Symbolic Interactionist Perspective Analysis

Symbolic Interactionist Perspective Analysis

The animated television show, "Family Guy," has been on air since January of 1999. Its main focus is on a made-up American family, the Griffins, and their talking dog Bryan. The setting of the show takes place in the small imaginary town of Quahog, where most of the foundation exhibits to the American culture. The cast of the show are mainly Caucasian characters with the exception to Cleveland Brown and his wife, the only two African-American characters to consistently be cast as neighbors throughout the sitcom. The show display various forms of social inequalities, with racism among blacks and whites to dominate the sitcom. The show justifies the actions of today's society. Some of the jokes the show air is based on how society discriminate between the two races. Family Guy somehow relates to how life is today in America.

Racism scenes are displayed from a non-black perspective where they show various situations such as slavery, welfare deals, police brutally attacking people, etc. I looked on YouTube and saw scenes of a track meet with black and white participants. At the beginning of the race the white were allowed to start seconds before the blacks. Later the black racers were allowed to start and easily overtook the white racers. After the African-American racers passed the two white races they made a comment that was not necessary. They seem as if they were afraid of the blacks as if they would harm them.

The particular episode I was watching on the television feathered scenes on slavery. It aired a white woman's affair with an African-American slave, that later showed they had three children together. As the episode continues the woman's father entered the scene where she was feeding her family and her father chased them off. The family fled the scene to seek a safe place to settle and to avoid prosecution. In all neutrality the plot ended back focusing on the small town Quahog, with the family fleeing family resembling the Griffins of Quahog. The scene probably was created to relate to audiences by making the characters during the slavery scene more easily recognizable by using the Griffins.

I cannot begin to wonder what the objective for this particular sitcom showcased. Maybe the creator, Seth MacFarlane, wanted to shed awareness to real life developments that people just neglect to take seriously. Not being able to hear the various scenes adds to the symbolic aspect of it to bring awareness of how our society relate to individual of African descent. By just observing and not being able to hear gives me the opportunity to formulate my own opinion of the various situations. It is important that the observation administer us with insight and allows us to understand how people react and deal with these situations.

People believe racism is part of their livelihood because of the fact