2011 Harvard Humanist of the Year: Seth MacFarlane

I dont see it as “taking credit”, more as “shameless self promotion”. 😛

Hey Hemant, thanks so much for your support and advertising. We are really excited to have Seth come to HCH! You’ve got a couch to crash on (again) if you need to.

Not sure I agree with this one.

Family Guy has been a showcase of some of the cruelest, most misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic humor on television.

Not exactly what comes to mind when I think of humanism.

@Casimir: I think Family Guy is making fun of people who laugh at racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, etc. jokes. That’s just my interpretation though.

Add racism to the list and I completely agree with Casimir. Just because Christians hate MacFarlane, it doesn’t make him a paragon of humanist values.

Family Guy is taken in the same vein as the old tv show “All in the Family”… The characters on both were/are racist, bigoted, sexist, etc etc… The show is made to smack the audience with these problems, not to glorify them.

There is a separation between MacFarlane’s work which does tend to towards a lower common denominator, but his public persona is staunchly atheist.

I don’t understand people that don’t understand humor like what Family Guy and South Park are capable of …. pure gold IMO

Ugh, Family Guy is awful. Is it the rape jokes, or just the bitter misogyny of the show, or the racism, that I detest the most? I know that MacFarlane is supposedly a liberal, but his show is really just a cesspool of lowest common denominator humor. One of the last things I think of when I think of Family Guy is humanist values.

Also, as a lifelong fan of the Simpsons, I’m more than a little bitter about the fact that nearly everything that is genuinely funny about Family Guy has been unabashedly stolen straight from the Simpsons. But I guess what bothers me more than anything else is, that show has no heart. The family members all hate each other, for the most part. Peter has joked about his own daughter being raped. I don’t see how that is satire. It certainly is poor satire at best.

@Jonathan Figdor: I’ve never heard he use the word “humanist” on her show, and I honestly have no idea if she’s an atheist, but it seems that if the award was for humanists and not specifically for atheist humanists she would qualify just for the way she talks about what’s right and wrong. She seems to be advocating a secular humanist viewpoint in a way that might not raise awareness about atheism/humanism the way we might like, but also might get more people (including moderate theists) thinking about morality in a secular way. I’ll admit I’m biased though, I love her show.

Somehow, I don’t buy that FG’s racism/sexism is meant to be ironic.

I think it’s a positive sign that people feel so strongly for or against Seth’s work. It shows his willingness to provoke discussion in the mainstream on issues that modern culture was too afraid to address. That takes a certain courage that shows like the Simpsons never showed. I find the genius of the show is that it causes me to get offended, but then shows me that my sensibilities are too tender and I am a hypocrite if I would advocate to censor their speech.

Some people have had their sensibilities shaped by more, how to say, “proper” culture. McFarlane has those who feel secure with “proper” culture scared, and he has had roaring success with those who know that today’s culture is sick from propriety.

A part of me winced at first when I saw McFarlane was receiving the award when I remembered the past recipients like Rushdie and E.O. Wilson. Could a young comedian who features in a culture that is seen by many as superficial and obsessed with immaturity really help humanism? I believe that until humanism decides that in addition to making new friends it must also make enemies, it will be relegated to impotent relativism and boring conferences/billboards.

It shows his willingness to provoke discussion in the mainstream on issues that modern culture was too afraid to address.

Family Guy does not provoke discussion about these issues. It provokes glib laughs from people who think these things aren’t problems, and it provokes outrage from those who know they are. This is not productive.

That takes a certain courage that shows like the Simpsons never showed.

It is not “courage” to be a giant douchebag and then hide behind “it’s just a joke” when other people aren’t crazy about your douchebaggery.

I find the genius of the show is that it causes me to get offended, but then shows me that my sensibilities are too tender and I am a hypocrite if I would advocate to censor their speech.

Strawman. No one is trying to censor MacFarlane. He has the right to do the dumbest, most hateful show in the world if he wants to. And we have the right to criticize him for it. We’re also saying that someone with a demonstrable track record of overlooking humanist values might not be deserving of a humanist award.

Some people have had their sensibilities shaped by more, how to say, “proper” culture.

Yes, because thinking there’s nothing funny about say, beating sex workers to death is only a sign of priggish gentry upbringing.

and he has had roaring success with those who know that today’s culture is sick from propriety.

Today’s culture is not “sick from propriety.” If anything, it’s sick from gross marginalization, colonialism, unchecked greed and overwhelming ignorance. The prevalence of demure manners is not a pressing issue.

I believe that until humanism decides that in addition to making new friends it must also make enemies

Humanism has plenty of enemies. They’re called bigots.

I don’t deny that MacFarlane is intelligent and capable of groundbreaking, provocative humor that advances secular humanist goals. But he certainly has not shown that with Family Guy.

I sent a letter to the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy expressing my disappointment in their decision.

I enjoy Family Guy, but yes, I blanch at a lot of the jokes. Does he sometimes make a joke ironically to point out the existence of a bias? Yes, he does that, but those cases are very clear because that’s clearly stated in about 5 seconds. The rest of the jokes are CLEARLY just racist jokes for their own sake with NO sense of self awareness. That asian driver joke above is an example. It’s the sort of joke that someone would defend with “well sometimes stereotypes are true, and one time this one asian woman pulled right in front of me, so I believe it”.

The misogynistic jokes are rampant as well, especially lately. In early episodes, they actually seemed to have a point, they really did seem to be purely for irony. Lately? Well, did Seth just get out of a bitterly nasty breakup or something? There’s just so much HATE against women, and it’s explicit!

For example, a recent one where Peter gets raped by a bull and then his daughter (just clarifying which one, okay? Just making sure we’re on the same page here) showed Brian talking with some woman and commenting on how teenage girls “have everything ahead of them, so much promise, before they all turn into bitches”, and the woman says “yeah, what happened to all of us?”. I mean, is that funny? I’m actually surprised the voice actor for the woman went along with it. It really just felt painful, like Seth had a nasty breakup, inappropriately got mad at the entire gender for it, and took out out on “them” by writing that into Family Guy. If it was meant to be ironic, it wasn’t at all clear. Nothing puts it into an ironic context.

Worse yet, lately a lot of episodes seem to have the moral of “we’re all terrible, let’s just shut up and accept it”. What a development arresting lesson right? American Dad, for example, had an episode where Fran and Stan (wait… I just got that, they rhyme! No really I JUST now got that, haha, but this is serious time) get in another stereotypical fight. It starts out with Stan revealing he ONLY married Fran for her looks (fine so far, a stereotypical lesson about mysogeny done in the Seth style of being incredibly on the nose and direct about it the entire time, which is funny). Later after he tries to grow close to her by blinding himself (which actually seems to be working, and was funny) we find out that Fran only married Stan so she would never have to do a day of “honest work” again. Now it’s offensive, now he’s saying 1, that a housewife and mother is just a lazy good for nothing mooching off the husband, and 2, that wanting to be financially supported WHILE doing all that is the same as wanting a “hot wife”. By the end of it, they decide that in spite of their shallowness, “it works” so they just go back to normal under the understanding the whole thing will fall apart in a few decades when they get old. Wow… Now, if that was meant to be ironic, that would be one thing, but when you add up all the other “I’m faulted but I’m okay with that and you should be too” lessons lately (excusing everything from being a manipulative womanizer to, um, MURDER in one episode, Roger!), I don’t think that was the intension. I think he’s literally saying these days “Okay fine, I know I’ve got problems, but instead of trying to fix them, instead I’ll claim that real adulthood is not trying to change my admitted faults at all and just accepting myself for who I am, even if I’m terrible”.

I think Seth might be terrible. Still going to watch his show though.

@Kenny:

Tell that to a gay person. Or a black person. Or a Jewish person. This kind of pervasiveness of “it’s okay to laugh at gay jokes” causes an uncomfortable atmosphere. It’s the worst of the “I have gay friends, but…” type of rationalization of this kind of behavior. The people who actually are homophobic, transphobic, or racist will look at the so-called humanism here and feel legitimized. If the humanists feel it’s okay to make fun of trans-persons, then I guess I’m able to do the same.

And don’t go telling me I have no sense of humor because I don’t find Family Guy funny. It’s low-brow humor at its worst.

@DreamDevil: I’m sure the viewers at home are picking up on all the subtlety of Brian’s character as they laugh and laugh at him vomiting in disgust for having had contact with a transgender person.

Quick question: has a major character on a TV show ever vomited for having had contact with a person like you? Just curious. Because trans people deal with some of the most virulent prejudice in America. Just a few days ago a trans-woman was brutally assaulted in Fredricksberg, VA. I wonder if that poor woman would grasp how Brian’s hypocrisy is the real target of Family Guy’s supposed satire if she were to see his character vomiting copiously after having had contact with a woman like her.

And wow, such sharp and creative satire! He vomits and vomits. Wow, what intellectual prowess that show exhibits. Surely it is driving American culture forward.

Perhaps I can’t speak for those three groups – but I am a transgender. And the attitude on that show about how trans-persons are treated is disgusting and horribly offensive. It’s not just a funny “oh look at the satirical nature of the show, it’s so witty” it becomes a dig, another bit of evidence that someone sees you as less than fucking human. (I’m also an American Indian, but I have white privilege cause I’m white-skinned.)

It’s not funny if you’re on the butt-end of the joke.

Does the term transgender only refer to those who get cosmetic surgery or does it also include those born with indeterminate genitalia? I’m just trying to get my terminology clear.

I’m about to reveal my ignorance. Thanks to shows like South Park I get the impression that trans gender surgery is really at it’s infancy and the result is really much more cosmetic than functional. (The rest of that episode tried to compare changing genders to getting changed from stereotypical white to stereotypical black or changing to a dolphin. I’m not sure how to feel about that The race thing was clearly banking on stereotypes. The dolphin thing, unfortunately, is similar to how a lot of people imagine it.) I am of the opinion that people should feel free to modify their own body as they will, from tattoos to that one guy that got his face made into a cat face. That said, I myself am guilty of judgement stemming simply from looking at it from a purely functional point of view. The person with a cat face makes me think of heavily breeded modern persian cats. It looks very uncomfortable and like it would cause breathing or eating issues. This does spill over into gender changing.

In the end, I’m basically saying I’m very ignorant of it and just don’t know where the technology is.

As for Brian’s reaction up there… yeah I don’t see it. It really doesn’t help that Brian is a DOG and somehow doesn’t seem to mind his own bestiality fetish. Why would a dog find humans hot?

Peter: Oh my god… You can talk!

So much family guy bashing from people who can’t understand what satire and humour are. American Dad is in its entirety satire. And lately family guy is making more and more jokes about how so many people don’t seem understand satire.

I’ve been in many of the groups that family guy is suppose to have offended, and have never personally found any of it offensive because I actually understand what a joke is.

And if you find your self offended by family guy, get over you’re self. The world doesn’t exist to make you happy.

The Seth has said many time that the joke are meant to show society its own prejudices.

@R.T.: my assertion that Family Guy is a comedy show is based on the fact that, Family Guy is a comedy show.
And if you think that you’re so special that no one should ever make a joke about you, then you do need your ego checked.

Pointing out that bigotry exists doesn’t make the problem worse and it doesn’t make it any more acceptable to be a bigot.

Family guy is not suppose to be the moral high ground of society. It’s a show meant for entertainment purposes that Seth uses to make a satirical point about society as a whole. In that sense I’d say the only thing Seth failed at was thinking society understood what satire was.

If you don’t like a TV show don’t watch it. It’s that simple.

Thilnab– You’re making a gross mischaracterization here. Family Guy doesn’t simply make jokes about mental illness, physical illness, etc. It reduces the entire entity to a joke. Family Guy relies on the assumption that personal trauma is inherently funny. What is evil if not the indifferent apathy to personal suffering? But you’re totally right. People with a history of trauma just shouldn’t watch TV, and if the world makes fun of their past it’s their own damn problem. o_O

Also if one more commenter tells the collective group of dissenters that we don’t “get” the (clearly genius) humor of Family Guy, I’m going to puke. Perhaps I should counter with the suggestion that you don’t collectively “get” how feminism and LGBT equality are set back by such frat house humor. It’s because of these approaches to humor that rape culture (the social belief that rape victims deserved their lot and aren’t actually victims of trauma) is furthered (Ms Magazine had a great issue out on this topic recently).

“As far as I’m aware Seth McFarlane doesn’t get a lot of grief from those groups and politically he is certainly in their camp and as a progressive he will campaign for their equality.”
No. This is accommodationism. Just because someone gets one issue right does NOT mean it is OK for them to be assholes and it does NOT mean that we stop critical assessment on other fronts. So Seth is an atheist. Fine– and hey, he gets people thinking about that. But in terms of the care and attention to human suffering which Humanism dictates, he simply doesn’t measure up. Remember when Bill Maher received the first ever Richard Dawkins award for his work promoting atheism despite being an anti-science whacko? When he was given the award, he was also slapped on the wrist for supporting something detrimental to the cause of rational thought. It would be nice if we saw something similar in the case of social stigmas which Seth’s work contributes to.

Really inspired by the thoughtfulness and passion displayed in the comments thus far.

First, do you dont like F. Guy believe that McFarlane is using the guise of a “joke” to secretly hurt people’s feelings? Or can he make a joke regarding someone’s misforturne that is made with respect and not spiteful?

And, I’d like those who are offended, personally, from a joke that is directed at them from Family Guy to consider something: could you find some catharsis from find something about your condition/troubles to laugh about?

That’s my favorite part about satire and self-deprecation.

First, do you dont like F. Guy believe that McFarlane is using the guise of a “joke” to secretly hurt people’s feelings? Or can he make a joke regarding someone’s misforturne that is made with respect and not spiteful?

I think the best idea is to not make fun of others’ misfortunes. Let those who are hurt have a laugh at their predicament, when they are ready to.

And, I’d like those who are offended, personally, from a joke that is directed at them from Family Guy to consider something: could you find some catharsis from find something about your condition/troubles to laugh about?

Oh I’ve a deep, developed sense of black humor. However this came from within and was not due to some “catharsis” from abuse.

That’s my favorite part about satire and self-deprecation.

It’s not self-deprecation when one is hurting others.

@dauntless

Christians hate MacFarlane.

False. Not to say that most are in love with him, but I know hordes of Christians that watch Family Guy.

Some people really take things too seriously.

Seth Macfarlane is the creator and producer of Family Guy as well as the voice artist.
He isn’t the writer.

Judging a person by the type of show that he creates is ignorant and just stupid.
Bernard Matthews, the owner of his breaded chicken franchise, is a vegetarian.

What you do for your job, does not have to equate to the kind of person you are, or the kind of ideals you hold. To think otherwise would be foolish.

Seth is a major defender of gay rights, human equality, political democracy, freedom of speech, most secular beliefs. I think it would be healthy if everyone shared Seth’s moral outlook on life.

Just because his show makes light of a person with an physical diability, or sexual orientation, or mental disability, does not mean that he himself would be so callous. that WOULD be immoral. The show works on stereotypes, and enormous exaggerations of peoples prejudice.

Seth dislikes those who spout their prejudices, and hypocrisies with genuine conviction, and zero reasoning. All good jokes make light of serious issues, because they are just that. There is a character for every aspect. Jew, Christian, atheist, gay, black, hispanic, paedo, political candidate, celebrity etc.

Seth, at the end of the day hopes that while making the viewers laugh, also gets some valid points across, “damn, there are so many shitty things that exist in the world today that shouldn’t” (religious intolerance and ignorance of science and human nature, blind faith, bigotry, racism, sexism, ignorance, war, corruption, terrorism, stem cell restrictions the list is endless).

So next time you try and judge Seth for his show, try and understand what satire is. It’s pointing out humanity’s faults, and putting a humerous spin on them.
To think Seth is anything like the characters he portrays, or holds every belief that relates to their prejudice just shows that we’re a long way from being a collectively intelligent and rational race.
And the sooner we get to that level, the sooner we won’t need shows like Family Guy and American Dad to point out the ridiculosity of it all.

I feel like I need to go a little 101 with the commenters here trying to tell marginalised people to get a sense of humor.

There are no topics off-limits for humor — that’s not the issue. The question is where the joke is drawing its humor from. At whose expense are you laughing?

I used to work with Holocaust victims in Germany, for instance, and my fellow volunteers and I tooootally made Holocaust jokes. All the time. Really funny ones. Really sick ones. But not a single one of the jokes drew its humor from, say, generalisations about Jewish people. Not one of them had “Jewish greed” or “Gay flamboyance” or “Romani thievery” or any other poisonous stereotype as its punchline. It wasn’t hard. A joke like that wouldn’t have been funny to us.

MacFarlane’s jokes, on the other hand, use already-marginalised people as their standard punchlines. He is a bully, not a champion.

And yes, I fucking well know what satire is. Do you?

After reading the entirety of these posts, Erica said it best.

LMAO Peter’s an idiot. He’s not supposed to be a role model. If there is a “role model” to be had, it’s Brian. The characters on the show that usually do and say racist/misogynist things are MORONS. That’s why it’s funny. It’s making fun of them. It’s like how Republicans watch American Dad or the Colbert Report because they don’t understand this show is making fun of them. I doubt Mr. MacFarlane is any of the nasty things attributed to him in these comments. If you scrutinize any art to this degree, it’s all got something offensive to someone in there.

I think all Atheist Jim Jones was saying was that if people take a character like Peter Griffin and get any values from him, they’re probably idiots. Idk. It was kind of rambling and incoherent [no offense, because I sort of agree, I think]. The character who’s always made out to be the voice of reason is the atheist/liberal Brian. Macfarlane’s said before that he introduced Brian to counterbalance Peter’s stupidity [and the fact that he is an asshole] and the misanthropic dark humor of Stewie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYgkreucOLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI9ImScQGAo

^These are the kind of humor I enjoy on this show. Nobody else does that kind of thing.

*sigh*
I guess we’re really just debating art here, which is all emotion and no fact so nobody’s going to change anyone’s mind. The only reason I’m here is because I think MacFarlane, more for his public stances than the show itself, deserves this honor.

BTW: I’m bisexual, and have always taken particular offense to gay jokes. You could say I’m oversensitive about it. When a show makes a gay joke, I usually stop watching. Family Guy’s are all of a very mild nature and tend to not offend me, at their worst they’re gently poking fun. I think the worst they’ve ever done, gay joke wise, is probably the episode with Brian’s gay cousin, where the jokes were once again, mild at worst. South Park making fun of transgendered people, for example, was more offensive to me anything I’ve seen on Family Guy. The whole Mr/Ms Garrison thing was absurd and made trans people out to be a joke. When Family Guy tackled the subject, yeah they had some laughs, but in the end preached acceptance for the trans character.

It’s not your existence that disgusts him.  Read that again, for him personally to “accidentally” have intercourse with one would unsettle him.  He says nothing about being against their existence, or anyone doing what they personally are comfortable with.

Yeah. Maybe people would get it if he vomited after realising he accidentally slept with a mixed race person.

I an a disabled lesbian and a rape victim.  I am first and foremost a womon.  I am sick to my stomach everytime I watch Family Guy. The misoginy is so intense that it physically makes me sick.  The rape scenes in the bullfight scene and the aquaman beach scene are disgusting and triggering beyond belief. Its not funny it’s straight up evil.  The way the whole family treats Meg is horrific,  It begs the question.  Why doesn’t she kill them.  This man is being honored as a Humanist.  This isn’t a joke, its a shonde