Watching television may be an exciting matter for many people. In this generation people can spend most of their day watching television, especially children. Children’s vulnerability towards television will affect them in the long run by ideas presented in a negative way. I’m not saying all shows will present false data or will put wrong ideas in their head but there are some shows that are just not suitable for children. The main age groups that can be affected by bad television shows are between the ages of 5 through 12. One of the shows aired on television that in my opinion is not proper for children is “Family Guy”, whose comedy is well known worldwide. I feel that the show demonstrates cruel comments about certain races as well as rough intakes on distinct events. Family Guy is not appropriate for children because it teaches children violence, introduces them to profanity and children start learning the meaning of sexual activities. Children have their own time period to learn about certain things. Sigmund Freud can help understand the concepts behind this.
Why does television catch children’s attention? We all want to know the answer to this question. In Eleanor E. Maccoby’s article “Why Do Children Watch Television” gives us his thoughts “If it is interesting, it strikes a responsive chord in him—satisfies a particular need provides wanted information, or perhaps offers release from general stress” (Maccoby). Children usually ask a question when something isn’t clear to them… but when they learn something else they take it in especially if it’s persuasive. It is easy for a child to become a victim of false information and Family Guy has all the tools to smoothly get ideas into kid’s heads. Family Guy makes fun of almost every single race group and also political problems going on in the world today. Family Guy puts its own harmful comedy into our social problems and also puts its own thoughts to it which can affect the way children think. From own personal experiences, when I was young I was indeed vulnerable and there are a lot of children like me or at least how I was. So that is why children need to be careful on what their learning as well as watching because a lot of what they watch may not always is true.
Children should not be introduced to violence in such an early age. By getting violence in their heads they can enjoy it and think its okay and thereby committing something later in the future. Family Guy presents this in an episode “Baby Stewie and Brian discuss Stewie’s plans to torture his mother:
Stewie: “I’ll teach that hussy to go on a boat ride without me. When she returns I’m going to put bamboo splinters under all her fingernails. And I’m going to strip her down and tie her to the bed.”
Brian: “Okay.”
Stewie: “Then I’m going to make her crawl on her hands and knees while I drip hot candle wax all over her back.”
Brian: “And then what are you going to do?”
Stewie: “Let’s see…”
Brian: “Are you going to shower her off after all of that candle wax?”
Stewie: “No. I’m going to keep her filthy.”( Gildemeister)
Stewie is the evil child in the show and his thoughts are devilish. This example shows anger towards his mom Lois Griffin; he thinks of his mom like that what you think children will learn from that. Many children will think its okay to treat their mothers like that which I think is a scary thought. Imagine you have a little brother watching that show and come home and he has a plan like this because his mother didn’t buy him something. That is a scary thought. Family Guy should be shown to only adults and parents should not let their children see it.
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychology, had his own thoughts and ideas of the development of humans. Freud came up with the Id, Ego, and Super Ego to explain how our mind works. The best way I can explain these three are by looking at it like in a movie when someone comes across a problem and they have the little devil (Id) on one side and the angel (ego) on the other and the main person who is going to make the decision (Super Ego). These concepts of the personality play in the psychosexual stages of development. There are five stages: oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital. Each stage has its own age and is different from one another. The one I’m going to focus on is the latent stage which deals with ages 6 to 11 and Freud explains “During this stage, the superego continues to develop while the id’s energies are suppressed. Children develop social skills, values and relationships with peers and adults outside of the family.”(Freud). In this stage children are learning about them and are taming the Id but how can a child do that if they watch violent shows and are getting different ideas to be bad. This will have a serious effect on the relationships that are being built and relationships at home with the parents.
The show demonstrates profanity in almost every episode which is not appropriate for children. I know most mothers don’t want his son/daughter to be a “potty mouth”. Some parents are over protective on what their children watch and don’t want them to get bad thoughts on their head. Eleanor E. Maccoby’s article on “Television: Its Impact on School Children” demonstrates his study on how much children watch TV he says “ The people in the upper groups who have not bought TV, on the other hand, criticize the programs, are concerned about the effects of TV on family life and school work, and in general disapprove of TV”(Maccoby). In this generation televisions are everywhere and children cannot avoid them. Maccoby’s example shows that parents are scared on what effect TV will have with their school. Imagine your child thinks saying bad words is cool since his favorite TV show says it he wants to be just like them and starts insulting people at school, he will get in so much trouble. It is good to limit the time for television or it can become a habit to want to watch it every day.
Family Guy is well known for its language and comedy. It is also known that the characters are perverted and show sex craze. One of the main characters that are perverted is Glenn Quagmire. One of Quagmire saying was” Peter: [sees Quagmire leaving a prison cell] “Quagmire, what are you doing here?”
Quagmire: Oh, it’s conjugal visit day. You know I love doing a woman in the can. Oh! Giggity giggity giggity goo!
Announcer: Who else but Quagmire?
Singers: He’s Quagmire, Quagmire
You never really know what he’s gonna do next
He’s Quagmire, Quagmire
Quagmire: Giggity giggity giggity giggity, let’s have sex!”(Hotspot). Leading children to listen to this kind of non sense as such a young age can make a child grow up way too quick. The scariest thing about this is that they can start having sexual activities without knowing the consequences. Another thing is that they can even make one of their peers feel uncomfortable because they don’t have the same type of humor or knowledge.
The reason I think violence, profanity, and sexual jokes can wait for children is because children don’t take things seriously and children between the ages of 5-12 are very honest people. They might not like someone and they can treat them so bad once learning about violence or profanity as well and the innocent school mate will be most likely bullied by these young children. For sexual jokes they can wait because they don’t understand what’s going on or what they are even talking about you don’t want to put a child in that responsibility of making his own child his life is barely beginning has going to have a lot of time to be thinking about that. I wasn’t raced like that because shows like: Family Guy” weren’t with the same morals or values as my parents and they didn’t want me to learn anything bad. I say children can wait because they get more wisdom from the years and can comprehend the jokes while rite now they just laugh because they see other family members laughing but with time they will look back at t those episodes and be like “Oh now I know what they meant” and laugh.
Television can persuade children into new ideas thus affecting them. They also get affected by the vocabulary they are introduced to if thinking profanity is cool. Violence is never safe to teach to children especially if you know how compulsive children are. Children need to watch shows that are made for them not adult shows. They will have their time when their older and find more out of shows. Parents should pay more attention on what their children are watching so they can stop them from learning something that can wait.
Gildemeister, Christopher. “Fox’s Family Guy: For Children?” Parentstv.org. Parents Television Council, n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2012. <http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/tvtrends/2007/1122.asp>.
Hotspot, Berlin. “Glenn Quagmire.” Familyguy.wikia.com. Wikia, 21 Oct. 2012. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.
Kasschau, Richard A. Understanding Psychology. Orion Place: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008. Print
Maccoby, Eleanor. “Why Do Children Watch Television?” The Public Opinion Quarterly, 18.3 (1954): 239-244.
Maccoby, Eleanor. “Television: It’s Impact on School Children.” The Public Opinion Quarterly, 15.3 (1951): 421-444.
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