TV and Postmodernism

 Individual Case Study - Family Guy

It is evident to me that postmodernism exists across many media platforms. Looking at specific modern TV shows it could also be argued that postmodernism exists in the platform of television. I have chosen to look at Family Guy (1999-present, Seth MacFarlane) as a case study to support this idea.

            Family Guy is an American animated sitcom, best known and loved for its use of black comedy throughout the entirety of its 11 seasons. However Family Guy has also faced much criticism over the years of its production and, as ratings plummeted significantly due to the difficult timeslots that the show was given, it was announced on May 15^th 2002 that Family Guy had been officially cancelled. The complete first and second seasons were released on DVD the same week that reruns of the show premiered on Adult Swim, and Family Guy became a cult phenomenon, selling 400,000 copies within one month. The show's popularity in DVD sales and reruns rekindled Fox's interest, and, on May 20, 2004, Fox ordered 35 new episodes of Family Guy, marking the first revival of a television show based on DVD sales. This vast increase in the interest of the show leads me to question what makes it so popular among its audience.

I believe that the target market for Family Guy consists of both males and females between the ages of 16-30, those who have grown up in a world that is so heavily influenced by postmodernism. I think that as postmodernism is becoming more noticeable and popular; the show’s audience is growing of those that can appreciate its frequent use of parody and intertextual references. In terms of what I believe the audience can get out of the show, its consistent use of surreal and, often dark humour allows them to feel good about their own lives and recognise that the characters in the show are regularly placed in worse-off situations than themselves. Additionally, there is the idea that the audience watch the show for personal relationships, to give them something to talk to others about as a social interest. Older audiences could also take enjoyment from the vast amount of intertextuality that the show incorporates into its episodes as they have experienced the original references before, for example “Blue Harvest” (Season 6, Episode 1) was a direct parody of the 1977 blockbuster film, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, recasting the show's characters into Star Wars roles.

General attributes that make Family Guy postmodern begin with the opening title sequence that introduces every episode. Characters Peter and Lois Griffin are first pictured sitting at a piano, singing the theme song which then turns into an overly exaggerated spectacle accompanied with gold suits, backing dancers, water fountains and a stage lined with red curtains. This, I believe sets the tone for the rest of show and suggests that the audience can expect a hyperbolic performance alongside unexpected outcomes and plot twists in a matter of minutes, often created through the use of character flashbacks. Moreover, this could be another reason why the audience can’t resist watching, and loving the show; because of the sheer irrationality of the plots. The way that Family Guy integrates so many different ideas into one 25 minute episode, could be argued as a modernist concept. However the concepts explored are often so meaningless and referential to other media products that the show cannot fail to be labelled as postmodern.

One particular episode of many that I have found to be largely postmodern is “When You Wish upon a Weinstein” (Season 3, Episode 22). The episode consists of many intertextual references including parodies of Star Wars and Indiana Jones as well as making a dig at American self-help author and motivational speaker, Tony Robbins. Additionally, the ending of the episode parodies that of the movie The Graduate. The episode uses Star Wars to illustrate Lois Griffin’s reasoning behind being anxious about her daughter undergoing laser eye surgery after her son Stewie breaks her glasses. We are shown a clip of Luke Skywalker holding a lightsaber over a woman (Mrs Wilson’s) eye as he explains that he ’just needs to make a quick incision’ before being encouraged by Obi-Wan Kenobi to ‘use the force’ to which the procedure going completely wrong. Moreover, the episode addresses the question asked by many children learning maths and that’s ‘when am I ever going to need to use this in the real world?’. Chris Griffin is seen asking his dad Peter Griffin to help him with his maths homework because his teacher had told him that if he doesn’t learn it he ‘won’t be able to function in the real world’. We then cut to a clip of Chris, holding a map, asking someone for directions to which he is told to go down the road where he will find two roads ‘one parallel and one perpendicular’ he’s then told to keep going until he ‘comes to a highway that bisects at a 45 degree angle’ before being asked to ‘solve for x’. This leaves Chris lying on the floor sucking his thumb and presents the audience with a complete exaggeration of when they would ever need to use maths, highlighting that the creators of the episode agree with children that maths is in fact useless in the real world and creating a shared interest with them, another reason why the audience could enjoy the show.

Furthermore, this episode parodies Indiana Jones as we are introduced to a Jewish man who after being asked to stay for dinner with the Griffins, must decline because he has to go to his temple. Peter then assumes that he is referring to a temple like that of which we see in Indiana Jones films and we cut to a short clip of a character standing in a temple who appears to take an exhausted amount of time to retrieve a gold ornament that is displayed right in front of him. He is then interrupted by a police officer exclaiming ‘why don’t you just pick it up already?!’. Once again this episode is using parody to connect to the audience as it is making them aware of how ridiculous certain aspects of the film actually are. The final postmodern feature that I’m going to comment on from this episode, although there are many more is the use of stereotypes in a comedic way, such as the pushy salesman that will try and sell you literally anything, as seen at the beginning of the episode when Peter buys volcano insurance even though he doesn’t own a volcano. Also there is the smart Jewish man that Peter ropes in to try and get his money back and when the Jewish man succeeds, Peter realises that the only way his son will become smarter is if he becomes Jewish, a huge over-generalisation that regurgitates the view of society that Jewish people are smart.

I can therefore conclude from this analysis that Family Guy is a plainly obvious example of the postmodern TV shows that exist today. Family Guy, although criticised by some for its crude sense of humour, makes use of intertextuality and parody to provide laughs for its audience. The common use of flashbacks to completely random occasions, often brought about when a character says ‘this is like the time when...’, creates a sense of timelessness, an idea that is also explored by theorists of postmodernity. Therefore at an overview, I can say that Family Guy as a show is extremely postmodern and that postmodernity therefore exists in the media platform of television.

*****

Group Case Study - The Inbetweeners

It is evident to me that postmodernism exists across many media platforms. Looking at specific modern TV shows it could also be argued that postmodernism exists in the platform of television. I have chosen to look at The Inbetweeners (2008-2010, Damon Beesley and Iain Morris) as a case study to support this idea.

The show follows the life of suburban teenager Will McKenzie, and three of his friends at the fictional Rudge Park Comprehensive School. The script for the show is of a very adolescent nature and includes frequent use of extreme expletives and derogatory terms of a sexual nature. The episodes involve situations of school bullying, broken family life, indifferent school staff and largely failed sexual encounters in a comedic manner. I believe that this is essentially at the core of the shows postmodern nature as the references and mixture of so many different genres in the show provide a moment for all types of audiences to enjoy and I also believe that there is a character in the show that any audience member can relate to in some way whether it’s smart guy, Will, popular girl, Carli or sex addict, Jay.

This leads me on to my next point as to audience members choose to watch The Inbetweeners and what pleasures they can get out of the show. I would say that the target audience for The Inbetweeners are males and females of an adolescent age. However due to its popularity, older audiences have become interested in the show, mainly down to its success with younger audiences. People who watch the show will mainly be those in school/college/sixth form; however anyone who has experienced the school environment can closely relate to the show. Some reasons why I believe that audiences appreciate postmodern shows is because of the intertexual references that they employ throughout the episodes, allowing audiences to familiarise themselves with settings, props, locations, characters and plots and link it to their own personal experiences. For example the RUN DMC posters that appear in the background of the common room may attract fans of the band to watch the show and appreciate the characters acknowledgment of the band.

Additionally there is the idea of bricolage to ensure that the audience can get everything they possibly can out of the show. For example, the mixture of so many genres in The Inbetweeners, including romance, comedy and slapstick allows the show to attract such a broad audience by providing a topic of interest for everyone. There is also the use of narration in the majority of the episodes to provide direct interaction with the audience from Will's character. Will frequently introduces the show to the audience and regularly comments of the up most embarrassing moments and this helps the audience to feel a closer connection to him and the other characters.

I think that the most noticeable pleasures that the audience could get from watching the show are the comedic moments that are offered, including “The Field Trip” (Epidode 1, Series 2) where Jay sets off a flair gun being shot on a boat when they're just a meter away from the dock. This is likely to appeal to everyone and is a historic moment from the show. Additionally there is the romance that is incorporated into the show between Simon and Carli to appeal to the female audiences. Students that watch The Inbetweeners also get to escape their boring school lives by witnessing in a humorous one and by following the lives of our boys that never seem to have it too easy. Whereas the show could be proven to be nostalgic for older audiences as they get to be brought back to their childhood, and remember secondary school days. Finally audiences can take pleasure from the social relationships that they can develop by watching such a popular show - people will watch the show and then talk about it amongst friends and other people.

Most TV shows can be described as postmodern because so many shows borrow ideas and themes from other shows; this is partly because almost everything has already been done. South Park even addresses this in the episode “Simpsons already did it” in which they include many small references to The Simpsons but they actually call themselves out on it, and in defence say that 'The Simpsons has been on forever. Of course they've done everything, who cares'. Thus, intertextuality is also a massive part of television as many TV shows dedicate whole episodes to a TV or film reference or recreation of a popular film or other media text. One postmodern trait of The Inbetweeners is that it parodies other school based TV shows such as Grange Hill. Both shows focus on the lives of a group of students at a school, the settings and themes are very similar and it is very clear that The Inbetweeners show got its principle concepts from Grange Hill. However The Inbetweeners is much more daring and rude, by far and swearing is used very freely and loosely, they aren't at all ashamed to talk about sex and also appear naked in several episodes, varying hugely from the wholesome Grange Hill.

In terms of specific episodes to support these claims, I have chosen two; "The Fashion Show" (Episode 1, Series 3) and “The Gig and The Girlfriend” (Episode 2, Series 3). During “The Fashion Show”, it's the start of term and Carli is organising a charity fashion show, and like every school fashion show it's only for the coolest and best looking kids. This means our four heroes aren't involved - or at least not until the last minute when Carli's desperate. This particular episode could be deemed as postmodern due to the way it contradicts typical stereotypes of people with a disability. We are conditioned to feel sympathy for those in a wheelchair or with any type of disability, particularly in media products. However, in this case, the stereotype for this character is reversed as the disabled student is portrayed as a scheming bully, who tries to separate Will from his crush Charlotte who is in the fashion show. Additionally, in “The Gig and The Girlfriend” Simon is chasing a ‘fit’ girl in the year below and so to impress her, he goes to his first gig since his mum took him to see Take That at Wembley Arena. Within this episode, the element that makes it postmodern is its intertextual reference to the band Take That. By mentioning that Simon has been to see them with his mum instantly allows the audience to associate Take That with an older audience, asserting the idea that they are not a 'cool' band to see. This cleverly ridicules Take That and allows audiences to understand parodies and comical references throughout the episode.

Therefore I can conclude that The Inbetweeners is an example of a postmodern television show. This is mainly down to the crude nature of the humour involved in the show along with the consistent intertextual references that can be found throughout the series and the use of bricolage to attract a broader audience with different interests.