Iemand maandagavond South Park gezien? Hier volgt een korte samenvatting:
The trans community also took note of "South Park"'s season premiere on March 9th. Mr. Garrison, long depicted as a deeply closeted gay man, wants to be made "well" and undergoes an extremely graphic (even for "South Park") "vaginoplasty" to make him a woman. The new Mrs. Garrison, still has the trademark bald head and glasses, but now flamboyantly minces around in Capri pants, anxiously awaiting her first period.
Mr. Garrison's transformation opens the floodgates for Kyle to have surgery to become a tall African American so he can play basketball, and Kyle's father surgically becomes the dolphin he's always wanted to be. Seriously. By the end of the episode, each is made to look foolish for their decisions. Mrs. Garrison even confronts her surgeon with the line, "You made me into a freakŠand I want you to change me back!" The doctor says later, "I should have told you that the surgery was cosmetic only."
Underneath the humor is a facetious parallel comparing gender identity with nonsensical issues of "trans-racial" and "trans-species". And then there's the reinforced misconception that sex-reassignment surgery doesn't actually change one's gender. Topping it off, Mr. Garrison's out-of-the-blue sex change promotes the stereotype that all gay men really want to be women. After all, Mrs. Garrison's final words at the end of the episode are, "Even though I'm not truly a womanŠI'd rather be a woman who can't have periods than a fag." Ouch! It's just not funny. To use TV lingo, perhaps "South Park" has jumped the shark -er, dolphin
One step forward ---- two steps back
