Family- 9/11 "Let It Happen" Episode
Sundays are hectic for us. Every Sunday we always find ourselves desperately trying to consume as much television as possible in order to alleviate the stress on our DVR. Last night in the midst of our Sunday night madness when we glanced at our twitter feed we happened on a tweet from TVLine’s Founder and Editor-in-Chief Michael Ausiello which read: “FAMILY GUY “Celebrates” 9/11 Attacks: Did it Go Too Far? Vote Now!” When we saw that we froze in our chairs. In our mind the words Family Guy and 9/11 do not mesh well.
We went to TVLine’s article on the episode to see how far Family Guy took it this time and learned that last night’s episode featured Stewie and Brian going back in time, preventing 9/11 and later returning back in time after realizing it would be better to just “let it happen.” Needless to say after reading that description, we had some concerns going into the episode.
Family Guy is a show dedicated to habitual line crossing. If you haven’t been offended at one point while watching an episode of Family Guy you probably are incapable of feelings.
Recognizing that, however; doesn’t mean we give Family Guy a carte blanche excuse. Just because a show is controversial doesn’t mean it has the right to do whatever it wants and get away with it. In this case, however; while we understood why people were getting upset in general about the use of 9/11 we didn’t understand what specifically people were taking offense to in this episode.
Family Guy seemed to take a very balanced approach to the 9/11 tragedy during this week’s episode. During the episode Family Guy conceded how horrible 9/11 was, which is why Brian was motivated to prevent it. Then, once 9/11 had been adverted, the episode discussed how 9/11 was awful but if it had been prevented our country may have faced much worse.
This week’s Family Guy episode seemed to come down on the side that awful things happen and as much as we wish we could prevent them, we cannot go back in time and change things. It seemed to further argue even if we could change the past, we cannot presume to know what will happen if we did or assume that we would be better off if we averted a tragedy like 9/11.
In our minds this episode was more of a discussion of accepting that bad things happen than a discussion of 9/11. The episode seemed to use 9/11 as a tool rather than make fun of or make light of what happened on that tragic day.
We understand why on it’s face any Family Guy episode involving a decision to let 9/11 happen would be controversial and offensive but when taking the episode together as a whole we found that this episode was not worth all the controversy it created and continues to create.
There is one thing we did take offense to and that is how how uncharacteristically unfunny this Family Guy episode was as a whole. There were brief moments where we felt amused and humored by the episode. Overall, though, the episode failed to amuse us.
We can understand why people found this week’s Family Guy 9/11 episode to be controversial. In fact, we anticipated in advance that we would share those feelings. But by episode’s end we did not share in the general sentiment that this episode was even worth a second glance.
Should Family Guy avoid referencing 9/11? Probably. Could Family Guy be more sensitive in regards to 9/11? Yes. Were we offended by the Family Guy “Let it Happen” 9/11 episode? Not really. On it’s face the episode and it’s use of 9/11 was offensive but when put in context, the use of 9/11 provoked an interesting (slightly boring) discussion of tradegy and acceptance.
We don’t want to tell people who are offended by the Family Guy 9/11 episode to get over it, or resort to the “it could have been worse” or “they’ve done worse” excuse/defense. Everyone has the right to decide what crosses the line. In our opinion, however; Family Guy did not cross that line last night with their 9/11 themed episode.
