Community 3x06, "Advanced Gay"

Today, I'll analyze an episode of Community that aired a few weeks ago, entitled “Advanced Gay.” For those unfamiliar with Community, the show revolves around a group of students enrolled at Greendale Community College, who form a study group at the beginning of the series and become good friends. The group represents both sexes, different races, different religions, different ages, and generally people going through different stages of their lives. Gender diversity, however, is notably lacking.

In this episode, Pierce, the CEO of his family's company Hawthorne Wipes, a brand of moist towelettes, finds out that the product has gained popularity with the gay community, presumably for a use related to gay sex. The impetus for this rise in the sales of Hawthorne Wipes is a new, popular club song by a drag queen named Urbana Champaign (played by Shangela, a past contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race), endorsing the moist towelettes as a necessity for the (stereotypical) gay lifestyle. (You can watch Urbana Champaign's music video here, along with the rest of Shangela's scenes.) Pierce, a known homophobe, sexist, racist, and xenophobe suddenly adopts a more accepting attitude about the gay community, solely because they are supporting his product. He throws a party introducing a new line of moist towelettes called “Pride Wipes,” targeted specifically at this new demographic.

Firstly, I'd like to discuss the title of the episode. Community names its episodes humorously to resemble the titles of college classes. Often, the humor comes from the fact that the title of the episode uses terminology much more sophisticated than the actual subject of the episode, contrasting the ridiculous situations that the group find themselves in with titles that sound like academic theories. Examples include “Epidemiology,” the title of a Halloween-themed episode about a zombie epidemic, and “Cooperative Calligraphy,” the title of an episode that revolves around a conflict over a ballpoint pen. This particular episode title, “Advanced Gay,” apparently does not need much embellishment, as “gay” is already funny enough. A term like “homosexuality” or a phrase like “gender dynamics” would sound more academic and be very much in the style of Community, but the humor here is that the simple word “gay” is already a joke. Community's use of this word propagates the idea that “gay” is a silly thing, not to be taken seriously, with no more depth than being a source of humor.

The representations of the gay men in this episode adhere to the basic stereotypes of the sissy – voices in a higher register, often with a nasal quality; dramatic gesticulations and body movements; attention to fashion and appearance, including well-coiffed hair and tight-fitting clothes, often in bold or pastel colors and patterns. One man, Jason, gives a campy wink to Pierce, which is accompanied by a subtle “ding!” sound effect. At the party Pierce throws, called the “Gay Bash!” (another example in a long line of Greendale Community College's failures to make witty titles that just end up awkward or inappropriate), club music, flashing lights, shirtless men, and rainbow decorations abound. Not only does Community reinforce stereotypes about gay men and the gay community, it capitalizes on them for humor. The show plays up these stock characters to the extreme because, as we have seen from sources like The Celluloid Closet, the sissy is always humorous and does not threaten anyone's sexuality; he makes the man feel more masculine and the woman feel more feminine.

It's important to note that there are no representations of genders other than straight men and women, and gay men in this episode. Female members of the queer community are notably absent – Chang comments that the Gay Bash is “a real sausage fest.” As a comedy show, Community included gay men only because only gay men are funny in popular culture. The mass audience finds lesbians threatening to the idea of masculine and feminine gender roles in a way that gay men are not. A feminine, read “weak,” man can be written off and treated as nothing but a good source of humor; a masculine, read “strong,” woman is threatening to the power structure that keeps women at the bottom. Quite simply, gay men are only represented here because they get a guaranteed laugh from the audience.

There are a few moments where it appears that Community challenges the stereotypes about gay men, but they are fleeting and not very strong. First: When two gay men planning the Gay Bash ask Pierce if he would prefer peanut butter or chocolate chip cookies at the party, he responds, with his newly acquired support and enthusiasm for the gay community, “Rainbow, bitches!” They smile, pause, and repeat, “We can have peanut butter or chocolate chip.” This small piece of dialogue fights the stereotypes shoved onto gay men by undercutting those generalizations with a totally generic answer, as opposed to the flamboyant answer Pierce expects. The entire exchange only lasts about eight seconds, though, and the representation of stereotypical gay men continues throughout the rest of the episode.

Next, Community presents the objections that the characters Pierce and Shirley have to the gay community as the product of an out-of-touch, older generation. Pierce, who is known for his unabashed racism and sexism, is often portrayed as the villain of the group. He is chastised for his views, but often they are ultimately tolerated because he is in his 60s and has been encoded with an outdated culture of prejudice. Shirley, a conservative, Christian mother in her 30s or 40s, asks at the beginning of the episode, “What do Hawthorne Wipes have to do with the choice to be gay?” Shirley often makes homophobic and xenophobic comments like this. Her strong sense of moral righteousness is usually made to look ridiculous and out of step with how the world has progressed. The younger members of the group often criticize Pierce and Shirley for their old-fashioned prejudices and try to bring them around to a more modern and inclusive mindset, but in the end, the two are just excused as older and of a different generation's culture of thinking.

Finally, the last example of Community's possible promotion of a less stereotypical view of homosexuality is in Jeff's support for the Gay Bash. Jeff is the patriarchal figure heading the group and it is often made overtly clear that the group will follow his actions. When Pierce's even more bigoted father attempts to cancel the Gay Bash, Jeff takes up the cause. Britta challenges Jeff's motivations, asking if he is really offering support or trying to conquer his own father issues by solving Pierce's father conflict. Jeff denies this accusation, asserting, “This isn't about fathers, this is about a long-suffering community with a constitutional right to wipe whoever and whatever they want!” As the leader of the group, Jeff standing up against homophobia would be a huge gesture that the rest of the group would imitate. In the end, however, it is revealed that Jeff actually is dealing with father issues; his motivations of supporting gay rights and breaking down stereotypes are totally negated.

This episode of Community capitalizes on traditional stock representations of gay men to the extreme, purely for humor. There are a few fleeting moments of reversal, but they quickly disappear into more reinforcement of the stereotypes or are written off. The last lines of the episode (before the tag) are spoken by Chang; as he leaves for the night with Urbana Champaign on his arm, he asks Jeff, “Hey, Winger? You going home alone? Gay!” Presumably, Chang does not know that Urbana Champaign is not biologically a woman, which implies that he has been fooled or swindled by a transgendered individual. To add more negative connotations to the queer community, the episode ends with the use of the word “gay” as a pejorative.

You can watch "Advanced Gay" here.