Thursday, January 8, 2009
Image of Stewie Griffin
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 British accent.
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 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 alive, is overcome with laughter when Lois blows on his stomach, 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. Stewie employs these to cope with the stresses of infant life (such as teething pain, and eating hated broccoli) 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, loan sharking, forgery, and killing off many minor characters.
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 want her not 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 to match the show's comedic style. 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.
Despite his evil, Stewie does seem to have a human side. For example, in "Chick Cancer", when Brian unwittingly makes a racist comment while the two of them are discussing Stewie's "marriage" to Olivia Fuller, Stewie is openly disgusted by it. When Brian profusely apologizes, Stewie leaves, saying, "You gotta work on that. Bad dog."(Wikipedia)