Patrick Swanson, who plays Joe Swanson in Family Guy, a paraplegic police officer who suffers with impotence and incontinence. says he won’t apologise for the comedy show’s humour.
Written, animated and produced by Seth McFarlane, the cartoon has been running since 1999, and has certainly made a name for itself with its unique characters and style of humour.
The show centers around the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children, Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog, Brian.
After a successful four year run, the show actually came to an end in 2003. However, it was brought back just two years later, after such a high demand in dvd sales and viewership.
However, despite having a huge fanbase and recieveing generally positive reviews, the show has often come under fire for it’s offensive jokes that use violent images and racial humor.
One of the show’s main critics is The Parents Television and Media Council (PTMC), an American group that advocates for what it considers to be responsible, family-friendly content across all media platforms.
Patrick’s mother Barbara is actually a member of the group, and in 2011 she confessed that she wanted her son to quit the show because she thinks he offends God by acting in it, and she even called it a destruction of his own morality.
She said of the show: ‘The wrong messages are out there and that’s my main concern. Shows like these are leading toward the destruction of morality… nothing seems sacred any more.’
She described her son as a ‘compassionate, wonderful, caring and sincere person’, as well as calling him ‘an amazing father and son’.
Despite her support for her son, she even admitted to never watching a full episode of the popular cartoon.
With social media now opening up much more of a discussion around pop culture than we had access to back when family guy first aired, people are beginning to take to platforms like Twitter to voice their issues around the show’s ‘problematic’ humour and dialogue.
Despite this, Patrick has take a stand and said he now refuses to apologise for the show.
“I used to apologize for being on Family Guy, and I apologise no more because this world is a horrible native satire,” Warburton told Fox News.
“Everybody takes themselves too seriously, and… I think in many ways become an overwhelming mess.”
“But we need humor in our lives, and we need love and humor, acceptance. It’s all rather simple.”
However, there has been one joke that he’s refused to go through with.
According to The Huffington Post, Warburton admitted in an interview with Josh Zepps, that one joke critical of Christianity caused him to skip a whole episode.
“It was something that was so offensive that I said, ‘If that’s in the show, I can’t do this episode. … Put it in another f***ing episode that I’m not in,’” he said.
“We all wonder if we have a line that can be crossed, and I just discovered there is actually a line with me.”
These comments from the voice actor have certainly got a discussion on social media going, with the internet being very divided in opinion.
Whilst many people are finding the show’s jokes offensive and upsetting, other people have taken to defending the show and don’t see the issue of humour.
