Stewie Griffin

"Stewie" redirects here. For the formal name Stewart, see Stewart.

Stewart Gilligan "Stewie" Griffin is a fictional character in the animated series Family Guy. Stewie is obsessed with world domination and matricide, and has an ambiguous sexual orientation. He is the youngest child of Peter and Lois Griffin. In addition to siblings Chris and Meg, Stewie has a half-brother Bertram who is unknown to the other Griffins. Stewie is voiced by Seth MacFarlane.

Though he was originally a child evil genius bent on world domination, the writers in more recent episodes usually ignore that aspect of his personality, instead focusing on a more flamboyant character, though he retained an antagonistic role in the show, especially toward Brian in episodes like Three Kings and Lois Kills Stewie. Stewie is considered to be the show's breakout character. Wizard magazine rated him the 95th greatest villain of all time.

Personality

Stewie is a one-year-old with a very sophisticated attitude. He reached his first birthday in the season 1 episode "Chitty Chitty Death Bang", and has remained the same age ever since. His nature and mannerisms are juxtaposed with typical childlike interests and actions. While highly literate and able to cite pop culture references that date much further back than his age would let on, he is also entranced by Raffi and the Teletubbies. Stewie succumbs to other weaknesses of children his age – he believes Peter has truly disappeared in a game of Peek-a-Boo, talks to his teddy bear (Rupert) as if he were alive, is overcome with laughter when Lois blows on his stomach, and has no idea how to use the toilet. MacFarlane has stated that Stewie is meant to represent the general helplessness of an infant through the eyes of an adult. Per cartoon physics, his ability to move objects of greater weight than himself is not surprising to other characters, nor is his ability to retrieve firearms from hammerspace.

Stewie's mastery of physics and mechanical engineering are at a level of science fiction. He has constructed advanced fighter-jets, a mind control device, a weather control device, robots, a time machine, a shrinking pod, a teleportation device, Stewie employs these to cope with the stresses of infant life (such as teething pain, and eating hated broccoli) and to murder his mother Lois, with mixed success at best depending on the objective.

In other episodes, Stewie engages in other violent or criminal acts, including robbery, carjacking, loan sharking, forgery, and killing off many minor characters.

Stewie eventually realizes his dreams of matricide and world domination in the sixth season two-part episode "Stewie Kills Lois" and "Lois Kills Stewie". The events, however, are reverted in a deus ex machina ending, where most of the story turns out to be a computer simulation. Because of the rather disastrous ending for himself in the simulation, he decides to put aside his plans of matricide and world domination for the time being.

Despite his somewhat evil nature, Stewie does seem to have a softer side. For example, in "Chick Cancer", when Brian unwittingly makes a racist comment while the two of them are discussing Stewie's "marriage" to Olivia Fuller, Stewie is openly disgusted by it. When Brian profusely apologizes, Stewie leaves, saying, "You gotta work on that. Bad dog." In one episode where Brian goes to find his mother and discovers that her dead body has been stuffed, Stewie says, "Someone must have said something funny, because your mother's in stitches!" After laughing for a few seconds, he tells Brian, "I'll leave you to grieve," before walking out of the room to give Brian some alone time with his mother.

Ambiguous sexuality

There's always been a lot of tension between Lois and me, and it's not so much that I want to kill her, it's just I want her ...not to be alive, anymore. Ah, I sometimes wonder if all women are this difficult, and then I think to myself: My God, wouldn't it be marvelous if I turned out to be a homosexual?

— Stewie, video camera confession from "Fifteen Minutes of Shame"

When the writers began to flesh out Stewie beyond being a generic evil genius in season two, MacFarlane and the writers began to explore the infant's sexuality with a series of one-off gags, which hinted that Stewie could be gay. On the commentary of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, the writers describe how they were going to make Stewie discover he was gay, but decided to scrap this idea in order to retain Stewie's sexual ambiguity for writing purposes.

MacFarlane planned for the series' third season to end with Stewie coming out of the closet after a near-death experience. However, the show's abrupt cancellation caused MacFarlane to abort these plans, and the episode "Queer Is Stewie?" was actually produced, but never shown. Since that point, MacFarlane has opted to have Stewie portrayed as sexually ambiguous, as, in his eyes, the flexibility of Stewie's sexuality allows for much more freedom in terms of writing for the character. Although Stewie seems bisexual because he has shown love for both men and women like Brian and Olivia, he is shown reacting with spontaneous enthusiasm to brief homosexual encounters in several episodes, and in "Chick Cancer" he wishes men could "get together with their buddies, and just have it be the same thing as being with a woman". A few episodes depict Stewie imagining homoerotic adventures with his teddy bear, Rupert. In several situations Stewie is implied to have an attraction for Brian, and in one episode tries to trick Brian into having sex with him. Stewie also sticks his finger in Brian's mouth and puts his finger back into his own mouth. Stewie has also cross-dressed in several episodes. In one episode, when Brian and Stewie are setting up a bet, Stewie asks Brian if he wants to "kiss on it". In Screwed the Pooch in a cutaway gag, Stewie states that he likes to go to gay bars to relax and in another in the episode 'Jungle Love' he aspires to be the effeminate male friend of the popular girls upon going to high school, and his effeminate teenage self shows homosexual tendencies. In the episode, "The Former Life of Brian", he is seen naked and yells at Brian's son, Dylan to take his pants off. Also, he has been naked while in front of Brian and Dylan referencing that he has had an attraction towards both of them.

Stewie has also had liaisons and attractions to girls, notably in "Dammit Janet!", where Stewie falls in love with a girl named Janet, and "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter", where Stewie falls for his babysitter. In "Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?", Stewie becomes sexually aroused watching female cheerleaders undress. In "Chick Cancer", Stewie falls in love with a child actress named Olivia Fuller. Stewie also came close to having sex with Connie D'amico. Stewie, at first sight, was attracted to Brian's girlfriend, Jillian. Also in another episode, Stewie is seen pointing out all of the female babies that he would "do." He also was seen easily annoyed by Jasper, Brian's gay cousin. After noticing Jasper's gay attitude, he states that he would not fit in with the family. Several episodes depicting Stewie's possible adult self portray him as celibate, even though he is persuaded (by time-traveling baby Stewie) to pursue a relationship with a woman. In the episode "Ocean's Three and a Half", Stewie falls madly in love with Suzy Swanson, the Swanson's new baby, and tries to impress her with a song, but by the time the episode was over he had lost interest in her only to fall in love with Bryan Adams.

MacFarlane later elaborated:

He originally began as this diabolical villain, but then we delved into the idea of his confused sexuality. We all feel that Stewie is almost certainly gay, and he’s in the process of figuring it out for himself. We haven’t ever really locked into it because we get a lot of good jokes from both sides, but we treat him oftentimes as if we were writing a gay character.

— Seth MacFarlane, "Big Gay Following", The Advocate interview

When asked why he made "the decision to take Stewie from homicidal maniac to gay little song boy," MacFarlane answered that "It wasn't a conscious decision. Characters evolve in certain ways and we found that doing the take-over-the-world thing every week was getting played out and was starting to feel a little dated. It was weirdly feeling a little ‘90s and believe me, if we were still doing that, the show would be on its last legs. I only half jokingly go by the guideline that if it is something that might possibly ruin the show, it is a story we should probably do."

Inspirations

MacFarlane based Stewie's voice on the voice English actor Rex Harrison, particularly on Harrison's performance in the 1964 musical drama film My Fair Lady. MacFarlane has also on more than one occasion linked Stewie with David Hyde Pierce, he has said he wants Pierce to play Stewie in any live action version of the show.

Bertram

Bertram is Stewie's mostly antagonistic half-brother, and is voiced by Wallace Shawn. In the episode, "Emission Impossible" Stewie is exploring his father's internal organs using his miniaturized flying ship, when Stewie first meets Bertram as the homuncular inhabitant of a gunship-like spermatozoon. Their personalities are similar, and in battle they are evenly matched. Bertram returns post-natally, having been sired by Peter via sperm bank donation.

Bertram appears to rival Stewie in virtually every way, including his skill with firearms and hand-to-hand combat. He is very similar to Stewie in appearance as well, the only difference being he has a pudgier face, freckles, and a tress of red hair on top of his head. When not battling each other, they seem to get along quite well, considering they have so much in common, especially their hatred for Lois among other things.

While technically a half-brother to Chris and Meg, Bertram appears only to Stewie in these episodes. Brian seems to have some knowledge of his existence in the episode "Sibling Rivalry", but it is uncertain if he is aware of his relation to Stewie.

Video game

In Family Guy Video Game!, Stewie discovers Bertram attempting to outdo him in taking over the world. Desperate to stop him, Stewie shrinks himself and makes his way to Bertram's lair within Peter's testicles to discover his plan, destroys his henchman cloning lab, and rescues a kidnapped Rupert from a rocket. He finally confronts Bertram in the park, where Bertram turns himself into a giant.

Other appearances

• Stewie has appeared as a Spokesperson for Snapvine.com, speaking as Darth Vader and asking users what they would blow up with the Death Star, while promoting the Lucas-MacFarlane project "Blue Harvest".
• Stewie appeared in a short clip on the 20th annual MTV Video Music Awards insulting rapper 50 Cent, which has become a viral video circulating on numerous online services. Stewie, with blocks spelling out "MTV", Rupert and a baby toy in the background, reads some words from the song "Wanksta" in a comical voice, then commenting: "Well, good luck finding the subject and predicate of that run-on sentence! And what the bloody hell does it mean, "we don't go nowhere without toast"? Now, you listen to me, Mr. Cent. If you want to make it in this business, lay off the doobie!". He then pulls out a hitherto concealed sign reading "Stewie for Governor".
• Stewie's face, on a stick, can be seen in the background of the ESPN talk show Pardon the Interruption.
• During the 2006 Canadian Election Royal Canadian Air Farce ran their own election with Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Jack Layton (all leaders of the major anglophone parties of that election), Jim Harris (whose Green Party, while still minor, was gaining public attention) and "Stewie from Family Guy." Stewie ended up winning with 36 percent of the votes.
• Stewie has appeared on the MSNBC news program Countdown with Keith Olbermann, often introducing (or regressing) news stories regarding Bill O'Reilly. On the May 24, 2006 show, he introduced O'Reilly as Worst Person in the World (a regular Olbermann segment) on the program. Stewie said, "Oh, wait, Bill, hold still. Allow me to soil myself on you. Victory is mine!" This has been shortened to just "Today's Worst Person in the World." Stewie announced June 1 "Countdown presents: 'Factor Fiction', wherein we expose that bastard Bill O'Reilly lying again." He then repeated what he had said above. This has become the norm on O'Reilly segments most of the time. On June 5, 2006, he introduced "Breaking News" about Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and American Idol by saying "Oh here we go. Probably some story about Britney Spears or, knowing Keith, some baseball card." He also did an animation saying "Breaking News. Oh, this should be rich, must be something of a monumental earth shattering importance or they wouldn't have that Earth there shattering. See it shattering? It's Earth Shattering Breaking News. Oh, do tell me! Tell me, tell me!"
• Stewie (along with Brian, the latter with no speaking roles) has also appeared on the unaired short of My Name Is Earl called Bad Karma, in which he influences Earl to get even with everyone who's wronged him. Earl watches him on TV instead of Carson Daly. This short appears on the Season 1 DVD.
• Stewie was an announcer of the 2006 Spike Video Game Awards.
• Stewie and Brian appeared at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards performing a musical number poking fun at networks and current shows on the air, while also poking fun at new programs, such as the one based on the GEICO Cavemen. The song was based on the FCC song from the episode "PTV".
• Stewie — in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon form — appeared in a commercial for Coca-Cola that aired during Super Bowl XLII. During the course of the commercial, the Stewie balloon and the Underdog balloon fight over a floating bottle of Coke. During the course of the battle the bottle floats away from them and into the waiting arms of a Charlie Brown balloon. A Macy*s spokesperson has since stated that the balloon was fictional, however, part of the actual ad aired in a anniversary ad for the store. (On Loveline, Seth MacFarlane stated that he was uninformed about the ad, because of the Writer's Guild of America Strike going on at the time of its production).
• Stewie appeared briefly in the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, where Rat claimed to Pig that setting up TiVo was as easy as taking candy from a baby, then Stewie is revealed to be holding a candy cane next to them, calling Pig "Fatman" and threatening to kill him if he touches the candy cane.
• Stewie appears as a hallucination to Seeley Booth in an episode of Bones, which is eventually revealed to be the result of a brain tumor. Seth MacFarlane wrote all of Stewie's dialog for the episode.

External links

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