Hayley Dreamsmasher Smith is a fictional character from the animated television series American Dad!. She is voiced by Rachael MacFarlane, the younger sister of one of the series' co-creators, Seth MacFarlane. She is Stan and Francine Smith's 19-year-old daughter and Steve's older sister.
Hayley, along with her father Stan, was one of the first two characters who were conceived and created for the series. Across the series, Hayley's storylines typically involve her liberal opinions clashing with her father's staunch conservative beliefs, and her on-again-off-again relationship with boyfriend Jeff Fischer, whom she marries in the show's sixth season.
Contents
Biography
Hayley Smith is the daughter of Stan Smith and Francine Smith, (although it is later revealed that Stan may not be her biological father, but this is one of the three episodes that contradict several others). It is revealed in a brief flashback that she had a twin brother named Bailey. Unlike her father, her mother and her brother, Steve Smith, Hayley is ultra-liberal. She is addicted to marijuana and in "Jones for a Smith," Hayley actually worries that her marijuana smoking is getting out of hand and begs Francine to let her go to rehab, with Francine callously telling her daughter to stop being such a melodramatic attention-seeker. Hayley once helped the homeless, and is in favor of gun control. This causes a great amount of distrust and hatred for her on Stan's part, as he consistently has views that are polar opposite to hers. In the third-season episode "Stanny Slickers II: The Legend of Ollie's Gold", it is revealed that her middle name is Dreamsmasher, as given by Stan.
She lives with her parents and goes to Groff Community College, though she moved out temporarily after a bitter argument with Stan. As a college student, Hayley also majors in women's studies and promotes women's rights.
Personality
Hayley is Stan and Francine's new-age hippie daughter who, despite being a married adult for much of the series, still lives under her parents' roof along with her husband, Jeff. As revealed in the episode "The Kidney Stays in the Picture", she may or may not be Stan's biological daughter—Francine revealed to have cheated on Stan at a bachelorette party. Nonetheless, Stan still regards her as such. Hayley is passionate, insistent and vocal in her convictions. In mentality, she's portrayed as a passionate liberal, what was originally intended to be the antithesis to her father's conservatism. These character traits were particularly emphasized in the show's beginnings but heavily toned down afterwards. Intuitive and insightful, Hayley is able to instinctively grasp the hidden, inner, and obscure nature of situations. For example, she is able to see through Stan's disguise as a Russian communist to get her to come home in the episode "Stan Knows Best", and also, instantly upon entering the room in the episode "Finger Lenting Good", she realizes what Stan and Steve are up to in trying to get Jeff to hug them so as to lose his finger for engaging in his [Jeff] vice. As another example, in the episode "Da Flippity Flop" when the essence of Klaus has entered Stan's body and taken control over it, he attempts to deceive Hayley and Francine into thinking he's truly Stan; however, Hayley instantaneously and half-heartedly acknowledges that it's Klaus. At times, Hayley is casually rude and insulting in attitude especially towards her brother, Steve, which can be described as sibling rivalry. This is primarily because of Hayley's disgust for Steve's obnoxious tendencies and generally shallow taste and desire towards the opposite sex. Several story arcs have been about Hayley's romantic relationship with Jeff. Back when the two were dating, they had several breakups.
Hayley is often the most empathetic member of her family. She helped to unionize the homeless men Stan paid to fight each other, helped free foster children that Roger had enslaved, and is the one most likely to stand up for people's rights when her family tries to exploit people. Nevertheless, she is also sometimes seen as hypocritical and has moments of weakness—for example, in "Camp Refoogee" she went to an African refugee camp and swore to help the starving people during the short time she expected to be there. However, after finding out they would be there for a few weeks, she went to the spa-like U.N. aid base and went so far as to eat steak, despite being a vegetarian (The episode, "The Longest Distance Relationship", she eats part of a steak, and in "N.S.A. (No Snoops Allowed)", she went an entire day eating just meat after she ate some by mistake). She is often disrespected by other more shallow and self-involved members of the household who seem to find her annoying and are contemptuous of her kinder and more selfless character, especially Stan and Roger.
Voice actors
According to a DVD special on the creation of American Dad, Laura Prepon was initially chosen to play Hayley, but Prepon was dropped and replaced by Rachael MacFarlane, the younger sister of Seth MacFarlane.
In the French version of the show, the character is dubbed by Edwige Lemoine, the sister of Christophe Lemoine who dubbed the character of Eric Cartman from South Park.
Romance
Hayley has a husband named Jeff, who is a vegetarian as well. Hayley did once move out, to move in with Jeff who it turns out lives in his van. They sometimes go hiking and smoke marijuana together. She once dumped Jeff, because he agrees with everything that she says. During this time, she slept with Stan's boss, Deputy-Director Bullock, a conservative. This happened after they had an argument; he apologized and she ended up sleeping with him at his house. At first, Stan ignored their relationship and decided it was a great chance to be promoted to "Deputy-Deputy Director". Hayley later dumped Bullock before announcing Stan's promotion. Bullock learned that a more assertive Jeff came back into her life. Being upset, Bullock promised Stan the promotion if he killed Jeff. Stan didn't kill Jeff but ended up battling his boss upon him insulting Hayley. Bullock gave Stan the job before Stan finished him off. Jeff disappeared for a time after "Phantom of the Telethon," where he was performing hacky-sack tricks on-stage at a telethon when a boat, pushed by Roger, fell on him.
Reginald, a talking koala who works for the CIA, befriends Hayley in the episode "Family Affair". She starts to develop an attraction to Reginald but is rejected by him as he reveals he has a girlfriend. She respects him, but she leaves an open-ended offer for Reginald by the end of the episode.
Embarrassed, she apologizes to Reginald in "Cops and Roger" and suggests a double date with him and his girlfriend Rhonda and her (temporary) boyfriend, Ian. The date ends up annoying both Ian and Rhonda as Reginald and Hayley continue to openly flirt with each other, and by the end of the episode, both end up leaving their partners in favour of each other.
Jeff returns to serenade Hayley in "100 A.D." and is shooed away by Stan and Francine for not being good enough for their daughter. However, after Jeff goes to Hayley and confesses his love for her, they decide to elope. They then trick Stan and Francine into giving them $50,000, which they spent trying to escape from Roger who was trying to steal it from them.
Hayley and Jeff reunite with the family in the episode "There Will Be Bad Blood" where they encounter the rest of the family freezing to death in the desert. Hayley reveals that shortly after losing Roger, the two tried to earn money with Jeff as a male prostitute, but finding little work with women, Jeff is forced into gay prostitution, putting him on "butt rest". They move back in with the Smith family in that same episode. In "Less Money, Mo' Problems" Hayley and Jeff are shown to be still living in the Smith household, with Jeff constantly annoying Stan with his habits. At the end of the episode, Stan has a change of heart after he sees how hard it would be for them to make it on the salary Jeff brings in.