Family Guy's Existentialism Analysis

When I was twelve years old, I became bored of kid’s TV shows. I knew it was time to try to find something new to watch. I had heard of some cartoon about a talking baby and talking dog, and enjoyed watching it when I stumbled upon it one day when flipping through the channels. Little I did I understand most of the jokes. Re-watching episodes now that I haven’t seen in years, I have a much greater appreciation for the humor that the writers infuse into every scene. I am also better able to see that deep down, the show produces positive messages about family, relationships, risk-taking, and self-discovery. In essence, the environment of Family Guy is existential, where characters have the ability to make extreme choices; this allows episodes

The episode “Into Fat Air” shows this spontaneous way of living that the Griffins practice. They get caught on Mount Everest during a snowstorm and find a frozen person. In the heat of the moment, they decide to address their hunger by eating the boy: “Or we could Could what? Eat him. (all gasp) Brian! Look, if we don't eat something soon, we're all gonna pass out from exhaustion and freeze to death just like him. Are we really considering this? We're talking about eating a person. Yeah, I'm not so sure about this. Oh, I thought we decided. I'm sorry. Well I guess we don't have a choice.” (“Into Fat Air”) Peter’s quick decision to begin eating the boy shows his way of living in the moment and making choices that don’t necessarily make sense. Perhaps if the family had kept trying to make it down, they would have and wouldn’t have needed to become cannibals. What might be worse is that they don’t seem to feel badly about their choice. They casually reveal to the boy’s parents, “All right, you rest up, get better, we ate your son.” (“Into Fat Air”) This shows existential spirit by doing what is necessary in situations and not having to experience social repercussions, or at least they don’t care what those would be. They are free to make choices, and also free to live by and defend those decisions. Whether or not the boy’s parents judged them or not does not impede the family’s ability to make that