[Lucy DeVito talks about how FXs Little Demon brings something
new—and charmingly, demonically feminist—to the saturated adult
cartoon genre.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

‘LITTLE DEMON’ IS A VULGAR ADULT CARTOON ABOUT HAVING A UTERUS  
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Kylie Cheung
August 25, 2022
Jezebel
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_ Lucy DeVito talks about how FX's Little Demon brings something
new—and charmingly, demonically feminist—to the saturated adult
cartoon genre. _

Lucy DeVito voices Chrissy Feinberg in FX’s Little Demon., Photo:
FX/Hulu

 

Vulgar adult cartoons aren’t exactly a novelty these days.
Between _Bojack Horseman _and _Big Mouth_, cartoons—even those
centered around kid characters—often cater to adult audiences
through crude humor and mature themes. But FX’s _Little Demon_,
which premiered on Thursday, still manages to deliver something new: a
vulgar, adult cartoon comedy that feels specifically catered to women.

The show begins as Chrissy, voiced by Lucy DeVito, turns 13, gets her
first period, and learns she’s Satan’s daughter—after her period
quite literally opens a portal to hell. Satan, voiced by Lucy’s IRL
father Danny DeVito, has spent years searching for Chrissy and her
mom, Laura, a ripped, full-bushed, demon-slayer voiced by Aubrey
Plaza. Now that he’s found them, the trio attempts to navigate
normal, divorced-family life, all while Chrissy tries to get her
demonic powers under control amid the usual torrent of middle school
struggles.

Lucy DeVito told Jezebel that, from the get-go, she was excited to
work on a “horror comedy” cartoon “from a woman’s lens.” She
especially enjoyed bringing to life the “everyday horrors of
womanhood,” starting with Chrissy’s first period. The moment it
arrives, not only does it create a vortex to hell, it brutally
obliterates two bullies in the middle school bathroom. DeVito said the
first episode was meant to spoof both period stigma, and the dread of
menstruation—something frequently downplayed by male writers,
despite research
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shows that, for some people, period cramps are as painful as a heart
attack.

“Just from personal experience, I can’t speak for everyone, but my
first period was horrific. Just very jarring,” DeVito said. “But
there’s also humor along with it, like the kind of perils of growing
up as a woman. You just wake up one day, there’s blood in your
pants, and that’s really fucking scary.”

But despite all the gore and twisted, Satanic comedy that accompanies
it, Chrissy’s first period and clumsy attempts to fit in reflect
how _Little Demon_ is very much a classic coming-of-age story.
“Thirteen was rough for me, for a lot of people,” DeVito said.

Chrissy’s Satanic period and the (literal) hell it unleashes
comprise just one of several critiques of patriarchy we see
in _Little Demon_. Later on, Chrissy becomes obsessed with using her
demonic abilities to possess people and animals to save their lives,
resolve conflicts, and just have fun. _Little Demon _also manages to
use this chaotic storyline as a launching point for a surprising and
poignant conversation about consent. Chrissy’s best friend Bennigan,
voiced by Eugene Cordero, raises questions about the ethics of
entering other people’s bodies, expressing discomfort with
Chrissy’s proposal of switching bodies because he doesn’t feel
right about entering hers. The show doesn’t dwell on the issue—but
it smartly explores consent in a quick yet thought-provoking manner,
seemingly wholly inapplicable but somehow entirely pertinent to
real-life.

“Possession is such an absurd thing, but given the conversations
we’re having in this day and age, we wanted to talk about, what if
that absurd scenario was real? What would the conversation around that
be?” DeVito said. “I’m really happy that in our own way on our
own wacky TV show, we’re able to address consent.”

_Little Demon_ deploys absurd, Satanic imagery and storylines to
share its messages yet it somehow absolutely works. The storytelling
doesn’t just center Chrissy’s perspective, and DeVito said she
loves how the show also focuses on Laura’s life, too—imagine a
toxic ex returning to your life (to co-parent your preteen daughter no
less) except the ex in question is literally Satan. “Laura is, at
the end of the day, just a single mom trying to raise her kid, a woman
in this world going through all the chaos of that.”

DeVito continued, “It may be an absurd lens, but there’s something
so many women can relate to—the horrors or frustrations of being a
teen or a single mom, so many everyday experiences but with a silly,
darker twist.”

Family is, in many ways, the heart of _Little Demon_—both within
the show and off-screen. It’s a story of “navigating adolescence
and family with what you’ve been given, accepting your family is who
they are,” DeVito said. Chrissy’s father is the literal devil, and
her mother is often brutalizing demons in the garage. “But on a very
primal level, they all want to get along and have some semblance of a
‘normal family.’ They do love each other or strive to at least.”

And then, of course, Chrissy’s father Satan is voiced by DeVito’s
dad—the inimitable Danny DeVito—and her brother, Jake, is a writer
on the show. Plaza “has become like a part of a family as well,”
Lucy DeVito said of her co-star. (Plaza also grew up with another
writer on the show, Seth Kirschner.) “The whole thing is a family
affair. We just throw out all kinds of ideas, be them genius or really
shitty, because we feel like we’re in a safe space having fun.”

The adult cartoon genre is pretty saturated these days, but by finding
niche, absurdist, and hilarious entry points to analyze gender and
power and allow female characters to be as disgusting as their male
counterparts, _Little Demon_ brings something new—and charmingly,
demonically feminist—to the table.

_New episodes of _Little Demon _premiere on FX Network on Thursdays
at 10 p.m. ET and stream on Hulu the next day._

* Little Demon
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* Hulu
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* Feminism
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