There needs to be a rule that if your TV show has survived and thrived for 14 years based largely on fart jokes and sexual mishap you are forever barred from offering comment on the intellectual capacities of those around you. Specifically, those who voluntarily risk life and limb to protect your ability to make fart jokes.
Such a rule would have been particularly awesome if instituted or followed prior to Sunday night’s edition of Family Guy. In an episode titled “Pilling Them Softly,” Bryan (who is a dog) laments how Stewie (who is a baby) has been medicated to make him focus better. Then he lashes out at the whole practice of drugging kids to improve their ability to pay attention. Then he lashes out at the people who serve in the military:
See? This is how American society treats unique, enthusiastic children. Instead of embracing their mental gifts, their first reaction is to shoot them up with hardcore drugs until they’re mindless sheeple. All the better to ship off to Kuwait and feed the Halliburton oil machine right? Hmph. Bush.
“Mindless sheeple?” That’s who Bush sent to Kuwait and Iraq? I’ve watched Family Guy for years, so in no sense can I honestly sit here and say I’m surprised that they would take a shot at military members. They’ve done it before and I’m sure they’ll do it again. However, if you’re going to take a shot, at least have your shot make sense.
The military is one of the most highly educated groups in our country. Far better educated than the general population as a whole. If Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has a beef with the American military (and it’s all too obvious that he does) and what it stands for, that’s fine. Take a number. However, the people who serve in the Armed Forces are far from mindless. And they’re volunteers, not sheep. Sheep don’t volunteer.
So find some other way of criticizing them other than mocking their intelligence. Which is statistically likely to be just as high, if not higher, than MacFarlane’s and much of his staff. That is, if you can find the time between making fart jokes.
