Oh, and what you have to realize about it (and it's way clearer from the book than from the movie) is that it's a total satire and all the things that you find "objectionable" about it are there deliberately to make fun of the stereotypes in our storytelling.

The introduction to the book, for example, is all about how the author's "family" (I think it's fabricated, but I'm not sure) and it's pretty "offensive."