Family Guy: 1, Sarah Palin: 0

 

  

Time Magazine features an interesting article on the Sarah Palin vs Family Guy sitch:.."when she got in a public feud with the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy. In the Feb. 14 episode, the character Chris goes on a date with a young woman who has Down syndrome. When he asks her about her parents, she tells him, "My dad's an accountant, and my mom's the former governor of Alaska." Palin's 1-year-old son Trig has Down. 

Palin posted on Facebook that the scene was "another punch in the gut." This time, however, Palin's outrage prompted not an apology but a smackdown, from Andrea Fay Friedman, a Family Guy voice actress — who actually has Down. "My parents raised me to have a sense of humor," she said. "My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes." Ouch. Cartoon 1, Politician 0.

The Family Guy scene was a personal shot — but at Palin, not Trig. Friedman's character was assertive, intelligent and confident (and a young woman, not an infant boy). Palin seemed to be defending neither her son nor the disabled generally but herself, a public figure whom a cartoon had the temerity to poke fun at."