Seth MacFarlane, the very talented creator of Family Guy, American Dad and the producer of the new series Cosmos, starring Neil de Grasse Tyson made an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher.  In the show, MacFarlane was his usual sarcastic and over-the-top self, making jokes, some funny, others childish.  Is the reference of gravity causing all celestial bodies to pull on each other being referred to as “jerking each other off” funny? He is a huge talent no doubt but he often comes up with comments that not only push the envelope but are ridiculous, and wrong.

On Friday night’s show, the topic of Hollywood and the winner of the Oscar for Best Picture, 12 Years A Slave came up and both he and Maher agreed that Slavery and AIDS are always popular topics with the liberal Hollywood elite, almost guaranteeing an Oscar nomination and win.  That wasn’t so bad, perhaps there’s some merit to that.  I certainly won’t speculate and everyone can draw their own conclusions.  What was disturbing to me however was when MacFarlane said that this movie about slavery was so horrible, that is was more difficult to watch than movies about the Holocaust.  It was stupid, ridiculous and insensitive.

Someone more intelligent than MacFarlane would have to explain how one goes about comparing levels of atrocities.  Is death by hanging better or worse than death by gassing?  Was working in cotton fields worse or more degrading than working in German or Polish labor camps?  The answer is, there is no answer.  Man’s inhumanity to man stinks no matter how one slices it.  Slavery in the United States and Death Camps in Germany are equal.  Both involved the degradation, enslavement and murder of innocent human beings who did nothing more than have different colored skin or different religious beliefs.  Both are a blight on humanity.  So shame on MacFarlane who really doesn’t get it despite his above average intelligence and creative genius.  It would serve him well to at least sometimes think before he speaks.