Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Family Guy Jumps the Jew

There’s a time in every American animated comedy series, it seems, when everything goes Jewish. Whether that’s Krusty the Klown finding his Jewish roots (“The Simpsons”), Kyle heading off to Mel Gibson to demand his money back (“South Park”) or last night’s “Family Guy” (the gently titled “Family Goy”) where Lois found out that her mother was a holocaust survivor and Jewish.

I’m not about to tempt fate and say that the descent into Lois’s yiddishkeit marks the terminal decline of Seth McFarlane’s creativity. Neither “The Simpsons” nor “South Park” jumped the shark with their Jewish plotlines. And the creator of the following piece of existential genius is not yet done. (Warning, the language is a little strong)

So, though “Family Guy” will continue to pull in viewing figures, the litany of tired Jewish stereotypes trotted out for laughs was hardly an inspiration. Perhaps the idea was that, since the audience was so young, the writers would get first sniggers from obnoxious Jewish stereotypes and commonplaces, and should just try to check as many off as possible. So we saw: silly names (Hebrewberg Moneygrabber or Peter’s Hebrew name “Ch, ch, ch”), short hairy-chested men, libidinous boys, plain haredi dresses, sports underachievements, holocaust obsession, greedy landlords, obsession with money and the revelation that Jesus was a Jew.

It was dumb, as usual, not as funny as usual, but as always had good lines. One of the best lines was a throwaway when Jesus says that people shouldn’t worry about religion, they should just treat others how they’d like to be treated. “Oh,” says Peter “an eye for an eye” before moving rapidly onto something else. A great line, but perhaps a little close to the truth that the audience, if not the writers, of the show can’t tell the difference between scripture and Hollywood, stereotypes and fact, or lex talionis and loving your neighbor.

Watch “Family Guy“‘s “Family Goy” below:

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.