#5 - Famliy Guy - "Breaking Out is Hard to Do"

Oh my god it's Jackie Chan

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This video was found at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8173174273564963206&q=It%27s+Jackie+Chan&total=210&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

The next piece of media that I’ve chosen to write about comes from another episode of Family Guy (I told you that I liked it). However, not only do I find Family Guy absolutely hilarious, it’s also very interesting at times in the ways that it touches on very relevant social stigmas. If you are unfamiliar with the show in general you may want to read the first part of my fourth post. In addition to all of what I explained about the show there, I think it must also be said that in many ways Family Guy is completely random in its methods of making references. For example, in one instance that I can recall one episode in which Stewie (the family’s talking, genius bent on world domination, infant) is trying to impress a girl and at one point says “My God, I’m cooler than that cheetah from the commercials” and the next scene is of the Cheetos Cheetah getting high from snorting crushed up Cheetos. This reference may not be relevant to this class but it’s just an example. The piece that I did choose for my portfolio comes from an episode entitled “Breaking Out is Hard to Do”. In it, Lois (the mother) finds that she gets a rush from shoplifting and goes on a mass shoplifting spree, taking any and everything that she can (rather she wants it or not). After getting caught she is sentenced to jail, but eventually escapes by sticking her head in the mouth of her morbidly obese husband. In order to evade the cops, they run off to Asiatown where many Asian stereotypes come up, which is why I chose to do this episode even though I already wrote on Family Guy once. The stereotype that is presented in the clip that I found is the idea that all Asian/Asian-American people look the same (or in this case, like Jackie Chan). Once in Asiatown Peter runs around calling out, "Oh my God! You're Jackie Chan," to everyone he meets. Eventually he does run into Jackie Chan who ironically mistakes Peter and his son for Ethan Hawke, and his daughter for Frankie Muniz. Another very relevant stereotype that comes up in this episode though surfaces when the Griffins are watching CBS – Asia-town and the logo is the CBS logo turned at an angle and squinted a bit.

This piece of media relates well to the Wu article that we read in class. Although Family Guy doesn’t directly point out the fact that Asian-Americans are seen as individuals at some points, it certainly plays on the idea that all Asian’s can be, at times, lumped together under one identity. Even in their own satirical way, I feel that the writers of Family Guy effectively display the frustrations that Wu feels being associated, sometimes only, by such blatant stereotypes. You can tell by the reactions of the two men that Peter (the father) mistakes for Jackie Chan that they are almost jaded to his ignorance in their walking away, this makes me think that they are used to such associations or feel that nothing can be done about them. Wu expresses his real-world experience with this sort of lumped-indentity in the 4th paragraph of the piece we read. Wu says, “Sometimes I have an encounter that demonstrates how easily people can be transfixed by a racial stereotype… They tell me that I resemble the cellist Yo-Yo Ma or their five-year-old son’s friend in school.” It seems sometimes in our ignorance of different cultures that we assign any characteristics we associate with one individual (Jackie Chan) to all individuals vaguely resembling them.

Although I’ve been around this stereotype for as long as I can remember, I must admit that often find myself applying it to my life. It’s not that I believe that all people of Asian heritage are truly identical, but because I haven’t ever extensively been exposed to Asian-Americans, I sometimes find it hard to notice distinguishing characteristics right off the bat. Due to my ignorance (I have no problems owning up to it), in my eyes, the overwhelming similarities among many Asian-Americans, overshadow the differences that I know exist. I feel that I can relate to Peter in this ignorance; however I blame mine on a provincial upbringing which did not include much diversity, whereas Peter’s can only be chalked up to pure, unabashed blindness to anything that he doesn’t understand.