Family Guy and Sarah Palin
Sometimes one line is all it takes. In a February episode of Family Guy—a show not exactly intended for the entire family—a character with Down syndrome says, “My dad’s an accountant, and my mom’s the former governor of Alaska.” Cue the real former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, whose youngest child, Trig, has Down syndrome. She was not happy with the episode, and made it known on Facebook and on the air.
But Andrea Fay Friedman, the actress who played the Family Guy character and who herself has Down syndrome, said in an email to the New York Times,”I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor.” She also noted, “My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.” Ouch.
Next: Pokemon Panic
Pokemon Panic
On December 16, 1997, a mysterious plague swept through Japan: in a single evening, some 12,000 people reported symptoms ranging from nausea to seizures, and nearly 700 — mostly school kids — were rushed to the hospital. The reason: they had all viewed an episode of the popular anime cartoon Pokemon featuring about 5 seconds of flashing red and blue lights. The combination can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. (The reason for the nausea or dizziness is less clear; some analysts suspect it stemmed from anxiety provoked by early media coverage of the event.) The following day, TV Tokyo issued an apology and suspended the program. Not long after, Japanese broadcasters teamed up with medical officials to create new guidelines for animated programs, limiting the speed at which images flash, among other changes. Two viewers stayed in the hospital for more than 2 weeks.
Next: South Park and Scientology
