Can Seth MacFarlane and crew really not write for girls?

There'd be no point in doing that as it wouldn't accomplish anything to improve Seth's writing team's treatment of its' female characters. The individual characters themselves would need to be made stronger and more dynamic before anyone entertained the thought of placing them on each others' shows. Just crossing those characters over alone wouldn't make them better. Zero times two is still zero.
 
You'd think there would be someone, anyone, on the Family Guy writing staff who'd be like "I know what to do with Meg. I'll be her shepherd", but no, they seem content with her being the butt of everybody's jokes.

Also, you'd think they'd give Haley more stuff to do, being that she's voiced by Seth McFarlane's sister, but I guess nepotism doesn't work like it used to.
 
The mainstream audience who watches this show doesn't care about Meg. They tune in for Peter and Stewie. No one working on the show is going to take the initiative and get in Meg's corner because she isn't a character the audience tunes in to see. I know I don't.
 
If Meg was nothing more than a minor gag character who only appears whenever they itch to dump on the whiny teenager stereotype, then no problem with that kind of justification.

Except she is a member of the regular cast and is continually billed as such in the show's promotional materials, so for the writers to handle her like that is inexcusably lazy. Any character who is part of a show's regular cast should be interesting and entertaining enough to justify holding such a role; in other words, he or she should have a bit more significance to the show than being a near-literal walking doormat.

As far as the original thread question goes... if a writer -- any writer, not just McFarlane's crew -- doesn't want to write for a specific gender, then don't include them in the main/regular cast to begin with. It's far more honest to do that (even with the inevitable feminist backlash) than including them for the mere sake of P.C. and then refusing to do anything substantial with them for whatever bullcrap reason like "men can't write for women".
 
There is a petition on GoPetition.com for Meg Griffin to have her own show. If you get a chance, go and vote. I agree that Meg is a main member of the show and it it doesn't make sense for Seth to make family shows if he doesn't include the entire family which includes girls. Not everybody wants to see Peter and Stewie. Having these 2 shoved in our faces all the time is overkill. If Meg dropped the cap,had longer hair and was taller, she would be better as a character. Can somebody send a picture? Meg has friends but they should be seen more. Lois only has Bonnie and no other female friends, Francine has no friends and Roberta had friends but they were written off. The Meg abuse joke is not funny. It is lazy not writing for Meg because she can be a great character. Dial Meg for Murder was a great example.
 
Well I don't think that most manatee's know how to write for human women.

First post by the way,

but seriously I've never been impressed with the writing on family guy, the only character who stays consistent is Brian. Remember when Stewie wanted to take over the world? now he's just a closeted gay baby (which admittedly is pretty funny when said like that.)
 
That wouldn't improve Meg as a character. That would only make her (somewhat) more attractive physically. Personally, while I do agree that the cap needs to go, I don't think that the length of Meg's hair or her height are major issues regarding the character.

Meg needs to have some quirks, failings and obsessions. She needs to have some interplay with 1 or more of the other cast members besides the usual formula of everyone else treating her like the scum you scrape off of tomato soup. Meg needs to have cutaway gags centering on her. All Meg really needs is for someone to take the reigns and really work to improve her character. It could happen, but no one at FG wants to make it happen.
 
Because like I said, there's no motivation to do so. Yes, we know Meg has her fans but I've found that a majority of her fans are usually people who reside on the internet, who feel for the character and who think she deserves more than what she gets. The mainstream audience - which are the ones primarily responsible for making the show a success - don't care about Meg. Most people are turning in for Peter, Stewie, Brian and Quagmire. If Meg gets a plot to herself once in a while that's fine. But the core Family Guy audience probably won't tolerate any more than that and believe me a Meg solo series would crash and burn faster than you can say "Sit Down, Shut Up". I laugh at the Meg abuse. All my friends do. She doesn't exist. The female writers and directors of the show don't care. Mila Kunis doesn't care. This isn't something that's going to change.

And altering the character? Yeah that worked as a one time things in episodes such as "Don't Make Me Over" and "Meg Over Murder" but changing Meg permanently in order to make her more attractive is a complete 180 for the character that goes against the mentality of the show.
 
Wow. That's a harsh truth.

No.
Why would you expect the people that have done such a horrible job so far to do an about face and reform a character to be everything you want?
They'll never satisfy you.

Wouldn't it be better to support someone that has already made a show that features a good female lead?
Like the makers of Kim Possible or something.

Just what I was thinking. Except apparently there are people who want a happy Meg.
What's next, a smart Peter?
That'd be shallow and pedantic.


I could see more potential in a Consuela spin off.
 
But should that really be a good thing for the show to do the same thing as always instead of going against expectations? Just not caring and saying that any change is bad seems like kind of a lazy way to do things.

And technically, people on the internet as well as the initial cult fandom made the show become a success (enough to get it back on the air) before the mainstream latched onto it. So it would be at least a bit unfair to say that their opinion doesn't matter.

Also, giving Meg something more to her, no matter how minor, other than being a punching bag won't automatically crash the show and alienate the mainstream audience. That's viewing things in too much of a black and white way.
 
A Consuelo spinoff? I don't think so. Cleveland got his own show and it is horrible. I'm black and I hate it. Give Meg the write writers who know how to write for teengirls and place her in college. It was great to see Meg beat the living daylights out Peter even though she was out of character but he deserved it.

This isn't only happening to Meg but to also Hayley and Roberta. I don't care for Roberta. What if Seths' obsession with families? If he can't write for women, why bother to create family sitcoms? I agree that there so much more to Meg and giving her quirks, failings and obsessions would work. 3 shows in a row with the fat guy marrying the beautiful wife is enough. Not everybody wants to see Peter, Brian and Stewie all the time because it is overkill and the same with Roger and Quagmire.
 
Because that's what FOX wants. People need to stop lobbing every complaint at Seth himself. Cripes, he doesn't direct the shows. He doesn't write the shows. The Cleveland Show wasn't even his idea in the first place. Mike Henry wanted to do it.



No one is going to tune in for a Meg-centric show. Period. Honestly, she's just as fleshed out as any of the other secondary characters on the show and seems to get more screen time than Chris at the very least. It's just that the online demographic who is in love with the character and want her to be more than she is on the show isn't happy with the "quirks, failings and obsessions" she already has. These people want and completely different character and a completely different show.



Not everyone, but the majority of the mainstream audience does. These are the characters you see most in marketing and merchandising. These are the core characters. Very few people I know of tune in for Meg.
 
Nobody said to make Family Guy more Meg-centric, just to make her less of a punching bag and flesh her character out a bit more.

I personally couldn't careless, since Family Guy isn't the type of show I'd watch for character development, as long as it's funny I'm good.
 
Yeah, I can make many, many, many jokes how much "skill" the writers have with teenage girls (not counting, of course, the early FG episodes).

And I can also make many, many, many remarks how fans write way better stuff in fanfiction.
 
Hasn't Brian become a bit of a Mary Sue himself? The same annoyingly persistent type that a non-professional writer would get ripped on for? :shrug:
 
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