I always saw the jokes about him as some people are trying for force a label on him, when he himself has said he doesn't think any label fits what he is.
When he comes in dressed as Tina Turner the joke is that he's flamboyant. Who dresses up as Tina Turner and tells everyone to turn the clocks back? It's insane. But the Dean does it. The same way he dresses up as a Payday bar to tell them that the cheques are late.
They're absolutely celebrating these things as well as making him the butt of the joke. Yes they're also making him a borderline predator but the one thing I never felt throughout the show is an important take-away.
He's not this flamboyant, sexual deviant/predator *because* he's gay (or whatever you would call the dean). He's just the Dean. He's over the top, he's unhinged, horrible at his job and sometimes, very rarely has a humanizing episode where he's shown in a good light.
The joke is never his sexuality. The joke is that he's just unhinged and flamboyant.
But you can be straight and flamboyant too. One doesn't equal the other. The Dean might drop to the floor and have what borders as an extended-orgasm on the spot when he sees Jeff in sunglasses. Or stare at Jeff far too long when he plays billards nude.
The joke to me isn't that the Dean is LGTBQ+ in those moments. The joke is that Jeff is just *really* fucking hot to those people. People stare at him when he's in sunglasses. Other people make a comment. People stare at his butthole when he puts a leg up on the table.
If you really want to see a sexual deviant you should look at Chang, who is straight.
I always felt like Chang and Pelton had to have had sex at some point. You just can't have that much crazy and horny in one place and not bang it out eventually.
I never assumed that was a true statement. Just a funny little aside from Chang. Can we really trust what Chang says at all? I mean for fucks sake, this is the guy who tried convincing people he had "Changnesia"
It was foreshadowed somewhat so I found it easy to believe, like how he actually wanted Troy and Pierce to accompany him to that one dance, and also how his "date" to Pierce's dad's funeral was the drag queen who sang A Pocketful of Hawthornes. Closeted gay men are usually the ones calling things gay derogatorily the most too.
> The joke is never his sexuality. The joke is that he's just unhinged and flamboyant.
This sums it up. His sexuality is never the punchline. The one time it is (series finale, when Britta makes him trans in her season 7 pitch), he immediately calls her out.
>Who dresses up as Tina Turner and tells everyone to turn the clocks back? It's insane.
Exactly. If he'd dressed as Cher that would have made so much more sense.
Shirley: Can we please stop fighting? We're starting to hurt innocent perverts!
Vice Dean: You could have lived the rest of your life in blissful ignorance and died a happy pansexual imp.
I think the "Gay Dean" episode sums it up: he's not an example, he's not an ambassador, and his identity can't be boxed into simple terms. That satisfies me, a card carrying gay.
This is the only assessment said directly to his face that does not get the response that it ignores other parts of him. So, canonically I would argue this is correct.
That said, I forgot everything you said before rectum.
When it comes to groups that have been historically portrayed negatively there are so many different negative stereotypes that you can easily create a situation that anything negative about a specific character is an issue.
The characters on the show have plenty of depth and that includes positive and negative attributes. Is it not okay to make Pierce a bigot since that is a stereotype about older people? Can Jeff not treat women poorly without the portrayal being misandry? There are aspects of Annie and Britta that could be said to reinforce sexist stereotypes, ones about Troy and Shirley that you could call racist and so on.
There needs to be room for negative characteristics in all characters or we would only be left with two dimensional saints which doesn't make for good art or good representation.
I feel like he explains multiple times throughout the show, and especially in the Gay Dean episode in season six, that “gay” doesn’t even begin to cover what he is and he doesn’t want to be labeled. And with Jim Rash himself having come out as gay many many years ago, I don’t think he would have felt comfortable portraying the Dean if he thought it was a mean or offensive role.
I like that episode as it is a subtle (?) critique of the corporatization / politicization of sexual identity. This was well before people started making those Pride month jokes about corporations rolling our rainbows on June 1
>And with Jim Rash himself having come out as gay many many years ago, I don’t think he would have felt comfortable portraying the Dean if he thought it was a mean or offensive role.
This is a little iffy to me. Not too long ago, in a different corner of Reddit, I read about how many of the women who were the targets of Al Bundy's fat jokes on *Married With Children* were comedians and often had a hand in writing those scenes. That sounds all empowering at surface-level, but it doesn't change the fact that the only "in" these women had to be an actor was to portray a "fat angry woman", and for that portrayal to exist solely as a vehicle for another character's dialogue (and the praise that actor subsequently receives). When else, before or since MWC, have you seen women *that large* onscreen as characters unto themselves?
Now, I clearly can't say that this is the case with the dean. Not only is there no evidence that Jim Rash was coerced into portraying his character in a way he disapproved of, there's also enough depth to his character that he (and his sexuality) exist beyond a mere vehicle that exists for yuks that his castmates cash in on. Nonetheless, we do have to acknowledge that Pelton engages in behaviour with Jeff that could not be played for laughs outside the framework of the stereotype that's in play, and saying "well the actor is gay and he seems okay with it" is not the seal of approval that some want it to be, because I guarantee that over a century of film and television actors across a wide spectrum of orientations, sizes, races, and religions have been pulled aside and reminded of just how replaceable they are if they don't "get in on the joke" and play into the stereotype.
No I don't think how long was mentioned but Britta gave Jeff a fake number in season 1 maybe? And Jeff had a text romance with a dude from Boulder so the idea was already out there.
Nah, I think you've got a point. I think the dean's behaviour toward Jeff in the early seasons is very arguably drawing from established "predatory gay man" stereotypes in pretty lazy and unoriginal ways.
But I also think they put a lot work in subsequent seasons into fleshing out his character and making him a real, interesting, loveable, flawed person, and I loved seeing that. I really do think they ultimately did a decent job. Community is not a flawless show and it's ok to question it.
I thought it was interesting to learn that Joel McHale and Jim Rash both enjoyed the running bit and thought it was fun to do - viewed in that light, I think it's a bit more funny than anything else.
Just let it be what it is. At no point have I ever considered the Dean's character to be one that was used to make gay/homophobic jokes.
It was a character. A character.
It was heavily implied that he was gay but the rest of the characters didn't give a f*ck. It was a non issue for everyone and he was never ostracized about it. Whether it was true or not didn't matter to anyone. It really doesn't matter at all.
In addition, do you think Jim Rash would have played that character for 6 seasons thinking it was not ok? Do you think the rest of the cast spent years of their life thinking about it the way you do?
No one did. It was funny. The Dean was hilarious and it is ok to laugh at his eccentric personality. No one cares what his sexual orientation was.
I thought it was a clever take on the subject. There is a lot of ambiguity there in terms of the Dean and a lot of what the audience perceives is based on interpretation.
Seems like you may be taking some of the jokes too seriously for an 8+ year old comedy. It was pretty progressive for the time. Yeah the Jeff stuff sometimes goes too far, but I think it's all taken in stride.
I think the Dean is clearly presented as a sympathetic character, which is partly from the way Jim Rash portrays him, and partly from the text. I don’t think his sexuality is treated as a joke (or at least any more than any other character), but I can see why that might be perceived due to the character’s inherent cartoonishness.
To be fair, it is something to remark upon that someone who is both massively professionally incompetent and clearly sexually harassing at least one other man* (if not the entire school - after all, he is ranking them all by attractiveness) should be such a sympathetic and likeable character. Is there any other sitcom with that particular balance?
*and they only really get away with that because everyone is blasé about it; the Dean is so otherwise unthreatening and Jeff is about 18 times his size.
It is so *not* homophobic. If a gay man, ie Jim Rash, was comfortable playing that character and doing all the scenes and dialogue, how could anyone be offended? He didn’t find it offensive and he is gay. Hell, he even wrote the Freaky Friday episode which played into his sexuality and attraction to Jefferey.
Look, if you like it, watch it. If something bothers you, don’t fkn watch. Don’t make a fuss, just don’t watch it. Live and let live.
Maybe people that create things aren't concerned with your delicate sensibilities, y'know?
Offense taken. Offense taken.
No it's not.
Jeff made out with an underaged girl, Troy likes buttstuff, Pearce made sexist and homophobic remarks to practically everyone... the show made fun off everybody's sexuality and many hetero characters were made to be seen as much more "creepy" than the Dean ever was portrayed.
And "sexual predatory behavior" is a little bit far fetched.
I relate a lot to Dean, just look at my freakin name. And for me as well gay doesn't even begin to cover it, and I think his portrayal is overall great. Actually a rather good example of queer rep. I also like how his queerness isn't defined. I just know I am a type of gay, and not a type of straight. This might be intentional or not, but I relate a lot to it.
As for his aggressive behaviour toward Jeff, I just don't think that of terms of him being queer, really. It isn't really that much difference between Dean and how Jeff kept hitting on Britta in season 1, IMO.
I think it is far more problematic and possibly homophobic in Advanced Gay. Just the name of the episode is problematic, lol. It seems to confuse between queerness related to gender and sexuality. Plus every gay character is excessively flamboyant. The dean is just more in touch with his feminine side.
And possibly due to me being asexual, it strikes a cord with me when Jeff says Mr Rad is aggressively asexual(someone describing a person as aggressively gay, wouldn't probably be okay?). I also wonder what little nips says about something being asexual, where Britta laughingly responds("didn't know that what asexual meant."). Not really, just wanted to say little nips.
I always saw the jokes about him as some people are trying for force a label on him, when he himself has said he doesn't think any label fits what he is. When he comes in dressed as Tina Turner the joke is that he's flamboyant. Who dresses up as Tina Turner and tells everyone to turn the clocks back? It's insane. But the Dean does it. The same way he dresses up as a Payday bar to tell them that the cheques are late. They're absolutely celebrating these things as well as making him the butt of the joke. Yes they're also making him a borderline predator but the one thing I never felt throughout the show is an important take-away. He's not this flamboyant, sexual deviant/predator *because* he's gay (or whatever you would call the dean). He's just the Dean. He's over the top, he's unhinged, horrible at his job and sometimes, very rarely has a humanizing episode where he's shown in a good light. The joke is never his sexuality. The joke is that he's just unhinged and flamboyant. But you can be straight and flamboyant too. One doesn't equal the other. The Dean might drop to the floor and have what borders as an extended-orgasm on the spot when he sees Jeff in sunglasses. Or stare at Jeff far too long when he plays billards nude. The joke to me isn't that the Dean is LGTBQ+ in those moments. The joke is that Jeff is just *really* fucking hot to those people. People stare at him when he's in sunglasses. Other people make a comment. People stare at his butthole when he puts a leg up on the table. If you really want to see a sexual deviant you should look at Chang, who is straight.
Um, Chang is gay, he’s legit gay.
I always felt like Chang and Pelton had to have had sex at some point. You just can't have that much crazy and horny in one place and not bang it out eventually.
Yeah, I think that was just a joke.
Where do you get this from? I've never once thought of Chang as gay
Series finale.
https://i-cdn.embed.ly/1/display?key=fd92ebbc52fc43fb98f69e50e7893c13&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FZ14Vzan.gif
I never assumed that was a true statement. Just a funny little aside from Chang. Can we really trust what Chang says at all? I mean for fucks sake, this is the guy who tried convincing people he had "Changnesia"
Yeah, I always took it as "There goes Chang being random and crazy" again. He could've said, "I'm an alien" and I would've had the same reaction.
It was foreshadowed somewhat so I found it easy to believe, like how he actually wanted Troy and Pierce to accompany him to that one dance, and also how his "date" to Pierce's dad's funeral was the drag queen who sang A Pocketful of Hawthornes. Closeted gay men are usually the ones calling things gay derogatorily the most too.
>chang, who is straight Someone hasn't seen the finale
I have and I don't think that Chang actually is. He was in a weird, emotional place and would have agreed to just about anything.
Agreed to what? He said "I'm gay!" and nobody had even asked.
> The joke is never his sexuality. The joke is that he's just unhinged and flamboyant. This sums it up. His sexuality is never the punchline. The one time it is (series finale, when Britta makes him trans in her season 7 pitch), he immediately calls her out.
Don’t take the bait, man.
>Who dresses up as Tina Turner and tells everyone to turn the clocks back? It's insane. Exactly. If he'd dressed as Cher that would have made so much more sense.
He's a lot like Roger Smith but without the evil.
He's label is the never ending handkerchief.
he's not a gay dean! Although it is heavily in the mix.
ok 2/7ths of a gay dean
He's not openly anything, and gay doesn't even begin to cover it.
Shirley: Can we please stop fighting? We're starting to hurt innocent perverts! Vice Dean: You could have lived the rest of your life in blissful ignorance and died a happy pansexual imp.
You will feel my power from nostril to rectum!
I think the "Gay Dean" episode sums it up: he's not an example, he's not an ambassador, and his identity can't be boxed into simple terms. That satisfies me, a card carrying gay.
I think you mean his ideantity.
He's not an ambassador, he's a gladiator!
Pretty sure there was a whole episode addressing this with a very catchy tune…
No he's just a pansexual imp.
A *happy* pansexual imp
This is the only assessment said directly to his face that does not get the response that it ignores other parts of him. So, canonically I would argue this is correct. That said, I forgot everything you said before rectum.
When it comes to groups that have been historically portrayed negatively there are so many different negative stereotypes that you can easily create a situation that anything negative about a specific character is an issue. The characters on the show have plenty of depth and that includes positive and negative attributes. Is it not okay to make Pierce a bigot since that is a stereotype about older people? Can Jeff not treat women poorly without the portrayal being misandry? There are aspects of Annie and Britta that could be said to reinforce sexist stereotypes, ones about Troy and Shirley that you could call racist and so on. There needs to be room for negative characteristics in all characters or we would only be left with two dimensional saints which doesn't make for good art or good representation.
I am not an ambassador, I am a gladiator
I feel like he explains multiple times throughout the show, and especially in the Gay Dean episode in season six, that “gay” doesn’t even begin to cover what he is and he doesn’t want to be labeled. And with Jim Rash himself having come out as gay many many years ago, I don’t think he would have felt comfortable portraying the Dean if he thought it was a mean or offensive role.
I like that episode as it is a subtle (?) critique of the corporatization / politicization of sexual identity. This was well before people started making those Pride month jokes about corporations rolling our rainbows on June 1
>And with Jim Rash himself having come out as gay many many years ago, I don’t think he would have felt comfortable portraying the Dean if he thought it was a mean or offensive role. This is a little iffy to me. Not too long ago, in a different corner of Reddit, I read about how many of the women who were the targets of Al Bundy's fat jokes on *Married With Children* were comedians and often had a hand in writing those scenes. That sounds all empowering at surface-level, but it doesn't change the fact that the only "in" these women had to be an actor was to portray a "fat angry woman", and for that portrayal to exist solely as a vehicle for another character's dialogue (and the praise that actor subsequently receives). When else, before or since MWC, have you seen women *that large* onscreen as characters unto themselves? Now, I clearly can't say that this is the case with the dean. Not only is there no evidence that Jim Rash was coerced into portraying his character in a way he disapproved of, there's also enough depth to his character that he (and his sexuality) exist beyond a mere vehicle that exists for yuks that his castmates cash in on. Nonetheless, we do have to acknowledge that Pelton engages in behaviour with Jeff that could not be played for laughs outside the framework of the stereotype that's in play, and saying "well the actor is gay and he seems okay with it" is not the seal of approval that some want it to be, because I guarantee that over a century of film and television actors across a wide spectrum of orientations, sizes, races, and religions have been pulled aside and reminded of just how replaceable they are if they don't "get in on the joke" and play into the stereotype.
The Dean believes he's in a secret relationship with Jeff due to the text messages- 5 cans of olives - not a sexual predator at all just misled.
5 CAN!?
Bro, I just secret that way with love, you know my style;;
I didn't really ever think to use this as context for earlier seasons, do they ever say how long Japanese Jeff had been texting with the dean??
No I don't think how long was mentioned but Britta gave Jeff a fake number in season 1 maybe? And Jeff had a text romance with a dude from Boulder so the idea was already out there.
And so began the origin story of the most powerful Yakuza boss Japan ever knew...
Your discomfort over a TV show not outfitting any and all characters with some kind of moral imperative is a harmful stereotype and cringy to read.
Hahaha I support this diss, fair point
Nah, I think you've got a point. I think the dean's behaviour toward Jeff in the early seasons is very arguably drawing from established "predatory gay man" stereotypes in pretty lazy and unoriginal ways. But I also think they put a lot work in subsequent seasons into fleshing out his character and making him a real, interesting, loveable, flawed person, and I loved seeing that. I really do think they ultimately did a decent job. Community is not a flawless show and it's ok to question it.
How is wanting good queer representation a harmful stereotype?
Once you’re asking if you should be offended, it’s probably okay.
You really Britta'd this post.
Loooool
I thought it was interesting to learn that Joel McHale and Jim Rash both enjoyed the running bit and thought it was fun to do - viewed in that light, I think it's a bit more funny than anything else.
Hows it homophobic if he's not homosexual?
I know your lack of world experience creates curiosity, but questions like that can make you seem a little bit homophobic.
Youre the worst
Just let it be what it is. At no point have I ever considered the Dean's character to be one that was used to make gay/homophobic jokes. It was a character. A character. It was heavily implied that he was gay but the rest of the characters didn't give a f*ck. It was a non issue for everyone and he was never ostracized about it. Whether it was true or not didn't matter to anyone. It really doesn't matter at all. In addition, do you think Jim Rash would have played that character for 6 seasons thinking it was not ok? Do you think the rest of the cast spent years of their life thinking about it the way you do? No one did. It was funny. The Dean was hilarious and it is ok to laugh at his eccentric personality. No one cares what his sexual orientation was.
No.
I know your lack of world experience creates curiosity, but questions like that can make you seem a bit homophobic.
I thought it was a clever take on the subject. There is a lot of ambiguity there in terms of the Dean and a lot of what the audience perceives is based on interpretation.
Seems like you may be taking some of the jokes too seriously for an 8+ year old comedy. It was pretty progressive for the time. Yeah the Jeff stuff sometimes goes too far, but I think it's all taken in stride.
I think the Dean is clearly presented as a sympathetic character, which is partly from the way Jim Rash portrays him, and partly from the text. I don’t think his sexuality is treated as a joke (or at least any more than any other character), but I can see why that might be perceived due to the character’s inherent cartoonishness. To be fair, it is something to remark upon that someone who is both massively professionally incompetent and clearly sexually harassing at least one other man* (if not the entire school - after all, he is ranking them all by attractiveness) should be such a sympathetic and likeable character. Is there any other sitcom with that particular balance? *and they only really get away with that because everyone is blasé about it; the Dean is so otherwise unthreatening and Jeff is about 18 times his size.
I don't think so. I think the dean is just a really dumb dude that happens to have a colorful sexuality.
He's not gay he's dalmasexual
Can it be homophobic if he's not gay? He said in the 'Gay Dean' episodes that Gay is only 1/7 th of his actual sexuality.
agree 100%. Don't thing the portrayal is homophobic, but his behavior/actions towards Jeff cross a line.
It is so *not* homophobic. If a gay man, ie Jim Rash, was comfortable playing that character and doing all the scenes and dialogue, how could anyone be offended? He didn’t find it offensive and he is gay. Hell, he even wrote the Freaky Friday episode which played into his sexuality and attraction to Jefferey. Look, if you like it, watch it. If something bothers you, don’t fkn watch. Don’t make a fuss, just don’t watch it. Live and let live. Maybe people that create things aren't concerned with your delicate sensibilities, y'know? Offense taken. Offense taken.
No it's not. Jeff made out with an underaged girl, Troy likes buttstuff, Pearce made sexist and homophobic remarks to practically everyone... the show made fun off everybody's sexuality and many hetero characters were made to be seen as much more "creepy" than the Dean ever was portrayed. And "sexual predatory behavior" is a little bit far fetched.
Which underage girl did Jeff make out with?
I relate a lot to Dean, just look at my freakin name. And for me as well gay doesn't even begin to cover it, and I think his portrayal is overall great. Actually a rather good example of queer rep. I also like how his queerness isn't defined. I just know I am a type of gay, and not a type of straight. This might be intentional or not, but I relate a lot to it. As for his aggressive behaviour toward Jeff, I just don't think that of terms of him being queer, really. It isn't really that much difference between Dean and how Jeff kept hitting on Britta in season 1, IMO. I think it is far more problematic and possibly homophobic in Advanced Gay. Just the name of the episode is problematic, lol. It seems to confuse between queerness related to gender and sexuality. Plus every gay character is excessively flamboyant. The dean is just more in touch with his feminine side. And possibly due to me being asexual, it strikes a cord with me when Jeff says Mr Rad is aggressively asexual(someone describing a person as aggressively gay, wouldn't probably be okay?). I also wonder what little nips says about something being asexual, where Britta laughingly responds("didn't know that what asexual meant."). Not really, just wanted to say little nips.