Blog #3: Universalizing and Minoritizing Sexuality and Gender in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia consistently features controversial and usually even offensive opinions on everyday life.  The episode in particular that I will be analyzing, "Mac Fights Gay Marriage," is filled with  material based on the universalizing and minoritizing of gender and sexuality.

The main storyline of this episode is between Mac and Carmen. Carmen is a post-opt transgender, who the gang refers to as the "Tranny," that Mac was once involved with and is now married to a man.  As with most sitcoms, there are other secondary plots.  One involves Dennis, and his reconnection with a past girlfriend, and the other one is between Frank and Charlie and their attempt to seek domestic partnership in order for Charlie to reap insurance benefits.

When the episode first starts, Mac runs into Carmen at the gym, who he nearly calls Tranny.  He looks at her and points out that she has a nice camel toe, and asks if she had a "tuck job" going on.  She responds that "it" is gone and that she got the surgery.  Mac's reaction to seeing Carmen is one that seems to minoritize gender, since he sees Carmen as a trans who obviously, like all do, still has her original sexual organs and has just gotten good at hiding it. He goes on to state that "now that you're dickless I'm into it." From this comment it is shown that Mac was likely  involved with Carmen before the surgery, and didn't want to be with someone with a penis.  This sort of statement minoritizes sexuality, showing it as being black and white, because it is unheard of for a straight man to want to be with a woman who has a penis. (Powerpoint, 2/17/11)  It also universalizes sexuality.  Mac sees Carmen as someone who he is physically attracted to, and even as a straight man, he is interested in a transgender person, whose "situation" was unknown.  As he is hitting on her, Carmen's husband intervenes, and Mac immediately looks upset. The screen fades to the title of the episode, and you know immediately how he is going to act for the rest of the episode.

Mac then goes to the bar and proceeds to complain about Carmen and says that her marriage is a gay one.  His friends point out that one is a girl, and one is a guy, so how can that be gay, especially when he waited for her to get the surgery before marrying her.  Mac is adamant that her husband is "clearly a homosexual," despite the fact that he also is attracted to Carmen.  His friends continue to put him in questionable situations, by saying that he was with Carmen while she still had a penis.  And he keeps stating that it is different, with no valid explanation.  This go-between is a mix of both minoritizing and universalizing sexuality.  At one point, heterosexuality is the norm, and at another, the meanings are ever-changing.  Mac ends up coming to an understanding that Dee was right, and everyone should be allowed to marry, and sexuality doesn't determine their rights (universalizing sexuality), (Powerpoint, 2/17/10) probably because when he points out to Carmen and her husband that it is written in the Bible how wrong it is for indecent acts to occur between two men, her husband points out again that Mac was with her before her surgery and says that he "has been confused for a long time."

The story of Dennis, is one of romance.  He wants to settle down with his 10th grade love, who he hasn't seen in years, and ends up doing so.  He is so smitten in the beginning of their marriage, and even tells Mac that he finally has feelings, and his "cold, calculated shell has been broken by marriage."  This is something that is thought to be the norm of most men, they lack feelings.  But near the end of the show, Dennis is shown as displaying the typical male actions.  He just wants to go out with the guys, instead of spend his first night as a married couple with his wife.  Dennis seems to be seeing his spur of the moment marriage as a mistake.

The final storyline between Frank and Charlie looking into a domestic partnership is yet another strange series of events.  Charlie claims that "gay dudes only get married for the perks."  Frank doesn't understand what benefits he could possibly have and thinks that Charlie only wants to use him, so Charlie points out that Frank will likely have another heart attack, and his kids (Dee and Dennis) will pull the plug, but he won't.  Frank is still hesitant, especially after all of the paperwork that they need to fill out compared to the one certificate that Dennis needed to sign for his quick union.  Finally, after hearing from Carmen that he won't need to get his penis cut off to be the "woman" of the relationship (a crazy assumption), Frank agrees.  He and Charlie think it's totally not gay for two dudes to get married, but that it's awesome, probably like a "bromance" (Powerpoint, 2/24/10)  This bromance concept sort of infers that men don't really have any romantic or intimate feelings for each other, but instead only seek to reap the benefits.

All in all, this episode, like most, was very offensive with its ideas of same-sex unions being all for benefits and trans marriages being same-sex and sacrilegious.  But at least one character seemed to stop being jealous and stupid long enough to realize how invalid his points were.

Works Cited

Brown, Adriane. Class Lecture. "Gay Visibility in Primetime." The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. 24 February 2011
Brown, Adriane. Class Lecture. "Refiguring Gender on the Small Screen." The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. 17 February 2011