Stewie Griffin | |
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Family Guy character | |
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Voiced by | Seth MacFarlane |
Character information | |
Full name | Stewart Gilligan Griffin[1][2][3] |
Relatives | Father: Peter Mother: Lois Siblings: Meg (sister), Chris (brother) |
Gender | Male |
Hair color | Brown[4] |
Show information | |
First appearance | "Death Has a Shadow"[5] |
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 and speaks in an affected English accent.[6]
Stewie is considered to be the show's breakout character.[7] Wizard magazine rated him the 95th greatest villain of all time.[8]
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Stewie is one year old and has a sophisticated attitude. He reached his first birthday in the season 1 episode "Chitty Chitty Death Bang", and has remained the same age ever since. Strangely, he talks to Brian about events that happened 3 years ago, although this can be considered normal in Family Guy given that, for example, in "A Picture Is Worth a 1,000 Bucks" Brian claims he knew Andy Warhol who died in 1987. 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, believes that Peter actually takes his nose away, talks to his teddy bear (Rupert) as if he were real, is overcome with laughter when Lois blows on his stomach,[9] 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, and a time machine.[10] Stewie employs these to cope with the stresses of infant life (such as teething pain, and eating hated broccoli[11]) 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,[12] loan sharking,[13] forgery,[14] and killing off many minor characters.[15]
Stewie has been obsessed with his mother's extermination since the beginning of the show, and has commented several times on the subject to other people, such as when he is being interviewed when the family become part of a reality show; "It's not really that I want to kill her... it's just that I don't want her to be alive... any more." His matricidal tendencies are primarily as a result of her constantly (and unknowingly) getting in the way of his evil plans, so he desires to kill her so he can carry out his plans without interference. His attempts are always fruitless in the end, usually resulting from various unfortunate circumstances getting in the way, such as her opening a cupboard door as he attempts to blow a poison dart at her, or simply moving out of the way when he is about to shoot her with a crossbow.
In the Star Wars parody episode "Blue Harvest", Peter imagines Stewie in the role of Darth Vader, which would match his darker personality, although this version of Vader is portrayed as wisecracking and sarcastic. In "The Former Life of Brian", Stewie expresses disappointment at having his face painted as a "kitty-cat", rather than in the likeness of Darth Maul, a Dark Lord of the Sith seen in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Stewie often seems amused when he notices or creates destruction.
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 his plans of matricide and world domination aside for the time being.
Some elements of Stewie's personality come from English actor Sir Rex Harrison. MacFarlane has stated that My Fair Lady (starring Harrison) heavily influenced his portrayal of Stewie, and on the Late Show with David Letterman, described Stewie as "Rex Harrison in an infant's body." Family Guy has included several tributes to My Fair Lady, most notably in "One If by Clam, Two If by Sea" and "Running Mates."
MacFarlane has also on more than one occasion linked Stewie with the actor David Hyde Pierce. A running gag is that people seem to believe Pierce does the voice of Stewie (he doesn't), and MacFarlane himself jokingly made that claim in the 100th episode celebration special.
Stewie's speech is not always understood or acknowledged by other characters. The show once references this in an example of metahumor at the start of the seventh season in Love Blactually. A discussion between Brian and Stewie reveals that characters either fully understand Stewie or only understand him to a degree that is related to the character's closeness to the 'main cast'.
In two episodes, another baby by the name of Olivia communicates similarly to Stewie, with the exception that she is taken seriously by adults. Also, Jillian (Brian's girlfriend of several episodes) appears to understand Stewie just as well.
In "Untitled Griffin Family History", it is clearly shown that the other characters can understand Stewie; when Peter states that he dislikes The Godfather to the point where he can never watch the ending, Stewie asks "Well, how do you know you don't like it if you don't give it a chance?", and Lois says, "I agree with Stewie, it doesn't seem fair."
“ | 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.
Stewie 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.[17] In several situations Stewie is implied to have an attraction for Brian,[18] 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.[19] Stewie has also cross-dressed in several episodes.[20][21] In one episode, when Brian and Stewie are setting up a bet, Stewie asks Brian if he wants to "kiss on it". In a cutaway gag, Stewie states that he likes to go to gay bars to relax (whether or not the other Griffins are aware of this is unknown) and in another 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.
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. He then glances down at his pants and exclaims, "It appears my wee-wee has been stricken with rigor mortis." 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. In another episode, Stewie was on the playground with a girl who was momentarily his girlfriend. 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 in a heterosexual relationship, or pursuing one.[22]
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[23]
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."[24]
On September 27, 2005, 20th Century Fox released a direct-to-video movie featuring Stewie as the main character, titled Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. The movie follows Stewie's cross-country adventures as he searches for a man he believes to be his real father after seeing him on a television news segment.
The movie was re-edited into three half-hour episodes and shown as the season finale on May 21, 2006.[25]
Bertram is Stewie's mostly antagonistic half-brother, and is voiced by Wallace Shawn. While exploring his father's internal organs using his miniaturized flying ship (a la the films Fantastic Voyage and Innerspace), Stewie first meets Bertram as the homuncular inhabitant of a gunship-like spermatozoon (all of Peter's sperm, including Stewie at this stage in existence, appear this way). Their personalities are similar, and in battle they are evenly matched.[9] Bertram returns post-natally, having been sired by Peter via sperm bank donation.[26] Curiously, Bertram was never audibly named in his first appearance, although this could be explained by the fact that he wasn't born yet and his parents named him, and though Stewie refers to him as "Bertram" in all subsequent appearances, he did not do so when they first parted ways.
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; every other physical aspect is identical between the two. 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; it is not made clear whether Bertram occupies the same reality as the rest of Griffin family in the logic of the show. Brian seems to have some knowledge of his existence, but it is uncertain if he is aware of his relation to Stewie.
In Family Guy Video Game!, Stewie discovers Bertram attempting to out do 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.
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