“Family Guy” has fought against political correctness and offensive jokes as much as Peter has with an excessively large chicken, even pushing the buttons of Oscar-winning actors. However, there was one episode in particular that got the show in hotter water than usual when Russia took an affront to the two-part season 21 finale beginning with episode 19, “From Russia With Love,” and then followed up by “Adult Education.” The episodes’ storyline saw Meg (Mila Kunis, who replaced the character’s original voice actor Lacey Chabert in season 2) cross the waters to Chelyabinsk, Russia and marry a computer hacker named Ivan. Pushing things to the limit, the second-part of the two-parter included one of the show’s signature tongue-in-cheek songs, “This Old Town,” which had Meg dancing around her new home in a way that mirrored Belle in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”
Government officials did not take kindly to Chelyabinsk being mocked like this, with Newsweek revealing in 2023 that an effort was made to ban “Family Guy.” Speaking on Russia’s Rise regarding the episode, Chelyabinsk regional deputy Yana Lantratova declared, “The artist has the right to his vision, but this is a deliberately offensive artistic image that has nothing to do with reality.” Specifically, Lantratova took issue with the musical sequence’s depiction of Chelyabinsk, stating, “This is a deliberate work against our country. Information warfare through artistic works. They deliberately create an image of Russia as a country where everyone is unhappy with life, drinking, using drugs, taking bribes.”
Family Guy has thrown offense across the globe
While it’s easy to understand why Russia got riled up regarding “Family Guy” and the way it depicted Chelyabinsk, they wouldn’t be the first country to be poked fun at by Peter Griffin (Seth McFarlane) and the rest of Quahog’s locals. According to the show (which has now been running for more than 22 seasons), it’s totally normal for a man to marry a boat in Australia. Meanwhile, in England, apparently no one has clean teeth and everyone speaks absolute gibberish. That being said, “Family Guy” went after Russia well before Meg’s little sing-song and even dared to make a joke out of the country’s current leader, Vladimir Putin.
So far, Russia’s leader has appeared in four episodes of “Family Guy,” including one that has Putin behave like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” villain Major Arnold Toht. Ultimately, the show’s creator, Seth McFarlane, while recently admitting that there is one joke he regrets, feel the series’ fans are savvy enough to know that it’s all in the name of good fun. “Audiences can smell the difference between social media virtue signaling and real offense,” he told the Los Angeles Times in April 2024. “If it’s real offense, you didn’t get away with the comedy.”
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