Family Guy is known for touching on taboo subjects, and soon one of its most outrageous characters will get a reckoning of sorts. Glenn Quagmire, a family friend of the Griffins known mostly for his serial sexual harassment and assault, will get an entire episode devoted to dealing with his behavior.
Huffington Post reports that showrunner Rich Appel announced plans to deal with the “MeToo” movement during an interview at San Diego Comic-Con. He also revealed that series creator Seth MacFarlane was personally involved in planning the episode.
“We are a year out, so we are writing episodes this month that won’t air for a year,” said Appel. “So the MeToo stuff became such a cultural force while were thinking of next season, and we are taking it head-on with an episode around Quagmire. We’re trying to be pretty fair about the whole history of the character. Seth encouraged us and even took a special interest while we were writing the episode.”
The MeToo movement, which has dealt with the pervasive problem of sexual harassment and assault, has resulted in scandal for high-profile Hollywood personalities like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. The movement has been led by women victims of assault, but male stars have spoken up too. Terry Crews of Brooklyn 99 has been very public about his own experiences with assault, even recently testifying before Congress.
How Family Guy will address the issue wasn’t detailed. It seems like an eventuality that such a problematic character would have to be dealt with, though, so we’ll see how Quagmire changes–or doesn’t–in the coming year.
