Et tu, Family Guy? And did it really have to be Rush f-ing Limbaugh? With FOX News being all but literally owned by the Republican party, and its “news” coverage most typically resembling B-roll footage from a Republican National Convention, the one positive thing that could be said about Rupert Murdoch’s evil empire is that at least his to-the-point-of-broadcasting-lies-instead-of-news political agenda didn’t usually carry over to the entertainment programs on his regular FOX channel. Sure, there was the fact that hit series “24″ often appeared to be little more than a twisted combination of propaganda and instruction manual when it came to law enforcement being justified in illegally torturing anyone, anytime, and for any reason, the show’s writers did at least sometimes try to show the issue from the other side, even if it was clear that said writers had no idea why torturing innocent people in the name of carrying out the republican agenda might be wrong.
But for every cringe-inducing torture scene on 24 which was clearly written as an attempt to justify everything George W. Bush ever did as he paved his own path to hell, you could always point to the fact that FOX does have other shows whose writers lean the other way – and that said writers apparently weren’t being interfered with by the FOX honchos who believe they were put on this planet to get republicans elected. In fact, Family Guy might be Exhibit A, as Seth MacFarlane has clearly been allowed to take his show in a direction he can live with. Except, wait a minute, here comes Rush Limbaugh making a guest appearance on Family Guy a few weeks before the elections. Wait, what?
That’s right, the radio host who’s not just offensively hateful in his conservatism but considered offensive to the human race by nearly everyone outside his own audience, will appear as the voice of himself on the next episode of the animated series. And sadly, there’s no need to watch the episode to see how Limbaugh and his agenda are portrayed within the context of the episode; the mere timing of the move says that this was an obviously politically charged bit of stunt casting. Anyone who’s seen a television commercial lately knows that the big elections are coming up in a few weeks.
To give you an idea of just how politically motivated Limbaugh’s guest appearance is, consider that the ratings pull for such stuntcasting (the public will tune in for a one-time stunt of this nature even if they fully expect it to be an offensive train wreck) would have helped out the FOX network financially if it had taken place in a sweeps month. But sweeps aren’t until November, and this is still October. In other words, rather than wait until next month when casting Limbaugh could help ratings in a way which would lead to revenue, FOX has decided to use Limbaugh in a month in which people are making up their minds about whom to vote for. If this had been about ratings instead of about trying to influence an election, Limbaugh’s appearance would have happened in November. But by then it would have been too late to influence the elections.
Seth MacFarlane, for his part, was non-committal when asked on a late night television talk show the other night as to why he would allow someone like Limbaugh on his show. MacFarlane basically intimated that Limbaugh doesn’t necessarily believe the kind of hateful filth he spews, and that he’s someone who might be fun to grab a beer with. Sorry, Seth, but if you were trying to sell us on the idea that FOX didn’t force this stunt on you, then you didn’t try hard enough. Or maybe that was the whole point.
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http://www.beatweek.com/blog/7095-rush-limbaugh-on-family-guy-shows-fox-news-election-agenda-rules-the-day/
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