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Sarah Palin got in an uproar about the episode and talked about it on the teevee and posted about it on her LookAtMe page, and her daughter Bristol even posted about it, too. How terrible of Fox Hollywood to make fun of Sarah's claim to fame among the right-to-lifers! How far is too far, they moaned.
But how exactly did the writers (and performers) of the animated show mock Trig (the child nobody but Sarah is allowed to politicize)?
They didn't.
Show me where in the episode there is any reference or similarity to Trig. Show me where anyone makes fun of someone with Down syndrome. Show me where someone makes fun of Sarah Palin, even. You won't find it because it isn't there.
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| Chris asks Ellen out on a date (Family Guy, 2-14-2010) |
So why did Sarah Palin get all in a tizzy about the show?
There's only one line, one part of one line, that ties the character Ellen with Sarah Palin:
My dad’s an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.
Now, if the Family Guy writers wanted to add a touch of real-life connectivity to what Ellen says in the show, where do they go? Why, there's Sarah Palin, rearing her head ever since April 2008, making sure everyone knows what a saint she is because she decided to give birth to a Down syndrome baby!
Who else in popular culture do you think of? And whose fault is it that Sarah is firmly linked with this image of having a child with trisomy-g (Tri-g)?
Sarah, girl, you set yourself up as the automatic link, and nobody did that but you. You did it for your own self-aggrandizement, for your own political gain. You did it, Sarah. Every day in every way possible, you did it yourself. And you keep on doing it.
There was no infant boy in the show and no two-year-old boy in the show either. There was no mention at all of the word 'retarded,' by the way. Boy wants to date a girl he goes to school with. He finds the self-confidence to ask her out, and discovers that girl is incredibly demanding, much too much for his taste. Girl happens to have Down syndrome but she is far from helpless or pitiable as portrayed in the episode. There is no similarity to anything in your life or your family's lives, Sarah, except for Ellen saying her mother was once governor of Alaska.
Would that Trig will grow up to be as fully functioning as Ellen (voiced by Andrea Friedman) is, both in character and out. A good first step would be for you to stop insisting he's a victim.
If you were really bugged by this show, you've got nobody to blame but yourself. Grow up already.
