South Park and Crossgendered Behavior Part 02
First there was Mrs. Garrison, perhaps the most unflattering portrayal of a transsexual person I’ve ever seen. Meant to be funny? I get it. Still, at the same time, the most unflattering portrayal of a transsexual person I’ve ever seen. This week it’s a serial killer who appears to cross dress in an “OMG GROSS!” sight gag, alongside sexually molesting an effigy of his mother. Unlike the minorities that the writers actually like, who get audience-winning soliloquies at the end of each episode, people in South Park exhibiting cross gendered behavior are relegated to the same tired shorthand of serial killer, punchline or prostitute that we see everywhere else.
“But it’s just a cartoon, where’s your sense of humor?” I do indeed have a sense of humor… a sick one, at times, and irreverent. But I have the good sense to keep potentially hurtful humor private. South Park informs generations of young college aged guys of a certain personality, and I’m sure I’m not the only transsexual woman who’s been verbally attacked or ridiculed with comparisons to “Mrs. Garrison”, as my YouTube comments show. It’s just not funny to me, to be equated with grotesque buffoons and serial killers in an un-self-examined “it just makes sense that these things go together” kind of way. What if Hindus/soccer moms/bodybuilders were always portrayed with baseline personality traits of prostitution, serial killing and buffoonery underlying whatever part their character had in the story? When Cartman mocks Kyle’s Jewishness, it’s throwing spitballs at a monolithic community with millions of members, vast resources and a powerful place in society. But the characters in South Park don’t even comment on Mrs. Garrison or the cross gendered behavior of this serial killer character, which places the portrayals of cross gender behavior into a sort of meta-commentary that is assumed to be understood between the shows writers and the viewing public. The characters mouth “shocking” racial and sociological insults supposedly because they’re obviously not true but fun to say. They don’t need to mention the fact that a serial killer = cross gender behavior because, apprently, that’s just obviously true.
South Park's cross dressing serial killer
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about 1 year ago
dissapointing . for my part i'd say crossdressers love & celibrate thier sense of femininity, peace, tranquility, & soft pretty things. they are sensitive and abhorr violence. they may have issues in a world where social norms say men can love sports, fast cars, & sky high pickups etc; but not a thread of feminine attire. so clearly they would hold captives in a dungeon etc. I remember the first time i saw a portayal of transgendered women they were stealing a car in "Don't tell mom, the baby sitters dead." Miss Applegate demonstrated mascara to me so it gets a wink & nod. a bright spot might be that people in the entertainment field can expect thier feet held to the fire for unfair portayals in future.
about 1 year ago
It was an amalgam of Thomas Harris's serial killers, the cross-dressing Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb from Silence of the Lambs, and Francis Dolarhyde of Red Dragon. The cheap shorthand came from using the familiarity of these two characters serial killer profiles. The "do you see" gag and the cleft palate were lifted from Red Dragon. The cross-dressing from Silence of the Lambs. There may have been a few other "see what I did there?" references to some other killers, but having only watched it last night I'm hard-pressed to remember.
I believe that the continuation of a negative narrative surrounding transsexuals is more an unintended consequence of making this popular film reference, rather than a deliberate dig or even a desire to call out a given stereotype as some of their other caricatures are. This was a cheap pop-culture gag.
If anything I think the whole "Mrs. Garrison" is probably the bigger thing to sigh and shake one's head over, if you're going to call them out for being uncharitable. On the other hand, caricature and parody are also good ways to call out how patently ridiculous stereotypes and misrepresentations are, which is something they typically do well. Perhaps they've always deliberately done it wrong – so to speak – for that very reason. And if they have not soliloquized in favor of transfolk, perhaps it's simply because they haven't found the right way to say what they want to say.
But this is just me playing devil's advocate based on how I've seen them handle the unnecessary hangups our society maintains.
about 1 year ago
I agree, Mrs. Garrison gave legions of frat boys an eye-searing clip of surgical footage to play on a loop in their heads if ever confronted with a trans woman in real life, as well as a name to call any they might notice out and about: “Look dude, it’s Mrs Garrison!”
Satire and parody are what they are, but I don’t think South Park has any noble or intellectual motivation behind most of this stuff. They’re disdainful and angry at certain groups and people (some of whom I also don’t like, and some I do) and they lash out with schoolboy meanness at them because it makes them laugh.
But I can’t spend too much time fighting South Park… I just note down my comments here occasionally and move on to things that are more important to me.