Family Guy

0 comments on "Family Guy: Meg"

I think the true tragedy of “Family Guy” isn’t that Peter Griffin adversely effects every life he comes into contact with, but that Meg is going to have a powerful effect on the future world.

She is a fucking wrecking ball.

The underlying message behind “Family Guy”–to my always “seeking a reason why” brain–is that the Griffin children are doomed to be figures of tragedy.

Stewart Gilligan “Stewie” Griffin — A genius baby that acts out on the blatant hostility in his household, he grows up to be a mediocre man-child until he actively changes the course of his life. If his baby-self never time traveled to the future, he would have wasted all of his potential due to a crippling fear of death. With the time change, there’s a possibility at this point that he could go either way with his inventions: saint or sinner. Unless he falls in love and decides to live a normal everyday life.

Christopher Cross “Chris” Griffin — By turns receives praise and recriminations from his father. “My one beautiful child”-type stuff to needle at the other kids, interspersed with derisive commentary and physical violence. Seemingly actively reviled by the bulk of his schoolmates for his bad haircut and unwashed state, there have been several attractive characters that have shown interest in him, proving that he has the potential to find a true happiness if he overrides his attraction to overbearing women and refuses to follow ANY advice his father gives him about the treatment of a relationship partner or a friend.

Megan/Megatron “Meg” Griffin — At the beginning of the series, she is a sweet and malleable girl that gradually sours into the Meg we know today. Constantly ridiculed by her parents and used as the whipping boy of her family, she is by turns self-conscious of her looks and aggressively sexual with her approach toward partners of interest. If she doesn’t end up returning to prison for sexual or physical assault, she is an intelligent girl that lacks educational support from her family. Which is why we’ll be coming back to her.

Lois Patrice (Pewterschmidt) Griffin — Born into a family of wealth, she was given every material thing she wanted, but was denied the love of her parents. From my view, it looks like her mother is a distant socialite and her father is a cruel and heartless Republican businessman. As a result, Lois glomped onto Peter as the first truly open person she’s come across–he is what he is, warts and all–while her sister Carol bounced around from marriage to marriage, always looking and not quite finding love. Lois is both an enabler and an aggressor, her character having progressed from a stern mother keeping her family in some semblance of order to yet another source of chaos for her children.

Peter Griffin — A simple-minded man with a streak of cruelty and an odd, literal cunning. Classified as mentally disabled in the 4th season, he takes his diagnosis as an excuse to do every depraved thing he wants with the expectation of being forgiven due to his condition. After the episode, things basically go back to the way they were, though his diagnosis is mentioned in several later episodes.

Peter is the main character of the show as he is the guiding force of the family. He is, quite literally, “the Family Guy.” Without him, his children would not have been born, Brian would not have been taken into the Griffin household, and the future of Peter’s fictional world might have been completely different.

Because from where I’m sitting? Meg is going to destroy them all.

Allow me to explain:

In the course of the show, Meg has:

  • joined a suicidal cult
  • physically assaulted numerous characters
  • kidnapped and attempted to sexually assault Brian
  • attempted to have a boy rape an unconscious Chris
  • planted a gun on Bonnie Swanson so she’s arrested at the airport
  • possibly killed her aunt in a wrestling show with a folding chair
  • trained to be an Olympic biathelete (skiing and rifle shooting)
  • been sexually predatory toward house robbers
  • beaten up a man that crashed into the car she was driving
  • mentioned strangling cats
  • taught Chris how to poison squirrels
  • made out with Chris
  • expressed homophobia
  • expressed white nationalist sentiments
  • received mail as part of a group that yearly “fucks up” the Anne Frank house
  • shown incredible talent playing the saxophone, drums, and cello
  • displayed an amazing ability to whistle
  • pretended to be a rich heiress and left Brian and Stewie with $18 million dollars worth of debt
  • said she likes to pull carp out of the pond to suffocate them

Constantly bullied by her family, Meg has incredible physical capability. She has shown raw talent in numerous fields and can speak in multiple languages and play multiple musical instruments.

Leaving aside the whole “being a Russian sleeper agent” thing, on her own Meg has the greatest potential for destruction than anyone else in her family. Because while Stewie could wipe out all life on Earth, Meg has it in her to warp society.

She has been shown to have a way with words–to the point that Chris used her words to win an essay contest–and while she doesn’t have a personable nature of her own, I could see her as the take no prisoners personal assistant of a horrible politician. If they had her loyalty, I don’t think there’s a limit to what she would do.

She went super hardcore Christian, and immediately people were following her example, which resulted in book burning and Brian having to burst her religious fervor with one of his speeches.

The only thing that saved the world from Evangelical Meg was a dog.

Treated badly by not just her family but nearly everyone in her life, Meg has the potential for both great and terrible things. She has an indomitable will, that when shoved down strikes back at everything standing in her way, even those simply trying to live their everyday lives. With a bit of aim, she could destroy everything in her path.

And that’s kind of terrifying.

Though the show is called “Family Guy,” I think it’s the story of Meg. What makes and shapes her into who she is and what she becomes. Because if someone gives her a bit of love and attention, she’s willing to do anything to keep that favor. Even kill.

She has the same gift as Peter to get what she wants. And as the series progresses, she seems to only lose more and more of that original sweetness.

It feels like “Family Guy” is the decades long origin story of Meg.

I’m both terrified and excited to see what she will become. I have always loved fictional drama. If she were real, I’d run the other way.

Hogfather at Amazon
0 comments on "Family Guy, S10ep6 “Thanksgiving”: It’s just ugly"

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Family Guy, S10ep6 “Thanksgiving”:

I view this show with a grain of salt. There are some incredibly funny one-liners and visual gags throughout the series, but there’s also a lot of ugliness.

When the trans character (Ida Quagmire) in the Thanksgiving episode says “Oh my. Maybe it’s time for us girls to hit the powder room”, Lois tells her “You may use the yard” in a bit of verbal brutality. And that’s the NICEST bit of the meanness we see toward the trans community in this series.

I don’t know if Seth MacFarlane or the rest of the cast are a bunch of transphobes and homophobes, but I don’t think this show will wear well in the future. The normalization of bully culture, misogyny, and hate speech has gradually been overwhelming the original theme of “dangerously dumb but charming guy is somehow able to do millions of dollars worth of damage without consequence” and replaces it with something that makes me cringe to watch.

There’s a point past which “pausing to think” is replaced with “I don’t want to watch this regardless of the subliminal message.” Because the baseline message has been blurred until only the ugly remains–and those that watch this show might not be like you and I. They might be young and malleable, old and bitter, or raging transphobic homophobes, and the humor they find in the show does not come from the same place where my laughter lives.

When dark things happen, cracking a joke can make things better. But if I’m seeing the darkness and finding the light, does that give the show enough significance to overcome the dangerous things they are flat out saying?

Is it any wonder that violence against transgender people is on the rise? It has somehow become culturally accepted to treat other human beings as lesser than animals. Because everyone stands up and screams when an animal is abused, yet we’re supposed to laugh when a human being is mocked for being human? We’re supposed to just shrug it off as inconsequential as someone is beaten, raped, MURDERED for nothing more than wanting to be themself?

It’s not hard for me to see the correlation between FOX’s programming and the rise of violence against people of differing cultures and lifestyles. They have been feeding their message of hate for DECADES now, throwing nasty little one-liners into “The Simpsons”, “American Dad”, and “Family Guy.” About the only show they seem to have left alone is “Bob’s Burgers.”

Which leaves me to wonder: Who is adding all the hatred into these adult cartoon shows? Is it the broadcasting company adding their own spin to affect the political climate? Or are there really that many hateful people in the animation industry, to the point that no one working on those shows even thinks to raise an objection?

When a work of art is presented to the public with no introductory or outroductory statements, left to standalone with all the hate and ugliness bared to the naked eye, and nothing to try and soften the blow it delivers, is it really a work of art? Or is it hate speech masking itself as “intelligent television”, hiding behind an anthropomorphic character clumsily delivering an overbearing monologue that is razzily dismissed when he comes to his boozy finish?

Nobody likes Brian. Sure, he’s a dog and that instantly infuses some charm into a character, but at his base he’s a terrible person and nobody likes him. I asked someone who they would rather live next to, Brian or Quagmire, and the answer was unequivocally Quagmire.

People would rather live next to an active rapist than a moralizing hypocrite. And it’s that hypocrite (or the baby) that’s supposed to clear away the confusion about whether the show is a presentation of hate speech or a satirical look at “everyday” American life.

It’s hard to say as someone who believes in personal freedoms, but maybe “Family Guy” has reached the point where it needs an MA rating. Because if “It’s Always Sunny” gets an MA, the fact that “Family Guy” is a cartoon doesn’t take away from the negative impact it has on less socially evolved members of our society.

For a show with a TV-14 rating, there’s a lot of support for hate crimes and just general douchery. And the fact that weighing the pros and cons of the characters leaves even ME thinking that Quagmire makes a better neighbor than someone that’s a moralizing dogmatist is a pretty damning testament as to the conditioning effect of the show.

To think that a popular show running at all hours of the day and night espousing a hate generated message doesn’t have a negative impact on transgender people is foolish. And when a cabal of networks all join together to spout out the same negativity… Well, it’s just ugly.

Kakushigoto 01 at Amazon
0 comments on "FAMILY GUY: Brian Griffin & Jillian Russel [If they were real people]"

Okay, so Brian is a complete and total idiot.

*Jillian was wonderful.*

Sure, she wasn’t the smartest of people, but she was warm and caring and really loved him. She seemed like she would be incredibly loyal too, so he would have never had to worry about her cheating on him. She also seemed to be in some way financially independent — she had money for nice clothes, her own apartment, etc. So she might have either had a stable job that paid her well, or some kind of family money. Any way you look at it, she was able to take care of herself and seemed really awesome.

Brian might not have been able to have intellectual conversations with her, but that’s what he has Stewie for. He could have had Jillian for all the comforting relaxing things he’s always trying to get from Lois (you know, like when he talked about her all sweetly when they went to get his award), then he’s got Stewie for the witty conversation.

Brian is kind of a douche bag. I love him because he’s a fluffy looking white dog, but if he were a real guy – I’m with Quagmire in thinking he’s a pretentious dick head.

He went out of his way to make his relationship with Jillian not work. Then he spends the rest of forever whining about how he’s so lonely.

I think the best thing for Jillian was breaking up with Brian. She was a very sweet girl and Brian was an asshole checking out other women and treating her like crap.

He ridiculed Jillian for her stupidity, then got so upset when his intelligence was questioned by [that girl from the “Hills”] (sic) that I was just like “Ha, in your face asshole!”

I just hate the thought that there are guys out there that treat real girls like that and think it’s okay. Some guy has a really great girl, then starts shopping around and breaks up with her, then whines about it when her life turns out way better later.

It’s like, dude: “Greener pastures don’t always mean happier days.” So quit your bitching and deal with the fact that you threw away the best thing you’ll ever have and it’s your own damn fault. I hate that kind of thing in bad romance movies, and I hate it even more in real life.

Sometimes you should just stick with what you have. Happiness is its own reward.