Family Guy is a broad comedy that takes punches at many targets and isn’t afraid to offend. Over 23 seasons, Seth MacFarlane‘s animated series for FOX has had many controversies. But, the most hard-to-watch moment comes in the episode “Quagmire’s Dad,” in which Glenn Quagmire (MacFarlane) gets a visit from his Vietnam veteran parent, who comes out to him as a trans woman and gets a gender-affirming procedure.
Ida Davis (MacFarlane) is a shaky representation of the trans community, but of course no one’s watching Family Guy for well-rounded and realistic trans characters. Most of the episode’s playful punches are par for the course, but there’s one moment when the show goes too far in portraying absolute revulsion towards trans women. In that moment, the episode goes from typical Family Guy absurdity to feeling truly hateful.
This ‘Family Guy’ Episode Attempts To Be “Playfully” Offensive
In “Quagmire’s Dad,” Quagmire and his neighbors adjust to Ida’s new identity. The jokes throughout the first two acts are the sort of mixed bag you’d expect from an edgy show like Family Guy. Some feel ignorant, like Ida describing what happened to her genitals in surgery in ridiculous detail. Some seem to be taking shots at transphobes, like Lois Griffin (Alex Borstein) nervously laughing and saying, “Let’s just all agree that he’s odd.” Most are the kind of jokes Family Guy excels at that are just too silly to be that offensive and turn the joke on the ones making the offensive comments. One example is when Peter Griffin (MacFarlane) suggests they should do an ’80s-style makeover montage where Ida keeps walking out as a different sex.
2:48
Related
Can Family Guy Characters Understand Stewie?
Can the Griffins hear Stewie talk? From Brian to Peter, we explore Family Guy’s funniest mystery and what Seth MacFarlane says about it.
In the subplot of the episode, Brian Griffin (MacFarlane) is out of town for a seminar and misses the big news. Brian’s first night back, he runs into Ida at a hotel bar and ends up sleeping with her. When he catches up with Stewie Griffin (MacFarlane), he says he’s just met a beautiful woman who might be his soulmate. Then, Stewie tells him about the transition. Brian responds by referring to her with the pronoun “it” and saying he can’t even imagine how “people like that” have sex. Up to a point, this scene mostly works both as farce and as social commentary. The dramatic irony makes the scene bold and interesting. Brian’s dehumanizing language about trans women even after he fell hard for Ida in real life illustrates how divorced transphobes’ ideas are from reality.
“Quagmire’s Dad” Takes an Upsetting Turn Into Trans Panic
The episode turns hateful when Brian finally realizes the trans woman Stewie is telling him about is actually the woman he was with last night. At that point, he throws up for almost a full minute of deeply uncomfortable screentime. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he compared Ida to a sex offender by saying he thought people like that are supposed to inform the neighborhood when they move somewhere. The visceral level of Brian’s disgust — with the full minute of vomit — makes this one of the hardest episodes of a comedy to rewatch.
The outsized reaction may be one of Family Guy‘s signature overly long gross-out gags, but it’s also a depiction of trans panic. This is a brand of transphobia that leads to assaults and even murders. The Netflix documentary Disclosure shows how trans representation in media is tied to attacks on trans people, a connection that makes it hard to just move on after watching this scene. The episode tries to have it both ways by following this with a sweet scene of Quagmire accepting Ida, but at that point it had already crossed a line.
“Quagmire’s Dad” Isn’t Just a Product of Its Time
When an older episode of a show is offensive, it’s easy to assume it simply hasn’t aged well. But, saying this about “Quagmire’s Dad” would be a misrepresentation of 2010. Although this episode predates the major turning point in trans representation that would happen years later with Transparent, Caitlyn Jenner‘s Vanity Fair cover, and Laverne Cox‘s role on Orange is the New Black, the media was already beginning to take a more nuanced and understanding view of trans people. This episode came out the same year that Degrassi added Adam Torres (Jordan Todosey), the first transgender main character in the history of Canadian television. It was also years after Dirty Sexy Money made Candis Cayne the first trans actress to play a recurring transgender character in primetime. Rather than feeling like a product of its time, it feels oddly behind for 2010.
Even ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Was Less Offensive Than ‘Family Guy’
Taking a look at a trans storyline from a comparable show, “Quagmire’s Dad” was three years after the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode “Mac Is a Serial Killer.” This episode revolves around Mac (Rob Mac) and his shame in being with a trans woman named Carmen (Brittany Daniel). It’s notable how much less outright disgusting this episode feels than “Quagmire’s Dad.” When Mac tells Carmen he can’t handle when her genitals press against him, it can reasonably be interpreted as his own insecurity rather than just repulsion. By Carmen’s return in It’s Always Sunny Season 6, which aired the same year as “Quagmire’s Dad,” the show moved even further towards portraying Carmen positively, as she gets married to a man who loves her and has a baby with her, while the gang pushes back on Mac’s transphobic feelings towards her.
The Carmen storyline on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has received its own share of criticisms and the arc is nowhere near perfect. But, it provides a point of comparison that shows how Brian’s level of disgust and panic at finding out Ida is trans was unusual even for the time and even among comedies known for being offensive. Family Guy has made a lot of offensive jokes at an array of targets over the years. But, Brian vomiting at the idea of being with a trans woman is one of the most openly cruel. It plays into dangerous ideas that were already outdated by the time the episode came out. As a result, it’s one of the hardest moments to watch in the history of the show.
Family Guy
- Release Date
-
January 31, 1999
- Network
-
FOX
-
Alex Borstein
Lois Griffin / Tricia Takanawa / Loretta Brown / Barbara Pewterschmidt (voice)
-
