Ahhh, Seth. Thanks for the bone you threw us there!
I wish it hadn’t been slid between our ribs like a knife, though…
In a recent episode of Family Guy titled “Quagmire’s Dad”, McFarlane put forth what he describes as “a very sympathetic portrayal of a transsexual character”.
From where I’m sitting? Not s’much, really.
Sure, there was Quagmire’s struggle to accept his father’s decision to come out and go through with GRS and become Ida. Okay, that might have been a bit sympathetic. Or at least it could be interpreted as such. And Ida Quagmire herself was portrayed as a smart, stylish and sexy woman. Okay, again, not so bad. Lord knows we’ve done worse.
But then there’s the rest of the episode and the reactions of the characters around her.
She comes to dinner at the Griffin home, and Lois throws away the dish that Ida prepared, as if it is somehow contaminated. Ida picks Brian up in a hotel bar and has sex with him, and when he finds out that she is a transsexual he begins a full 40 second vomiting gag.
Seth’s answer for this is “If I found out that I had slept with a transsexual, I might throw up in the same way that a gay guy looks at a vagina and goes, “Oh, my God, that’s disgusting.” It’s just the way we’re biologically wired. They should give that another look.”
Disgusting? Gee, thanks. That’s definitely sympathetic!
By the way, I have to ask- do gay guys look at vaginas and hurl? Do lesbians look at penises and yak? Do people who experiment with their sexuality usually vomit upon reflection on those experimentations? If we find one sexual organ appealing does that mean that we automatically must find the other possibility appalling? And does that mean that straight men look at penises and quaver with illness? If so, how do they pee?
Inquiring minds wanna know. Meanwhile, back to the topic at hand.
Yeah, Seth. We gave it another look. And y’know what?
You’re still wrong.
Yes, we come by our sexual organs scientifically instead of naturally. Does this mean that if you fondle a breast that has an implant instead of being natural, you feel it is natural to vomit on the floor for 40 seconds because it is disgusting? Look out Pamela Anderson, you’ll be at that Hasselhoff roast and Seth is hosting- he might just have to vomit for 40 seconds straight if he gets too close. If you kiss a woman on the lips who has received collagen injections that you should immediately curl up in the shower and weep? No Hollywood greetings for Angelina Jolie or Seth is liable to projectile technicolor yawn. Should you caress a woman’s waist who has had liposuction should you be revolted? No hugs for Oprah or Seth is liable to have to curl up in the shower for a few hours.
I’m a transsexual. I consider myself to be teeny tiny bit self-aware, of at least average intelligence and moderately socially conscious. Oh, and a human being with some right to be treated with a smidge of decency and respect. And having seen what you apparently consider to be a favor to myself and those like me, I have to say- not s’much, Seth.
In the future, maybe you might want to not do us any favors. With friends like these, who needs bigotry?
Hollywood has treated us for years as the ultimate bait-and-switch gag, and the best way to fool a heterosexual into getting a little gay on them, And that’s just what you have perpetuated with your portrayal. Brian is baited and switched- he thinks he has met a wonderful woman who is smart, funny, passionate and exciting. He is flying high and happy- until he finds out that she used to be a man.
Not even that she is currently a man, as is so often portrayed in these circumstances, making us wolves in sheep’s clothing, but that she was formerly a man. The fact that she is now a woman and he had sex with her and never realized her origins is, to your mind, apparently irrelevant. And not funny to the lowest common denominator. Can’t get the cheap laugh thataway.
Now, at this point it behooves me to interject a point about disclosure. Sure, Ida might have been open and honest with Brian about her transsexual status. But at what point can we stop paying that bill of shame? And I refer to it as such not because we ourselves are ashamed, but because society then labels us as freaks and oddities. Once the surgeries are done and the scars are healed, even a gynecologist can have trouble knowing the difference between us and genetic women. We are women, pure and simple.
So does that mean that we have to continue expressing to every potential lover that might wish intimacy with us so that we can then expose ourselves to the narrow-minded bigotry that we work so hard to distance ourselves from in an intimate encounter? That same bigotry that you are perpetuating with your portrayal here? After all, that’s not liable to end up being explosively violent, now is it? History is definitely on your side for partners taking that revelation gracefully… again, with the media reinforcing just how wretched a concept it is, why wouldn’t they?
I know nothing gives my ego a boost quite like revealing to a potential lover that I was once a man and then being sprayed by a stream of projectile vomit for the better part of a minute. Yep, I sure feel pretty now. Thanks, Seth!
And the double standard of “Well, if you are women then the portrayal of transsexuals shouldn’t bother you, right?” doesn’t fly either. Yes, we are women, and we are still transsexuals. We know where we came from and we’re not ashamed… it is the incredibly damaging ongoing negative image that continues to be perpetuated by portrayals of us in shows like this that reinforces the need for us to hide our true natures as best we can so that we can make an attempt to actually live our lives like anyone else in modern society.
How many people are going to see this and have the notion subtly reinforced to them that this is the acceptable reaction to encountering a transsexual? What is your primary demographic, anyway? Is it mostly the 18-24 crowd who are still formulating their opinions about life? Sure, when it comes to welfare fraud Peter will bumble along and eventually do the right thing at the insistence of his wiser wife. If it is a family crisis of bonding with his son, eventually he will overcome his issues and realize he was wrong and all will be right by the end of the show. Despite your protestations, you do instill values and moral lessons into your irreverent and comical cartoon show. At least as much as any sitcom tends to do, keeping to the traditions in which your show is steeped and often parodies.
Yet what lessons will they learn from this episode? That being with a transsexual will open you to ridicule from your peers and is so disgusting that it should make you sick. That somehow by finding a transsexual woman to be attractive indicates a somehow less-than-masculine component of yourself. It does certainly show that being a transsexual will makes you an ostracized member of society who should be prepared to encounter discrimination, bigotry and unreasoning hatred more often than not, the more socially acceptable homphobia of the 21st century.
You see, that’s the other component of how we are treated by the media. “Got The Gay On Ya”. Somehow by virtue of finding a transgendered woman attractive, that somehow indicates a less than masculine preference. Seeing a curvaceous, well-dressed and beautiful woman and finding her attractive makes you seem less a man when she turns out to have been once a man. This particular brand of subtle homophobic hatred has been perpetuated by Hollywood for years, and you are just going right along with the flow.
Congratulations! You can broadcast your homophobic tendencies yet not alienate your gay friends and coworkers! You ARE a smart guy!
So I’m sorry, Seth. I realize that you are talented, driven and successful. I realize that your hard work has brought you fame and fortune and everything that goes with it- including, I’d wager, a large gang of sycophants who will happily tell you whatever you want to hear. And I suspect that when you made the statement that “I don’t meet a lot of stupid homosexuals. They seem to be a pretty smart bunch. But it seemed that they were not picking up on the fact that it was a very sympathetic
portrayal of a transsexual character.” someone likely told you that you were right.
But here’s the thing, Seth.
We’re not stupid. There are those of us who are stupid, of course, as will be found in most any group. But for the most part, the stupid ones never achieve enough depth of self-examination to realize what is wrong with their lives. And the ones without enough willpower to see it through seldom go so far as to becoming transsexuals- they tend to become transvestites or crossdressers. So really, you’re selling us short when you think that we don’t understand that what you are doing. You can claim it is sympathetic and you can claim that you are doing us all a great big favor all that you like.
I somehow doubt that you will lose any sleep over how we feel either way.
But please, Seth, don’t piss on us and try to tell us that it is raining. Don’t dump us into the same category that Hollywood has been doing for years now and try to dress it up as you were oh-so-magnanimously granting us a sympathetic portrayal. I’m sorry, but that just isn’t so, and you trying to explain it to us as if we don’t understand only adds insult to injury.
If you would like to create a sympathetic portrayal of a transperson, perhaps you might want to seek a few out and actually ask them, instead of simply assuming that you know best. Last time I checked, you also don’t know much about being black, and I’d wager that you consult someone for that part of the human experience that you lack when you wish to give a character a portrayal that rings true. Perhaps you could ask our opinions, draw from our experiences and actually make an effort to enable us to be portrayed as fully realized human beings instead of two dimensional walking talking jokes.
Perhaps one of those moral lessons that your characters seem to learn from so many other subjects could be learned about transgenderism, and the characters could have a collective epiphany, realizing that we are human beings who are not out to deceive or convert or ruin anyone’s lives.
That we’re just people who were born different and are trying to rectify the problem of our bodies not being in synch with our minds.
That it is not at all easy to completely change your life and then try to live with some dignity in a world that reviles us not for what we do or what we’ve done.
Instead of deriding us simply for who and what we are, instead celebrating the courage that we show to brave so much discrimination, misunderstanding and hatred for our own inner peace.
Maybe you could even illustrate how often we become trapped midway through the process because that same discrimination that we face makes the financial realities of this change that much more difficult.
Maybe.
Or you could keep going for the cheap laugh, and keep teaching the youth of America that trannies are disgusting and that we should make them sick.
And then tell us again that we should be happy about it.
Sabrina Pandora
