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Lois Griffin

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Lois Griffin (née Pewterschmidt) is a cartoon character on the TV show Family Guy by Seth MacFarlane. She is the wife of Peter Griffin, and the mother of Meg, Chris, and Stewie. Lois is voiced by Alex Borstein. Like Peter, she has a New England accent.

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Life

Born into the wealthy Pewterschmidt family around 1960, Lois met Peter while he was a towel boy at the family country club. Lois fell in love with him because she found his lower-class, easy-going silliness more appealing than the stuffy, uptight suitors in her social circle. Lois was crowned Miss Teen Rhode Island and wanted to pursue a modeling career, but her father thought that was beneath the dignity of the family.

A strange backstory (probably intended as a joke) for Lois is shown in the episode "Lethal Weapons". A flashback shows her as a circus show freak chanting "Me likey bouncey!" pictured as a "cavegirl" in a purple leopard-skin toga-style garment on a trampoline. There was no attempt to mesh that backstory with the wealthy Pewterschmidt backstory, nor was it ever mentioned in any subsequent episode.

In "The Story on Page One", Lois reveals that she attended college at Kent State. "This one time, the National Guard came and shot some of my friends," she said, apparently referring to the Kent State shootings. This may be a discrepancy, because if she was 40 in 1999 when the series started, she would have been about 11 when the shootings happened on May 4, 1970. However, Mary Ann Vecchio, who was depicted crying over the body of Jeffrey Miller in the famous John Filo photograph, was only 14 at the time of the shooting, and thus also not a student at the time.[1]

Before meeting Peter, Lois had relationships with other men: J. Geils, the "pyro guy" from the band Whitesnake and Chaim Witz (aka Gene Simmons of KISS), a fact of which Peter was very proud when he learned of it in the episode "Road to Europe". Lois was also known as "Loose Lois". She has also been romantically linked to singing duo Hall & Oates. She has an extensive collection of real life plaster molds of male genitalia from her liaisons. She also had an apparent relationship with an unseen man named Stan Thompson, who is allegedly Meg's real father. Though, since this is never visited upon in any other episodes, it may have just been part of a gag. In the direct-to-DVD Family Guy movie she hints that she may be bisexual or once lesbian by saying "Women are such teases, that's why I went back to men."

Lois was raised Protestant, for which Peter's staunch Roman Catholic father, Francis, despises her; on their wedding day, Francis spray-painted, underneath the "Just Married" sign on the back of their car, "To a Protestant Whore". She and Peter raise their children in the Roman Catholic Church, but Francis still hates her. On the other hand, Peter's mother, Thelma, gets along very well with Lois.

As she gave up her inheritance for Peter, Lois, not surprisingly, has a testy relationship with her father, a man who can be best described as an intolerant bigot. It can be reasoned that her pre-marital promiscuity and marriage was her way of rebelling against or humiliating him. However, the fact she calls him "Daddy" and dotes on him whenever she visits him suggests that she still seeks his approval. Lois may also have married Peter to spite her own parents' marriage, which seems to be based more around money than love (in one episode, her father openly scoffed at the idea that he loved her mother). Indeed, her father seems disturbingly uncaring towards his daughter. In her youth she was kidnapped and held for ransom. When the kidnappers made her call her father to plead for ransom money, her father simply replied that the Pewterschmidt family policy meant they did not negotiate with kidnappers. He casually hung up the phone on her, simply saying "she'll be alright." The relationship between Lois and her Mother, Barbara, is never explained in great detail, as Barbara is the only grandparent who has not been the main character in any of the episodes. In the few scenes where they appear together, she and her daughter do not appear to have any mutual dislike for one another.

Lois teaches piano to supplement the family's income, though spends most of her time caring for her family. Chris was unusually heavy at birth (a newspaper clipping on the refrigerator has a picture of Lois in a hospital bed looking extremely haggard and holding Chris; the caption reads "Elephant Child Born to Local Woman"), while her youngest son Stewie is intent on matricide, though she is oblivious to this. In "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", she finally realizes that Stewie is a killer and regrets ignoring the warning signs. This was, however, only a dream, which culminated in Stewie opening up a hole in the floor through which Lois fell, after which she woke up and forgot all about it.

After Peter had been lost at sea for a few months and presumed dead, Lois and Brian wed in a sexless marriage of convenience. When Peter was finally rescued, Lois was torn between her affection for Peter and her commitment to Brian. Brian understood and divorced Lois, but what annoyed Brian was that right after they divorced, Lois said "and I was just about to push the beds together and take you around the freaking world."

Lois has a sister who has had several husbands, of which all have left her, and had a baby boy by her last husband. She also has a brother, Patrick, who was unknown to Lois until the fourth season episode "The Fat Guy Strangler". He was placed in an asylum due to walking in on his mother and Jackie Gleason having oral sex which caused him to become a serial killer of fat men. He is forced to relive this traumatic event when Peter imitates Gleason's character in The Honeymooners, Ralph Kramden, repeating the line "Pow! Right in the kisser!" several times, the line that Jackie Gleason said to Patrick during the incident that makes him remember it.

At some point between the first episode and the possible future shown in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, Lois opened a bank account she kept secret from Peter.

Personality & Health

There is a curious duality to Lois' personality. She can be vacuous at times, highly obsessed with perfection and morality, then goes onto a radical or activist mode to protest things she felt is sexist or misogynist, and seems to come across as what many modern Americans would (perhaps erroneously) term a "typical mother", or worse...a loud-mouthed "bitch". However, this is in strong contrast to her other role in the series as a firebrand, and a strong woman who is exceedingly capable. This duality is best expressed in the character's own words:

"I'm like one of those bald eagles you see on the Discovery Channel. Beautiful to look at, but mess with one of my chicks and I'll use my razor sharp talons to claw your *fucking eyes out! Cookies are done!" (The actual swear word in that sentence was obscured by the oven timer buzzing to indicate the cookies were done). In "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas", she has a nervous breakdown when just about everything goes wrong (there are no paper towels left to clean up a mess caused by a fire), throws a destructive tantrum, and is subdued with a tranquilizer. Lois partially explains her role as a mother and housewife by saying that feminism is about choice, and that she chose to not have a job, and shouldn't be stereotyped as a typical housewife.

Lois' personality is supposedly overbearing, wants domination, matriarchal in approach, naggy or highly verbal, and a feminist knee-jerk liberal but socially conservative both came from her blue-blood, blue state upbringing and that brought on conflict with a redneck-like, red state-minded husband. Other fans believe Lois is Jewish in a way (parentage if not religion), she shared deragatory stereotypes of Jewish women in emotional attitudes and exhibited features, appears politically correct or anti-semitic to some viewers. (e.g. Fran Drescher's neurotic gaudy main character on The Nanny and Kyle's mother acts similarily on South Park).

Lois has some unexpected talents. She can calculate the street value of confiscated drugs with ease ("The Thin White Line"), and is a skilled lounge singer.

Lois' morals can seem questionable at times. In addition to being a long-time counterfeiter (making 10-dollar bills), she also went through a brief period of kleptomania ("Breaking Out Is Hard to Do"). She also showed a gambling addiction when the family went to an indian casino in the first season.

When Lois appeared on Diane Simmons' talk show, an onscreen title described her as "Probably more of a bitch than she lets on." (To which Lois responds, "Oh, go fuck yourself, Diane.")

Lois engages in the lengthiest actual conversations with her daughter Meg, giving advice and so forth. It may be deduced, however, that she does not care as much about Meg as she seems to. Support for this claim comes in the episode "Breaking Out Is Hard to Do", when a Griffin family friend, paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson, starts to slip and fall into the sewers. Lois grabs him but slowly loses grip. Joe yells at her to pretend that he is one of her children, but when he continues to slip, Joe screams, "Not MEG!", and Lois pulls Joe to safety.

Part of this seeming hatred may result from resentment over the inconvenience of Meg's birth; in the direct-to-DVD Family Guy movie, Lois reveals that her pregnancy with Meg prevented her from participating in the Olympics after which she comments "Now I'm pro-choice."

Besides her quirkiness and hidden talents, Lois has a strong sexual side as well, to the point where it could be assumed she has nymphomania. One instance finds her in a dominatrix outfit, while another episode has her reaching an emotional climax by yelling at Peter to slap her panty-clad backside. Later, she role-plays the bad school girl, asking Peter for a spanking. Lois can be cuddly, too, and aggressive as well. She is playful and willing to take the lead if she feels like it.

Lois has even exhibited signs of being a lesbian, or at the very least a bisexual. First evidence of this came in the Season 2 episode "Fifteen Minutes of Shame", where Lois intrudes on Meg's slumber party and says that she and her friends used to practice French kissing, at which point she asks everyone there to pair up. In the Family Guy Movie during one of Peter's "Grinds My Gears" segments he says "We all know that no woman anywhere wants to have sex with anyone." to which Lois responds with "Women are such teases. That's why I went back to men." After saying this, Meg acts repulsed, while Chris says "Go on...", but nothing else is said about it. In addition during the Season 4 episode "Brian Sings and Swings" Lois passionately kisses a young lesbian friend of Meg's, but does this only to show Meg what a "real" kiss would be (Since Meg's "kiss" was more like a peck). Additionaly in a deleted scene on the DVD set for season 4b, Lois describes excitedly to her priest the joys of lesbian sex.

In Season 4, it was revealed that what Lois did not realize was that she had acquired a tumor in her brain while repressing the feelings and thoughts of what kind of man she married, especially one with mental retardation. She puts up with his childish stupidity and hides how she truly feels about him, but at a hidden price. Along with other jokes and subtle implications, this suggests that Lois is not happy with her marriage. It is in fact possible that her character is a parody of "spoiled rich girls" who give it all up to be with the men they love only to find that it is not all it's cracked up to be (specifically in regards to the film Dirty Dancing). Regardless of what regrets she may have concerning her marriage, the fact that she remains married to Peter implies that she gets something out of it.

When Peter went blind from nickel poisoning, Lois stops wearing makeup until Peter gets his sight back. Without makeup, her skin is an unhealthy-looking pale color.

After being doused with hot French fry oil, Lois spent at least several days in the hospital bandaged from head to toe (in the episode "Petarded"). When she was released, she exhibited no visible scarring, but said she would smell like French fries for 6 months.

When Lois first tried to wean Stewie off breast milk, her breasts swell in size by two bra sizes and after a few days, she decided to resume breastfeeding him (season 4b, "I Take Thee Quagmire").

In the episode, "Sibling Rivalry" Lois channels her sexual frustration into eating and after she becomes fat, Peter's interest is renewed and things heat back up in the bedroom until her unhealthy eating habits get the best of her. She suffers a heart attack, and during the surgery the doctor removes the fat which returns her to normal.

Trivia

  • In the original pilot pitch for FOX (included in the Family Guy: Volume Two DVD boxed set), Lois was blonde rather than redheaded.
  • The third season episode "Lethal Weapons" suggests that Lois is going to explode when she turns 50 because when Stewie was in her uterus he planted a bomb. Stewie said "My first act of violence was that ticking time-bomb I left in your uterus. Happy 50th birthday Lois!" (Dialogue from other episodes seems to indicate Lois is 40 years old as of Season 3).
    • This is contradicted in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story when you see everybody thirty years in the future. Lois (who would presumably be at least 70) is still alive living in a retirement home with Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland and Joe. On the other hand, Stewie was surprised to see her still alive in the future, saying: "She's still alive?! What the hell, man?!"

References

  • S. Callaghan Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide : Seasons 1 - 3 New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2005
  • A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 4" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 3.January 2006: 13, 14, 17 - 24 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs03Ja.pdf
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