‘Family Guy’ and Sex Positivity…or Lack Thereof

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This is a guest post by Belle Artiquez.

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Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy is a massive hit show that has gained popularity over the course of its ten odd seasons.  Even with this immense following, the show portrays the idea of sex positivity in a solely masculine light.  It passively portrays a kind of controversial sexism that appears as a joke, but still perpetuates existing problematic topics of concern for women and the Queer community.  A Public Display of Misogyny is one that is sometimes done in a playful manner, but with full intention of insulting women, while at the same time making it look like said women can’t handle a simple joke.  When in reality, women are quite simply fed up with the constant sexism that is rampant in today’s society but considered less than important. Other times it is done to look sexy: often seen in advertisements or music videos where women are seen in a suggestive pose surrounded by more than one half naked man.  These are the kinds of misogyny that Family Guy hurls out in nearly every episode.  The creators of the show attempt to normalize this behaviour and make it appear acceptable, because again, it is done in a comical, whimsical light, so… where’s the harm?

Quagmire, a character who’s only ever portrayed as a pervert, kidnapper, sexual abuser and quite frankly disgusting human being (to those of us sane enough not to laugh at the jokes associated with his behaviour) is presented in a humorous way, an outrageous and exaggerated way, but for comedic effect all the same.  Even this kind of repulsive sexuality is considered acceptable to MacFarlane, because it’s funny.  Female sex positivity and anything Seth MacFarlane creates do not mesh, they don’t belong, and that’s due to MacFarlane’s hyper masculine idea of sexuality being something only (straight) men can truly own and have agency in.  Any depiction of male sex, no matter how perverse, is set in a positive way; this is why Quagmire is saved from serving actual jail time for his (hundreds of) sex crimes in the episode “Quagmire’s Mom.”  The one episode where viewers thought that finally there was going to be some retribution for his despicable behaviour–but we couldn’t even have that, he gets away scot-free–and continues with his extremely violent sexual assaults even blaming his behaviour on his promiscuous mother (because its always the mother’s fault!) but it’s OK, because it’s all fun and cartoons.  So Quagmire can really do no wrong, he won’t lose his friends when they see half naked Asian women run from the boot of his car, he won’t be reported to the police when he blatantly date rapes a woman,  his sexuality is accepted in Quahog because he is a straight male.

We see women in Quagmire’s trunk numerous times throughout the show before they run for their lives.

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With female sexuality and sex positivity though we have a total different story.  Lois Griffin is portrayed as the extremely attractive married woman, but she is completely sexualized and fetishized throughout the show.  It’s almost her only characterization, other than the nagging wife.  We see her multiple times in the role of dominatrix, a few times with Peter, and once even with her own son Stewie.  She is often very aggressively sexual, and some might argue that this is due to her owning her sexuality which is totally sex positive and body positive too, but I see it differently.  When we see her in these roles it’s played for laughs, for shock value, that a mother and wife would have such a sexual history and violent fantasies.  And this is all connected to the idea that she is presented as the Bad Mother archetype. We see her in this role quite a lot, but most often (in nearly every episode) when it comes to Meg, her daughter.  She is only ever presented in this light, and it’s not hard to see why she fits this bad Mother role; she constantly laughs at meg and belittles her, she diminishes Megs sexual experiences and laughs them off, she literally steals one of Meg’s Boyfriends, insults Meg (and her appearance) and  is constantly trying to control Meg’s love life, and those are just the examples that involve Meg. These are not the qualities of a mother who loves her children. So, I’m not saying that I disagree with Lois being so open about her previous and on-going sex life, or even that I have problem with her being into BDSM, I don’t think Lois is a “slut,” as she has affectionately been called on many Family Guy forums; however, I do have a very serious problem with the way in which her sexuality is directly presented to make her look bad, to make her look like a horrible woman/mother/wife.

This is not the only time her sexuality is presented in a negative light. “Mind Over Murder” is an episode that sees Peter opening up a bar in his basement.  After Lois ends up singing one night, she finds that she really enjoys it so decides to make a regular appearance singing and dancing giving a jazzy feel to the bar, she feels confident and sexy but more importantly she is happy.   Peter on the other hand finds the attention she gets from his male friends too much to handle and demands she stop, because it’s her fault the men don’t know how to control themselves around a woman showing a bit of skin. But also, how dare she be in control of her own sexuality.  It’s fine for her husband, Quagmire, and even her son Stewie to place her in a sexual role, but for her to put herself there is outright unacceptable. She refuses to stop, giving a middle finger to slut shaming, and continues, enjoying the spotlight and attention (since she gets neither in her marriage). Her happiness does not last long, and again her sexuality, with which she is in control of, is depicted in a negative light.  Soon the women of the town have a problem with her too, seeing her as a threat to their relationships with their husbands. This entire idea is meant to say that it’s a woman’s fault for men looking at her, Lois is put down, belittled and slut shamed, all because these women’s husbands don’t know how to respect women.  Peter doesn’t want anybody seeing her as a sexual being because once you are married you should lose all sexual appeal to other people. That’s not sex positivity, that’s female sexual oppression and it’s extremely unfair.

Lois Griffin is extremely sexualized to the point of it being nearly her only consistent characteristic.

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And that’s with a character that is considered conventionally attractive.  Poor Meg is depicted as the eternal joke purely because of her appearance.  Because she is frumpy, she should never have a boyfriend, she should never, ever marry an attractive boy (even though she had to lie about being pregnant in order to get down the aisle), and most of all she should never be in control of her sexual experiences.  We see her in one episode making out with a guy who turns out to be Chris in a closet at Halloween, and she is depicted as so desperate for any sort of sexual attention that she will even wonder if he is going to text her the following day, she also ends up making out with Brian, a dog, but even he doesn’t want her, then another extreme, becoming obsessed with a married Joe.  All these scenarios have one thing in common: they all make her out to be so starved of male attention that she will literally kiss a dog,  try to take a married man or even want a sexual relationship with her own brother, so we have bestiality, incest and delusional husband stealing.  These most certainly are not sex positive experiences.  What’s even more infuriating is MacFarlane could have actually made a positive statement with Meg’s character; there are many teenagers who feel neglected, isolated, unattractive and ignored, who wholeheartedly understand what Meg goes through, and yet the fact that her feelings and experiences are invalidated with a simple “Shut up Meg” by the very people who are supposed to want her to be happy, turns her into another punching bag for the sake of it.  It turns all of these teenagers isolation into nothing more than a joke. Meg has so much boy trouble and is even turned into a transgender man purely as a joke that she is not feminine, not attractive and not wanted. This transgender issue isn’t even explored in the show, it’s a one off joke…it the she’s not feminine, so she must want to be a man hetero-biased argument that is extremely offensive.

So the only difference between Meg and Lois is that while Lois is forthcoming about her sexuality, she is attractive so it’s OK to see and hear about it because the audience (and creators) can shame her for it later, whereas Meg is presented as ugly/unattractive and therefore we don’t even want to hear or see her in any sexual way unless it’s making fun of her.

This basically sums up Meg’s life. Always the physical and metaphorical punching bag for her family.

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This is all based on heteronormative sexuality, and as anybody who watches Family Guy knows, there are a lot of representations of the LGBT community in the show.  But does MacFarlane depict these in positive ways? Absolutely not.  The presentations of queer sexuality are deeply stereotypical: gay men are extremely feminine and lesbian women are masculine.  One episode that really stands out, but is not even nearly the only episode, concerning this issue is “Quagmire’s Dad” (I feel like Quagmire and his family are the centerpiece of sex misrepresentation in the show).  Quagmire’s father, a war hero veteran, comes to town to visit his son, and very suddenly characters are remarking on how “gay” he appears, because he drinks cosmopolitans and his voice isn’t the low masculine they expected of a war hero.  Stereotyping, it appears, is rampant when it comes to the discussion of gender identity.  As it turns out, Quagmire’s father is not gay, but transgender–he wants to transition into a woman.  He describes wanting to change his future his future not his past and how he has dealt with these feelings for a long time, this so far is not a negative portrayal of trans folk and their experiences, but the sympathetic portrayal ends there.  In the hospital for his operation, Lois refers to the entire thing as a “circus,” the conversation revolves around the chopping off of his penis and there is basically no actual support for this man who is about to go through a life changing transition.

Stewie showing how transphobic the characters (and show) are.

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After the transition, Quagmire’s father, now known as Ida, is treated with contempt by everyone, Lois throws out a pie Ida makes and Peter asks inappropriate questions about Ida’s breasts and lack of penis.  Everyone is wholly unaccepting of Ida, until Brian meets her at a pub, and instantly falls for her.  They end up spending the night together and Brian is absolutely smitten with this wonderful woman he met the night before.  That is until he finds out who she is , then he vomits everywhere, forgets about the “wonderful” woman he met the night before and is totally focused on the fact that she was a man.  It’s important to note that Brian is used on numerous occasions to highlight the “sexually unwanted” aspect of numerous characters.  It’s the “not even a dog would have you” theme.  Unfortunately for Ida, her sexuality is thus seen as something wrong, disgusting and unpleasant. Yet again Family Guy fails to interpret very real experiences in a way that is not exploitative.  And that’s just one transphobic episode that seemed dedicated to being just that, unaccepting and a massive joke.  There are plenty of transphobic references throughout the show, one recurring joke includes Stewie, who is presented as increasingly Bisexual (since he appears to have relationships with girls, loves dressing as a woman, hits on gay men, and has sexual fantasies of his teddy bear Rupert) as the show progresses.  His sexual identity is as confusing as  a cat that barks: we know that he has to be gay, in the very least, as he enjoys seeing the male body, relaxing in gay bars etc.  However, on numerous occasions we see him either date or kiss girls (also babies just in case you were wondering) which could either be Stewie trying to fight his homosexual nature, which just doesn’t seem plausible because he appears to be quite open about it, or he is in fact bisexual.  Whichever it is, this is played for laughs, and is not in any way an accurate representation of a child growing up under the spotlight that is patriarchy’s hatred of anything but hetersexuality.  Instead we have cheap laughs at Stewie dressed as a woman, acting as a stereotypical gay or even spying on unsuspecting men in the shower (similar to Quagmire’s behaviour).

Stewie often dresses as a woman, and enjoys the occasional relaxing night at a gay bar.

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So MacFarlane’s definitely not sex positive when it comes to women or anybody of the LGBT community, but is somehow accepting of a hyper-masculine rapist/pervert’s sexuality!  Logical? No not at all.  Offensive? Absolutely.  And hey, that’s all Family Guy strives for–to be as offensive as possible regardless of how it portrays its sexual minorities.

 

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Belle Artiquez graduated from film and Literature studies in Dublin and since has continued her analysis and critique of film, TV, and literature (mainly in the area of gender politics and representations) as well as cultural and societal critiques on such blog spots as Hubpages and WordPress.