Lois Griffin's The Son Also Draws

Lois Griffin, the woman of the household, is a gambling addict and have abused drugs before in her life. She serves as a terrible role model for mothers, especially teen moms. In the television series Season 1 Episode 6 “The Son Also Draws”, it is shown that Lois Griffin enters an Indian casino after the family takes a wrong turn from their road trip to New York. When she enters the casino, Lois Griffin can not stay away from the slot machine and starts to spend all of the family’s money. She even lost her family’s car due to her gambling addiction causing them to be stranded without a vehicle. Additionally, in Season 4 Episode 10 “Model Misbehavior”, Lois Griffin disobeys her father orders of restricting her from entering a yacht race and

eventually winning it. After realizing the positive outcome of disobeying her father, she continues to go against him and fulfills her dream by becoming a model. She starts attending parties where she abuses drugs and it inflicts harm on her relationship with her family.

At the end of the episode, Lois Griffin realizes her mistakes and decides to quit modelling and withdraw from using drugs. This is a horrible role model for mothers of all ages, especially new mothers who have recently given birth to a child. First time mothers do not know how to fulfill their role and could pick up some of the bad traits that Lois Griffin is exhibiting in the television series. Barbara D. Janusz mentions in her article that there are “cases where [mothers] betrayed their loved ones, lied to them or perhaps stole money” (30). Janusz explains that mothers are likely to put their gambling addiction ahead of anything else in their lives. Although mothers are trained to put their family’s needs before themselves, gambling addicts prefer to prioritize their selfish addiction. Sometimes the mother would lie to their family and even steal money to satisfy their wants. Gambling addiction is a dangerous problem because it can drastically affect a family and likely to break apart their bond. It is conceivable that a household will have conflicts over money because the gambler needs to feed their selfish

addiction. In an article that Jim Orford wrote, he analyzes the experiences the family members go through when having a relative who is a gambling addict. He points out that “sometimes the relative was described as isolating himself or herself” (45). The word “isolating” means to set apart and detach to be alone. When Orford uses the term “isolating” he means that the relative, who is an addict, has stopped spending time with their family and dissociating themselves emotionally. This is exceedingly stressful for the family members because it is as if they have lost their relative emotionally. It is difficult for the family to communicate with the addict because they are either unwilling to cooperate or they are spending their time at the casino. Thus, the writers of the episode “The Son Also Draws” and “Model Misbehavior” have no concern for families who are, in reality, struggling to support their relatives who have a gambling problem. The series continue to prove that the producers of Family Guy have no regard for others and are only interested in developing humorous scenes for their own profit.
Meg Griffin is constantly being abused by her entire family, both verbally and physically. The television series always includes a scene where Peter Griffin hits his daughter without reason. In Season 10 Episode 2 “Seahorse Seashell Party” of Family Guy, Meg Griffin finally stands up for herself after years of abuse from her family and starts to point out the faults of her entire family. While the Griffin family was stuck inside their house because of a violent storm, they try to entertain themselves. However, no one was able to keep themselves entertained and they start to blame Meg Griffin for that. The family continues to take their irritation out on Meg Griffin. They neglect her from a game called “finger-bang” and they blame her for unwillingly disrupting Peter’s humming by opening a soda. Finally, she justifies herself after enduring all the grievance of her family, and exclaims that her family are immature and flawed. After the family turn on themselves and blame one another, Meg Griffin decided that it was not the right thing to do. She thought that she had to be the “lightning rod” to absorb and endure all her family’s frustration. She resolved the issue by confessing to her family that she was just releasing all the stress on her family. This restored the family’s ego and their initial judgement on Meg. She did this knowing the fact that she would be abused by her family once again. From this episode we can see that it is clear Peter Griffin physically and verbally abuses Meg for fun. Additionally, Lois Griffin is a cold hearted mother that shows little to no affection for her daughter. Moreover, Chris Griffin, although he is a brother to Meg Griffin, does not have the will to back up his sister and defend her from the insults delivered by her family. The producers are inventing a parody about family abuse when it is a major topic in society. In a study that Gitanjali Saluja conducted on familial violence directed at adolescents, she proves that “they are … vulnerable to physical and psychological trauma” (22). The term “trauma” defined pathologically is a shock produced from physical injury. However, if it is defined in psychiatric terms, it means an experience that produces psychological injury. Saluja uses the term “trauma” to indicate that adolescents encounter tremendous and excruciating pain from familial violence physically and mentally.
Saluja also applies the remarks “physical” and “psychological”. The word “physical” means that it is related to the body, and the word “psychological” denotes that it is pertaining with the mind. She uses these two words to imply that “trauma” can be inflicted on children and will affect the mind as well as the body. This can cause adolescents to become suicidal because they might not be able to bear the “trauma” they are suffering through. Meg Griffin represents an abused and traumatized girl in our society. The creators of the character Meg Griffin have no consideration for children who are being abused in reality. They continue to produce laughter from an unfortunate situation and have no appreciation for integrity.
Chris Griffin is a spoiled and uneducated child that depends solely on others for help.

He does not have any awareness of responsibility and can not take care of himself. In Season 11 Episode 13 of Family Guy the episode titled “Chris Cross”, Chris steals money from his mother to buy a new pair of sneakers after being teased by his classmates for having a no name brand. However, Meg Griffin catches him doing this and demands that Chris become her servant and forces him to do anything that she desires. After being unable to cope with the demands, Chris leaves the house and in the meanwhile Meg tries her best to cover up the fact that Chris ran away. This episode of Family Guy clearly displayed the mentality of Chris Griffin. He is a spoiled child who will resort to stealing money from his parents to achieve his physical wants for pleasure or popularity. It also proves that he has no desire or will to work for what he wants and has no value for virtue. Chris took the easy route by stealing money and does not bear any responsibility for his actions. This provides an appalling exemplar for the audience who are teenagers. The show misleads the viewers from doing what is right and instructs them to steal money from their parents when certain circumstances do not go the way they planned. Additionally, in Season 9 Episode 8 “New Kidney in Town” presents a scenario in which Chris plagiarizes his sister, Meg Griffin, in his English essay about hope when the president, Barrack Obama,

visits their city. Eventually, Chris gets away with plagiarizing and his essay was still considered the best in his class. This teaches teenagers in school that it is okay to plagiarize as long as no one notices it. It is a serious offense to plagiarize because some students could be expelled for such a threat. However, the show does not show any care for what kind of message they are conveying to their audience and prioritize the show’s success over ethics. Peg Dawson mentions in her article, “Lazy -- Or Not?”, that teenagers who lack executive skills “make careless mistakes because they rush through work or dawdle until they run out of time” (36). In this article, Dawson points out the consequences of teenagers who do not know how to plan and organize activities. She comments that they “dawdle” because they do not have the executive ability to plan their work out. The word “dawdle” means to waste time or to be idle and loiter. It relates to Chris Griffin a lot because in the show it repeatedly illustrates him having no executive skill and always idling spending no time doing his school work. It is a heinous character to even observe because he is so unproductive in his life. It would be unfortunate if any teenager were to exhibit the traits of Chris Griffin in the television series. Consistently, the writers of Family Guy produce dreadful characters knowing that children and teenagers are watching their show. They have absolutely no sentiment of respect for the society to create an epitome for their audience.
The famous series Family Guy is an animated cartoon that contributes utterly nothing beneficial to society. It has completely no righteous principles to follow and no standards anyhow. Despite the show being wholly unprincipled and degrading to society, many children watch the show mindlessly without realizing that it could affect their behaviour. Additionally, Family Guy ridicules many religious beliefs and present problems unknowingly insulting their own audience. The television series include four main characters who are the origin of laughter in the show. These include a father who regularly consumes alcohol, an unreliable mother who is a gambling addict and drug abuser, a daughter who is continually abused palpably and verbally by her family, and a irresponsible son who is extremely dependent on his family. With abundant evidence from the show’s episode itself, it substantiates that the cartoon has not one thing that can serve as a positive lesson for society. It is the worst sitcom for anyone to watch because it brainwashes them to become accustomed to the reprehensible attitudes shown in the series. If the gags and jokes were removed from the show, it would basically be a television show which portrays a family calamity.