For my second blog post, I chose to watch a 1/2 hour of Family Guy on tv. The episode starts with the son, Chris, getting expelled from his school because he is too stupid. Throughout the episode Chris tries to get into multiple schools, special, military, and private, but in the end (after many jokes, gags, and hilarious scenes), Chris ends up being able to return to his old public school thanks to his grandfather who pulled some strings.
Parts of the empire can be seen in this episode, although it is hard to see them through the jokes that Family Guy puts in every other scene. When Chris goes to a large private school, attended only by insanely rich students, he is mocked, beaten up, and prejudiced against because he is poor. The rich lifestyle of the students is completely different from what he has grown up with, and therefore rejects him. For me it sort of shows how separated social systems can become, especially in America. If you don’t have an incredible amount of money, the right clothes, the perfect car, or other things like that, you do not belong until you finally do obtain those things. This is a message of the empire.
The kingdom on the other hand, is the complete opposite. Welcoming, warm, and not caring about credentials or other worldly things, the kingdom will take in anyone who is willing. Knowing this, we should not try so hard to obtain worldly things like status, power, and money, because in the end, in the kingdom, these things will mean nothing. In the empire, however, these things are everything worth living for. We should ask ourselves what worldly things we are personally trying so hard to get, and start looking at the things that really matter.
Despite the hatin' on Family Guy versus The Simpsons, I absolutely love the Family Guy ;-D.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen this episode, but that's a good theme you picked up on in light of our class discussions. This fits straight in with the Kraybill reading. I also think this is an interesting dynamic that we haven't explored fully in our discussions: class divides. Hannah made this similar point, but a lot of our chatter can all be very bourgeois.
I also think that Nietzsche would be an interesting thinker to explore here. He is basically the anti-Plato (or anti-Jesus), taking the upside-down kingdom and turning it around: the world is good, heaven is bad (and a fiction). Power is good, humility is bad (weakness).
Do you have any experience with Christian elementary or high schools? It seems like your observations are the beginnings of the kinds of questions that folks in the Christian school movement ought to be considering. How might we provide great education that isn't exclusive (i.e. - only for rich folks)?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'll ask the question I've been posting on a lot of television and film posts: why do you think the makers of "Family Guy" wrote, produced and animated this episode?
And Aaron, you're right: we haven't explored class divides much at all--though a lot of class issues have been alluded to. We could probably base a whole class just on that ... a get ourselves into some real trouble! :)