In one episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine, they talk about how trans people have it difficult in prison. In the very next episode the sentence “Nothing is more attractive in a woman than the clear absence of a penis” is uttered.
It’s almost like B99 is a show made by liberals for liberals and its progressiveness is entirely performative.
Just want to point out since the post kind of glosses over the fact that the last sentence is uttered ironically by a gay character who is trying to pass as straight to distract a guard at a women’s prison. The running joke is that he believes straight people are transphobic and homophobic, so when he tries to pretend to be one, he acts that way. The joke is, no one around him acts like what he’s saying is off, making further commentary on how transphobic and homophobic our society is.
I feel like this is a really important point to clarify.
Look, I understand that we HAVE to be careful when we enjoy our media. Because literally any show could make a misstep and fuck it up. They could try to make a girl character gay by saying she ‘loves pussy’. They could have a dude in a dress for comedic effect. I’m sure I could come up with other obvious things but I don’t want my brain to go down that path.
And yeah, for a moment or two that joke did make me a touch uncomfortable. But acellura has a point here, the reason Holt would ever say something like that is precisely because he’s attempting to pretend he’s a member of the lowest common denominator (which he’s simulatenously awesome and terrible at). And let’s not forget last season they had the AMAZING line about the transphobia in Ace Ventura.
B99 isn’t always completely perfect (it is, ironically, just shy of 100% perfect) but it’s also trying WAY harder than a lot of shows out there. Always be critical of the media out there, but also don’t shame people for enjoying it I guess? I dunno.
you know what’s entirely performative?
nitpicking ambiguous moments in an extremely progressive show instead of taking on genuinely regressive tropes that are still being played unironically on a whole bunch of other ones.
like, game of thrones added extra bonus rapes, and you want to talk about holt pretending to be transphobic? really?
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