this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
149 points (84.0% liked)
People Twitter
10057 readers
1470 users here now
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
- Mark NSFW content.
- No doxxing people.
- Must be a pic of the tweet or similar. No direct links to the tweet.
- No bullying or international politcs
- Be excellent to each other.
- Provide an archived link to the tweet (or similar) being shown if it's a major figure or a politician. Archive.is the best way.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I disagree about Garrison. While Ms. Garrison wasn't portrayed as a very likeable character, she was always shown as somebody confident and self-empowering. She went on a journey, discovered herself, and was immediately fired from her job as a teacher: we the viewers were meant to be sympathetic to that plight. Later, she is depicted as sleeping with Richard Dawkins an uncomfortable number of times on screen, which is clearly not a visual that a homophobe would create.
I haven't seen the detransition episodes, though, so maybe those were different.
I agree on the other stuff you said, though, especially the irreverence and their role as jokers.
I would need to go back and rewatch the early episodes to have a confident take on Mr/Ms Garrison, but the biggest problem with the character IMO is that they are consistently one of the most garbage characters in the series, yet for a long time were the only part of the main-ish cast who were gay, and afaik is the only trans character at all (I'm blanking on any other trans characters besides "Heather," a fake-trans, although I haven't watched the most recent seasons). So while I would argue that Garrison was portrayed as a bad person who happens to be gay/trans rather than bad because of their gay/transness (basically the whole point of the episode where the kids are uncomfortable with Mr Slave, which the parents misinterpret as homophobia), it's not a great look for that to be the only LGBTQ+ character outside of a few minor characters, and I certainly would be understanding of folks who take offense at this. But as you say, it's not all black and white; even Garrison's sexuality/identity journey is handled sympathetically at times, and the other LGBTQ+ characters are handled quite sympathetically on the whole. That said, the series leans very heavily on the "G" part of that acronym, but that's not too surprising in a show that's always been from a primarily male perspective.