Tuned In

Dead Tree Alert: Family Guy Defeats Palin

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | February 25, 2010 | +

My Tuned In column in this week’s print issue of TIME looks at Sarah Palin’s Family Guy feud and its irony: Palin had her own favorite rhetorical device turned aganst her. Palin’s strength as a politician has been to use identity politics, drawing her authority from her biography (military mom, special-needs mom, small-town native, etc.) rather than resume credentials. When she called a Family Guy storyline about Down syndrome an insult to her son, then was smacked down publicly by the voice actress, who actually has Down syndrome, she was for once outranked by someone with a superior biographical claim:

Now, Palin and her defenders could argue that Friedman is simply one woman with Down and cannot decide for everyone — disabled or not — what is and is not offensive. That response, by the way, would have the advantage of being correct. But it would also implicitly undermine Palin’s claim to authority. She would then be just one more military mom, one more teen mom’s mother — one more hopeful pol looking for attention.

Of course, she’ll still get the attention. As, I suppose, my having written the column proves.

Related Topics: dead tree alert, family guy, sarah palin

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  • mimsysnark

    I literally spent the last 2 days at work, so I’m late reading this article, but I wanted to say I really enjoyed this article. Even though I’m a fan of Family Guy and have always defended their right to make fun of anything they want, I was still wincing when I saw that episode was going to be about a Down’s Syndrome girl. But, they made with the funny and (mostly) stayed away from easy, overdone “retarded”-type jokes. It was a great episode and Palin’s outrage, and subsequent smackdown, was icing on the cake for my entertainment!

  • http://xmlrider.wordpress.com xmlrider

    Wow. So your whole article is based on how neat it is that a woman with Down Syndrome said it’s OK to make fun of people with developmental disabilities – so let’s give the show two thumbs up!!

    Make no mistake. This wasn’t just a shot at Sarah Palin. The show made blanket references and jokes at the expense of all persons with developmental disabilities. But the Media is so focused on Sarah Palin that they only hear that one line – and that’s what it’s all about. “The Family Guy made fun of mentally disabled people? That’s unacceptable! What? They made fun of Sarah Palin’s baby? Why that’s a HOOT!!! ”

    The outrage isn’t that The Family Guy would make this episode and put it on the air. The outrage is that you – Time Magazine – celebrate it, embrace it, and do not find any problem with it.

    Let’s find a Black actor to make fun of Obama’s children with some off color jokes. I mean, as long as he goes on national TV afterward to tell everyone how funny he thought it was. As long as he’s Black, it’s OK, right? Same logic.

    Of course that wouldn’t be acceptable – and neither should your treatment of the Down’s Syndrome issue with The Family Guy. Your attempt to dismiss the producers of the show simply because one of their employees happens to have Down’s Syndrome and said the jokes were “OK” with her, is an insult.

  • wildclover

    Mom here with DS son….the character was depicted on a comedy show as being normal, intelligent, and able to live a normal life. Many folks have the mis-perception that DS means you can have none of the above. By showing this character in the light they did (who cares about the jokes, Family Guy is this generation’s king of non-PC just as “All in the Family” was mine). If you were to show someone with DS in this light, and then imply that this was the future for my son, I would be pleased and validated in my belief in him and his future, not insulted. Sarah Palin needs to gain both a sense of proportion and a sense of humor or she will never be able to raise Trig to be the best he can be. No parent of a DS child I have read on any of the places I’ve found this discussed has agreed that DS kids were insulted. If there was no insult, a joke implying such a future conversation for Trig was no insult. In the same manner, if it had been a smart mouthed black kid who tossed off a “Yeah, my old man’s the President of the United States”, would this have insulted Obama and his girls? Probably not. It certainly wouldn’t have the PC police out in droves to back up a whining publicity hound for the sake of her “helpless child”. Where were all the defenders when Chelsea Clinton was called “ugly” and worse by mainstream comedians? Ah yes, we were told to shut up and quit over-reacting, despite the fact that she was old enough to be personally hurt by the comments. Trig will never be hurt by this show, so the only one to be “hurt” is the woman who uses her family liberally for votes and stage props, yet screams that her family is off limits.

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