Interview of the Week – Seth MacFarlane:
There’s no question ‘Family Guy’ pushes the decency envelope, especially these days. How difficult is it getting story lines approved by FOX censors?
You know, I don’t know. It’s kind of a tightrope. It’s always sort of an ongoing conversation with Standards and Practices as far as what we can and can’t do. Obviously all the networks are under enormous pressure from the FCC and we deal with that every day. The phrase ‘In this post-Janet Jackson world’ is kind of bandied about like they’re talking about September 11th. I mean, it’s really an everyday thing. It’s a real challenge for us, and, you know, we hope that it will pass and that the good folks in Washington will come to their senses.
Finally, on a more serious note, thanks to a hangover, you narrowly missed a flight on 9/11 that tragically turned out to be one the doomed World Trade Center planes. What are your thoughts on the way that homeland security and the war on terror have been conducted since that day?
I think it’s been, to be honest, a huge overreaction. Just speaking completely honestly, I’m not a fatalist. I think of myself as a man of science. And you know, to me, it seems like it was horrifying and it was terrible. But at the same time, you can’t let it completely disrupt everything. It seems we’re living in a world now that is a much less pleasant place than it was 10 years ago, and I don’t think that’s essential. I think that September 11th has been used as a tool of fear by those in power, certainly. I mean, that’s my personal take. I think that there’s a balance. I think that absolutely, there needs to be intelligence. There needs to be an awareness of what’s going on. That definitely needs to be dealt with. But I think it needs to be kind of an organic thing that’s constantly moving. And I think that at the moment we’ve kind of swung a little too far in one direction. I mean, as far as my near miss, the way I look at it is, that’s the kind of thing that probably happens to you a hundred times in a year, and you don’t even know it. You know, you cross the street just five minutes later, and something could happen. This was obviously a much bigger deal than most things, but that’s my personal take on it, I guess.
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