Gavin and Stacey and Family Guy are both comical, satire, genres which follow a strong postmodernism idea. We see a lot of postmodernism in today's television, especially in the comedy genre. Postmodernism is an aesthetic that looks back on cultural phenomenons. It is defined as "a style and concept in the arts characterized by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions."
Family Guy is a show rich and dense with references from popular culture. Gavin and Stacey also follows this idea of linking meta narratives together with our every day lives. Even the main idea of the show is a reference to the very popular television genre; family sitcom. In a typical family sitcom, the story revolves around a nuclear family comprised of a husband, wife, and a couple of children. The story for each episode is stand-alone, and is most commonly about the family's mishappenings with each other, their friends, or neighbours. In the end, the problem is solved and the family live on happily to suffer the next episode.
Family Guy is Postmodern for a number of reasons, principally its numerous references to pop culture which often mock it, even the main idea of the show is a mockery of the generic family sitcom genre which is stereotypically comprised of a nuclear family and their problems and achievements and this idea in itself is heavily imitated and exaggerated in the show. Family Guy is all of these things but with a dysfunctional twist. The main character and man of the house, Peter Griffin, is lazy, overweight, and unintelligent. Lois is the typical stay at home wife and mother who unknowingly dodges assassination attempts made by her infant son Stewie. Being the youngest child, the family never takes Stewie seriously, and is unaware of his adult-like speech patterns. He even has a British accent. Meg is the eldest daughter and although she seems the most normal, the rest of the family seem to have accepted her as the black sheep and have no trouble pointing out that she is the least favorite child. Because of her strange family, Meg has become very self conscious about her weight and looks. Chris is the middle child and oldest son, who has taken his father's attributes of being lazy, fat, and unintelligent. Brian is the family dog who also so happen to stand on his hind legs and talks. The problems that Brian faces are those of an intelligent man who is going through a mid life crisis. He has trouble finding the right woman and is often seen dating a different person every occasion. He also drinks and smokes.
One feature of Family Guy that makes it post modern is the bricolage that it uses. There have been suggestions that Seth McFarland (the creator of Family Guy) has taken a lot of inspiration for the characters from past animations, for example the family dog Brian, bears resemblance to the famous character “Snoopy” in that he participates in human activities and also his general appearance. The episodes are usually non-linear narrative. This is demonstrated in each episode there are numerous comedic flash backs to previous events in the lives of the characters. They are usually set off when one of the characters says a line similar to “this is worse than the time…” After this line there is a flashback to when something has happened in the past. They sometimes contain twisted cartoon representations of famous people in comedic situations, personifications of objects such as clouds talking to one another, or situations which are dragged out over a reasonable amount of time to make them awkward and make the audience almost cringe, which amplifies the humour.
The sitcom is heavily based around inter-textuality, examples of which are often seen in flashbacks or sometimes on the family’s television. An example of this is the episode which features the program “Jackass” – where Johnny Knoxville is seen to take a shotgun blast to the face, and then dance around laughing and shouting in pain with a partially revealed skull. Whilst this is a highly entertaining example of pastiche (another feature of a post-modern text) it is highly ridiculous situation, which would never be plausible, as it would almost definitely result in death or serious injury rather than giggles and moderate pain. This playfulness with realism is another post-modern convention.
Intertextuality is another appeal that Gavin and Stacey offers to the audience. As part of the different kinds of humour on show in the programme, intertextuality often makes an appearance to further flesh out the show's realism but also as an aid to the humorous anecdotes played straight-faced for best effect by Ruth Jones' character Nessa. When she refers to her life before the events of the narrative, Nessa usually includes the names of cultural figures such as John Prescott or Nigel Havers amongst the men she's had encounters with. This is the same as when Pamela mentions the name of the shop she got every pair of new clothes from. Intertextuality is used frequently in Gavin and Stacey because it becomes apparent to the audience that realism is a large part of where the humour derives from, even when it's as simple as a throwaway reference Pet Rescue as Pamela lies sobbing on the couch. These little details have a big impact on the characters and how the audience perceive them.
The decline of the meta-narrative is also prominent in Family Guy; frequent criticism is made about Christianity, Buddhism, and other religions. Examples of this are when Jesus comes to dinner, and when “the super devil.. This is then used to make fun of politicians when a picture of George Bush sharing a beer with the ‘super devil’ is seen. Making fun of politicians and other influential people such as Bill Gates is frequent in Family Guy. One of the largest appeals of Gavin and Stacey is social interaction. Over the span of three series and innumerable specials, the show has cultivated a devoted fan base since moving from BBC3 after two series to BBC1 for the final series. As a result of the show's growing popularity, Gavin and Stacey has fully entered the national consciousness, spawning catchphrase emblazoned t-shirts and internet fan pages.
Social interaction is a large appeal because of how word of mouth spread public awareness of the show and was arguably a big factor in the resulting popularity. Audience members can talk with their friends and family about the latest episode, the actions of a certain characters or a comedic set piece which had them howling with laughter. Social interaction can help media texts gain viewing figures and strengthen the relationship between the text and audience. Gavin and Stacey used our every days lives, which are meta-narratives, as real comedy, and fixes into Baurilguard theory that what we desire the most is our normality. It is a hyper-reality version of ourself.
Another appeal of Gavin and Stacey is how the show challenges the audience's expectations, just like Family Guy. It’s meta narratives pull audiences in, wanting to gain more. Gavin and Stacey has many elements of a traditional sitcom but enough postmodern components for it to be considered as a challenging text which doesn't conform to generic conventions. For example, the episode in which Stacey’s Family meet Gavin’s. The meeting is very typical of conventions, with Stacey’s mum not too happy with Gwen, Stacey’s mum defending Barry Island as their choice of wedding location. However, it then furthers the hyperreality and cements Bulrillards ideas, but challenging convention. Pam called Gwen some pretty interesting words which, are the kind of things mothers in law do say about each other -which is not even typical of a genre but typical of reality… which is what we all desire.
Gavin and Smithy, two of the main characters actually were offered a spin off show of their own - Horne and Corden, and Cleveland in Family Guy was also given his own spin off… None of these series were extremely popular however show how these characters can never leave the hyperreality version of themselves that they have created. Family Guy is a comical post-modern text in many ways, it’s constant inter-textual references, playfulness with realism, confusions over time and space and bricolage are all features that can be described as post-modern and set it aside from some of the other family based cartoon sitcoms.
