Family Guy's Season 21 is back, and Peter Griffin is up to his old shenanigans, embarrassing his family and engaging in hilarious hijinks with his friends. While Peter might have been reduced to nothing more than a series of cutaway gags the last few years, there's a lot more to the bumbling patriarch than making fun of Meg and fighting a supersized chicken.
Whether fans think Peter is self-centered and dim-witted, or a lovable klutz that needs his family to keep him in line, he's as much a spoof of television fathers and husbands from All in the Family and The Honeymooners as he is a celebration of them, and these memes perfectly capture his buffoonery.
Peter Is Completely Different When He's Around His Friends
Despite his relatively mundane life, Peter envisions it to be a lot more exciting than it really is. Around his friends he exhibits Main Character Energy, participating in random schemes or plotting murder cover-ups. When he's at home with Lois and the kids, he settles into a routine that involves silly stunts to make it interesting.
With the use of kittens, this meme suggests Peter can go from a hardened bruiser to a doe-eyed animal lover in seconds (he did rescue that incredibly pregnant street cat, after all). If Peter didn't have a lot of different sides to himself, he'd be an incredibly boring character.
Peter Looks On The Bright Side Of Bad Situations
As one of the most upbeat characters on the show, Peter is an eternal optimist, constantly seeing the bright side of even the most dour situations. In one memorable episode, even when his family was about to be encased in ice, he suggested they all strike hilarious poses so that at least when their bodies were dug out, they would give the rescue team a good laugh.
This meme references the precarious nature of the crypto market, but it's a pretty apt representation of how Peter looks at life. He might not seem very smart much of the time, but that's because he's not putting too much energy into things he can't change.
Peter Lives A Charmed Life
Even if he takes some areas of it for granted, Peter lives a pretty charmed life. He has a steady job at the brewery, an eccentric family, and a loyal group of friends. To top it off, each area of his life allows him to exhibit a different side of himself, and he has far more freedom than he realizes.
Many episodes of Family Guy focus on Peter realizing the importance of his family and friends and the downfalls of being self-serving and greedy, but if Peter ever learned the moral to the stories, the show wouldn't be nearly as funny. This meme celebrates all the different aspects of Peter's charmed life in which he's pretty much winning all the time.
Peter Deals With Issues Like Depression And Anxiety
Peter might seem happy-go-lucky most of the time, but he suffers from depression and anxiety from time to time. There have been times when he's been insecure about Lois around other men, and he can't help but compare himself to her wealthy family whenever her father brings up his lack of refinement.
A lot of the appreciation for the show comes from fans being able to enjoy Peter acting out some of the emotions they're going through in their own lives to an exaggerated degree, finding solace in the fact that one, they aren't Peter Griffin, and two, laughter can make a wonderful respite from life's tumult.
Peter Doesn't Do A Lot At His Job
Peter shares a lot of similarities with Homer Simpson, chief among them his work ethic. Other than be the best at remembering his coworkers' birthdays and throwing them lavish parties once a month, he tries to get away with doing the least amount of work whenever he can.
Peter might seem lazy, unmotivated, and selfish, but when Cleveland stands up for him in the face of possible unemployment, he reminds their boss that companies need "regular guys" like Peter who take a mediocre salary and just get by. Peter is relatable in many ways because he represents anyone working a job just to survive. Of course, Peter very rarely returns his friends' kindness, and even tries to back stab them despite their loyalty.
Peter Always Has Something To Complain About
No matter how well his life is going, Peter has something to complain about. Most of the time it isn't even about his job, kids, or some global event demanding his attention. All too often it's some petty inconvenience that he feels the need to rant against to anyone who will listen.
This meme features Peter in a typical "Grinds My Gears" episode, this time focusing on the fee charged for delivered pizza. He wants to know why he has to pay a delivery fee on top of a tip to the delivery person, when he should probably be investigating the concept of capitalism and overhead, among others.
Peter Has A Lot Of Different Sides o His Personality
Even though Peter might not seem particularly complex on the outside, he has several facets to his personality. Several episodes focus on his need to express himself in a way that contradicts how others see him, and they let him explore complicated themes of identity and self-acceptance.
It might involve him revealing a kinkier side of his bedroom fantasies, or filming a really disturbing Nike commercial, but Peter isn't afraid to see where a new life choice will take him. This meme represents not only different aspects of Peter, but uses all the incarnations he's had in memes as well, making it as meta as any episodes in shows like Family Guy.
Peter Takes Advantage Of His Friends
Peter has some pretty loyal friends, and in spite of their generosity he often oversteps his boundaries when he's in need. Give Peter an inch, and he'll take a mile. It's part of Peter's character to do things with flagrant disregard for other people's feelings since he's often the one who needs to undergo the most development in a single episode.
When he tried to do Quagmire's job in Florida he abused his power so much that people got hurt, and he didn't seem to understand why. Peter's cognitive capacity to understand the ramifications of his actions isn't high, which is why his immaturity is as alarming as it is amusing.
Peter Thinks He's Better Than Meg
One of the longest running jokes in Family Guy is Peter saying, "Shut up, Meg." Even though a parent should love their child, Peter has an inexplicable disregard for Meg or her feelings, and he's taught the rest of the family to latch onto that perspective.
While it's jarring that he hates his daughter, the gag does make the few moments that he does show Meg love all the more poignant. Fortunately for Meg, there are times when she gets one over on her dad, whether it's dating boyfriends he disapproves of, or being the only one with brains in the family.
Peter Sometimes Shares Life Lessons
Sometimes Peter can have a good heart and even share some life lessons on the series; he usually faces the camera and shares a moral or parable, and then explains how the lesson and episode are connected in some way. For all of his politically incorrect humor, he occasionally shows a glimmer of empathy.
This meme takes a popular meme that responds to the practice of women judging the appearance of other women and inserts Family Guy characters, with Peter facing the camera and explaining how they should be propping themselves up instead. Normally a cautionary tale, he embodies irony here in a style of humor the series often employs.
Source:gamerant.com