Glen Quagmire: Likable or not?

That translated to "Teh evuls".

Oh. Thanks..sophisticated trope talk I see

I'm kind of wondering what the deal with this episode was. It almost, at a point, seemed like they were going for a Gender Flip version of the "Screams of Silence" episode that was, apparently, well-received in regards to Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.

They certainly didn't treat it as Double Standard Rape: Female on Male, but it wasn't *quite* played for the same amount of drama. What gives?

Which episode?

I'm placing bets on it being Quagmire's Quagmire.

If anything I thought that episode would have benefitted from being more tongue in cheek. Trying to play it dark kinda made it boring. The girlfriend didn't even get a satisfyingly over the top comeuppance like most other antagonists. They could have made it an amusing case of Quagmire getting a taste of his own medicine while still portraying the girl as wrong (take The Cleveland Show episode with reverse gender abuse).

edited 12th Oct '14 7:22:58 PM by Psi001

They Meant The Story of Brenda Q.

Umm.. the post clearly said it was like a genderflipped of Screams of Silence, so I'm pretty sure they meant Quagmires Quagmire.

unless you're joking about the fact that the episode has two titles.

edited 12th Oct '14 9:08:32 PM by teddy

Im not joking but you are right. I didnt read the gender flip part.

Oh. That would have been kinda funny if you were joking

Tbh, when I said Glen was annoying and unfunny, I mainly meant the way he acts now. His appearances in the earlier seasons were alright. Around season 7 was when I started to find him very annoying

edited 12th Oct '14 9:22:30 PM by teddy

I think the problem is that a lot of the show's dark comedy worked because it was very over the top and funny. Quagmire and Herbert were disturbing perverts but they didn't get too unsettling because they were incredibly whimsical and ineffectual, breaking them far away from their real life counterparts. Same for most of the other jokes about domestic abuse, rape, crime and what not. Now the show's gone into Cerebus Syndrome, the comedy part of the Black Comedy is gone and all that's left is the shock value.

edited 13th Oct '14 3:16:03 AM by Psi001

Herbert is mostly ineffectual. Quagmire usually succeeds. It's extremely strongly implied on many occasions (and in at least one case outright shown) that he has drugged and kidnapped multiple women. It is always played for laughs.

Well, it was before I stopped watching. Maybe there have been exceptions since.

edited 13th Oct '14 3:47:31 AM by Karmameter

Man I never liked Herbert. Never found him ignorantly funny like I did Quagmire.

On topic: Eh.....in the early seasons I found him funny, but nowadays...not so much.

Off topic: I am curious as to why some people find modern Family Guy, modern Simpsons, and most of what's on Nickelodeon nowadays to be funny. I will admit that there are a few times where modern Family Guy can make me laugh (Chris has his moments), but I think the big reason as to why Family Guy is big hate target here is that most of the characters are unlikable Jerkass Karma Houdinis. Plus several plotlines can be...offensive/disgusting/horrible. Examples would be Not All Dogs for it saying that "If someone is ugly, there is no God"/Fresh Heir because of the incest/Seahorse Seashell Party for it saying that Meg should stay in the abusive relationship with her family for their benefit.

Because they're not always like that?

Because a couple of bad apples don't spoil the whole barrel?

edited 13th Oct '14 8:26:29 PM by Aldo930

You ARE right in that most shows have "dud" episodes, but Family Guy tends to do a lot of offensive stuff. Black Comedy is practically a Base Breaker.

Also I don't completely hate Family Guy...as I loved Simpsons Guy and enjoyed the first two Star Wars parodies, plus like I said, Chris has his moments.

edited 13th Oct '14 8:31:08 PM by powerpuffbats

I can't help but feel Quagmire becoming more of an overt jerkass was intentional on the writers end. It was around this time that fans were demanding that Quagmire be the character to get his own spinoff instead of Cleveland.

I also noticed he rarely acts like a Casanova nowadays. Just a creepy, hateful, and annoying 60 year old man.

don't forget the wonderful gore and clever chicken fights!

edited 13th Oct '14 8:50:58 PM by teddy

I've never really seen much of Family Guy past season 3 (I did see the seasons from fall 2009-summer 2012), so I can't really say much about the chicken fights...though the one in Simpsons Guy was good, but long.

The episodes that I mention are ones I've seen reviews of (and as bad as they are, modern Spongebob might be worse. But that is for another topic)

Off Topic but I don't know where else to say this:

I just watched the clip where Peter kicks the shit out of Lucy...and now I'm wondering how she'd retaliate against Peter (and Lois for doing the same thing in "Lethal Weapons"). I'm thinking that it would not end well for either Peter or Lois.

Family Guy has become a whole lot worse than a few bad apples in a barrel.

I can forgive characters who have one or two episodes where they suddenly grab the Idiot Ball or act OOC otherwise. They had an off-day or got stuck with questionable writing, no big deal. When a character consistently gets away with awful things or a show consistently puts out garbage, that becomes a problem in more ways than one. The characters of Family Guy have not been likable in the longest time, and the morals that the show preaches (while playing them completely straight, I might add) are some of the most atrocious lines of thought that have ever been spread by television. Yes, let's tell the world, completely seriously, how you should stay in an abusive relationship to benefit the person or persons who abuse you. Let's make a serious point that every religious person is a crazed bigot and God doesn't exist because... some women are unattractive.

The problem relevant to Quagmire, though, is the show's poor attempts at shock value and crossing the line twice. What they fail to realize is that it's become tired and obnoxious, and it has effectively removed any and all likability of any character in the show.

I'm still standing by my post on the previous page. Seriously, this kind of shit needs to die.

Repetitive as the complaints may be, they definitely carry weight. The plot of episodes like Seahorse Seashell Party go from disgusting to downright horrifying when the following thoughts cross the mind:

• Real people wrote and approved the plots, with the intention of their messages being taken seriously. Actual living humans want victims of abuse to stay with their abusers.
• Media impacts people and their way of thinking. It's possible, probable in fact, that someone decided to submit to their abusive family because of Seahorse Seashell Party. It's even more likely that people accept and repeat one of the most childish, ignorant anti-God arguments in existence because of Not All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Once that kind of stuff happens, it's pretty hard to turn a blind eye.

But I digress. This is a thread about Quagmire after all.

In Quagmire's case... It is played for laughs to my knowledge, so of course it's far less likely that anyone decided based on his brand of comedy that rape was a good idea. That's the only thing I'm giving him. Unlikable character is still unlikable.

edited 14th Oct '14 10:10:14 AM by RavenKingSage

Bingo. That's why morally questionable characters in comedies are so popular outside of this site.

Absolutely not. I don't even give a crap about Sponge Bob and still find the hate jarring.

I actually think it's the opposite. The plots and vast majority of the messages are NOT meant to be taken seriously.

Anybody who emulates something they see on Family Guy or lets it influence them in such a manner deserves everything they get for being such a moron. No sympathy here.

And I would watch out calling that particular anti-God argument childish and ignorant, if I were you. Many atheists and agnostics, most of whom are NOT childish or ignorant, find it perfectly reasonable.

I think the argument people get hung up on is the "your mother's so hot but then look at you, why would any god do that?" line, which i feel is overstressed in the critique of that episode.

You know, this line of thinking is akin to something Moral Guardians would say.

And it's bullshit. The fact is, nobody is dumb enough to get their morality from a TV show. The show's target audience presumably has all its morality in place; if you let your kids watch it, what kind of parent are you? (A shitty one, that is sure.)

Not to mention that two episodes does not a bad sense of morality make. The show, in between the two eps you mentioned, delivered such morals as "Having autism doesn't mean you can get away with being a jerk" and "Females are just as capable of sexual harassment as men," both morals that ought to be taught.

Aldo you and others honestly think their aren't people that simple to submit to television? You guys are truly naïve to not realize how impressionable or easily controlled some people are. Also to the person who said that they would deserve it if they are that easily pressured. That's kind of sick and offensive. There is a plethora of emotional and mental issues in our society that such people can exist and can pick on such cues because of the way they were raised. Like how some abuse victims defend or go back to their abusers. Depending on how some people are raised they may not know any better. You guys are being too narrow in your assumption of how you think every scenario could go.