Discourse Analysis: Are we lucky there’s a ‘Family Guy’?

In the following paper, I will examine the Fox Broadcasting Company’s serial animated program Family Guy created by Seth McFarlane. Despite two cancellations, Family Guy is now in its eighth season and the Griffin Family is a stable of Fox’s Sunday night “animation domination” promotion. The following analysis will outline several of the dominant and pervasive discourses that structure the Family Guy narrative, these include the use of the “bitch-whore dichotomy” (Messner and Oca 2005, 1902), the portrayal of masculinity as naturally seeking liberation (Kimmel and Mahler 2003), and a tendency construct female characters as mere objects for, or impediments of, masculine desires.

I consider Family Guy a relevant and necessary site of analysis because it has achieved significant success both commercially and critically. Critically, Family Guy has been nominated for 12 Primetime Emmy Awards (winning 3), 11 Annie Awards (winning 3), 3 Golden Reel Awards (winning 1), 13 Emmy Awards (winning 4), and 1 Emmy Award for outstanding comedy series – the first nomination for an animated series since The Flintstones in 1961.

In regards to commercial success, it is significant that Fox renewed Family Guy, after a 2-year cancellation (Levin 2004b), due to the success of DVD sales (Levin 2004a).  Sales figures include 1.67 million units sold in 2003 for a volume covering the first two seasons, and more than one million units sold for a second volume covering season three (Levin 2004a; Poniewozik 2004). These sales figures suggest that Family Guy is not a passing fad as 3 shows are now on the Fox Sunday night schedule created and written by Seth McFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show).

The commercial and critical success of Family Guy suggest that it is connecting to a greater social matrix within which certain discourses emerge as legitimate representations of adolescence, masculinity, femininity and women. I make this assertion following Messner and Oca (2005) who, “suspect that experiences of “authorship” in the process of decoding and drawing inter-textual connections are a major part of the pleasure of viewing mass media texts” (1897). I understand authorship to mean the capacity to associate with, assimilate, appropriate, or relate to the manifest or latent content of images, words, discourses and representations within a particular medium (in this case, television). Stated more simply, the audience must find Family Guy legitimate (accepting its more consistent themes) as evidenced through positive audience response determined by critical and economic success.

I argue that more attention needs to be paid to the consistent discourses appropriated by Family Guy, in spite of the episodic humour that often targets sensitive issues. Focusing on the fact that Family Guy has, and does, handle sensitive issues like HIV/AIDs (Adams 2005) with a dismissive glibness or insensitivity helps to overshadow the racism, homophobia, gay baiting, sexism, violence and stereotyping that underpins the entire show. I wonder whether the audiences acerbic responses to particular elements of the show mask the fact that the more consistent discourses arise out of a larger social matrix within which these discourse appear legitimate.

The argument has been made that Family Guy represents “smart humour” (Moore 2008) because of a need for cultural capital in decoding the more subtle forms of humour. The necessary cultural capital includes knowledge of Rush Limbaugh’s conservative politics and radio show (EP2, S9), Mysery, Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption (EP15, S7), The Pink Panther (EP6, S6), and Catcher in the Rye (EP 24, S4; EP7, S8 and EP5, S8 – which also parodies Hannah Montana). The cultural capital argument depends on a relationship between cultural capital and intellectual value in order to make the case that Family Guy has intellectual merit. Arguments like these, however, beg the question about whether or not intelligent humour is an adequate apologia for the other discourses that structure the show. Given this context, I intend outline several of the overt discourses and representations that act as the context through which “smart humour” emerges.

My first contention is that Family Guy situates the “smart” comedy within a matrix of discourses that essentalise women according to a “bitch-whore dichotomy” (Messner & Oca 2005, 1902). Several female characters emerge as impediments or foils for the masculine sense of adventure and conquest. Peter’s wife, Lois, is often the voice of reason; a voice, however, who asks of herself “Oh, my God. Is that what my voice sounds like? It’s all whiney and nasally” (EP6, S4 – “Petarded”). Framed as “whiney and nasally,” reason (or perhaps simply feminine reason) becomes an annoying foil to masculine discovery, exploration and boundary testing. This is evidenced when, during the same episode, Peter discovers that he is “legally regarded” after taking a test for the MacArthur Genius Grant. Peter, finding out that he is “retarded,” attempts to push the boundaries of what is socially acceptable, using his mental handicap as a scapegoat.

Boundary-pushing antics include interrupting church with a Bible fight and kicking open occupied stall doors in a woman’s bathroom. At the beginning of the episode, shortly after revealing the premise (and immediately following the bathroom scene) Peter decides to steal a deep fryer from a restaurant. Accidently knocking over the fryer, Peter spills boiling oil all over Lois and incapacitates her for the remainder of the episode. This allows the story to progress as the audience follows Peter living a life completely unrestrained by the feminine foil. In effect, Peter escapes Messner & Oca (2005) would characterize as the wife as “bitch” (1904) motif – the character that limits the males freedom and access to pleasure.

Lois does not merely represent “the bitch.” When Lois is not acting as the foil to Peter, she is often a sexualized object – the “whore” (Messner and Oca 2005, 1904). For instance, in several episodes, there is a question concerning Lois’s sexual preferences (in the form of experimentation during high school). Specifically, in “Brian Sings and Swings” (EP19, S4) Lois passionately kisses one of Meg’s high school friends to show Meg how to kiss a girl properly. In “Stewie B. Goode” (EP28, S4) Lois suggests, “women are such teases. That’s why I went back to men.” Further, in “Partial Terms of Endearment” (EP21, S8) Lois reveals a past relationship with Naomi Robinson with whom she “did some experimenting.” The theme of sexual experimentation emerges again in “Fifteen Minutes of Shame” (EP12, S2), “Stew-Roids” (EP13, S7) and the premiere episode of the Cleveland Show where Cleveland, as a going away present, asks Lois and Bonnie (another female neighbor) to make out for the amusement of the men in attendance (Cleveland, Joe, Peter, Brian and Quagmire).

In and of itself, Lois’s sexuality does not make her “the whore,” but, rather, offers a possible site for emancipation from traditional norms of sexual practice. What positions Lois as Messner & Oca’s (2005) “the whore” is the fact that her sexual preferences emerge as a tease to the men in her company. Peter (her husband), Brian (the talking family dog), Quagmire (the next-door neighbor), Cleveland and at times her sons (Stewie and Chris) express varying degrees of sexual interest in her. Lois is a site of sexual desire for the main characters of the series, all except for the paraplegic police officer (Joe) who is married to Bonnie (for whom Lois is a site of sexual interest). Although Lois does represent a subject for whom sexuality is a choice or performance, she is alternatively and simultaneously, within the confines of the narrative, a subject of objectified sexuality – through her sexuality she is the object others want. Each of these factors construct the discourses concerning Lois’s sexuality which at times demonstrates a feminist culture of difference (Ringrose 2006, 406), a complex and contradictory postmodern narrative of femininity (Ringrose 2006, 406), and the capacity to become a mere sexual object for male characters to define themselves through or against.

More dangerous, however, is the possible interpretation of Lois’s early sexual experimentation as something to be “given up” as, “mere “experimentation,” as “sex play,” and as an immature precursor to “real” adult sexuality,” i.e., marriage (Steven 2004, 163). This possibility has some merit viewed alongside Lois’s claim that “women [universalized and essentialised] are teases [simultaneously whores and bitches].” At some level, situating Lois’s sexual experimentation in the past frames it as an untenable possibility, as a transitory stage along the path to understanding that heterosexual relationships represent the only real and rational choice.

To highlight further the tenuous position of women within the Family Guy narrative, I will turn to Lois’s only daughter: Meg Griffin. Meg tends to be the brunt of a great deal of the mean spirited (devaluation) humour on the program. For instance, there are two stories, on in which Meg unknowingly joins both a suicidal cult (EP3, S1) and another in which she joins her high school’s Lesbian Alliance (EP19, S4) that could afford a great deal of dialogue regarding potential subject positions. The premise of each story, however, is that Meg feels so rejected and unloved by her family (especially her father) that she will turn to any source of affirmation for comfort. In fact, according to the shows mythology, Meg’s only boyfriend has been a decaying corpse she found by the train tracks (EP12, S2) – a cultural reference to the corpse in Stand by Me. In another episode (EP27, S4) Meg stumbles upon a burglar in her house who she tries to coax into raping saying, “I promise that I won’t scream.” In each case, however, Meg finds less satisfaction that she received from her family. Her return to the family unit, in part, signifies that the family is the only real or potential source of affection available to her. This, in effect, reinforces the heteronormative family structure.

There is evidence that Meg, as a teenage girl, is supposed to be an object for mean spirited humour in part because of her appearance. For instance, one student knowing that Meg was about to him to a school dance shoots himself in the stomach with a nail-gun to avoid the situation; the same student later shoots his own brother to avoid an invitation to dance. There is evidence, both implicit and explicit, that the reason for Meg’s rejection is physical. For example, after seeing Meg try on a pair of “skinny jeans” a sales clerk pours gasoline over her body before lighting it on fire. The undertone of these jokes is that only normatively attractive teenage girls are worthy sites of desire, respect and affection.

The teenage girl worthy of desire, respect and attention is what Jessica Ringrose 2006) calls the “mean girl,” girls who are “indirectly and relationally aggressive” (405). In the Family Guy narrative, the mean girl character is Connie D’Amico, a girl who navigates the “turbulent worlds of manipulation, betrayal, crime, violence, sexual exploitation, emotional breakdown… gossip, teasing, forming cliques, and other cruel behaviours” (Ringrose 2006, 408). Evidence that Connie is the mean girl, and the appropriate locus of sexual desire, is the fact that she is both a sexual object for, and briefly dated Peter (EP8,S5 – “Barely Legal”),  Chris (Peter’s 15 year old son) (EP13, S7), and Stewie (Peter’s 1 year old son) (EP8, S6). Connie, however, is not just any mean girl; rather, she is the only acceptable expression of the mean girl – a girl who is not only indirectly and relationally aggressive, but also meets the normative Western standards of beauty while remaining sexually available for the fulfillment of male desires (she is both the bitch and the whore).

It is not sufficient for a mean girl to be accessible; she must also meet the normative Western standards of beauty. Meg meets the general requirements for the mean girl, namely repressed aggression, “which is then expressed at themselves and other girls. Because it is submerged, it is said to be… the reason why girls’ aggression can lead to dangerous, violent extremes, in the worst cases murder and suicide, through what is implied as the return of the repressed” (Ringrose 2006, 408). Meg even meets the requirement of accessibility (for example, offering herself to the burglar); however, Meg does not meet the normative Western standard of beauty that Connie D’Amico embodies.

Meg operates within the discourses of the pathological mean girl – accessibility and repressed aggression merge without the acceptance generated through normative beauty. Meg’s interaction with male characters demonstrates the forces of beauty, repressed aggression, and a failure to attain that normative standard at work within the Meg character. Meg has a propensity to develop obsessions for male characters. For example, Meg takes the family dog (Brian) to her junior prom. He only accepts the date in order to prevent her from committing suicide (EP8, S5) – again, reinforcing the lengths to which men should go to avoid that which does not live up to a normative standard. While at the dance, Brian defends Meg from the taunts of Connie D’Amico, further emphasizing that Meg is Connie’s “other” – that Connie is everything that Meg should be, but isn’t. In response to Brian’s intervention, Meg develops an infatuation for Brian – collecting his hair, nail clippings, feces, etc. as a shrine to him in her room.

Ultimately, Meg’s interest goes unrequited. This suggests that even the family dog cannot conceive of Meg as an object of sexual desire. We must conclude that this is due, in part, to the fact that she does not meet the normative standard of beauty for a mean girl; a standard to which even a dog subscribes. In response to Brian’s rejection, Meg abducts him to a hotel room where she ties him up and proceeds to seduce him. Before Meg can engage Brian sexually through force, Lois and Peter (with the help of police officer Joe) break up the attempted seduction. This intervention must occur before it can result in a disruption of the “appropriate” (normative) relationship between Brian and Meg. This can be held against Brian’s intervention for Meg that only occurred after Meg was properly situated as less desirable (less able to assert her subjectivity) than Connie. Thus, a hierarchy emerges where Brian (a male dog who appropriates the discourses of heteronormativity) is preferable to Connie (the appropriate, normative female who he overcomes on Meg’s behalf) and Connie (normativised and essentialised femininity) is preferable to Meg (essentialised femininity without physical appeal the normative masculine discourse).

The analysis I have offered outlines several discourses that structure Family Guy. I contend that these discourses include:

1) The interruption of the seduction by the family unit illustrates that the appropriate role of the family is to intervene when any female member acts against societies expectations.

2) Conversely, it is not appropriate for the family to intrude upon a male family member as they attempt to overcome society’s normative expectations of them (i.e., Peter dating a 17 year old, scalding his wife with boiling grease, an infant male dating a 17 year old, etc.).

3) For female characters, disruption is punishable and repudiated.

4) For male characters, disruption is an expression of unrestrained masculine freedom.

5) Females must recuperate the bitch-whore dichotomy as mean girls, foils to masculine freedom and objects of sexual access.

6) The objectification of female characters is only possible when those characters meet a normative standard of beauty that all male characters are implicitly aware of (even dogs and infants).

7) Female sexual access is imperative, while female sexual aggression demands policing, prevention and censure.

8) Access to female characters as sexual objects is a further extension of masculine freedom and underpins a hegemonic view of masculinity; for example, when Peter dates a 17-year-old Connie D’Amico while married and establishes himself as a heteronormative masculine subject.

9) Female subjects only emerge as subjects for hegemonic masculinity insofar as they offer sexual access, embody a normative version of femininity (the mean girl) and actively participate in normative standards of beauty.

10) A necessity step to achieving normative masculine subjectivity is a defiance of feminine boundaries (overcoming the feminine foil) and the appropriation of the sexual practices of heterosexuality and sexual conquest.

11) When females defy any of the above norms, they become illegitimate sites of femininity and cannot become sites for sexual desire, respect, or attraction.

The danger, however, truly emerges in my conclusion. Although I have outlined and analyzed several of the discourses at work within Family Guy, I am not able to dismiss the potential subversive power of the show. I have tried to focus on what I consider troubling discourses that make up the foundation for a show embraced by a wide scale general audience. In part, this popularity can only stem from the fact that some of these pivotal discourses are relevant to and emerge out of a broader social matrix to which the viewing audience belongs. Put another way, these discourses have meaning to the audience because the audience (1.67 million people if the DVD sales are correct) embrace them. Ultimately, I wonder what this says of “the audience [who is ultimately] “the final author, [and] whose participation is essential” (Messner & Oca 2005, 1897; citing O’Donohoe 1997, 259).

Works Cited

Adams, Bob. (2005-08-22). “Family Guy has fun with AIDS”. The Advocate.

Buszek, Maria Elena. (2006). Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality and Popular Culture. Duke Univeristy Press.

Goodman, David A., Chris Sheridan, Danny Smith, Mark Hentemann, and Steve Callaghan. Family Guy. Fox Broadcasting Company. Television

Levin, Gary (March 24, 2004a). “Family Guy un-canceled, thanks to DVD sales success”. USA Today.

Levin, Gary (March 25, 2004b). “Family Guy un-canceled, thanks to DVD sales success; Cartoon returning after 2-year hiatus” USA Today.

Michael A. Messner and Geffrey Montez de Oca. (2005) “Male Consumer as Loser: Beer and Liquor Ads in Mega Sports Media Events” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Vol.30, no.3.

Moore, Frazier. (July 4, 2008). “Return of the Family Guy”. The Seattle Times.

Poniewozik, James (April 11, 2004). “It’s Not TV. It’s TV on DVD”. Time

Ringrose, J. (2006). A New Universal Mean Girl: Examining the Discursive Construction and Social Regulation of a New Feminine Pathology. Feminism & Psychology, 16(4), 405-424.