Hegemonic Ideologies Represented in Family Guy

Fox’s Family Guy is a comical cartoon that often exposes identity categories that illustrate conflicting hegemonic/counter-hegemonic representations of ideologies related to those identities. For this blog post, I will be analyzing episode #54, “Don’t Make Me Over,” by evaluating five scenes in the episode, in which these identity categories are represented through characters and their actions in the show.

The first example I encountered in the very beginning of the episode involves Meg (the ugly daughter in the Griffin Family), her friends at school, and Craig (a popular, attractive male at school). In this scene, the show expresses hegemonic ideals regarding race, sexuality and femininity. Meg and the other girls at school are all fighting over the stereotypical popular kid at school named Craig. After gaining the courage to ask Craig out on a date, Meg gets rejected because of her looks. To quote Craig in the episode his response to Meg was, “Sorry, I don’t go out with dudes.” With help from friends and her mother Lois, Meg realizes that she is considered Tom-boyish with her peers at school. She doesn’t show off her body like the other more attractive girls at her school and her only solution to fix this problem was to get a makeover.

Another example of identity category depicted by the Media in this episode of Family Guy is the scene when Lois takes Meg shopping for clothes. This scene depicts hegemonic ideals about sexuality, gender, and femininity. Lois encourages Meg to try on provocative, slutty clothing that shows off her body. Some of the shirts even had slogans like “Little Slut” and “Porn Star.” By illustrating these ideologies in this manner, Family is delivering a message that in order to be considered attractive and popular in the eyes of men, females must look like sex-objects. This scene reinforces how women are portrayed in a patriarchal society.

A third example of an identity category represented by this show, is the scene in which Brian (the dumb overweight son in the Griffin Family), tells his mother Lois how the prisoner sitting behind him at the jail braided his hair. Ideals such as gender, sexuality, race, class and incarceration are all represented within this short and witty scene. The media depicts the stereotypical homosexual realities of a prison in a degrading comedic manner. Also in the jail scenes, the inmates are predominantly African American and Hispanic and they are often violent and out of control

Another example of an identity category in which the media represents counter- hegemonic ideology is how race is illustrated throughout the whole show. In Family Guy, almost every character is of the white race. The only African-American character in the show is Cleveland, the token black guy in a white community. Cleveland is negatively portrayed in the show through his slow communication skills.

A fifth example of an identity category represented by hegemonic ideals is Peter Griffin’s role as father. He doesn’t want to get involved with Meg’s emotional problems, much like a stereotypical father. Also in the scene where Meg sleeps with Jimmy Fallon, he takes on the role of being a protective father with his aggression. By beating up Fallon, Peter performed his fatherly duty of protecting his daughter and being a good father.

Family Guy. “Don’t Make Me Over.”

Season 4, Volume Three, Disc One, DVD. 6/5/05

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation: Beverly Hills, CA. 2005.