Oh no, it's one of those episodes, again!

Meanwhile, Monty Python’s Life of Brian literally had a male character who identifies as female and everybody in the movie is cool with it

3

And John Cleese is now a transphobe. Go figure. (Other members are cool from what I've heard)

1
- Terry Gilliam is also a transphobe.
  
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There's also the lumberjack song...

0
- Just like my dear Papa!
  
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- You can make the argument the joke there isn't so much that being trans is weird or wrong, it's in the juxtaposition between where it starts and where it ends up. The singer starts with a very masculine stereotype and shifts drastically into a feminine one to the point it confuses other masc stereotypes who reject him. The singer didn't read the room and went way off the rails.
  
  Not the best justification, I know, but it doesn't feel especially hostile towards trans, just using it as an irresponsible punchline in a joke about traditional masculinity vs feminity, which was typical of the time.
  
  1

South Park is not a show to watch if you don't have skin of iron.

They go out of their way to offend as many people as possible, but I think they do so in a way that's indiscriminate. They even try to offend themselves.

3

Its not so indiscriminate. Its just that theyre edgy libertarians and radical centrists. Its less about blanket making fun of everyone including themselves and that theyre smugly declaring "both sides bad" on most things.

4
- The viewer must be able to laugh at themselves, or at least be able to tolerate writers who are deliberately pushing people’s buttons. Sometimes there’s a good point hiding in the bullshit.
  
  Or, just skip the show entirely. It’s great that their turnaround time is only six days(!), so they can address surprisingly current issues, but the show is past its prime anyway.
  
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I love South Park, but damn, the Mr Garrison trans episodes are just, ahhhhhhhhhggggggggggg.

1
- So you are laughing when they make fun of others and only getting upset when they make fun of people like you.
  
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That's why I love Star Trek

2

Instead it's an episode thats either racist (early TNG) or ablist… as a trek fan even I recognize these shortcomings. Also I'm pretty sure I remember a transphobic episode? Somewhere in voyager I think...

2

It bothers me less depending on how old the episode is, and the overall tone of the joke. Older “let’s put this guy in a dress for cheap laughs” type stuff is lame, but not as bad as more recent attempts to make hatred more palatable by disguising it with a thin veneer of “humor”.

2

One of the most egregious examples I can think of from recent media was from Kimmy Schmidt where the people that take issue with trans/enbyphobia were turned into the butt of a joke because.... they're annoying I guess?

Came out of left field in a show I thought was queer friendly but I realized later on that it tracks with the brand of feminism that Tina Fey follows. (I never watched 30 Rock and don't intend to so I had no idea she was already problematic)

2
- Oh no, what has Tina Fey done? I'm trying to think back on 30 Rock and I can imagine how some of it hasn't aged well.
  
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No, that old stuff is just as bad. Go watch the end of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. It was just simpler then because the writers considered that type of hate to be ubiquitous instead of needing nuance or explanation.

It's like saying older racism wasn't as bad as the more recent attempts to galvanize people into nazis. But I contend it was for the same reason above. You're seeing recent attempts at both towards being more palatable specifically because it's not as accepted now.

1
Huh. I just deleted an entire paragraph replying to you, but then I did some introspection. Where are you consuming media? I haven't experienced much transgenderism or similar thing recently, but my experience seems to be very curated. I don't watch TV, but I listen to radio and watch a lot of YouTube and some Netflix. I'm also following social media sites, most recently lemme, for decent conversations.

I'm curious where you're seeing "hatred more palatable by disguising it with a thin veneer"?

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- It's a bit of a lengthy read, but here is an article that gets into the messiness of Zoolander 2 and Deadpool. Long story short, they both attempt to be more performatively progressive with their depictions but end up perpetuating many of the same harmful stereotypes of queer individuals. They become the same low brow entertainment as before with a few tweaks to make them more acceptable. That being said, I still liked Deadpool. I think the industry is still evolving and we need to continue to let it evolve in a positive direction.
  
  https://www.buzzfeed.com/meredithtalusan/25-years-of-transphobia-in-comedies
  
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IT Crowd

2

I though you said you were from Iran.

But seriously I don't think that episode was harmful.

Douglas is just a general asshole.

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- The character is an asshole AND that episode is transphobic. More telling is the creator (Graham Linehan) who is a vocal TERF. I don't really want to pollute this space with his toxicity, but search if you're curious.
  
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getting back into arrested development and then getting to that episode

1

This is what I was thinking of. I didnt know where that image in my head was from, now I remember.

1

Futurama.

1

The one where Bender becomes a woman bot to participate in the robot Olympics, I'm guessing? That one was kind of rough watching with modern sensibilities last time I recall, especially with all these recent trans people in sports debates. Also the one where they go to the planet where they switch genders. Is there any others I'm forgetting?

1

Meanwhile Denise Bryson is on Twin Peaks being totally cool and never the butt of a joke

1

I love that agents Cooper try to understand her instead of freaking out.

1

I wanna say King of the Hill is safe.

1

I watch that show its actually pretty safe outside of that one weird episode where bill hits rock bottom and thinks he's his exwife though I don't really think of that one as transphonic per se

1
There's one episode with a drag queen, not trans. It's pretty positive! She thinks Peggy is also a drag queen and they become best friends. It ends that way too.

1

Twin Peaks is safe 🙏 Bless Denise

1

Issues like this make me wonder: what’s acceptable to joke about now that future generations will find shameful? Any suggestions, folks?

1

Some people are starting to shift their opinions on it, but jokes about men being raped (especially in prison) are weirdly accepted.

2
You should be safe if you don't make fun of others. It's not necessary to ridicule a specific person or group to make a joke.

1
- True. Generally speaking, punching down is not okay.
  
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I'd hope it'd be things relating to our treatment of non-human animals. There's a pretty good talk making that case (not so much in terms of jokes, but in general)

https://youtu.be/N6w3A7E1Hw8

1
- Another good one! Thanks!
  
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I'm going to hope it's about wanting to kill ourselves all the time, because if it becomes taboo I hope it's because we have actually managed to make life better and thus suicide rates drop, but I honestly don't know if we will get any better tbh

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- “There are no taboos against taking one’s life here,’ said the Night Haunter. ‘Many do. This is not a happy world. But it can be a better one. By killing yourself, you take the easy way out, you encourage others to do the same. You might think you add yourself to a statistic, but your self-murder is much more than that. Every suicide adds to the rot weakening your culture. Every life abandoned is a signal that change can never be effected. You throw your existence away, and in doing so lessen the value of humanity.”
  
  Proceeds to de-skin suicidal woman slowly.
  
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Who is considered weird and or crazy?

0
- That’s what I have a hard time with. Antivaxxers? Trump supporters? Callous billionaires? They all seem like fair game to me.
  
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Going to throw this out there: self identification as a member of racial/ethnic/cultural group will become a hot button. Right now the left screams "cultural appropriation!" when this happens. But appropriating another gender is somehow okay. There's a real mismatch here in logic, and at some point in the future this will flip. Like, currently it's okay for me to say "I identify as a woman" but not "I identify as a black woman". How does that even make sense?

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- I think that's mostly an American thing: they think that their “racial” categories are the same thing as ethnicity, and since race is defined by racists (who believe that it's an innate inherited trait), it's constrained by them too.
  
  “I was born French, but now I consider myself Corsican.” is an uncommon but perfectly normal thing in Europe.
  
  American racism is just absurd, even by racism standards. That absurdity even influences American anti-racism.
  
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Shout outs to Lily Simpson for showcasing just how bad these shows really are.

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Scrubs and 30 Rock too :(

0

Scrubs? That sucks. No episodes come to mind, do you happen to remember which one(s)?

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- I mentioned this further down the thread, but Scrubs is full of micro aggressions.
  
  I mean, pretty much the very first joke in the series is JD asking Turk if he's allowed to say the N word.
  
  There's an episode where the theme is whether Turk is black.
  
  As for trans-specific problems, Todd advertises his website with the T slur in it on his T-shirt one episode.
  
  He's also a prime example of bi-erasure as when he "comes out," nobody says bi the whole episode, and it's like the whole cast can't conceive of someone liking both men and women. Not to mention the bi stereotype that we're all sexual deviants and overly promiscuous.
  
  Frankly, I could go on for a while. Scrubs was fine for its time. It does not hold up well. Shame because it was my favorite show for a very long time. But I'm glad society has grown.
  
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