Jokes about rape are NEVER funny – but Family Guy creator, Seth MacFarlane, thinks they are.*
The television show Family Guy is notorious for indecent content, with episodes often including jokes about child sex abuse, molestation, and rape. On Sunday, this twisted humor will take a new turn when a TV special featuring both The Simpsons and Family Guy airs with a joke about rape.
Contact your local Fox station and ask them not to air this episode unless the rape joke is removed. Hurry: The program is scheduled to air this Sunday night on the Fox Broadcast Network, so we must act now!
This crossover episode will likely catch millions of unsuspecting families with young children and tweens completely off guard, and we must make it clear to Fox that this distasteful content is unacceptable for our children and grandchildren.
When our entertainment media trivializes ― and even suggests that we find humor in ― horrific acts like sexual assault, they are helping to foster a culture in which rape seems less intolerable or less deplorable.
With your help, we can send a loud and clear message to FOX and its affiliates that we don’t think rape is a laughing matter, and we will not accept jokes about rape on television shows targeting our youth.
Contact your local FOX station today. … because our children are watching®.
Sincerely,
Tim Winter
President, Parents Television Council
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* Seth MacFarlane defended this joke in an interview that ran in the September 12 edition of Entertainment Weekly:
EW: What was it like for you to see these characters interact, especially when they start saying each other’s punchlines and borrowing each other’s bits?
MacFarlane: The extreme to me of that is Stewie calling up Moe, which I’m sure the Huffington Post and even your magazine will attack us for. But in context, it’s pretty funny.
[After watching Bart make a prank call to Moe, Stewie asks Bart if he can try it, calling back and saying, “Hello, Moe? Your sister’s being raped!” before hanging up and asking a speechless Bart, “Is that…is that one?”]——————————————-