/24-7PressRelease/ - EDGEWATER TOWN, NJ, August 16, 2007 - Should you feel guilty about watching "Family Guy?" What's so funny about dysfunctional families? Where's the line between parody and nonsense? These are just a few of the many questions asked and answered in a new book published by Wiley-Blackwell, "Family Guy and Philosophy: A Cure For the Petarded", Editor, J. Jeremy Wisnewski, September 3, 2007.
Consisting of seventeen chapters by acclaimed American philosophers, these Stewie-loving philosophers use the low-brow, potty-mouthed, cartoon humor of a popular television program to illustrate philosophy in a way that non-philosophers can understand - without getting too high-brow for their (or your) own good.
"People today take tend to take themselves and things too seriously," according to Dr. J. Jeremy Wisnewski, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY. "This show provides an escape, a release; it's full of legitimate insights that get us to laugh at things that might surprise us. It defies expectations."
"This book is about the most misunderstood show on television," say Dr. Wisnewski. "There's a lot going on here, and it's not all on the surface. It's philosophically deep and I knew it from the first time I saw it. The show makes philosophical points but in ways that make you laugh, that are easily accepted by the average Joe. This book will help the reader see the points more clearly and appreciate the show even more, and of course laughing all the way." With chapters such as "Quagmire: Virtue and Perversity"; "Lois: Portrait of a Mother (or, Nevermind Death, Motherhood is a Bitch)"; and "Let Us Now Praise Clueless Men: Peter Griffin and Philosophy", there's sure to be something of interest for everyone.
With its debut in January 1999, Family Guy was almost immediately compared to - and accused of ripping off - The Simpsons. In Chapter 13, "'The Simpsons' Already Did It! This Show is a Freakin Rip-off!", Shai Biderman and William J. Devlin, of Boston University, start out with that very assertion. This was a real charge leveled against the program by numerous publications and even other artists at the time. The authors of this chapter proceed by way of discussion of rip-off, art, parody, satire, plagiarism, and postmodernism to dispel the claim. In doing so, they argue "Animation is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing The Honeymooners, we wouldn't have The Flintstones...Family Guy is a postmodern work of art that intentionally tears down the distinctions between appearance and reality, original and copy, and uses the world of television to push this dissolution."
The show was cancelled in 2000, reinstated in 2001, and cancelled again in 2002. Because of re-runs and extremely strong DVD sales, Fox resumed the show in 2005. It was the first cancelled show to be raised from the dead by reason of DVD sales. This was an example of public pressure used to reinstate an element of popular culture. The contributing authors and editor of "Family Guy and Philosophy: A Cure for the Petarded" seized upon this popularity, counted on it, and used it as a vehicle to philosophize. In doing so, they show how this cartoon program can teach us about ethics, ego, hypocrisy, death, life after death, and breaking wind. They do it in a way that exemplifies a tenet of the Wiley-Blackwell Philosophy and PopCulture series: A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, and a healthy helping of popular culture clears the cobwebs from Kant.
ABOUT J. JEREMY WISNEWSKI, EDITOR ,
J. Jeremy Wisnewski is Assistant Professor at Hartwick College. He is the author of Putting it into Words: Wittgenstein and Ethical Inquiry, forthcoming, 2007 and The Politics of Agency: Toward a Pragmatic Approach to Philosophical Anthropology, forthcoming 2008. He is also the editor of The Office and Philosophy (Blackwell, 2008
About Wiley-Blackwell
Wiley-Blackwell was formed in February 2007 as a result of the acquisition of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and the merger between Blackwell and Wiley's Scientific, Technical, and Medical business. Together, the companies have created a global publishing business with deep strength in every major academic and professional field. Wiley-Blackwell publishes approximately 1,250 scholarly peer-reviewed journals and an extensive collection of books with global appeal. For more information on Wiley-Blackwell, please visit
www.blackwellpublishing.com or
http://interscience.wiley.com.
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