Stereotypes In Family Guy

Do you think Asians are bad drivers? Well, Asians have been classified into a stereotype of bad driving, this stereotype is shown through a variety of cultural artefacts like; videos, images, and research papers. For decades now Asians have been put into this stereotype, no one knows where it exactly came from but it’s still here and prevalent in today’s society.The stereotype is shown through a photo of a hacked road sign in California that reads–“Caution Asian Drivers”. This meme is not only stereotyping all Asians into an incorrect stereotype, it’s making it seem ok. As people drive by this sign some will take it seriously, because it’s a real road sign that’s normally used. Others will just laugh it off as a joke or dismiss it. Also, these images are not only on the sides of roads, they are all over the internet, except they are in the form of memes. Instead of being on a random road sign, a meme is just one click away. Lots of memes look worse than this road sign. One of these memes reads “Annual Asian drivers club meeting”, the photo that goes with it is a horrible wreck. This meme is saying that all the members of the club of Asian drivers would all get in a wreck because they are not good at driving. The purpose of the image is to be funny as lots of memes, but the effect is bad on how people think about Asian drivers. Lots of things can affect the way people look at other people in our society but these images make them have a negative view on Asians.

These images have even made it to the tv, in video form. This stereotype made it onto the show Family Guy– an adult cartoon that uses these stereotypes for comedic reasons. In one episode Peter-the main character- makes a comment about how Asians never use their turn signals. After this comment, it cuts to an Asian woman in a car getting into a bad wreck because of her “Stupidity”. Family guy has lots of viewers watching their show, this gives the show a very big platform on how lots of people see our society.

Work Cited

1. Chow, Kat. “Dueling Stereotypes: Bad Asian Drivers, Good At Everything.” NPR, NPR, 11 July 2013, www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/09/200500744/dueling-stereotypes-bad-asian-drivers-good-at-everything-asiana 24, May 2018
2. Herreria, Carla. “California Traffic Sign Hacked To Warn People Of ‘Asian Drivers’.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 8 July 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/caution-asian-drivers-napa-traffic-sign_us_595ef341e4b0d5b458e9678e 24, May 2018
3. “Image Tagged in Asians, Bad Drivers, Piledriver, Car Accident, Car Crash.” Edited by Meme Generator, Cat FacePalm – Mondays Latest Memes – Imgflip, Aryk1, 30 May 2016, imgflip.com/i/15g0lm. 30, May 2018