there’s always discourse on cartman being homophobic or not. i thought it was time to get to the bottom of this. obvs i’m aware that cartman is extremely bigoted. he’s antisemitic, he’s transphobic, he’s racist, etc. i’m only talking about the possibility of him NOT being homophobic. like he’s everything else but homophobic.
from my pov, he’s never been directly homophobic towards anyone. he’s been shockingly accepting of gay people. for example, the “Tweek x Craig” episode. he’s the reason why they got together and cartman literally said that love is love. he didn’t quite understand it, but he shipped it.
people try to counter this by saying “oh he says slurs! he calls everything gay and says the f-slur.” EVERYONE IN SOUTH PARK DOES. i’m pretty sure kyle and stan have both said the f-slur before. i remember butters saying it too. they all call everything gay.. etc. that’s just a bad argument. they’re not directly saying it to gay people anyway, it’s always about something irrelevant. it’s just commentary and stan and kyle have been proven to be accepting of the lgbtq community (i apologize if i’m wrong about this part. i can’t specifically remember ever episode — which is why i’m asking this question! so please correct me or remind me about anything!)
stan marsh was the only character that i remember being canonically homophobic too. his dog was gay and he hated it. at the end, he learned to accept gay people. every episode that centers around gay people, cartman hasn’t been involved trying to exterminate the gays let’s say. that’s always been Garrison. garrison has been gay, then he turned into a woman who liked men, then became a lesbian, then back into a male who likes boys. despite that, he’s been a raging homophobe for his personal reasons like not wanting gay marriage to be legalized.
overall, i can’t think of a specific episode of moment of Cartman being a raging homophobe. i need something more than him just using slurs. again, everyone in south park uses them. that’s old news.
i know this is a comedy show and it’s not that serious but i’m GENUINELY curious on what y’all think. ppl on twitter are crazy about this.