend" yourself until you've had

the chance to plant your damaged ideologies into your children......they'll be damaged for life. AND if you have $$$$, you have the EXTRA benefit of SKIPPING a generation!

[Incitatus]

8. We never should have been there.

I don't find it funny, but I'm sure some do. Including some Vietnamese.

I can't say it offends me.

[proteus_lives]

12. I doubt many Vietnamese would.

That was one of most idiotic things about it. The "scoreboard" comment. What Vietnamese would fun humor in comparing 58,000 American dead vs. 3 million Vietnamese dead?

[tammywammy]

9. I chuckled at it. n/t

[proteus_lives]

15. You must not know too many vets.

[tammywammy]

18. I know quite a few Vets, but I also know Family Guy.

:shrug:

[Lasher]

10. I expected the 2 Americans to kick the Vietnamese guy's ass.

Or, this being Family Guy, blow his head off. It didn't happen though.

[Incitatus]

13. Nope, there may have been less criticism he they killed him for making that joke.

[proteus_lives]

14. That's what would happened in real life.

A stomping.

[eShirl]

35. I assumed that's exactly what happened after they "cut away" from the scene

and THAT's what *I* laughed at - the violence that you just know was coming his way

[Drunken Irishman]

11. It seems Family Guy offends every group.

To me, it wasn't that much different from the John McCain Experience joke a couple years back (you get into a bamboo cage and are poked with a stick).

I too am a son of a Vietnam vet - but I disliked the joke because it wasn't funny. Not that I was offended by it, though.

[proteus_lives]

17. I didn't think that was funny either.

And I don't care for McCain at all.

FG does offend every group, I'm not saying they're singling out vets or anything but this one bothered me.

[Mojambo]

16. Crude? Perhaps. Pointless? I don't think so.

It's a joke that exaggerates (that's what jokes do, ya know) the idea that to the enemy a listing of the fallen isn't a memorial, it's a score card.

Ugly? Yeah. But war IS ugly.

[LuvNewcastle]

19. Not funny at all.

[Morning Dew]

20. At least it was only half a minute

last week, the transgender community took it on the chin for the whole episode

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x159689

[Bert]

21. If humour doesen't offend

then the humourist isnt doing his/her job. The point of all satire is it is offensive to someone. Humour that is offensive to no one is usually pretty ho-hum, but it does exist. When we try to take any subject as off limits, that is usually a bad thing. Case in point that no one should criticize or make fun of someone's religion. Either it is rude or you'll get killed. You can however make fun of their political beliefs, this is why many people hide their political beliefs behind their religion. Personally I love nothing more than making fun of any and all religions and I welcome the believers of said religions to take me to task by making fun of atheists.

[wtmusic]

42. Offensive humor is the bottom of the barrel.

Many, many types of humor which don't offend; taking delight in offense is rooted in schadenfreude and hardly represents the "better angels of our nature".

[flvegan]

22. Family Guy seeks to offend everyone at some point or another.

I groaned at that Memorial part, knowing they were going for the offensive jugular of a LOT of people. I mean, it wasn't funny. It was obviously just there to upset folks.

[1620rock]

24. That was awfull....not funny, sick.

[pepperbear]

23. I can understand all POVs here, but I mean this with utmost respect.....

It doesn't matter what any of you think UNLESS you're a VFW, a family member of a VFW, you're Vietnamese, or you have some other close ties to that culture and that war. This doesn't mean you're not allowed to be offended, but it does beg the question "To what end?" Unless you know what it's like, you're on the sidelines.

Ask two different vets their opinion. You'll probably get two different answers.

Just my 2.

[Orrex]

25. I could probably stomach Family Guy if it were remotely funny.

However...

[Romulox]

26. The only crime in comedy is not being funny. McFarlane is GUILTY. nt

[Fla_Democrat]

27. Hmm, interesting

Let's play.


If, the same show had done say... A Columbine joke. Families at the memorial, and a couple of people in suits, say CEOs of Remington and Ruger were comparing which name had been killed by one of their guns.......

If, the same show had done say.....A Kent State joke. Families at the memorial, couple of National Guard veterans, pointing at the names, and repeating the dialogue. "Hey, I know that guy. I kill him. He cry like a bitch.."

To me, all 3 are offensive, but I wonder if people willing to let the episode that played slide as 'just the family guy being the family guy', would get outraged over the two I suggested. :think:



The world may never know. :smoke:

[Historic NY]

28. Just stupid...I was there the other day.

[fujiyama]

29. Was it in bad taste?

Was it cringe worthy?

Of course, but all that said this IS FAMILY GUY. It's always trying to be as offensive as possible. This is after all the show that had an episode with an aborted/discarded infant (Prom dumpster baby). Google it if you want.

I used to find Family Guy funny but when I heard that Seth McFarlane got angry or irritated by Tina Fey making fun of him I realized what an incredible douche he is. He strikes me as a smarmy bastard...

[TheMightyFavog]

38. Curse you, fujiyama!

Now I have "Prom Night Dumpster Baby" stuck in my head.

[Scurrilous]

30. Not funny.

:thumbsdown:

[ET Awful]

31. Funny? Not really, but I think he was more going for slamming the attitude among

many that war is some kind of game.

[Scuba]

32. OK, I'm offended...

..and I'm usually thick-skinned to the extreme. But the 'scoreboard' bit is over the line for me. Those are my brother's names up there.

USAF, 1970-1976

Two tours Nam

[rucky]

33. This is par for the course for Family Guy.

:shrug:

[theHandpuppet]

34. Fortunately, I save myself from being offended by not watching

I simply can't watch FG because the art is so hideously and self-consciously crude.... rather like the Berenstain Bears meet Clifford the Big Red Dog in a politically incorrect universe. Even watching commercials for that show is enough to cause permanent damage to the retinas.

[Dogtown]

36. I am a Viet Nam veteran

Light weapons infantry.

I was not offended by the bit.



We lost a war that we didn't need to fight. A war we could not win. Only those of us who have *not* given up the fantasy that we were the good guys would be offended. The richest nation on earth was pummelled by a bunch of kids with borrowed guns and a bag full of rice.

And all we wanted was their lunch-money.

It's funny, from any perspective other than, "We would have won if we hadn't been betrayed by the Hippies!".

[TexasObserver]

44. Agreed.

We got our butts kicked in Vietnam by forces without the modern military we had, that did not have the air force and navy we had.

I'm proud of my time and effort, but am not deluded about it. We were wrong to be there. We were not the good guys. Just like we are not the good guys in Iraq or Afghanistan right now. At some point it is appropriate to say "we screwed up, we started a war we had no business starting, we did terrible things, we killed innocents, we destroyed families, we orphaned children, and we got beat."

Anyone who went to Vietnam during the war knows they hated us there. Anyone who served there knows that the locals despised our presence and our attitude about running their country. Iraq and Afghanistan are like bad spin offs from the Vietnam Show. Sometimes the main purpose of war is to fatten the coffers of war profiteers.

The Family Guy segment seemed to be saying "what is it you guys are so proud of about that war?" It's a good point. We lost. It was a stupid war. I don't know why anyone still thinks proudly of it.

[Dogtown]

45. Brotherman

We agree completely.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

47. Good episode.

Joke was directed at the whole "America kicks ass and takes names" crowd.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

48. I knew all of that when I looked at the OP.

Gotta check that episode out.