Twelve years later, Seth MacFarlane is reflecting on “Quagmire’s Dad,” the 2010 Family Guy episode in which Quagmire’s war-hero parent comes out to him as a transgender woman named Ida. When it first aired, “Quagmire’s Dad” drew the ire of Queerty, GLAAD, and other LGBT groups for its portrayal of Ida, including a scene in which Brian vomits after hearing that Ida, with whom he’d had sex, is trans. The episode also bears a joke that equates trans people to sex offenders. (For more about Hollywood’s reprehensible history of trans portrayals, check out the Netflix documentary Disclosure.)
Related: ‘Disclosure’ director Sam Feder on the complicated history of trans representation
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, MacFarlane, creator of the animated Fox sitcom, says there “isn’t a big change” he’d make in that episode, but he would change some jokes in the script.
“Look, there are always things that you would do differently when you look back at earlier points in your career,” he says. “For me, it’s more about nuance. There isn’t a big change I would make. It’s more about individual moments and individual jokes. The intent of the Family Guy episode was to show that Quagmire’s father was still a war hero, and still someone that he could look up to and respect.”
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MacFarlane also reveals a Family Guy writer’s experience informed the storyline. “Actually, that episode was written by Steve Callaghan, a writer on Family Guy, who had the same experience with his own parent—his father had transitioned to a woman—and he was writing, in many ways, from his own experience.” (Note: Callaghan actually isn’t one of the writers credited for the episode.)
Related: ‘Family Guy’ vows to quit with the gay jokes
On his latest show, the Fox-turned-Hulu sci-fi comedy The Orville, MacFarlane is overseeing a respectful trans story, with one alien character sharing in a recent episode that she identifies as female.
“It seems the most organic way to let her story play out, and when I was writing the draft, I found that it was not a simple thing to do, but breezy enough process that it was a good indicator that we were on the right track,” MacFarlane tells THR. “This episode was a pleasure to write because when I got into it, all indications were that the story had been broken properly and responsibly and with care. … I’ve been really gratified by the reaction from the fans. They’ve really taken it as a conversation starter. … People have taken it as a character story that is allegorical—it takes place in this alien world—but is also the impetus of a much more human conversation.”
Sanjo
The reason this is a progressive issue is as simple as conservatives prevent, progressives allow.
Bosch
Wow, another comment under a trans article by tallskinhead insisting that transgenderism is a sexual kink, even though he has been told about the neurology of the transgender brain multiple times!
So unexpected!
Bosch
“you’d say a millionaire AGP is more oppressed than a single mother living in a tower block with broken lifts!”
You sure like recycling that accusation.
Whether or not someone is oppressed has nothing to do with the fact that you are discriminating against them.
DarkZephyr
And yet you offer no proof that being trans is a “kink”. Its been pointed out to you many times that there are some nuances to being trans that you aren’t addressing and you continue not to address them. “All of us in Europe laugh at trans people”. You seem pretty proud of yourself, but there was a time that everyone would be laughing at you for being gay. You like penis even though you HAVE a penis. There are STILL people that are just as “baffled” about people treating someone like you as normal as you are about trans people being treated as normal. Why are so eager to simp for those kinds of people? You like all the pats on the back you’re getting from the transphobes? You like feeling “included” by them?
Den
Pretty clear who the bellend here is. You.
You are hardly “on the left”, and nobody here is quite dull enough to believe that you are.
It takes an absolute fool, or a complete troll to confuse the difference between transvestites and transexuals.
And it takes a regressive mind to not see trans rights as an issue that those with empathy, humanity and a desire for social progress can get behind.
Dullard, bellend and regressive seem to describe you awfully well, if your comments here are any indication of who and what you are.
Den
“You really are the kind of right winger, male rights proponent who considers woman’s issues an irrelevance to sexual kink!!”
Huh? Is that English?
mothdan
Stop being an ignorant bigot, you do not speak for the majority.
tallskin4
Den says: “It takes an absolute fool, or a complete troll to confuse the difference between transvestites and transexuals.”
What is the difference,? please explain.
tallskin4
“you’d say a millionaire AGP is more oppressed than a single mother living in a tower block with broken lifts!” You sure like recycling that accusation.”
I repeat it because you don’t seem to have a reply and that’s because you don’t understand it. Because it’s the truth. The tragedy of the modern US left is that it’s disappeared up the backside of identity politics and dumped class issues. And that is why you don’t understand what I am going on about! A millionaire AGP is not equally oppressed as a single mother. If you had any understanding of class issues, of poverty etc, you’d grasp this
still_onthemark
The first time I ever heard about trans people was from the song “Lola” by the Kinks… a BRITISH band. So where did Ray Davies meet Lola, hmm?
Where did you get this idea that trans people are only in the US? The earliest sex-change surgeries were in Sweden.
still_onthemark
To get back to “Family Guy”:
– Ida should definitely have disclosed her trans-ness to a potential sex partner before having sex.
– Brian should definitely have disclosed his, uh, being a DOG to a potential sex partner before having sex.
sfhairy
Preach.
Eternal.Cowboy
By the same token cisgender people should disclose that they are cis prior to sex then… right?
still_onthemark
@Eternal: No, 99%+ of the population doesn’t need to specify they’re 99%+ of the population.
Suppose a cisgender gay guy doesn’t happen to have a penis, for whatever reason – birth defect, car accident, a jealous ex, whatever. Probably a good idea to disclose that to a prospective sex partner.
Eternal.Cowboy
Ahh so by simply being a majority you get to dictate the rules that everyone has to follow and the minority gets no input. You have declare yourself “normal” and anyone not like you is “abnormal” and must identify themselves to your satisfaction. How could this ever go wrong? I mean the majority would never decide that something like marriage is only for them and the minority can’t have it. Or that the majority gets to sit at the front of the bus and the monotype has to sit at the back. Have you considered requiring trans people to wear something that lets everyone know they are trans? Yellow stars and pink triangles are taken but I’m sure you could come up with something.
In singling a minority out and demanding they be treated differently, you are In fact part of the problem.
still_onthemark
@Eternal: Get a grip. You seem to be conflating the “prospective sex partner” part with the world in general. Or do you really think there’s nothing unethical about tricking someone into sex? (How about roofies?) You can’t be serious.
Eternal.Cowboy
Wow, you are actually comparing trans people to people that drug others for the intent of non-consensual sex.
Your “tricking someone” is a common stereotype of trans people as deceivers or sexual predators. It’s used to promote fear and hatred or trans folks. It’s not grounded in reality and just another manifestation of transphobia. Straight people have historically have had the same stereotype when it comes to gay men and it has been a struggle to overcome that. Weird that you can’t abstract and see that it is a repeat of the same behavior.
Again, you are part of the problem.
still_onthemark
??? – I’m talking about the SEXUAL context only, not work, not the world in general. I’m not “comparing” trans people to anything. I wrote, “Ida should definitely have disclosed her trans-ness to a potential sex partner before having sex.”
Do you disagree with that? Why? Do you think it’s ethical for a trans person to pretend to be a cisgender person in order to get sex? Why? You can’t possibly be serious, what is wrong with you?
Eternal.Cowboy
Polling shows 84% of young people in the U.K. support trans rights. So, per usual you have to making things up with your 99% number. But honestly, you can’t figure out how to use the reply feature in the comments second of Queerty so our expectations of you getting easily verified facts is pretty low. Anyway, given the 84% number, your espoused bigotry is irrelevant and will become increasingly so as time goes on. Cheers to you as you fade away, you and you ilk might be a curious historical footnote like the National Front’s support in the 80s but it’s more likely that you just won’t be remembered. Kinda sad that you less interesting that a fringe fascist group? Perhaps you can pivot and live a life with remembering? I doubt it.
Eternal.Cowboy
@still_onthemark
Fun fact, the song Lola was inspired by Candy Darling who was an American actress. She was also the inspiration for Candy Says by the Velvet Underground, Walk on the Wild Side by Reed, Citadel by The Rolling Stones and Candy’s Room by Bruce Springsteen. That is some serious admiration form musical giants Meanwhile tallskin has inspired…..okay, he really has nothing to show for himself.
But your point is solid. Anyone who has taken a few minutes to do some research knows trans people have existed through history and across many cultures.
Tallskin isn’t exactly the sharpest stick in the pile so expecting him know what he is talking about is misplaced expectations on your part.
Eternal.Cowboy
@DarkZephyr
Obviously being trans isn’t a kink but given that tallskin is obsessed with trans people to the exclusion of everything else we can safely assume he has made trans people his fetish.
Bosch
“I repeat it because you don’t seem to have a reply and that’s because you don’t understand it”
You don’t seem to even know what “opressed” means. Explain how “a single mother living in a tower block with broken lifts” is oppressed. Who’s opressing her?
Bosch
Wow, tallskinhead. Your post is the transphobe equivalence of chemtrails, 5G conspiracy, and COVID vaccines with microchips.
You look 50 in your picture, yet you have the logic of a teenager. What gives?