Family Guy and Sister Shows cleanup

This is the cleanup thread for Family Guy and its sister shows (American Dad! and The Cleveland Show). All three of them have attracted quite a lot of natter, complaining, trope misuse, and more over the years^note Fittingly, FG and TCS are listed in the Cleanup of Complaining sandbox, while AD probably isn't very far from joining them in that regard, and this thread will help to clean them up.

For starters, there's this natter-y use of Crosses the Line Twice that A) can't decide where "the line" is, and B) makes an unnecessary jab at both Seth MacFarlane and the Moral Guardians that oppose the show:

• Family Guy
  • Stewie beating the crap out of Brian when he owed him money becomes funny again about when Stewie pulls out a gun and shoots him in the knees. (The line, of course, varies. Other didn't find it funny in the slightest until the flamethrower...)
    • What makes this particular event Hilarious in Hindsight is that during the initial run of the show, Stewie's predilection for ray guns stemmed from the censors. According to them, Stewie was not allowed to use real weapons because "authentic" violence from a baby was just too much, but laser guns were OK. This scene is a one of the major "take that"s Seth MacFarlane et al. threw at the censors during their post-cancellation "invincible" period.

Edited by Shadow8411 on Jul 11th 2021 at 1:14:54 AM

Bumping the thread to say that I removed the natter and complaining from the entry I previously mentioned.

That's perfectly fine.

Should The Orville be covered under this cleanup thread as it's created by Seth MacFarlane?

I think this is specifically about Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy and adjacent animated shows.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jul 24th 2021 at 5:47:28 AM

I made the thread to cover FG, AD, and TCS because they are all part of the same Shared Universe, but The Orville isn't. On top of that, they all have significant complaining problems (among other things), but I'm not sure if TO shares those problems.

Edited by Shadow8411 on Jul 24th 2021 at 2:51:16 AM

I really don't know if TV Tropes is really equipped to handle educating people on what abuse is. Regadless, this is quite long and complainy. (Was expecting more Mr. Enter references in the page, but can't say I'm sad about that.)

YMMV.Family Guy S 10 E 3 Screams OF Silence The Story Of Brenda Q

• Critical Research Failure: To say the show takes... liberties with domestic abuse is putting it lightly.
  • For one, Brenda shows undying loyalty to her abuser, but neither give any reason why. In most cases, the victim sees past the abuser's abundant flaws to whatever made them fall in love in the first place, but it's just as often the abuser threatening to kill or withhold money from the victim if they leave, or the victim simply having nowhere else to go if they do. It's never stated that Jeff is doing either of these things or that he does anything that would make Brenda put up with his repeated assaults, so she just comes off as someone who's either oblivious to or who doesn't care about it.
  • Abusers are usually very subtle in their attacks and harm their victims in crafty and very specific ways that they know will hurt them the most. Jeff, on the other hand, is portrayed as thoroughly stupid and cruel in a primal way, and makes absolutely no effort to hide his abuse of Brenda.
  • The most egregious of these is the title, "Screams of Silence," a common euphemism for domestic abuse and how it frequently occurs behind closed doors, where the perpetrator can do the most subtle yet effective damage, making it near impossible for the victim to get help. However, while it's true that police can't incarcerate abusers unless someone files a complaint, Joe ignores the fact that Jeff is almost always ever seen beating Brenda up in plain sight, usually right in front of Joe's face, meaning he doesn't have to wait until Brenda files a complaint to do anything. It appears the writers were not even trying to portray the law accurately, as Joe later states that he can apparently arrest Quagmire for merely suggesting Jeff's murder, yet cannot arrest Jeff for publicly assaulting Brenda. However, considering Joe's remark that the police "can't get involved until it's too late", this might just be a very, very dark joke.
  • During the intervention scene Quagmire makes a passionate plea for Brenda to leave because he sees her as a "cowardly punching bag and not a woman, who chooses to ruin her own life by staying with Jeff". Domestic abuse isn't that black and white; some people stay in abusive relationships for a number of reasons.^note  Out of fear/love for their friends and family, leverage over the victim; having already been with the abuser long before the abuse began, when they were decent and caring people; staying with them out of nostalgia for their relationship, empathy for their abuser's situation or because they blame the situation they're in (i.e stress, mental illness, brain damage, etc.) and believe that if they ride out the storm and solve the problem, then everything will return to normal. Victim shaming is never the answer to this kind of problem.
  • Quagmire's speech about murdering Jeff since "guys like this don't change" is misdirected since not all abusers are mentally fit to recognize their actions. Some abusers can be mentally ill, have a psychological disability, or even have brain damage that affects their behavior or their recognition of their actions. It's not impossible for abusers to be reformed, and there are no justifications for murder, even if you believe the victim deserves it.
  • Finally, the gang decides that the best idea, in the end, is to simply kill Jeff, freeing Brenda. Cathartic as it may be, "getting rid of the bad person" doesn't automatically fix the problems brought on by abuse. Brenda is most likely severely psychologically damaged and, if left to her own accord, will likely go to someone else who is just as bad. "Coma Guy" displayed the fact that Brenda died between seasons, either having committed suicide out of grief/depression, been murdered by her next partner, or she just died because of an unexplained event.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Jul 26th 2021 at 10:38:06 AM

To be perfectly frank, I don't think that "how domestic abuse plays out" is common knowledge, never mind that it can take more than one form. This example should be cut as a shoehorn.

I'll cut it and cite this thread.

Edited by Shadow8411 on Jul 27th 2021 at 9:17:55 AM

Bumping this thread to say that one of the Nightmare Fuel examples regarding the Meg-bashing (which was cut per the Nightmare Fuel cleanup thread) has been re-added.

Edited by Shadow8411 on Aug 17th 2021 at 4:25:59 AM

Maybe take to ATT?