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Running head: SEXISM IN FAMILY GUY

Sexism in Family Guy: A Modern-Day Issue

Devyn Weir

COMM-2400-001

March 25, 2018

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Introduction

Sexism against women is an issue of the modern era. Women face certain stereotypes

within our society and certain stigmas have come into place concerning women’s sexuality, or

the woman’s role in the family. In a paper about the depiction of women in American films,

Bogarosh (2008), citing King (2006) and Steinke (2005), states, “These images [of women] give

society a collective sense of what sorts of professional women make, how women should act and

look, what is the norm for femininity … the images urge conformity to stereotypes.” Now,

television reaches society similarly to film, thus, producing a similar effect. The purpose of this

study was to look into the sexism potentially taking place in the animated adult comedy show,

Family Guy. The study was to observe the stereotypes being reinforced throughout the show’s

final season as well as the actual representation of women throughout each episode. The study

focuses on the fifteenth and final season of Family Guy.

Background

Admittedly, I have been and currently am a viewer of the adult animated cartoon series,

Family Guy. Recently, I discovered a news article which criticized the television program and

consequently, got my attention. The article criticized the show’s content which inspired further

research from myself. Upon further research I identified three outside sources:

Woodzicka, J. Triplett, S. Kochersberger, A. (2013, September 26th). Sexist Humor and Beliefs
that Justify Societal Sexism. Retrieved from
https://uiowa.edu/crisp/crisp/sites/uiowa.edu.crisp/files/art9.26.13_1.pdf
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Marx, N. Sienkiewicz, M. (2014, February 5th ). Click Culture: The Perils and Possibilities of
Family Guy and Convergence-Era Television. Retrieved from
https://nca.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14791420.2013.873943#.WrjMn2aZOCR

LaChrystal, R. (2012, March 22nd). Funny or Harmful?: Derogatory Speech on Fox’s Family
Guy. Retrieved from
https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy.mtroyal.ca/doi/full/10.1080/10510974.2011.6384
12?scroll=top&needAccess=true

These sources examine and criticise the content of Family Guy, as well as sexism in our

society. LaChrystal (2012), citing Abramovich (2009), states, “the show has managed to poke

fun at every race, color, creed, interest group, political affiliation, and even the disabled.” Marx

and Sienkiexicz (2014) continue, stating that Family Guy uses, “remarkably incendiary

representations of marginalized identity groups in its comedy.” Furthermore, Woodzicka,

Triplett and Kochersberger (2013) says, “Research suggests that sexist humor creates a context

that justifies the expression of prejudice against women.” Therefore, I was inspired to conduct

my own research, regarding the potential sexism in the television series, as it was already a

debated subject. Moreover, it was interesting for me to examine this specific series as it is a show

I currently watch.

Methods

First of all, as previously mentioned, the research focused on the fifteenth season of

Family Guy, which at this time is the last season. The decision was made to focus on this past

season as it is the most recent and would most closely depict the comedic framework of the show

in our current time. In addition, the research specified on three episodes of that season. The first

episode of that season, along with the tenth episode, and the twentieth episode. These specific
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episodes were chosen as they represent a timeline throughout the season – the first episode being

the beginning, the tenth episode being in the middle and twentieth being the final episode.

Therefore, it would be possible to see a progression or lack thereof, during the season. Each

episode had a run time of twenty minutes.

Second of all, the episodes were analyzed by coding five separate categories; Women

being the subject of sexist speech; Women being stereotyped; The number of times women were

in an outfit showing cleavage; The number of times women appear in a scene per episode; The

number of times men appear in a scene per episode. The qualitative categories gathered data that

was used to examine the areas of the show which were considered to be subjective. Whereas, the

quantitative categories gathered data to examine the objective parts of the show. Furthermore,

the categories can be broken up into two separate groups of data, quantitative and qualitative

data. The categories falling under qualitative data were as follows; Women being the subject of

sexist speech; and women being stereotyped. The categories which fell under quantitative data

were as follows; The number of times a woman was wearing an outfit with cleavage throughout

the episode; The number of times women appeared throughout the episode; and the number of

times men appeared throughout the episode. The main characters were identified as immediate

members of the Griffin family and were labeled with their corresponding names. All other

characters were considered secondary characters and were identified as such.

First, the first category examined women being the subject of sexist speech. LaChrystal

(2012) defines sexism as, “an unfair or patronizing attitude towards a person of the opposite

sex.” Moreover, to be considered sexist speech, a character had to literally say something to, or
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regarding, a female character that followed the above definition of sexism. The second category

examined women being stereotyped. Heatherton (2000) states that the process of stereotyping is,

“generalizing from an observable characteristic to a set of assumed traits.” Now, there were two

types of stereotypes that were focused on in this study, the first being the traditional roles of

women in the family. Bloomquist (1976), citing Dominick and Raunch, says, “the traditional

roles [of women] prevail with women portrayed as housewife/mother….” The second being the

sexual stereotypes of women, that they are not supposed to be as sexual as men. Muehlenhard

and Hollabaugh (1988) state, “We argue that given societies sexual double standard, token

resistance may be a rational behavior.” Therefore, women are not supposed to be as sexual as

men.

Second, the third category examined the number of times that a woman was wearing an

outfit that showed cleavage in each scene throughout the episode. Any visible woman in each

scene was considered for the collection of this data. Therefore, it did not matter whether she was

the main character in the scene or simply a person in the background. The cleavage was

specifically chosen as Wildman, Wildman II, and Trice (1976) note, “The busts were the female

body part “most sexually stimulating to males.” Thus, appealing to the show’s main viewership –

young adult males. However, potentially promoting a certain desired body image for women.

The fourth and fifth categories focused on the number of times a woman or man appeared in a

scene per episode. The purpose of these categories was to compare the significance of women

versus men in the show. Equally important, for the men or women to be counted as appearing in

a scene they had to have at some point been the focus of that scene, whether it be through their

actions or by saying a line.

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*Note: All of the above sources were used as guidelines regarding the coding.

Results

There were multiple instances of sexist speech as well as female stereotypes throughout

each of the three episodes (See Appendix). In the first episode a woman faced sexist speech a

total of four times and women were stereotyped a total of four times as well. Furthermore, the

tenth episode had a total of zero times when sexist speech occurred and a total of five times when

women were stereotyped. In addition, the twentieth episode had a total of two times when sexist

speech occurred and a total of eight times when women were stereotyped. Therefore, the

stereotyping increased in each episode and the sexist speech had a slight fluctuation in each

episode. In my opinion, these numbers are not as high as I had previously assumed.

Now, in the first episode, women were depicted in an outfit showing cleavage a total of six

times. Moreover, the number rose to fourteen times in the tenth episode and rose again in the

twentieth episode to twenty-seven times. The final two categories examined the number of times

that males and females appeared in each scene throughout each episode (See Appendix). In the

first episode a woman appeared a total of twenty-nine times, whereas a man appeared a total of

seventy-eight times. A woman appeared a total of thirty-two times in the tenth episode (Nineteen

appearances were of Lois Griffin), whereas a man appeared one-hundred and seventeen times. In

the twentieth episode women appeared a total of twenty-six times (Nineteen of those were Lois

Griffin), whereas men appeared forty-five times. Consequently, it can be observed that men

made more appearances per scene than women did in each episode.
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Figure 1. Lois washing the dishes in the kitchen. Taken from: Family Guy, Season 15, Episode

20.

The above photograph depicts the subtle stereotyping of Lois being the traditional housewife.

Discussion

Sexism against women occurred throughout the three episodes of Family Guy that were

examined, whether through speech by the characters, or through female stereotypes. Now, as I

previously mentioned, the amount of times that these sexist situations occurred were not as high

as I had presumed, based off of the articles I had read. However, there is a clear difference in

simple representation of women compared to men in the examination of these three episodes.

Men clearly made more appearances than women, which in and of itself is sexist. Specifically, in
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the tenth episode men appeared around every ten seconds compared to women who appeared

around every 38 seconds. Therefore, the actual appearance of women on camera was unequal to

that of men. Furthermore, the amount of times that women were depicted with an outfit that

showed cleavage was especially significant in the twentieth episode as it had the highest number

of occurrences out of the three examined episodes, thus, perpetuating a certain female body

image. Moreover, in a twenty-minute episode, as was the twentieth episode, there was a woman

with cleavage around every forty-five seconds. Now, naturally more could have been done in this

study, such as examining all of the episodes of the final season instead of a select few. Thus,

providing a deeper sample of evidence supporting or opposing sexism in Family Guy. Also, one

could go so far as to examine the first season, or seasons, of the show and compare those to the

current seasons, as a means of examining if the show has become more sexist or less sexist

throughout the years. Moreover, as I researched articles regarding Family Guy and examined the

three episodes of the final season, I realised that more research could be done on the

representation of races in the show and its potentially racist humour.

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References

Woodzicka, J. Triplett, S. Kochersberger, A. (2013, September 26th). Sexist Humor and Beliefs
that Justify Societal Sexism. Retrieved from
https://uiowa.edu/crisp/crisp/sites/uiowa.edu.crisp/files/art9.26.13_1.pdf

Marx, N. Sienkiewicz, M. (2014, February 5th ). Click Culture: The Perils and Possibilities of
Family Guy and Convergence-Era Television. Retrieved from
https://nca.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14791420.2013.873943#.WrjMn2aZOCR

LaChrystal, R. (2012, March 22nd). Funny or Harmful?: Derogatory Speech on Fox’s Family
Guy. Retrieved from
https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy.mtroyal.ca/doi/full/10.1080/10510974.2011.6384
12?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Heatherton, T. (2000, July 13th). The Social Psychology of Stigma. Retrieved from
https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=--
a5c_Q0COYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA88&dq=what+are+stereotypes&ots=E3MCVyDFSy&sig
=cz3w8A-2zgEEU_bFRdSuwL8BJCM#v=onepage&q=what%20are
%20stereotypes&f=false

Trice, A. Wildman RW. Wildman RW II. (1976, April 1st). Note on males’ and females’
preferences for opposite-sex body parts, bust sizes, and bust revealing clothing.
Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1976.38.2.485

O’Kelly, C. Bloomquist, L. (1976, December). Women and Blacks on TV. Retrieved from
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1976.tb01956.x

Bogarosh, N. (2008). Blockbuster movies and what they teach us about women in American
society. Retrieved from
https://search.proquest.com/openview/a0cbd5669cbc49b76756bb4be64a3b6b/1?pq-
origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Muehlenhard, C. Hollabaugh, L. (1988, May). Do women sometimes say no when they mean
yes? The prevelance and correlates of women’s token resistance to sex. Retrieved from
http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1988-26427-001
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Appendix

Coding Tables

Women being the subject of sexist speech. WSS

Woman being stereotyped. WST

The number of times women appear in a scene per episode. TWA

The number of times men appear in a scene per episode. TMA

Woman in an outfit showing cleavage. WSC

Family Guy WSS WST WSC TWA TMA

Season 15 (Per Scene) (Per Scene) (Per Scene)
Episode 1
Peter - - - - 8
Lois 1 2 - 6 -
Meg 0 0 - 1 -
Brian - - - - 17
Stewie - - - - 21
Chris - - - - 9
Secondary 3 2 6 22 23
Characters
Total 4 4 6 29 78

Family Guy WSS WST WSC TWA TMA

Season 15 (Per Scene) (Per Scene) (Per Scene)
Episode 10
Peter - - - - 25
Lois 0 3 1 19 -
Meg 0 - 6 -
Brian - - - - 0
Stewie - - - - 2
Chris - - - - 2
Secondary 0 2 13 7 88
Characters
Total 0 5 14 32 117
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Family Guy WSS WST WSC WA MA

Season 15 (Per Scene) (Per Scene) (Per Scene)
Episode 20
Peter - - - - 14
Lois 2 5 4 19 -
Meg 0 0 - 3 -
Brian - - - - 2
Stewie - - - - 4
Chris - - - - 2
Secondary 0 3 23 4 23
Characters
Total 2 8 27 26 45
*Note: More instances of cleavage were reported because they included every character who was
visible in the scene (not solely the main characters of the scene).

Definitions

W/M – women or men, defined visually or verbally in the episode

SS – sexist speech, as defined by LaChrystal (2012)

ST- stereotypes, as defined by Heatherton (2000), Blooquist (1976), Hollabaugh (1988)

SC – anytime cleavage was visible on any charater

A – appearances of either women or men