Boys Do Cry (Family Guy)

"Boys Do Cry (Family Guy)"

"Boys Do Cry" is the fifteenth episode of the fifth season of the FOX animated series Family Guy. The title is a play on that of the 1999 film Boys Don’t Cry, with Stewie's role somewhat mimicking Hilary Swank's.

Plot summary

Lois gets a job as the new organist for the church, which makes her decide to persuade her family to start attending sermons on Sundays. After Stewie drinks too much Communion wine and throws it up, the town of Quahog believes him to be possessed by Satan (since the wine is supposed to be the blood of Christ, Satan would reject it). When the priest wants to exorcise him (aided by the entire town), the Griffin family escapes to Lois' sister Carol's house in Texas.

Peter fits in with the cowboys, but Brian can't stand the racist and homophobic (and stereotypical) Texas life. While Stewie, disguised as a girl under the name "Stephanie Griffin", enters a "Little Miss Texas" pageant, Meg and Chris sneak into George W. Bush's house to steal his underwear as part of an initiation into an after-school club. Eventually, it is reported by Texan news journalist Duke Dillon (Bill Engvall) that Quahog is giving up its search for Stewie because of the finding of a new Satan (the "super devil"), but Lois, hoping to instill moral values in her family, neglects to mention it. It is Brian who finds out about this from his girlfriend Jillian back in Quahog and confronts Lois.

After branding the orgasmic cow that appeared in the episode "Jungle Love", things turn sour when Peter reveals that he is retarded. The men with him tie him to an electric chair and are about to put him to death when he is rescued by his trusty horse, who is Gilbert Gottfried.

Stewie manages to win the pageant, but then his wig falls off when he bows during the crowning ceremony and the audience labels him as a "queer-o-sexual" and tries to rush the stage. The family is able to escape on the back of Gilbert Gottfried. Lois then realizes that homophobia, racism, and flat out ignorance aren't necessarily good moral values.

Notes

• 12 year old Camilla Stull, who guest starred in this episode, died on on April 16, 2007 after a three-year battle with Leukemia. Her dream of becoming an actress came true as Drew Barrymore introduced her to Seth MacFarlane, who gave her a one episode contract.

Cultural references

• The show starts with a commercial for a new Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom Now It's Just Getting Sad, a reference to not only the Seinfeld Curse but also Louis-Dreyfus's sitcoms Watching Ellie and The New Adventures of Old Christine.
• Jake Tucker playing the William Tell Overture upside down is a reference to Victor Borge, who often did that in his act.
• The scene where Meg lies on the couch deflated is a reference to the recent Partnership for a Drug-Free America ads where a teenage girl is shown flattened on the couch and her friend tells the viewer that her marijuana abuse caused her to become dull and listless.
• The scene where Stewie wonders how fascinating it would be to meet Jesus is a parody of a scene in the 1985 film Witness in which Harrison Ford sees the Amish widow played by Kelly McGillis bathing and she turns around and lets him stare at her breasts.
• On the news broadcast about Stewie being possessed the caption reads, “Brat out of Hell.” This is a wordplay on the saying “like a bat out of hell,” and on the Meat Loaf album of the same name.
• The scene in which Peter sees a woman driving a red Ferrari down the road in the lane next to him and flirting with him is a parody of the National Lampoon's Vacation films. When the woman is run down by a truck, Lois references Billy Joel's problems with driving accidents; Billy Joel was married to Christie Brinkley, who played the flirty Ferrari-driving woman in the films.
• The picture of the Super Devil on the newscast depicts him on motorcycle in the same position as the demon on the Bat Out of Hell album cover.
• Lois receives a stitching of Chuck Norris from one of their neighbors in Texas. Peter says that “Chuck Norris is so tough, under his beard, there is no chin...only another fist”, which refers to Chuck Norris Facts. When Brian responds “That's ridiculous,” Chuck Norris shows up and punches him in the face with a fist that emerges from beneath his beard, and again later to punch a girl that threatened Stewie's chances of winning the pageant.
• At George W. Bush's Crawford ranch, Dick Cheney is guarding the house with a shotgun while sleeping. He is dreaming about seething over his “18% approval rating,” and how he would like to introduce people to the husband of his daughter, Mary (who is actually a lesbian). Inside, Bush has pictures of him with, among others, the Super Devil. Additionally, Chris points out that Bush has several lines of “sugar” cut and ready for snorting, a reference to Bush's alleged cocaine use. Bush is also shown drinking alcohol, a reference to him being a recovering alcoholic.
• Chris showing the people at the Texas high school George W. Bush's underwear spoofs the scene in Sixteen Candles where Anthony Michael Hall's character shows off Molly Ringwald's underwear to his fellow students.
• Gregg "Free Beer" Daniels is parodied by showing a bastardized form of the show logo and making fun of their dopey name.
• At the Little Miss Texas Pageant, somebody shouts “Hey, it's Enrico Pallazzo!” when Stewie's wig falls off. This is a reference to The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
• Peter's speech in the end about values and television shows is a jab at the Parents Television Council and other individuals and groups who have criticized Family Guy regarding the themes and language used in the show. The PTC also frequently named Family Guy the worst of the week on their website. Peter's speech: "If you're watching a TV show, and you decide to take your values from that, you're an idiot. Maybe you should take responsibility for what values your kids are getting. Maybe you shouldn't be letting your kids watch certain shows in the first place if you have such a big problem with them, instead of blaming the shows themselves. (pauses, looks to the camera) Yeah."
• The episode's title is a play on words of a song by The Cure called Boys Don't Cry.

Censorship

• In the uncensored version, the church pastor has a different reading. In the FOX version, the reading was from the book of John and it was about a man complaining about a couple living in an upstairs apartment with a crying baby. On Adult Swim, the reading is from the book of Leviticus and was centered around a man ejaculating into a sock and trying to hide it in a clothes hamper.
• The scene during the family's drive to Texas where Peter flirts with a blond female driver (similar to Chevy Chase flirting with Christie Brinkley in the film National Lampoon's Vacation), the female driver crashing into a truck, and Lois's comment, “You marry Billy Joel. It's going to happen one way or another” was cut on FOX but is shown on re-runs on TBS and Cartoon Network.
• Stewie's line about child beauty pageants being a “first class ticket to a semen-covered death in the basement” on the uncensored airing was changed to the supposedly less explicit “semen-stained death in the basement” (a reference to JonBenét Ramsey) on the FOX airing.

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