Off Kilter TV:
Darkness Comes to Prime Time
Analysis by Anthony Servante
Family Guy
Season 10, Episode 2
Seahorse Seashell Party
The Griffin Family
Meg, the Lynch pin of Grief.
Introduction:
When Mike McFarlane created the world of Family Guy, there were certain rules that had to be followed to form the humor of the show. The main one was that the characters followed a hierarchy. Peter Griffin, the patriarch, Lois Griffin, the matriarch, Meg Griffin, the elder sister, Chris Griffin, the younger brother, Stewie Griffin, the youngest brother, and the family dog, Brian. The jokes play off the interactions between the characters. For instance, Brian and Stewie are friends, and the dog is the only one who can understand what Stewie says (to everyone else, he babbles baby-speak). But as much as each character interacts with the others in unique and unpredictable ways, all the characters react with Meg uniformly: They all mock her. That's the running gag of the show and has been for years. Thus, imagine my surprise to find an episode where this mockery was turned on its head. It became off kilter.
The Analysis:
Rather than list all the abuses the characters on the show have inflicted on poor Meg for the sake of joke, I'll just give one example from each of the main family members since that's who we're dealing with today:
Peter threw out Meg's baby pictures so that he could use the album for his Garbage Pail KIds collection.
Lois wishes that Meg was never born and jokes that she should have been a "semen stain" rather than a baby.
Chris makes an overseas call from his Peace Corps job to talk with his family; he talks to everyone, but when Meg gets on the phone, he hangs up.
Stewie jettisons Meg into space during a shuttle storyline.
In the episode, Seahorse Seashell Party, this abusive humor continues, but it is neutralized when Meg steps out of character and confronts her abusers:
Interaction with Chris:
Meg: You're my brother. You're supposed to be on my side, and you're such a bastard to me. Chris, you treat me like you hate me, and I don't know why. You say hurtful things to me constantly. Do you have any idea what that feels like? What if I said those things to you? What if I started calling you a fat, zitty loser, who has no friends and smells like an old woman who has birds for pets? Is it too much to ask to be treated with a little decency from my brother? Maybe show me some kind of kindness by not jumping on the "Let's get Meg" family bandwagon?
Meg begins her tirade.
Interaction with Lois:
Lois: Look, the bottom line here, Meg, is that you're just taking your own problems out on everyone else.
Meg: Oh, my problems? Oh, I see. Is this coming from my role model mother? The shoplifter, the drսg addict, the pοrn star, the whοre who let Gene Simmons and Bill Clinton go to town on her? Oh, not only are you not the perfect mother. You're the farthest thing from. From the moment you gave birth to me, I had to trust you. I had no choice. I needed you to protect me from the world. To... to be my guide, to help me navigate the difficult, confusing, and vulnerable journey to becoming a person. You have done none of those things. You're my mother, and you took a child's trust and smashed it into bits in a 17-year-long mission to destroy something that you killed a long time ago. And honestly, when I turn 18... I-I don't know that I ever want to see you again.
Lois is shamed by the truth.
Interaction with Peter:
Meg: You are completely selfish, and totally irresponsible as a father. You have no education, you have no interests, you just do whatever reckless thing you want to do whenever you want to do it without regard for anyone else. Oh, oh, and when you're not terrorizing the community with your impulsive escapades, you're being a total jerk to your family. You shove your daughter's face in your ass and you fart on it. If someone in the outside world could see the way you treat me, you would be in jail! You are a fat, lazy, abusive, blue-collar Irish Catholic dad who drinks way too much and barely makes enough money to support his family. You've lived half your life, and you have nothing to show for it. Your only arguable accomplishments are your kids, and look at us; we're a disaster. You're a total and complete embarrassment in every possible way. Take a good look at yourself, Peter Griffin. You're a waste of a man.
Peter retreats in tears after his comeuppance.
The Sum-Up:
So, if abuse is the norm for the humor to work, what then would be considered "meta" in such a world? It would be meta if the abuse were not played for laughs, if it were serious. And that's what happens in this episode of Family Guy. It is serious, and in such seriousness, the humor doesn't work. Real emotions break through. Realizations have consequences. It's as Meg explains to Peter, in the real world, his abuses would have landed him in jail. And that's where Meg's interactions have landed us: In the real world, where abuses are violence and not jokes.
Thus, the world is broken by these new meta interactions. Ironically, Meg realizes she has broken the Family Guy universe and submits to being the brunt of her family's cruelty once more, thereby mending the world, but knowing that only by her taking the abuse can the TV show universe survive.
Interaction with Brian: (Keep in mind that Brian just spent the episode hallucinating on psychedelic mushrooms; his state of mind is fragile and not yet in the spirit of a regular episode where Meg is the target of abuse. Here he plays the straight man to point out to the audience what Meg has just gone through).
Brian: You know, that was, uh, that was pretty cool the way you finally stood up to everybody.
Meg: I don't know, Brian. I mean, I, I meant every word of it, but... you saw what happened. They all turned on each other like a pack of wolves. Do you think it's possible that... that this family can't survive without some sort of lightning rod to absorb all the dysfunction? I mean, it-- it's not ideal, but it's an important piece that maybe it's just my lot in life to provide. Maybe if I feel bad, they don't have to.
Conclusion:
I'm not a big fan of Family Guy, but I do love those extra weird episodes: The Star Wars parodies, Stewie's time travel adventures, Brian's failed writer storylines. They're not only funny; they're reflective of their themes. In other words, they make you think as well as laugh. In this episode, Meg turns this reflection against the viewer, not only pointing out her family's flaws, but pulling back the curtain for the viewer to see how the machinations of Family Guy humor work and telling us: Look what you're laughing at. Only to then close the curtain, resume her role as victim, and allow the abuse to begin anew. But it's too late. The mirror has been held up to us, and we plainly saw who we are. We are the sickos who laugh at abuse. But take heart. It's only a cartoon.
