Meg Griffin

Megan "Meg" Griffin is the oldest child of Peter and Lois Griffin in the animated TV series Family Guy, however it is mentioned that Peter is not her biological father and an unshown character named Stan Thomson is. She has two younger brothers, Chris and Stewie. She was voiced by an uncredited Lacey Chabert for the first season, and by Mila Kunis in subsequent seasons.

When Family Guy debuted in 1999, she was 15 years old. She was then turned 16 in the episode "I Never Met the Dead Man" (she got her drivers license) and remained that age throughout the show's initial run. However, after Family Guy went back on the air in 2005, Brian suggested that Meg was 17 in, "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire." However, he was drunk when he said so, and he likely did not want to feel guilty about making out with her. She officially turned 17 in the episode "Peter's Two Dads."

Meg lives in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island. She attends James Woods High School as a junior, where she tries desperately to be part of the "cool crowd."

Appearance

Meg is relatively unremarkable in appearance, sporting shoulder-length brown hair and nearly always wearing a beanie-like hat. She has only been seen without her hat on in a handful of episodes for extremely small periods of time. However, in one full episode, she is seen without her beanie on, as she is in pajamas for most of it (Untitled Griffin Family History). She is slightly shorter than Chris, which has led to the occasional viewer thinking Chris is older. She appears to have inherited the shape of her nose and head from her mother, and her brown hair and myopia from her father. She is chubby, and in one episode, an employee at a carnival guesses her weight as "a lot". There are several comments aimed at her weight in various episodes.

Her plain look is often a topic of humor for the show; Characters on the show act as though she were horrifically ugly. In "Don't Make Me Over", two people drench themselves in gasoline, set themselves on fire, and throw themselves out a window upon seeing Meg. In another episode, a young man fired a nail gun into his own stomach in order to avoid a date with her. Also in the episode "Barely Legal", Meg's "backup" date, Jimmy, says he has to attend his little brother's funeral after briefly closing his front door and promptly shooting his little brother. Her ugliness may also be a source of her unpopularity. Meg was once held hostage by three robbers who mistook her for a male; later in that episode she asked one of the robbers if they were going to "have their way" with her. They refused and she got angry, shouting at them to have sex with her. They then filed a sexual harassment suit on her that was totally ignored by her family and never mentioned again. Also, in the episode "Prick Up Your Ears", Meg took an abstinence vow with her new boyfriend up until the end of the episode, where after seeing her nude, he dumped her.

Personality

Meg is generally sweet-natured, but even though Meg is usually labeled as a "good girl", she, like most other people, is not free of cruelty and has been known to do the most drastic of things. It has been implied that at some point in the past, Meg strangled and killed her sister and her parents hushed up the crime. Chris still has vague memories of this happening, but when mentioned, Peter and Lois insist (high-strung and unconvincingly) that it was "just a dream." Also, in the episode "Fore Father" Lois states in the episode Emission Impossible that Meg had a tail.

Meg's most prevalent character trait is her burning desire for popularity and acceptance. She is monumentally unpopular at her school, however, which provides an ongoing basis for angst and melodrama. Meg is also treated by nearly every other character in the show as completely uninteresting. In the episode "The Thin White Line", the Griffin family is asked by Brian's psychiatrist to list reasons why the pet should attend rehab. Meg is asked to start, but the psychiatrist quickly interrupts and asks someone else "more interesting" to take over. In "Brian in Love", Meg relates her day at the mall over dinner, when Peter interrupts and says that that was the most boring story he had ever heard. In another episode, "Family Guy Viewer Mail #1", each member of the family gains a superpower; Meg's is retractable claws (referred to as "the ability to rapidly grow her fingernails"). She has also been knocked out with a baseball bat and had meat thrown at her as the ongoing joke of her unpopularity.

It seems that her desire for friends and popularity resulted in a materialistic trait. In "Death Has a Shadow", after Peter loses his job but says he could still afford food, Meg exclaims, "Who cares about food?! Now we'll never be able to afford my lip injections!" This selfish attitude is showcased again in "Chitty Chitty Death Bang" when Lois insists the entire family must be at Stewie's birthday party and Meg, who was going to a party with a new friend, screams, "I can't believe you put your family in front of your own daughter." Brian expresses his displeasure of her at both of these occurrences. However, her self-centered attitude was mainly expressed in the first season of Family Guy and was rarely shown again.

Despite that, though, she has been shown to be inconsiderate of others on occasion. In "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", the cigarette company sent Meg a girl that supposedly made Meg look more attractive in comparison. When a boy asked Meg if she looked less ugly, she replied, "Yeah!" while holding the girl beside her. But if Meg shows moments of being inconsiderate, they are mainly toward Neil Goldman. At the end of "Let's Go to the Hop", Meg did not ask Neil to dance with her; instead, she asked him to hold her purse. In other episodes, when Meg becomes part of school clubs, which supposedly make her more popular, she says to Neil, "I can't be seen talking to you, Neil."

However, although Meg could be viewed as being self-centered at times, she also has shown moments of selflessness. In "Love Thy Trophy", she gave up her Prada purse without a fight (though she was unhappy about it) in order to get Stewie back from his foster parents. Also, in "The Kiss Seen Around the World", Meg admitted that although she hated Neil with a passion, she still cared about him and did not want him to commit suicide. When Neil fell off the edge of the building, Meg ran to catch and save him from harm. Probably Meg's first-ever most obvious sign of being unselfish was in "Hell Comes to Quahog" when she gave up her job so she wouldn't have to fire Peter despite that Peter is the one who abuses her the most.

As 'Family Guy' is a show with a rather loose attitude towards continuity (and indeed reality), it should be noted that it is difficult to say for sure which facts about a character's history should be taken as canon and which can be dismissed as throwaway gags.

When Family Guy began airing, Meg seemed to be portrayed as a sweet, well-meaning girl who had to take the blame for everything. Though it was true to some degree in season 4, her personality still altered slightly. She seemed less like an innocent little girl when she became slightly on the emo side, going as far as being suicidal. In the episode "Sibling Rivalry", Meg reveals she cuts herself, but the comment is quickly disregarded by the entire family. In "Barely Legal", she threatens to attempt suicide.

It is possible that Meg is a closeted FTM transsexual, because in "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story" a future glimpse at Meg reveals that she will decide to undergo a sex change after college. The way she flaunts her new gender identity supports the theory that she is in fact transgendered. However, doing so may just be due to the fact that no one pays attention to the things she does and may not necessarily mean she is FTM transsexual. Also, Meg and Chris' shown future was determined by Lois and Peter's dating "advice" (Chris ends up with a vulgar, swearing chain-smoker, due to his mother's terrible advice and Peter's advice such as loving a man's farts and offering to shave his back may have resulted in Meg's inability to find a male mate and her FTM transition). Since the advising segment was bypassed entirely by Stewie's later time travel, it is likely that Meg's FTM transition will no longer be necessary in order for her to get a date. On the other hand, in "Brian Sings and Swings", Meg pretended to be a lesbian. When Lois greeted Meg and her friend, Meg responded by saying, "Great! We're checking out naked girls! I am so into girls!" Throughout the episode, she kept insisting that she was lesbian and even dressed like one at one point. As it turned out, though, Meg was only faking and trying to get attention. It is possible the same theory holds for her gender change. Whether or not Meg will truly undergo a sex change in her future is unknown, but many see it as unlikely. However, in the first-season episode "I Never Met the Dead Man," a male voice narrates one scene; the voice is apparently a future version of Meg, though this is really just a parody of The Wonder Years. In "American Dad vs. Family Guy", she transforms into Ron as part of her finisher move.

Meg is apparently gifted with some degree of cunning. In "Love Thy Trophy", she was almost denied a job at the local pancake house when one of the co-owners mistook her for a teen mother (she was with Stewie at the time). Meg used this supposition to her advantage, got the job, and spent the rest of her career as a waitress fabricating tall tales to the customers about Stewie addicted to crack and living on dog food. As a result she was able to get the Prada purse she wanted in record time, although her lies caused social workers to take Stewie away from the Griffins and into a foster home, and Meg had to give up the purse to Stewie's foster mother in order to get him back.

Meg is receptive to the idea of smoking marijuana as she paid Peter for a bag of weed. However, Lois' father then struck her unconscious and took the weed.

Meg is known mostly to have no relationships with the opposite sex because they are disgusted by her, and although this is untrue, she is doted upon by Neil Goldman although she does not feel the same way, and she herself has a massive crush on Joe Swanson's son Kevin, which Chris teases her about.

She is also not a virgin and lost her virginity live on Saturday Night Live in the episode "Don't Make Me Over" where she becomes a pretty pop star and she is used in a sketch by Jimmy Fallon of SNL who has sex with her and films it live to SNL (unknown to Meg at the time)—something which causes her to ditch her makeover. However, whether she truly did or not is debatable because at the end of "Don't Make Me Over" all of the characters that had appeared in the episode walked onto the stage and were applauded by a crowd in traditional SNL fashion. This means the entire episode could have been all an act or the ending was just included as a joke.

She is also hit on many times by Brian when he is drunk. In the episode "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire" he is quoted saying "You're 17 now, right? Well just throwing it out there if you ever want to screw around..." He also flatters her in the episode "Barely Legal" by standing up for her and saying she doesn't deserve all the harsh treatment she gets. He kisses her afterwards, and as a result, she thinks that he is her boyfriend and becomes obsessed with him.

She is also hit on by Quagmire. Although in the episode "Blind Ambition" when imagining furniture as hot women, he tells Meg to "get out of the way", he hits on her constantly. In one episode, he is quoted saying "Hey Meg. 18 yet?", something that tells us he is waiting until she turns 18. He also spies on her slumber parties to try and get her to take her top off. In "Airport '07", Quagmire, while staying at the Griffins' house, puts his foot in her mouth while she is sleeping (as part of his foot fetish), and in the episode "Brian Sings and Swings", he is seen videotaping her with her girlfriend trying to get them to have sex. Although in one of these scenes he is holding a cocktail, which leads some to believe he is drunk, he doesn't act it in the way Brian does and he is not nearly as drunk in the other circumstances. However, at the end of the episode "Barely Legal", Quagmire offers Meg to come to his house and, surprisingly, explains to Meg that she doesn't need to have a boyfriend to have fun as a teenager and gives her a help book (Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece) to guide her.

Despite being the butt of many jokes and neglected by Peter and the rest of the family, it is revealed that Meg does in fact have a breaking limit. In "Road to Rupert", Peter loses his drivers license and must resort to hitching a ride with Meg. During one trip, Meg has to chauffeur Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland, and Joe after a night at the bar. Peter and the gang begin to taunt Meg until Peter deliberately sets Meg's hat on fire. Quagmire extinguishes the flame with his beer leaving Meg drenched. Meg immediately steps on the brakes and is rear ended by a man who confronts her by calling her various obscenities. To Peter and the gang's astonishment, Meg explodes by punching the man in the face and pummeling him to the ground. It is also revealed that the loss of Meg's temper changes Peter's attitude towards her. Peter and Meg begin spending time with each other and Peter even tells Meg that he realizes that she is a really wonderful daughter. Eventually, however, Peter has his license given back to him. Meg expresses her worry that Peter will go back to treating her with disrespect. Peter tells Meg that although he will appear to still treat her badly in front of the rest of the family, he now secretly considers Meg his best friend. Peter however is not her real father. Her real father's name was Stan Thompson, Brian said in Screwed the Pooch, as Meg listened to a CD Player. Of course, this may have just been for humor and may not be canon.

Fan reaction

Seth MacFarlane has said that Meg is the 'Jan Brady' of the Griffin family. He also states that the reason she is the brunt of many jokes is that the writers find it hard to get into the mind of a teenage girl.

In the original two seasons of Family Guy, her family was nowhere near as cruel to her as they are in later episodes. The reason her in-show reception shifted so dramatically was due mostly to fan reaction. Meg was regarded as the most unpopular character, and fans would often make jokes at her expense, seeing as she was a rather uninspired character. Noting this general antagonism toward Meg, the writers behind Family Guy transformed her into the butt of many of their jokes to appeal to fans. Some fans believe that the antagonism toward Meg has become too exaggerated, while others enjoy it and want to see it continue. However in recent episodes, it seems that Meg is starting to get treated slightly better. This might be in part because her personality has developed a bit more, such as her more vocal behavior towards her family, often insulting them back and telling them to 'go to hell'.

Trivia

• In American Dad vs. Family Guy, Meg is a parody of various X-Men characters and even transforms into Ron from The Untold Story as part of a finisher move.
• Meg claims to be allergic to peanuts, unbeknownst to her own parents. However, she has been seen eating peanuts in episodes before this revelation so she must have discovered her allergy at the time she was eating peanuts.
• Meg has a talent for calling birds (including Big Bird from Sesame Street).
• Mila Kunis, who voices Meg, also played a college student who killed William Shatner’s character in film American Psycho 2 as well as killing him (or at least seriously injuring him) by running him over in Family Guy (Though she is voiced by Lacey Chabert in that episode).
• It is revealed in the episode "Fore, Father" that Meg once had a tail (a reference to the animated series, Dragon Ball Z), as Lois mentions while rummaging through old possessions of the family. Further, in "Lethal Weapons", Peter confesses that for the first four years of Meg's life, he thought she was 'a house cat'.
• In "A Fish Out of Water", Lois inadvertently reveals to Meg that she was an accident, the result of Lois taking antibiotics while on birth control, which renders the pill ineffective, unbeknownst to Lois at the time. Meg shows little reaction.
  • Also, in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story Lois reveals that Meg being born ended her chances of becoming an Olympic diver, causing her to become "Pro-choice".
• In "Screwed the Pooch" Brian reveals that Meg's real father's name is Stan Thompson. Meg, however, remains blissfully unaware of this revelation, due to the fact that she is listening to a Walkman rather than paying attention to Brian's trial. Chris, however, is sitting next to Meg at this time, and is surprised. Later, in the episode "Petarded", Chris tells Meg that his dad (Peter) is smarter than Meg's dad (Stan Thompson), and if Chris isn't just saying something stupid, then he probably knows that he and Meg are only half brother and sister.
• In "Brian Sings and Swings", Meg declared herself a lesbian in order to get friends. Once she tells her family, Peter's response is: "That is awesome." One of her lesbian friends became extremely attracted to her, going as far as to taking her clothes off in hopes of having lesbian sex with Meg (however, she misunderstood what Meg was saying).
• In "Deep Throats", Meg dated Mayor Adam West, but she broke up with him because Brian would report it to the press if she didn't.
• In the episode "Blind Ambition", Meg reveals that she was once blind, deaf, dumb (unable to speak), and without arms or legs, and that no one took care of her.
• Meg apparently has some degree of musical talent, as it is revealed in the episode "Chitty Chitty Death Bang" that she had her first drum solo at the age of one, at her first birthday party. She can also sing quite well, as is evidenced in the episode "Don't Make Me Over". Meg also was a member of the color guard, a flag twirler in marching band requiring precise rhythmic accuracy.
• In the Family Guy: Live in Vegas CD, Meg has only two songs, and both songs are as part of a chorus. The fact that she has no song of her own emphasizes her status as an outsider within the Family Guy universe. She is the only member of the Griffin family not to have her own song. On the song "All Cartoons Are Frickin' Dicks", Meg is about to have her turn singing a solo, but she is interrupted by the arrival of Jason Alexander, who tells the Griffins that Scrappy-Doo is the bastard child of Scooby-Doo and Daphne. Voice actress Mila Kunis has mentioned an inability to sing in at least one interview such as the commentary for "Mr. Saturday Knight" on the Family Guy Uncovered DVD set (Regions 2 and 4) and the Volume Two set (Region 1) (She claims she sounds 'like shit'.)
• Several episodes have shown Meg may be suicidal. In "The Kiss Seen Round the World", she threatens to kill herself by eating a bowl of peanuts (which she is allergic to). In the episode "Sibling Rivalry", Meg states that she doesn't eat to solve her problems. Instead, she cuts herself. And in "Barely Legal", she openly and clearly threatens to commit suicide (by slicing her wrist) when no one would go out with her to her junior prom.
• In the episode "Let's Go to the Hop", it is implied that Meg strangled her sister, with Peter and Lois trying to convince Chris it was only a dream.
• When Mezco Toys launched their first line of action figures in the fall of 2004, every character was represented except Meg (Stewie had two versions) [1].
• Meg apparently took ballet at one time, as implied in the episode, "Brian Sings and Swings." When she tried to show a tape of her ballet recital to a group of stuffed toys, the toys sprung to life and escaped from her room; Meg's Care Bear going so far as to jumping in front of a truck to escape watching the recital.
• Meg claims to be able to hold her breath for long periods of time. In "Brian Does Hollywood," Meg asks Brian if she can be part of a movie being produced. One of the producers considered it, as one of the Jacuzzi girls hadn't shown up. He asked her how long she could hold her breath and she responded, "Real long. One time at Hatch Pond..." but was interrupted by Brian, who told them all to leave.
• Meg was briefly popular at the end of "Let's Go to the Hop". However, by "The Kiss Seen Around the World" (if not before that), she was back to being unpopular again.
• She enjoys watching The Bachelorette.
• Meg had no lines at all when South Park spoofed Family Guy in "Cartoon Wars". Additionally, in some recent Family Guy episodes (late season 4/season 5), she never spoke a single word.
• In "A Hero Sits Next Door", Meg states that she can't taste salt.
• In "Barely Legal", Brian takes Meg to a dance and kisses her while under the influence of alcohol (which he was drinking to make the night go faster), which causes Meg to become obsessed with him and think they are dating. Brian denies any attraction to her throughout the rest of the episode.
• In the Family Guy Monopoly set, Meg's face is covered by the Community Chest cards.
• Meg's voice actor, Mila Kunis, does not appear to mind the constant abuse to her character by the Family Guy staff, as stated on several DVD commentary tracks. The infrequency of Meg's dialogue does lead her to exclaim "that's me!" or a similar phrase whenever Meg speaks, and she has jokingly complained that in later episodes that she doesn't get to talk as much as previous season's (Kunis does not voice any other characters on the show, and has not been credited with voicing any one-off or recurring characters on the show). She has also complained about the hat that Meg wears (the "Condom Hat") and has jokingly petitioned to the Family Guy staff to have Meg's hat removed from the show, without any results^{[citation needed]}.
• Mila Kunis was nominated for a 2006 Annie Award for her voice acting as Meg in the episode "Barely Legal".[2][3] Unfortunately, she did not win the award. It instead went to Eartha Kitt, the voice of Yzma from The Emperor's New School.[4]
• In Fish out of Water someone states that one of her nipples is an 'inny' and one an 'outy'

References

• S. Callaghan Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide : Seasons 1 - 3 New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2005
• A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 4" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 3.January 2006: 17, 20 - 22, 24 - 25 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs03Ja.pdf

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