you, kant, always get what you want

[–]glazomaniac 312 points 11 days ago

are you familiar with the concept of genderqueer? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer

i have identified as GQ/transwoman for a long time, though i have never really taken steps toward it more than in mind and occasionally in dress.

the character of dean pelton continually amazes me in his complete destruction of gender norms while being in what (in a regular college, anyway) would be a position of power. he’s cartoonish and occasionally, the show slips up into areas where it seems a little too far, but on the whole, he has been a breath of fresh air.

i think there are a lot of people who laugh at his character for wearing “ridiculous outfits,” but i have always found that the funniest part of those outfits isn’t the fact that he crosses genderlines. it’s the fact that he’s the dean of a college dressing in costumes for frivolous reasons. it’s never “oh, how silly, he’s dressed as tina turner.” it’s “oh, how silly, he’s dressed as tina turner for daylight savings.”

and then, in virtual systems analysis, he comes out dressed as the dualidean of man, which is played for laughs a bit because of how absurd it is not because of what he was dressed as entirely but why (“what am i going to tell people? that i had good news and bad news?”), and then you come back around in the end in the most amazing way. when he came back in and talked about how he had one of the deepest conversations of his life…

i have no idea what his conversation was, but i appreciate that it was left up to our imaginations. in that moment, i felt like someone got it. the fact that he could, in the universe of greendale, go to the bank dressed as a man and a woman and end up having a deep conversation suggests a lot to me about the level of acceptance that exists in your work of art.

i find that the idea that the whole show is about seven very different people forming a community despite of their differences resonates all the more strongly because the concept of acceptance seems to pervade every layer of the show. the fact that gender identity, even in the absurd fashion of the dean, is part of your universe warms me.

it makes me feel that acceptance. it’s beautiful.

i know i am rambling a bit, but i don’t really know what to say except “thank you.”

• permalink