The Deeper Meaning in a Unusual Plot

To this point, I believe I have done an overall decent job on my research paper. It was easy to get started and put together because I found a topic that not only interests me but also has a very complex and interesting meaning. Wilfred originally caught my attention with its extremely uncensored humor, a trait that will entertain many college-aged boys like myself. As I worked my way through the episodes of the first season, I began to take note of the messages each episode was trying portray. Every episode is centered on a certain emotion, such as fear, anger, happiness, and how the main character Ryan is affected by it. The conclusion of the episode always leaves viewers with a “So the moral of the story is…” feeling after seeing what problems or rewards Ryan is faced with due to each emotion. Although Wilfred’s distasteful humor is the primary focus of most viewers, the show still gives a lesson about living life to its fullest and doing whatever makes you happy. Unfortunately, this makes some of the themes and messages of the first season difficult to comprehend and express through writing. The creators of Wilfred have a passion for adding completely irrelevant details into the story that can you leave viewers questioning what the show is trying to say. The plot itself is already extremely bizarre, following the lives of an emotionally lost man obviously suffering from a psychological disorder and his neighbor’s dog, who he believes is a man in a dog costume. In Ryan’s search for himself with Wilfred, little details about Ryan’s past are thrown into the storyline, slowly revealing his troubled childhood and seemingly depressing life. Every little segment of information about Ryan’s development slowly puts together the pieces of the puzzle surrounding his unique personality and strange condition. It’s ironic in how a show with the primary underlying message to live a happy and emotionally fulfilling life is characterized through a young man’s life that has been plagued with little feelings of affection because of domestic instability. The combination of these two contradicting elements makes Wilfred a difficult show to analyze. Frequently, I find myself struggling to grasp certain aspects of Wilfred because of their constant change in tone and mood, even if it feels like a point the creators are trying to highly emphasize. Overall, Wilfred’s indescribable plot forces me to take deeper, more analytical looks into the story, which leaves me with a lesson while also satisfying my teenage male sense of humor.