Meg Griffin
| Family Guy character | |
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| Megan Griffin | |
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| Hometown: | Quahog, Rhode Island |
| Species: | Human |
| Gender: | Female |
| Height: | 5'5" |
| Weight: | 120 lbs |
| Age: | 17 (as of the fourth Season episode "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire") |
| Religion: | Catholic |
| Heritage: | partially Irish |
| First Episode Appearance: | "Death Has a Shadow" |
| Voice Actors: | Lacey Chabert (1999–2000) Mila Kunis (2000–present) |
Megan Griffin is the eldest child of Peter and Lois Griffin in the animated TV series Family Guy. She has two younger brothers, Chris and Stewie. She was voiced by Lacey Chabert for the first season, and by Mila Kunis (That '70s Show) in subsequent seasons.
Appearance
Template:Spoiler Meg is relatively unremarkable in appearance, sporting shoulder-length brown hair and nearly always wearing a beanie-like hat. 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 her mother, and her brown hair and need for glasses from her father.
Her supposed ugliness is often a topic of humor for the show. In "Don't Make Me Over", two people drench themselves in gasoline and burn themselves 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. Her ugliness may also be a source for her unpopularity. In that sense, Meg is similar to Davan MacIntire from Something Positive and 'Ugly Bob' from 'South Park': all are relatively unremarkable-looking people who, for no logical reason, many seem to find horrifically unattractive. Meg was also kidnapped by 3 robbers and was mistaken for a man. Later in that episode she asked one of the robbers if they were going have their way with her and the robbers were nothing short of terrified.
Personality
Meg lives with the rest of the Griffin family 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".
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 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.
Other characters on the show freely show disrespect towards her, including an amusement park attendant who guesses her weight ("a lot"), and Peter, who forgets that Meg is a member of the family and instead puts Boba Fett in her place. It has also been revealed that Peter believed Meg was a house cat the first four years of her life. In "Breaking Out Is Hard to Do", Jackie Chan mistakes her for Frankie Muniz's character in Malcolm in the Middle, and refuses to believe that she is not. In the same episode when Joe is seen hanging from the edge of a huge drop into the sewers, Lois grabs hold of his arm in order to save him. As Joe begins to slip, he cries out "Pretend I'm your child!" Lois' grip seems to loosen after this outburst, at which point Joe screams "Not Meg! Not Meg!"
Meg's own family also make cruel jokes and innuendos about her, contributing to her unpopular image on the show. For example, in "Model Misbehavior", Meg and her mother, Lois, visit the Pewterschmidt (Lois' wealthy family) mansion and survey Lois' old bedroom. Meg remarks, "Wow! This is just like my room at home!" Lois retorts, "Yes, except for all the trophies and pictures of friends", a clear reference to her status as a social pariah. Later in the same episode, the family compete in a yacht race; Meg, almost thoughtlessly, is thrown overboard to reduce their weight. She is then caught in a fish net by fishermen, and is mistaken for a manatee (or the sea cow in nautical terms). In the episode "Jungle Love", Meg is shot with darts by South American natives when her family leaves her behind (though she is alive again in the next episode without explanation).
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.
In the episode "Sibling Rivalry", Meg reveals she cuts herself, but the comment is quickly disregarded by the entire family.
Fan reaction
Meg is also considered by many fans as the least interesting family member. Seth MacFarlane has stated 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. (She is almost certainly intended to be unpopular, based on the number of jokes about her.) However, when Meg underwent a makeover in one episode, she was considered extremely attractive.
Relationships with other family members
Meg often feels embarrassed by her family. In the episode "Fifteen Minutes of Shame" she brought her family onto local newscaster Diane Simmons's talk show to confront them. The family's appearance on that show led to a reality show, The Real Live Griffins. However, this simply increased Meg's feelings of embarrassment, leading her to quit the show. She was replaced by a tall, very attractive, blonde girl who quickly began to steal the spotlight. The Griffins eventually protested, were replaced by a celebrity cast, and then reunited with Meg. (This is almost certainly a reference to The Brady Bunch's shortlived variety show in which Jan, played by Eve Plumb, was replaced with a "more attractive" blonde.)
Relationship with Peter
Her father, Peter, humilates her quite often. In one episode, "Fifteen Minutes of Shame," he recruited Meg's friends to get him out of the stairs, which he had fallen through. Another time, he interrupted her class (while wearing nothing but a towel) to chide her about shaving her legs in the shower, saying "It's like a carpet in there." When he took her for driving lessons, he accidentally crashed into the local cable transmission and pinned the blame on his own daughter, promising to buy her a convertible if she assumed the blame. This led to Meg being a social outcast and the brunt of her classmates' anger, and she eventually revealed that Peter was actually responsible. However, the emotional abuse she has suffered has started to show, especially to Peter. He even tried to sell her to Mort Goldman's son, Neil, in order to pay off his pharmacy tab, to which a furious Meg responded, '"You can't sell me, you fat son of a bitch!"' This was probably Meg's shining moment in her history on the show. Another time, when Brian was not on speaking terms with him, Peter tried to replace Brian with Meg, only to have her scream "I am not a dog, you fat bastard!" Evidently, Meg is now starting to stand up for herself. A current shot in the episode "Petergeist" had them leaving Meg inside the house as ghosts ravaged it, Meg ran into the car yelling at Peter "You bastard! How could you leave me in there?!"
Apparently, not only does Peter humiliate her, he also holds her in very low regard, at least compared to his other children. In "A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Bucks", when a snobbish art collector, Antonio Monatti, humiliates Chris Griffin at his own New York art exhibit, Peter confronts him and says, "You can talk to my daughter that way, but not to my son!"
===Relationship with Lois=== Lois is the member of the family that pays the most attention to Meg. In fact, she treats her daughter more like a human being than anyone else in the family, save Chris, or in the show, for that matter. In the episode "A Fish Out of Water", Lois tries to cheer up Meg, who is depressed because she has no plans for spring break. Lois takes her to a beach party, but everyone ignores Meg in favor of her mother. Lois finally drags Meg onto a stage to dance, and in her excitement Meg rips off her shirt, flashing a large crowd. The onlookers are stunned into silence, with one person exclaiming, "Oh my God! It's a chick!" Later Meg flashes a carload of partiers; one spectator comments on her breasts that "One's an innie and one's an outie." In addition to helping Meg overcome her insecurities she gives her daughter advice and assurance.
Unfortunately, the number of times Lois supports her pales in comparison to the number of times Lois abuses her. Though she does not ridicule her like Peter or Stewie, she ignores her just as much as everyone else. Uncharacteristically she does not tell her family off when they cause Meg any form of grief, such as the time when they throw Meg off a boat to keep them afloat, nor does she rush over to help when Meg exhibits signs of psychological problems, such as the time when Meg says she cuts herself and no one responds. The most obvious sign that Lois is, in Meg's eyes, just like everyone else, is in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story; Lois remarked that, now, after giving birth to Meg, she has become pro-choice.
===Relationship with Chris=== Chris is the only other member of the family other than Lois that actually treats Meg like a human being. In fact, Meg's relationship with Chris is possibly her most normal one of all. Though Chris treats her like the rest, their relationship is very brother-and-sisterly; they bicker and argue often, and Chris just as often looks to his older sister for advice, which Meg willingly gives.
===Relationship with Stewie=== Though everyone abuses Meg on the show, it is probably Stewie who seems to enjoy it the most. When Lois was driving home with Chris, Meg, and Stewie in the car and finds Peter dressed as a prostitute, Lois tells him to get into the car. Stewie then remarks to Meg, "Eerie isn't it. It's like looking into the future." Their relationship with each other is not so much brother-and-sisterly as it is bully-and-victim, or master-and-slave.
===Relationship with Brian=== Brian does not seem to treat Meg badly as much as the rest, but he ignores her most often. He does seem to know her more than Peter, though, since he usually acts as the father due to Peter's nature as a terrible parent. In the episode "Screwed the Pooch", Brian states in court that Meg's real father is "Stan Thompson" rather than Peter Griffin. Meg, however, is wearing headphones at the time and does not hear the comment. In a later episode, a possible conversation that may or may not be canon with this event takes place:
- Chris: My dad's smarter than your dad.
- Meg: We have the same dad, idiot.
- Chris: Yeah, but mine's smarter!
It is debatable whether Chris is referring to the fact that he knows Meg is not Peter's biological daughter (he heard Brian's statement), or that he is being dumb (as usual).
It has also been implied that at some point in the past, Meg killed her younger sister and her parents hushed up the crime. Her younger brother Chris still has vague memories of this happening, but when mentioned, Peter and Lois insist (high-strung and unconvincingly) that it was "just a really bad dream." Also, Lois states that at, at some point, Meg had a tail.
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.
At the beginning of the episode Deep Throats, Brian, who was at that time jobless, is mocked by the entire family (including Meg) about being "the new Meg," this being caused by Meg's new internship at Mayor West's office. However, when Meg begins calling Brian "the new me," Peter simply replies, "Shut up, Meg."
In many episodes, the family sort of forgets Meg or treats Meg as an inanimate object, if not an outright scapegoat.
Romantic involvements
Neil Goldman, a nerdy kid at Meg's school, is one of the few people who has shown a romantic interest in Meg; unfortunately, Meg is not interested in Neil. In the episode "The Kiss Seen Around the World", the two are cornered by a media mass murderer and share a kiss, thinking it will be their last moments on Earth. They survive (after being saved by Hugh Downs) and Meg is horrified to find that Neil captured the kiss on videotape. Not only does he air the footage on the local news, but distributes t-shirts featuring a picture of the smooch to all the students at their school. Meg finally makes her feelings clear to Neil and the rest of the town with her own news report. There are many references to Meg's dislike for Neil Goldman; for example, she once walked into a spoof episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, imparting this message: "To Neil Goldman, of Quahog, Rhode Island: Leave me alone! I hate you! I HATE YOU!!!"
Meg clearly has a crush on Kevin Swanson. In "A Hero Sits Next Door" (1ACX05), she is seen fantasizing about him through the window. In "Da Boom" (2ACX06) she says "I finally get a date with Kevin and he gets vaporized!". In "Holy Crap" Kevin walks her home (to which Grandpa tells her she is a harlot). In "Fifteen Minutes of Shame" (2ACX08), Peter brings Kevin over to have him specifically say hi to Meg. Finally, the most obvious sign is when the family is reading out of Meg's diary in "Stuck Together Torn Apart" (3ACX10) where she has written "Dear Diary, Kevin is so hot. Today he was out in the yard raking leaves. God, I wish he'd throw me into that pile of leaves!". Throughout all the seasons there are numerous hints and references to Meg liking Kevin, indicating that he is probably the primary ongoing object of her affection.
Throughout the series Glenn Quagmire has tried to have sex with or watch Meg's sexual activities. He has asked several times if Meg is 18 yet, and moving on to another character as soon as she says no, and has also been seen watching Meg and her friends at a slumber party. He soon left, however, exclaiming that it was all "a bunch of mindless chatter," and that he would go home and rent some pornography. Ironically, they decided to compare their breasts after Glenn left.
There are many references to how Meg cannot get a boyfriend, and how that seems to be affecting her psychologically. In the third season episode "From Method to Madness", Meg courted Jeff Campbell, a nudist like his parents. Peter and Lois at first disapproved of Jeff's lifestyle, but later disrobed to make him feel more comfortable. In the episode "To Live and Die in Dixie", when asked what her boyfriend gets her, she pretends that Prince William is her boyfriend, exhibits nervous tics and starts crying. Stewie remarks '"She needs to get laid, big time!"' In the episode "Don't Make Me Over", she is seen "dating" a corpse she found next to a railroad track. She comments on how he's a good listener, and when a wolf bites one of his arms away, she compliments him on how good he is with animals.
Also in the episode "Don't Make Me Over", Meg fell for a James Dean-type rebel Craig Hoffman, but she was instantly turned down by him. After getting a major makeover, he ends up asking her on a date. She then becomes the lead singer of a Griffin family band. When the band performs on Saturday Night Live, she loses her virginity to former SNL cast member and that week's host Jimmy Fallon. She is unaware that the interlude is being broadcast until Fallon says to her, "Meg, I just want to say that you make me feel so aLive from New York, it's Saturday Night!".
All her misfortunes finally catch up to her, however. In Stewie Griffin, The Untold Story, in an alternate timeline, Meg apparently gave up her search for love and acceptance, and decided that if she couldn't be loved as a girl, she'd become a boy named Ron. Possible foreshadowing of her sex change: in "I Never Met the Dead Man", before Meg starts to tell her class that her father (and not her, as was thought by many) was the one who ruined Quahog's cable transmission, she does a double take, and a voice-over (supposedly herself in the future) explains that she stuck to her father's bargain because she realized that she would have all the time in the world to make friends and that the opportunity to get a new convertible was much rarer. The voice narrating all this is a male voice, though this was probably meant to parody the popular TV series The Wonder Years rather than indicate a future change in gender. However, considering the fact that Stewie Griffin prevented the accident that would have started his (and the rest of the family's, including Meg's) horrible future, the events of Meg becoming 'Ron' are unlikely to happen.
As an intern at City Hall, Meg had an affair with Mayor West. They would go for walks in the park, to romantic dinners, and meet at hotels to watch cartoons. But Mayor West intended to wait until she was 18 to ravish her -- or 21, or 25, which she could rent a car.
Miscellaneous
- Meg has a talent for calling birds.
- Meg can't taste salt.
- Meg has an imaginary friend named Debbie Miller.
- It is revealed in one episode that Meg once had a tail, most likely from a genetic mutation as Lois comments on while rummaging through old possessions of the family. Meg does not know this.
- In "Brian Sings and Swings", Meg declared herself a lesbian in order to get friends. Ironically, one of her lesbian friends became extremely attracted to her.
- In the episode "Blind Ambition", Meg reveals that she was once blind, deaf, dumb (as in mute), 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".
- Brian has implied in the episode "Screwed the Pooch" that Meg is actually not Peter's daughter. Lois had an apparent relationship with an unseen man named Stan Thompson, who is allegedly Meg's real father. This could account for Meg's apparent "outsider" status within the family. This was however, most likely a throw-away gag, as, as noted above, she has the same colour hair as Peter and also requires glasses (as Peter does).
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- 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.