Family Guy Butchers a Cat

This aired on 4/19 ... -- Picture courtesy of FOX

by blogSpotter
I’ve been a fan of Family Guy for several years now. I’ve loved the fact that nothing is sacred, they tackle all taboos. I even referenced them in my most recent blog about Texas. I’ve blogged about them twice before, with one admonition that they show too much animal cruelty – one episode showed a sheep after it’s been half-eaten alive. Up to now, the shows have shown violence to farm animals, and the violence is implied not shown on-screen.

Imagine my surprise on the 4/19/2009 episode when they showed Peter Griffin kill an innocent cat (Quagmire’s pet) with a straight razor. In this “gag”, it’s supposed to be a prank where Peter is shaving the cat. But he kills the cat and then jokes about it, even holding up the animal’s severed foot as a “lucky cat paw”. The barbarism of this scene sickened me enough that I had trouble going to sleep. I abhor violence – even semi realistic cartoon violence.

Cats have long been battered, demonized and destroyed in movies and TV shows. In the National Lampoon Christmas movie, one was electrocuted. In a King of the Hill episode, a cat was portrayed as a screeching, hissing monster. Cats screech and hiss with about the same regularity that dogs go for the jugular – it’s a very rare defensive behavior. That actually should be beside the point, because wanton cruelty to defenseless animals is never justified.

When I looked at various FOX TV forums covering the 4/19 show, I was amazed to see this kind of pattern …

o Roughly 80% of respondents didn’t even mention the cat – they focused on the “A” plot about decriminalizing marijuana – how could the cat not register??
o Roughly 10% of the respondents (almost entirely men) thought that the scene was hilarious – they never saw anything funnier
o Roughly 10% expressed vague concern that it might have gone too far and “cat people” might be upset

Apparently Seth MacFarlane, the series creator has a problem with cats and cat owners. He portrayed the cat as blandly impersonal, like a gerbil. The “joke” was that cat ownership caused Quagmire (usually an insensitive, macho playboy) to turn into a “crazy cat person”. It wasn’t enough for Macfarlane to slur cat owners or imply that cats have no personality, he had to butcher one also. Did MacFarlane just have a difficult breakup with a woman who loves cats? That might add insight to such a horrible script.

In a complex world, it’s sometimes hard to peg good and evil – I’m still not sure about the various players in Pakistan or Bosnia/Herzegovina. In human affairs sometimes we have gradations of evil. But cruelty to animals is a different thing entirely. There is a warm place marked in HELL for people who are cruel to animals, do not pass purgatory , do not pass “Go”. Family Guy didn’t dismember a person or a dog – that would’ve gotten calls and letters. They casually and cavalierly dismembered an innocent cat and then laughed about it. It would’ve been remarkably inappropriate even if it were a mouse or a toad.

I sent my concerns to Dallas Fox Affiliate KDFW and also left a comment on series creator Seth MacFarlane’s Facebook page. I’m rather amazed that the voice actors and other series employees didn’t object when this plot line was advanced. Just amazed. Family Guy creators – beware of the bad karma you’ve just heaped upon yourselves.

© 2009 blogSpotter