1961 TV: Good wholesome programs about big hunky men in the colonized west shooting one another over petty disputes. Also shooting native Americans for fun.
The average western was liberal af. It was very explicitly tailored to a industrial era working-class audience as a morality tale about the necessity of "civilizing" forces. While there's a certain progressive pastiche to the western, it ultimately serves as nationalist propaganda intended to valorize law enforcement, inspire fear of foreigners (particularly those who refuse to integrate), and advocate in favor of neoliberal economic interests (individualism, privatization, the protestant work ethic, etc).
Family guy is a cynical critique of those same liberal morals, openly mocking the idea of civilization as a productive social force. Leaders are portrayed as clownish dolts, neighbors are alternately creepy perverts, blue lives psychos, dim-witted lemmings, or fat lazy incompetent losers. The outward displays of racism simultaneously exist to mock the faux-civility of liberal suburbia and legitimize expressions of bigotry as humor rather than hostility.
The former whitewashes bigotry with liberal tropes. The latter tears down the tropes with "edgy" appeals to baser human impulses.
Westerns are a very broad genre that includes almost all the films made by various studios for several decades and yes a lot of them are problematic but a lot of them also deal with the ideas of capitalism and the state taking away freedoms or depict how men controling their lives through violence hurt those around them.
Eh. The way they normalize police violence and the really naked anti-Asian bigotry stand out far stronger.
a lot of them also deal with the ideas of capitalism and the state taking away freedoms or depict how men controling their lives through violence hurt those around them.
Its a very mixed bag, as "good" homesteaders/miners/small business owners are held up against "bad" capitalists and "bad" natives/latinos bandits. The dichotomy tends to be local versus outsider, rather than community versus profitability. But the story consistently treats industrialization as an inevitability, and traditionally views it as benevolent (or at least benign) with wealth "trickling down" into the community as the extractive economy expands.
Westerns don't venerate working people, they venerate colonialism.
1961 TV: Good wholesome programs about big hunky men in the colonized west shooting one another over petty disputes. Also shooting native Americans for fun.
Today's TV: The gay baby hates his mother Lois
civilization will shortly collapse
family guy is comparably racist to the average western and more racist than quite a few of them
The average western was liberal af. It was very explicitly tailored to a industrial era working-class audience as a morality tale about the necessity of "civilizing" forces. While there's a certain progressive pastiche to the western, it ultimately serves as nationalist propaganda intended to valorize law enforcement, inspire fear of foreigners (particularly those who refuse to integrate), and advocate in favor of neoliberal economic interests (individualism, privatization, the protestant work ethic, etc).
Family guy is a cynical critique of those same liberal morals, openly mocking the idea of civilization as a productive social force. Leaders are portrayed as clownish dolts, neighbors are alternately creepy perverts, blue lives psychos, dim-witted lemmings, or fat lazy incompetent losers. The outward displays of racism simultaneously exist to mock the faux-civility of liberal suburbia and legitimize expressions of bigotry as humor rather than hostility.
The former whitewashes bigotry with liberal tropes. The latter tears down the tropes with "edgy" appeals to baser human impulses.
family guy is also full of edgy anti-semitism.
Westerns are a very broad genre that includes almost all the films made by various studios for several decades and yes a lot of them are problematic but a lot of them also deal with the ideas of capitalism and the state taking away freedoms or depict how men controling their lives through violence hurt those around them.
Eh. The way they normalize police violence and the really naked anti-Asian bigotry stand out far stronger.
Its a very mixed bag, as "good" homesteaders/miners/small business owners are held up against "bad" capitalists and "bad"
natives/latinosbandits. The dichotomy tends to be local versus outsider, rather than community versus profitability. But the story consistently treats industrialization as an inevitability, and traditionally views it as benevolent (or at least benign) with wealth "trickling down" into the community as the extractive economy expands.Westerns don't venerate working people, they venerate colonialism.