Season 21 of Family Guy is back with more hilarious parodies, and there's never been a better time to celebrate Lois Griffin, particularly as Clarice Starling, her plucky personality a perfect match for the intrepid FBI agent from The Silence of the Lambs. Lois has often been the straight woman amidst a clan of jokesters, holding the Griffin family together through determination, compassion, and grit.
The trope of the useless husband and the nagging wife has been around since The Honeymooners and animated prior to Family Guy with The Simpsons, but unlike those two examples, Lois has a great deal of independence and doesn't take guff from her family. She's not always perfect and could be a little nicer to Meg, but these memes sum up what makes Lois a unique addition to the landscape of TV moms.
Lois Has To Put Up With Peter Being Petty
There are a lot of similarities between Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson, and one of the biggest is they're constantly picking fights with their wives over petty things. For one reason or another, they feel like their wives should just let them do something stupid and dangerous without pointing it out.
This meme pokes fun at Lois's New England pronunciation of "Petah" after the pair have had a row, perfectly showing Lois's attempt at communicating and Peter's immature response. Lois has to endure Peter's childish responses to arguments before the inevitable apology when she's proven correct about whatever it was Peter was mad about. If he would just listen to Lois, he wouldn't have to find out the hard way.
Lois Washes Dishes To Lower Her Stress
Living in the Griffin household is no easy task, especially trying to make sure that everyone eats wholesome meals, spends quality time together, and looks after their own personal spaces. Even though it seems like Lois is constantly cleaning, activities like washing dishes serve a dual purpose.
It's not surprising that Lois would, as this meme suggests, become hostile if she couldn't wash dishes any longer; it's become a way for her to de-stress and zone out. It would be better if she got more time for self-care, but she finds it any way she can, even if it means meditating over the sink.
Lois Has Her Own Style
Like Marge's big blue beehive, Lois has her own iconic hairstyle. Her bright orange bob, a no-fuss style that makes her look put together even with her hectic domestic life rests just above her shoulders, and has become just as much a part of her character as Meg with her pink beanie.
Once in a while she'll get a makeover and look particularly glamorous, but a longer hairstyle is always temporary. Here, Kris Jenner is seen getting a glamorous makeover to look like Lois, highlighting how timeless her aesthetic is.
Lois Has A Wild Side
Between taking care of her kids, her dog, and her husband, Lois often loses her identity. It's easy for her to get caught up in endless cleaning, grocery shopping, and bills while neglecting what gives her personal happiness. Fortunately, she has a wild side that she lets loose every now and again.
The episodes where Lois stole the show often included her putting her own needs before her family's. This meme references one memorable moment when Lois dressed up like a dominatrix and gave herself a little self-esteem boost.
Lois Joins The Family In Excluding Meg
Lois has a lot of great qualities, but boosting her daughter's self-esteem isn't one of them. She joins in with Peter, Chris, and the rest of the household in making her daughter feel ostracized, with only rare glimpses of wanting to forge a mother-daughter bond.
This only adds to Megan's depression and anxiety, causing her to act out in any way she can to get her parent's attention, good or bad. Hating Meg is a running joke in Family Guy, and while it would be helpful to Meg if her mother didn't join in, some humor would be lost.
Lois Loves Wine
One of Family Guy's other running gags is Lois's love of wine. Lois has a glass to feel more like herself, stress relief, or just to relax after a long day. She doesn't always have it at times most people would consider appropriate, which leads to awkward situations with her family.
The show uses humor to address an issue that affects a lot of people, some of whom are its fans, who might be able to identify with what Lois goes through on a day-to-day basis. Making her part of "Wine Mom" culture has its funny moments, but it's also poignant, and shows the deleterious side of her occasional over-indulgence.
Lois Is A Looker
Even characters from the best animated sitcoms of all time don't always translate well into live-action, but of everyone in Family Guy, Lois would probably look the most "normal" with the way her features are proportioned, and her hair is styled. Most cartoons greatly exaggerate characters' features so that they're more expressive, but Lois's face strikes a good balance.
Lois is considered quite the looker, and a catch for someone like Peter according to his friends. Even Brian has a crush on Lois, but he could never betray Peter by running away with her (though he's thought about it plenty of times). She's presented as a "girl next door" type with a naughty side that most men in Quahog find highly alluring.
Lois Is Highly Observant
Other than Brian and Stewie, Lois is the smartest member of the family, often deploying her keen powers of observation to ascertain things like whether Meg is having boys in her room, or Brian is sneaking cigarettes. She'll even stage experiments, like the time she tried to determine who was swearing in the house.
After waxing the stairs, she waited for Peter to slip and fall down them, shouting expletives all the way down and outing himself as the sweater. Unfortunately, Lois was so wrapped up in deducing who it was that she failed to realize the truth - it was her all along.
Lois Has A Real Partnership With Peter
Lois and Peter might bicker like a typical married couple, but they tend to come together about important things, like encouraging Meg to get a summer job, or helping Chris find his inner muse as an artist. At the end of the day, mutual respect is what has kept them together and created the foundation for some of the best Lois and Peter episodes.
They might not agree on everything, but even if they're fighting about something like Lois wanting to get a job and work outside the home, they each listen to each other's perspective (although this was truer in early seasons of the series).
Lois Has Great Physical Comedy
Peter receives a lot of the credit for physical comedy in the show because he tends to be clumsy and spatially unaware. Lois, while more coordinated, is part of her fair share of slapstick gags, like the famous scene where Stewie pushes Lois down the stairs, in an ironically graceful maneuver for an attempted murder.
In this meme, wrestler Finn Bailor takes a dive off the top ropes in a very similar sweeping motion to Lois, highlighting her aerial humor and poking fun at the curious way she holds her arms. She might not get to fight a chicken all the time, but she could probably outmaneuver it flying.
NEXT: 10 Memes That Perfectly Sum Up Linda As A Character In Bob's Burgers
