Meg Griffin

Megan "Meg" Griffin is a fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy. She is the oldest child of Lois and Peter Griffin, sister of Chris and Stewie. Meg is largely portrayed as the punching bag of the show and often ostracized, insulted and maliciously treated by the other characters for no particular reason other than her being "Meg". This could be interpreted as a conscious parody of the stereotype of teenage girls as overly sensitive about how others treat and perceive them.

Meg attends James Woods High School as a junior, where she has few friends and is unpopular.

Voice actors

In a Season 4 DVD commentary of the first episode of Drawn Together, Cree Summer claims she was offered the role to play Meg but was dismissed by the producers due to being of the wrong ethnicity for the character. Meg was voiced by an uncredited Lacey Chabert for the first season, and by Mila Kunis in subsequent seasons, though some of Chabert's work became second-season episodes due to production order.

• Rachael MacFarlane (pilot)
• Lacey Chabert (1999 - 2000)
• Mila Kunis (2000 - present)
• Tara Strong (singing voice)

Appearance

Meg typically wears a beanie-like hat and glasses. She also commonly wears a pink shirt, blue jeans and brown faux Birkenstock clogs. She is slightly shorter than her younger brother Chris. Meg is self-conscious about her appearance: "I'm so fat and gross.") She possesses a tummy bulge, which is only noticeable when she is seen in profile. Also, most people consider her unattractive, with the exceptions of Glenn Quagmire, Neil, Ron (a single-episode teenage character), and Mayor Adam West. Her plain appearance is often used for comedy, as many characters on the show react to her as if she were horrifically ugly: in "Don't Make Me Over", two people drench themselves in gasoline, light themselves on fire, and jump headfirst out the nearest window screaming in horror after simply looking at her; and in "Long John Peter", Chris lifts up Meg's shirt in order to get Brian to vomit, which is immediately successful. Her supposed weight problem is a frequent comedy ploy, e.g.: after glancing at her, a carny weight-guesser limits his estimate to "a lot"; Stewie's disturbing mental image of her wearing low-rider jeans; her being mistaken for a sea cow after being caught in a fishing net at sea. Another running gag involves characters mistaking Meg for a boy. Meg was born with a tail, which was amputated shortly after her birth, and kept by her parents as a memento. Meg has also confided to having unusually large nipples.

Social life

Meg desperately tries to be part of the cool crowd, but is usually coldly rebuffed. Because of her eagerness for acceptance, she has been recruited unknowingly into a suicidal religious cult, and, later, recruited, again unwittingly, into her school's Lesbian Alliance. However, in some episodes, Meg is seen with a group of girls who are attending her slumber party and gossiping about boys. However, in later episodes, these girls are characterized as dateless, like Meg.

Dating

Meg is so unpopular in high school that a student named Jimmy in shop class fires a nail gun into his own stomach in order to avoid a date with her, and another murdered his own brother to have an excuse not to go to prom with her the following night. However, she is sought by pimply nerd Neil Goldman. At one point when Neil had a girlfriend named Cecilia, Meg got instantly jealous and pretended to date Jake Tucker to make him jealous. This led to her signing a contract to become Neil's girlfriend and (not knowing at first) his slave, but she gets him to tear up the contract after Lois seduces him. Also, perverted neighbor Glenn Quagmire has shown an interest in her, mostly due to his very low standards, asking if she has reached the age of consent (which would be 16 in Rhode Island, but he always asks if she is eighteen). In several episodes she is shown dating, including stories with characters Mayor Adam West and nudist Jeff Campbell. She also loses her virginity on live television to Saturday Night Live host Jimmy Fallon after having a drastic make over, but before all that happened, she goes out with a rebel at her school named Craig Hoffman.

In the episode Brian Sings and Swings a lesbian student named Sarah invites Meg to join in her Lesbian Alliance Club, with Meg not knowing at first what kind of club it was. Desperate to fit in, she pretends to be a lesbian and also pretends to be attracted to Sarah and even goes so far as to kiss her to prove it. At the end of the episode, Meg goes over Sarah's house to admit she lied about being a lesbian (Sarah thought that Meg came over to have sex and even undresses herself when Meg is telling her that she lied). Meg also used to have a crush on anchorman Tom Tucker.

In other episodes she is portrayed as chronically incapable of finding a boyfriend. For her Junior Prom she accepts a pity date from Brian, the family dog.

Earlier in season 2, she dated Joe Swanson's son Kevin Swanson and it's still unknown why and how they broke up. In the episode "Prick Up Your Ears" she dates a boy named Doug, but he dumps her when he sees her naked right before almost having sex. In the episode "Peter's Daughter" Meg falls in love with a med-student named Michael Milano after coming out of a short coma (caused by Peter) and they start to date. After he breaks up with Meg (because of Peter overprotecting her), she soon then announces that she is pregnant by Michael and the two get engaged (he actually proposes to her). After finding out that she isn't actually pregnant, Meg tells Michael the truth hoping that he'll stay; however, Michael leaves Meg at the altar.

In the 3-part episode/movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story , Meg has had a sex change and is then known as Ron, she seems to be proud of her new gender as she would always try to over do things that men do, for example when Meg says "I'm gonna go upstairs and shave my moustache, because I'm a guy"

Family life

Though Meg was shown to be a loved and respected member of the family in the first two seasons of the show, this began to change as MacFarlane started to flesh out the characters to the point where it seems that the entire population of Quahog, including her own parents, openly despise her.

Meg is the oldest child in the Griffin family, and the most misunderstood, at least from Peter, Chris, and others who are shown avoiding her company, disparaging her in person, gathering in her bedroom to read her diary for laughs, Peter reminds Lois "We agreed that if we could only save two, we'd leave Meg!" even shooting her ("Peter's Daughter") but despite this he also once was going to say 'I love you' in an episode and in "Road to Rupert" he stated they were 'secret best friends' before throwing lemonade in her face, saying he would have to continue to treat her badly in public in order to maintain his reputation, thus giving hope that they may be on good terms. Occasionally, when Meg asks a question to Peter or just speaks when he is in the room, Peter responds by saying "Shut up Meg", following an immediate line from another character.

When the family tries an anger management technique of writing letters and not sending them, Meg finds Peter's letter to her, which says "Dear Meg, for the first four years of your life, I thought that you were a house cat." And in Peter's short story of her birth, they had to go back to get her once they realized they grabbed the afterbirth. In the episode "Stewie Kills Lois" Peter tells guests on a cruise ship about how he and Lois had gone to get an abortion but decided against it when they arrived at the clinic and found out the abortionist had one arm. He then says "2 months later, our daughter Meg was born" - indicating that they had not planned her birth. On Meg's 17th birthday, her mother and father both try to hide from Meg that they don't remember her age. Peter openly states that Meg sucks in the episode "PTV", and Chris says the same thing about her in "Long John Peter." Chris, however, seems to have more of a typical brother-sister relationship with Meg, and even once threatened to quit his job if his Boss didn't re-hire Meg. Cleveland comments to Peter "Meg is my least favorite of your children." Despite the lack of respect from Peter and the neighbors, Brian admits that he cares for Meg when she goes out with Mayor Adam West; Lois has also often shown sympathy for Meg, and Stewie occasionally shows some appreciation for Meg as well.

Dangerous behavior

Meg is often shown as emotionally fragile or disturbed. One episode shows Meg "dating" a corpse or laughing tearfully while describing imaginary gifts from her imaginary boyfriend "Prince William." Later in the series, Meg is charged for forcing herself upon a group of would-be captors and grows violently obsessed with Brian after a drunken kiss at the Junior Prom. Meg also speaks of habitually cutting herself and throwing up after meals. Meg's dangerous behavior, however obvious, is rarely noticed by her parents even when stated. Such as in the episode "Sibling Rivalry" after Lois had her fat removed she states to Meg, that eating to solve one's problems is the wrong thing to do, apparently referencing that she's somewhat fat. In this Meg replies, "For your information, I don't eat to solve my problems. I cut myself." Peter also doesn't pay attention when she loses her temper and assaults a man who crashed into the back of the car while driving him, Cleveland, Joe and Quagmire around when they have been drinking in Road to Rupert. He exclaims that her actions were "awesome" and this leads to her engaging in other erratic behavior to impress him.

The Star Wars Saga

In the Family Guy retelling of the Star Wars original trilogy, Meg is relegated to a very minor role (the reason being that there are no major female roles in Star Wars except for Princess Leia, who was played by Lois.)

• In Blue Harvest she is the dianoga in the garbage chute, and appears playing the eye of it popping out of the muck, looking around, then going back under.
• Her role in Something, Something, Something Dark Side (the upcoming parody of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back) has yet to be revealed.

External links

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