Trans-gressions

Spoiler alert: This post reveals an essential plot element in the hyper-violent 2005 theatrical release, Sin City.

A few weeks ago, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) put out a press release trashing episodes in the animated series' "The Simpsons" and "South Park."

On "The Simpsons," Marge's detective work helped call off a lesbian wedding to a golfer who was really a man, posing as a dyke to play women's golf. Wrote GLAAD: "Members of the transgender community saw two reasons to be upset: Male-to-female pro-golfer Mianne Bagger has been kept from pursuing her career in the U.S. because both the LPGA and the USGA have added a 'female at birth' clause. Second, the 'reveal' of Veronica reinforces a dangerous myth that transgender people are trying to deceive or trick us."

I watched the episode, and I submit that Veronica was not intended to be seen as trans.

Here's GLAAD's review of the "South Park" episode: "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 freak…and I want you to change me back!' The doctor says later, 'I should have told you that the surgery was cosmetic only.'"

I didn't see "South Park," but that last line says it all: it sounds to me like a story about internalized homophobia, and not about being trans. Surely internalized homophobia is an issue that can be addressed on television?

In the press release, Damon Romine (GLAAD's new entertainment media director) wrote: "Even I had to re-watch the episodes to fully grasp why transgender people would be upset." Indeed.

I'm not pooh-poohing trans issues or trans people (I can't believe I'd need to write this, but some folks love to misinterpret). But come on: both the episodes in question were about other things, not trans-trashing.

Which brings me to Frank Miller's stylish but intensely violent movie, Sin City.

In one of the comic book-based vignettes, a male serial rapist and killer of little girls has his penis shot off by a vengeful cop. The evil one survives, and returns years later. Scientists have regrown his penis, but the side effects include bright yellow skin, a strong body odour of rot and vomit, and sticky-outie ears.

All this from getting a penis? I can't wait to read that GLAAD press release.