Smart and Smut: the Fine Line

There seems to be a time in everyone’s life after watching a television program where they stop and ask themselves “Is this show making me any smarter?” In Gerald Graff’s argument in “hidden Intellectualism” Graff thinks that no matter what the show, there is some form of intellectual analysis that the viewers must have in order to make them smarter. While many say that most television shows are dumbed down so the masses can understand without thinking, Graff thinks there is just as much going on in a sitcom as there is in a History channel program.
One who agrees with Graff’s argument is Antonia Peacocke, a student at Harvard University. In her essay “Family Guy and Freud” Peacocke once thought a show like Family Guy had no class, though after viewing the program more and more, she realized, like Graff, that there was something to take from the 30 minute program, something to dissect, and keep through everyday life. In part of Graff’s argument he explains how the supposed non-intellectual activities he was participating in were actually smarter than others would think. Graff says, “I was practicing being an intellectual before I knew that was what I wanted to be” (Graff 300). Like Peacocke, Graff was partaking in various routines that were making him think more about what could happen in a debate about sports, or in Peacockes essay, Family Guy.
Both Peacocke and Graff have the same view, though throughout Peacockes essay, she is sure to remind her audience that some humor can go too far and stray away from its intellectual pursuit to educate the masses. The same is with Graff’s argument, no matter where you dive your interests into, there are going to be times when the intellectual bits disappear into non-intellectual zones, it’s just a matter if you can go back into more sophisticated work without staying in the same place where nothing is beneficial.