#Society and Culture

[greeds]

"this is how they taught me to search for dead bodies at the bottom of a lake" 😭😭😭

[thoughtportal]

[snorzyy]

hello tumblr nation, my friend is doing a year12 research project on doctor who and needs responses from people who have watched dr who !! if u have also watched the spin off shows (torchwood, sarah jane’s adventures) then there is a seperate questionnaire for those! Because you people like tapping polls and doctor who i figured this would be a good place to ask for responses :3

[hussyknee]

hi, i hope i am not crossing a line, please ignore if this is bad question. i am just curious

in one of your posts u said your caste is karava. this is the first time i am hearing a sinhalese talk about caste (i speak tamil and never really felt confident in my sinhala to make sinhalese friends)

can you explain about the castes or tell me where find information about it

Caste is a fucked up concept across the board, obviously, but Sinhalese castes are different from Tamil Hindu in that they involve the cultural and socio-political organisation of the Sinhalese community, and has no connection to religious scripture.

There are thirteen castes that still exist today. We used to be a chiefly agrarian society, so the majority of Sinhalese are Govigama ("Govi" means farming) and they're the kind of "bourgeoisie" of the social order in that few are above them and anyone else is below them. Those that rank below them are castes like Bathgama and Kinnara (who are meant to be agricultural labourers) Vahampura (something to do with making cinnamon or treacle) Navadanna (artisans, especially makers of jewelry) and Rada (launderers). Radala is the caste of the nobility, and afaik the only one above Govigama. They're all from highlands of Kandy, the last Sinhalese holdout against the Europeans for about 200 years. There's no nobility among the lowlanders (between the Portuguese, Dutch and British, they were either killed, assimilated or fled to Kandy) so the Govigama caste is the highest one everywhere else. This means Govigama used to be the only one that was qualified to join the Theravada Buddhist priesthood* and also receive education and job opportunities as government servants—right up until the mid-20th century, when the karava gentry turned into robber barons under the British Empire's demand for cash crops.

Karava people are the majority inhabitants in the Southern coastal lands, which are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhist, as opposed to the Tamil lands of the Northern coast (Eelam really) and the proliferation of sparsely-populated Muslim communities in the rest of the coastal belt. Karava is called the fisherfolk caste by the rest of country, despite their own strong objections. Caste is reckoned patrilineally. I'm Karava through my Dad and I married into a Karava family. Nearly every Karava person I know insists that we're actually the warrior caste and were given the coastal lands as reward for our service to the king. I'm sure there's a legitimate case to be made for this, (this site keeps being referred to me) but I don't care enough to find out because the Karava insistence that being called fisherfolk is a Govigama conspiracy is incredibly funny. I mean, it could be true, what do I know, but so much of the cope and seethe stem from our lingering inferiority complex and resentment at having been treated as inferior until a few decades ago. After being ground under the Radala and Govigama feet along with the rest for ages beyond record, suddenly us lowlanders were rolling in money from our toddy, coconut and rubber plantations, matching or surpassing the wealth of the nobility. We were chasing off Tamil and Muslim minorities to establish our own lost cultural capitals in Anuradhapura and Pollonnaruwa that predated the Kandyan kingdom and making our own sect of the Buddhist priesthood (Amarapura Nikaya) that would ordain Karava people. The robber baron types also got very chummy with the British colonial administration and were awarded cushy jobs in government over the Govigama, who still disdained industrialization and commerce. (To this day my mother's family looks down on business people no matter how rich. Merchants are considered grasping and untrustworthy.) By the time of Sri Lanka's independence from the British in 1948, we had two varieties of equally rich, snooty, virulently ethnonationalist Sinhalese elites who had gotten ahead by selling us out to the British, but with the highland Radala still believing they were too pure-blooded to mix with the hoi polloi and the lowland Karava resentful at being considered the polloi no matter how hoi they'd become. Post-independence, Sri Lanka's adoption of free education and free state universities saw masses of lowlanders, Karava, Durava and Salagama all, sending their kids to university to attain upwardly mobile careers in engineering, medicine and teaching. "If the boy is Karava he's probably in engineering" is a common joke. It's a clear shift away from our rural agrarian roots into urban sprawl and high socio-economic competition in place of social stratification.

We also have a caste of Untouchables called the Rodiya. In ancient times, you and all your family being stripped of their lands and titles and banished into the Rodi Rahaya was one of the punishments reserved for the noble houses that ran afoul of the monarchy. It condemned your entire lineage forever. This was such a dire fate that some would have favoured execution.

Rodiyas were not permitted to cross a ferry, to draw water at a well, to enter a village, to till land, or learn a trade, as no recognised caste could deal or hold intercourse with a Rodiya [...] They were forced to subsist on alms or such gifts as they might receive for protecting the fields from wild beasts or burying the carcasses of dead cattle; but they were not allowed to come within a fenced field even to beg [...] They were prohibited from wearing a cloth on their heads, and neither men nor women were allowed to cover their bodies above the waist or below the knee. If benighted they dare not lie down in a shed appropriated to other travellers, but hid themselves in caves or deserted watch-huts. Though nominally Buddhists, they were not allowed to go into a temple, and could only pray "standing afar off"

(Source)

Allegations of witchcraft and cannibalism aside, the Rodiyas themselves were known to be a proud folk that considered themselves the pure-blooded descendants of the royalty that were punished this way. Here's a Reddit post that expounds on them more, along with photographs. It seems that the strictures against covering up had fallen away between the turn of the 20th century and the '70s. Not much is known about their current living conditions, but I believe that, like India's own Untouchables and the low caste of Eelam's Tamil Hindus, they must have converted to Christianity to escape the stigma.

Casteism is still somewhat of a problem in the Sinhalese community, but it's lessening every generation. My maternal grandparents weren't entirely happy about my mother marrying my Karava father but conceded because he was an engineer with a stable career. My older cousin had to fight his Karava family to marry his school sweetheart because she was both poor and Bathgama caste (I think "Padu" might be a derogatory name for it). The fact that he succeeded is noteworthy because it would have been a huge scandal in my parents' time. The Radalas are still a bunch of insular dipshits who try to keel over and die if one of them tries to marry out. But many of them are also migrating abroad so Idk if it's too much to hope that they leave the caste shit behind when they assimilate into Western society. It certainly hasn't worked for the Brahmin Indians. But the outlook is better for the rest of us.

*There is no caste system in Buddhism. The Buddha in fact was an egalitarian social reformer who advocated against the Vedic caste system and ordained Untouchables as well as women. So obviously the Theravadin priesthood of Sri Lanka, that bastion of the Buddha's Word, would make sure that only high caste men could ever be ordained. Love the fact that the Karava social revolution just made sure they had their own sect instead of, y'know, pushing for anything more equitable. I always say that if we really want to protect Buddhism we have to abolish the Sinhalese.

[ronaldmcdonaldstastytits]

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Realistic Representation

Hello Sunnyblr!

I asked if anyone wanted to see my paper I did on Always Sunny for school and some people said yes, so here it is. It’s like 5000 words and it was super rushed, so it’s not brilliant. Hope you have fun reading it and I recommend you also check out the sources I referenced at the end because some of those where a hell of a read and so fucking interesting. 

[NOTE] This was originally intended for my teacher’s eyes who has not seen Always Sunny, so a lot of the first two chapters are very anecdotal and recount some plot points of always sunny, so if you know the show (which if you’re seeing this, you probably do) they aren’t necessary to read, neither is the log but I decided to include it anyway. 

Introduction

This personal Interest Project will explore the way in which homosexuality is portrayed in the media, with an emphasis and focus on the TV show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and the ways that they make the queer representation in it both realistic and relatable, to everyone in the audience. 

I chose this as my topic for multiple reasons: I love looking at and reading about the ways that the media presents queerness and the LGBTQ+ community. I’ve consumed a large amount of media with queer characters since I was first introduced to the concept, and of all the media, the most relatable and well presented I have come across so far has to be in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in the character of Mac and his struggles between religion and sexuality. 

The way that homosexuality and queerness in general is shown in the media is important for society as a whole, as it is always important to see yourself and others reflected in the media you consume. In this study I reference self made questionnaires, interviews and researched secondary sources to further evidence my judgements in a way so that I could get diverse opinions on a niche subject. My cross-cultural component included interviewing people who have been invested in the show far longer than i have to show what has changed in the community’s attitude towards Always Sunny’s representation over the years.

Log

My first step in creating my study was to do secondary research on the topics of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, LGBTQ+ representation in the media and the Queer habitation of fandom spaces. 

Once I had a list of both formal and scholarly and informal references I could use, I sent them to my email to ensure they would not get lost or forgotten and I started reading them all, making mental notes on what to use as I went along. 

Next I started by beginning an introduction to the study. I then made an essay plan for each chapter, making sure to note down which sources I would be using and where. I plotted exactly what I would talk about in each chapter and estimated how long they would each be. 

When I started the body of my study I realised it was actually far longer than I had been anticipating and I spent a long time cutting it down before continuing with my Third chapter, which I realised I would have to condense down from chapters three and four into just one. 

After I had finally finished the three chapters I made sure to annotate each of the sources I had used, add footnotes and graphs and relevant pictures. 

The last task I had yet to complete was the log, which was easy to fill out even though i had made no attempts at creating a project diary (which I should do in the future so that this last process is even easier).

Chapter 1 – Sunny’s Dark Satire

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the longest running live-action American sit-com ever made. In 2003 two struggling actors, Rob McElhenny and Glenn Howerton came up with an idea that flipped traditional comedy on its head, made a pilot episode with a budget of $200 and titled it, “It’s Always Sunny on TV”. 

The show was to take place in Hollywood, about three actors trying to make it big. The three main characters were Rob McElhenny, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day playing as themselves. 

The first episode, “Charlie has Cancer” started with Glenn visiting Charlie’s apartment to “borrow a bowl of sugar”, only to find out that his friend might have cancer. When Charlie starts confiding in Glenn about how he feels about all of it Glenn awkwardly responds, “Oh, I’m s--- did you wanna talk right now?”, creating the awkward, dark, satirical comedy aspect that It’s Always Sunny is well known for. 

Later, after the show was picked up by FX, It was decided that the premise of the show would need to be changed. FX believed there were already too many sitcoms set in Los Angeles and they decided the new show would be set in McElhenney’s home town of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They also didn’t want it to be about actors as there were too many shows about that as well, but with the premise and comedy of the show the characters would need to have a lot of free time on their hands, and so the decision was made that the characters would be bar owners, and the name of the show was changed to “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

The characters’ names also changed, McElhenney was now Ronald “Mac” McDonald (yes like the clown), Howerton was now called Dennis Reynolds and Day was still called Charlie, only the last name switched from “Day” to “Kelly” and Dennis’ twin sister was played by Kaitlyn Olsen. The show that started with the characters and actors at 28 and 29 years old, now has them at 46 and 47 in the newest season of the show which only came out in early June this year and the show is still signed for two more seasons. 

Always Sunny was made to be an anti sitcom, a direct opposite to something like F.R.I.E.N.D.S. or How I Met Your Mother.

Most sitcoms feature lovable characters who  might be a little morally dubious at the beginning but eventually turn into better people, sometimes they fall in love and get married and the end of the story is nice and happy. 

Anti-sitcoms-- not so much. 

While a sitcom explores the characters’ growth as individuals through comedy, anti sitcoms often do the opposite. In Always Sunny every single character is set up to be one of the worst people imaginable. The point of the show is to make you hate the characters and root against them so that when they finally get what they deserve-- often physical violence-- you feel justified in laughing at them. 

Each of the characters has at least one thing that is absolutely awful about them so that if you get too close to liking them someone else can point out, How can you like him? He stalked a woman for 15 years! Making you like the character less. 

They all have their terrible flaws; Charlie stalked a woman for 15 years, Mac is incredibly misogynistic and homophobic, Dennis has harassed and assaulted women on multiple occasions. The characters are awful, you can’t help but hate them, and that makes seeing them get what they deserve at the end of every episode so much more satisfying. 

However, while we hate these characters, that doesn’t mean we can’t also relate to them. It also doesn’t mean that the show can’t have good representation. Because it does and we do; Topics like mental health issues, eating disorders, Childhood sexual assault and LGBTQ+ identities are explored by the characters. 

But one of the things that so many fans of the show relate to about the characters is the queer aspect. In every show that has a fandom, there are characters consistently “headcannonned” as queer in some respect. Always Sunny is no exception, however, it did go farther in seeing how they had been portraying the characters, noticing that one of them did seem gay even to them and actually taking the step to confirm that the character was gay. 

Chapter 2 – Mac’s Journey

In 2016’s season 11 finale McElhenney’s character, Mac, came out as gay. Mac was an ultra conservative man infected with so much toxic masculinity that he took any altercation and raised it to violence out of insecurity. He was also insanely homophobic, misogynistic and transphobic despite the fact that he once dated a transgender woman named Carmen on and off for two years.

Carmen was actually first introduced in season one episode four “Charlie has Cancer”, the pilot of Sunny on TV. Carmen was played by Brittany Daniel in the FX show, and the plot of the episode didn’t change much from the original: Mac tries to find a girl to get her to sleep with Charlie to cheer him up since he supposedly has cancer. The only girl he sees in the bar is Carmen, they start talking and Mac goes back to Dennis and Dee to tell them he’s “found the perfect girl for Charlie”. Then Dennis and Dee tell him that “that’s a dude”. When Mac goes to confront Carmen about it she expertly deflects the accusation and they continue flirting.

MAC: You lied to me.

CARMEN: No, I didn't. You lied to me. You don't work out? Please. I've seen you at the gym. You're ripped.

MAC: No. Don't turn this around. Wait. Really? You think so?

CARMEN: Yeah.

MAC: (flexes his muscles) I was afraid I was getting a little too ripped, you know?

CARMEN: Oh, no. I like it.

MAC: Wow! Hmm. Well, I gotta get back to work. Um, but I don't know. Maybe I'll give you a call sometime.

After that they end up going on dates and they seem like a happy couple apart from the fact that Mac is very clearly uncomfortable with dating someone with a penis. Eventually their relationship ends when while on a date, Carmen approaches Mac from behind and taps his shoulder and Mac freaks out and accidentally punches her out of instinct. 

In a later episode of Season three, “Mac is a serial killer”, the plot twist of the episode is that, while the gang thinks that Mac has been acting shady recently because he’s now a serial killer, it is actually because Mac has been trying to hide the fact that he’s been dating Carmen again from them out of fear of their reactions considering what they thought the last time they dated. Through this episode Mac still clearly is uncomfortable with her being trans but he also seems to really like her considering the amount of research he had been doing into her “condition”, as Mac puts it. Towards the end of the episode Carmen dumps him because she thinks he is ashamed of her. Upset, Mac goes to Charlie and tells him “It’s over,” since he had assumed that Charlie knew the whole time. The gang confronts Mac about being a serial killer and Mac immediately yells back “I’m not a serial killer! [...] I’ve been banging the [t slur]!” Just as Mac had predicted, the gang immediately seems disgusted by this. 

Carmen appears in two other later episodes as well, in one of them Mac runs into her at the gym and finds out she’s getting married soon. The rest of the episode is about Mac being so jealous that she’s getting married to someone that he decides that it is a “gay marriage” and therefore a sin and tries to dissuade the couple from getting married by using homophobic bible quotes. Predictably, this episode is called  “Mac Fights Gay Marriage”. 

The last episode with Carmen in it is one in which Dee gives birth after being pregnant all season, it is revealed at the end of this episode that after the Gang tried so hard to figure out who the father was all season and were prepared to look after this kid together, that Dee was actually a surrogate, and what’s more, she was a surrogate for Carmen and her Husband. 

Miraculously, Carmen is the only character or side character who has ever left an encounter with the gang unscathed, she even somehow came out the end better, with a family. Every other character has been dragged down into the pits of hell with the rest of the gang whenever they’ve had to endure anything with them. 

Along with being transphobic and yet dating a trans woman Mac was also very homophobic, and the best example of that comes from the season nine episode, “Mac Day”, in which Mac’s cousin from the country (“Country Mac”) comes to the city. Later in the episode Mac makes his friends participate in “Greasing up some Beefcakes” which is actually just rubbing oil on body builders. Mac says some very suggestive things when the Gang doesn’t want to do it-- “These guys work off their beautiful glutes for our enjoyment, okay? The least we can do is pay them back in tan and grease.”-- Country Mac seems all too up for the activity, however, and says he's been getting a lot of phone numbers. Dennis asks where there are women, to which Country Mac replies, “Chicks? No. Dudes. I’m into Dudes.” The Gang expresses their positive sentiments and when Country Mac walks away Charlie says, “It’s so much more comfortable when someone’s gay and open about it. And like, I know we’ve never said this as a group, but… Mac’s gay." The rest of the Gang all immediately agreed with no restraint. At the end of the episode, after Country Mac’s untimely death, Mac makes a eulogy which includes the characteristic homophobia, “And it turns out, he was totally queer. Which, as we all know, is a sin. And that, coupled with his radical religious beliefs, has most likely landed him in Hell, where he will burn for all eternity. So I will ask for a moment of silence, in which I will beg God's forgiveness for Country Mac's evil, homo ways…”

Although the writers clearly knew what they were doing with “Mac Day”, the season ten two part finale “The Gang Goes to Hell Parts 1 and 2” is where they really made their intentions surrounding Mac’s character and sexuality clear. 

Goes to Hell were two of the episodes that showcased exactly how awful each of the characters are. In the story, every one of the characters committed one of the seven deadly sins and ended up on the brig of the Christian cruise ship they were on. They were on the Christian cruise ship because Mac had converted from his Roman Catholic church he had grown up in, to a Christian one because his usual church was “getting too Vietnamese”, just showcasing again how Mac is a horrible person. 

Of course Charlie and Frank’s sin was gluttony in the form of alcoholism (they drank boat fuel), Dee was wrathful and punched a woman and Dennis attempted to have sex with a girl who was 19 even though he was 39. Out of everyone in the Gang, Mac was the only one who didn’t commit a sin and yet he ended up in the brig as well. 

The reason Mac was in the brig was because he had found out the men he had become friends with were actually married and gay and Mac, being incredibly homophobic as he was, had decided that he was put on the cruise by God to convert them to being straight. This of course didn’t work and when Mac told the men all of this they said: 

DAVID: You want to convert us?

MAC: Yeah!

DAVID: Do you realise how insulting that is? How would you like it if I tried to convert you?

MAC: Uh… Wouldn’t care. Cause that’s, like, impossible. There’s no way you guys could convert me to your lifestyle.

SCOTT: Let’s give it a shot. 

The next scene opened with Mac walking straight into the brig, closing the door and saying defeatedly, “Well… I’m gay.”

Mac’s sexuality was further explored in the Season 13 finale, “Mac Finds His Pride” in which he came out to his father and his prison mates through an interpretive dance, only for him to walk out of the room midway through his performance. Mac was clearly devastated by this and the episode ended with Frank, who had accompanied Mac throughout the episode and who was typically quite ignorant and homophobic, finally understanding how Mac had felt his whole life. 

Chapter 3 – Was it Good Representation?

Having representation in the media is important for all minorities. Minorities can see others like them, and non-minorities can see how minorities are affected by a world not catered for them and see how things need to change. 

In a survey regarding what people thought about shows with Queer representation, I asked the questions: what was the best queer representation you’ve seen in the media and why?

In response to what the best queer representation was, the results varied greatly as there are many different pieces of media containing good LGBTQ+ representation. However, the most recurring answers were It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with 17.3%, Our Flag Means Death with 11.5% and The Owl House with 7.7%. The top qualities in good representation were (in order of highest to lowest); realism, normalisation, diversity, relatability, unashamedness, and acceptance. 

In an interview with a long time fan of Always Sunny, 22 year old Lillian H, in response to being asked what she liked about the representation in Always Sunny, said that while she didn’t think that the portrayal of Mac’s identity was as good as it could have been her favourite thing about the show was it’s portrayal of mental illness and trauma: “There’s not many aspects of the show that I would ever look at as “good” representation, I mean that would be the opposite of the message that the show is trying to convey. I don’t even think that Mac is as good a representation that he could be. But I also think Sunny is the best tv representation I have ever seen of trauma and mental illness. One of my favorite things about this show is that at its core, Sunny is about five traumatized people who were deeply affected by their terrible upbringing and continue to perpetuate the cycle and project it all over anyone they encounter.”

Lillian started watching the show around the time the first two seasons had begun airing and was introduced to it by her Dad who loved the show. “My dad was obsessed with it and when we weren’t watching it on television he was showing me his favorite scenes on youtube.”, she said. She also talked about how when she was in middle school and properly able to digest and process the humour of the show beyond a group of adults yelling at each other for 20 minutes straight, she started engaging with the online fandom on tumblr. When asked how the fandom has changed over time she said, “The majority of tumblr users were under thirty, so I think the fans there were a lot more accepting and open minded than the people like my dad who just watched it on tv. I never witnessed any kind of blatant homophobia or racism of any kind. From what I remember everyone for the most part understood the satire and knew what the show was portraying was wrong. The blackface was definitely an issue though. It was (rightfully!) openly shunned and criticized in the fandom. There were other tumblr users that had never seen the show who would attack sunny blogs for being racist and problematic for supporting a show and cast that performed blackface. [...] The response to Mac coming out was initially terrible. He came out of the closet only to go right back in at the end of the episode. I think the majority of LGBTQ fans felt this episode made it clear that Mac's sexuality was being trivialized and played up for laughs. It was especially disappointing coming from a crew who claimed to be gay allies, one of which had two moms and a gay brother who worked on the show. When Mac finally came out for good, the response was overwhelmingly positive and celebratory. I think at the time even the older fans (like my dad) were too caught off guard to be hateful. It was a bizarrely emotional episode.”

In a separate survey when the question, “what was the best queer representation you have seen and why?” was posed, the reasons behind people responding with Mac from Always Sunny were mostly very similar; “because he is the epitome of who I used to be (Catholic and extremely in denial about my sexuality)”, “Mac McDonald, mostly because I can relate to him a lot. We are both gay, we are both religious [...]”, “It’s really relatable for me. I grew up in [a] catholic setting, so it was just easier to lock away my true feelings.”, “Mac's shame and guilt regarding his sexuality and being stuck in the closet and denial was executed well and it's something many lgbt folks can relate to”, “Mac finds his pride is definitely one of the best episodes of the show and shows his struggle with his internalised homophobia and struggle to find a place to fit in, which i can relate to.”

Most people in more recent times, when talking about why they liked Mac’s representation, reference how they feel it relates to them. Most of these people are gay, religious or both like Mac was and understand that what happened when Mac first came out and then went back into the closet was a way of denial and repression and something they related to. 

This proposes the theory that perhaps this view in particular regarding Mac’s character and story has changed over time from something that people were unhappy about when it first happened to something that people now praise for making it feel realistic and relatable. 

However this is a phenomenon known only to those within the fandom. In an interview with 17 year old Jordan Wade, who only considers himself a casual enjoyer of the show and has only watched the first two seasons, he said that he hadn’t really noticed any queer aspects to any of the characters and had not picked up on any representation in the show where he was up to. It should be noted that there is LGBTQ+ themes and representation in the first season in the form of Carmen and perhaps this shows that the only people who really pay enough attention to the show to be able to pick out and examine each piece of representation are those who are engaged in the fandom. And most people who engage in fandom are queer or part of other minorities and as such are already used to searching thoroughly for any representation. 

In a survey, 10 memes from Always Sunny were presented to the participants and they were asked if they recognised the meme. On all of the memes 55 people responded and of all those memes the lowest number of people who recognised a meme was 32, with the highest being 51 of the 55 saying they recognised it. The spread of memes on the internet among people who know the show and don’t, contribute to the spread of the show, which contributes to the spread of its representation. Of the ten memes, before I had even watched the show, I had seen nine of them, just due to being online on platforms such as Tumblr and TikTok. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia has some good representation of LGBTQ+ characters and also of mental health issues. The show is absolutely flawed but it is usually quite good at staying within the confines of a dark satire and using it to its advantage. Mac’s character could have been dealt with more gently and so could Carmen’s but ultimately they did really well with what they did at the time and many people relate really well to the characters. The characters and representation in Always Sunny is genuinely really good and many people agree that it is relatable, and realistic and not made a huge deal of, only increasing the value of the representation. 

The use of realistic and relatable plot points in Mac’s story help to make the character more accessible to queer audiences. The fact that he came out and then went back in only helps queer people relate to him more. His internalised homophobia is ever present throughout the show and drawn upon to add to his queer identity, showing how overtime he worked on and diminished his internalised homophobia and was finally able to feel himself after the season thirteen finale. 

While aspects of it may still be widely contested by fans of Always Sunny online, it stands without competition that Mac in many ways was good representation that fed people starved of representation. And while Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, Charlie Day and the other writers of Always Sunny could have done better, it is undeniable that they were well intentioned and got their messages across quite well in the end.

Reference List

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https://whatnerd.com/what-is-anti-sitcom-explained-with-examples/ 

 McManus, B., McManus, C., Conall McManusConall McManus is a contributor at whatNerd. He’s an avid fan of cinema, Conall McManus is a contributor at whatNerd. He’s an avid fan of cinema, & Read more by Conall McManus ». (2022, October 12). What’s an anti-sitcom? Explained (with 5 great examples). whatNerd. https://whatnerd.com/what-is-anti-sitcom-explained-with-examples/ 

https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/amusing-abusers-and-humourless-survivors-analysing-the-role-of-comedy-in-media-representations-of-sexual-violence 

Rose, L. B. (2021). Amusing abusers and humourless survivors: analysing the role of comedy in media representations of sexual violence. Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies, (3), 344-373.

https://mediarxiv.org/8hgfa/download?format=pdf 

 Johnson Jr, M. (2020). Queer Incrementalism and the Emancipatory Rhetoric of Redemption on FX’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj12BBtbRkM 

YouTube. (2022). The Gang Does Trans Representation. YouTube. Retrieved June 15, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj12BBtbRkM. 

https://deadline.com/2021/12/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-addresses-blackface-controversy-1234884709/ 

 Haring, B. (2021, December 4). “it’s always sunny in Philadelphia” addresses blackface controversy in “lethal weapon 7” season 15 episode. Deadline. https://deadline.com/2021/12/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-addresses-blackface-controversy-1234884709/ 

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/lgbtq-fans-remaking-fandom-in-our-own-image-stitch-fan-service 

Stitch. (2021, June 9). LGBTQ+ fans: We’re here, Queer, and remaking fandom in our own image. Teen Vogue. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/lgbtq-fans-remaking-fandom-in-our-own-image-stitch-fan-service

https://www.tumblr.com/sunnykeysmash/717820696920719360/im-also-thinking-that-it-would-mean-mac-would 

Sunnykeysmash. (2023, May 20). “wait One Year” on Tumblr. Tumblr. https://www.tumblr.com/sunnykeysmash/717820696920719360/im-also-thinking-that-it-would-mean-mac-would 

https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/1043761

Kimmel, K. (2017). THE GANG’S IN A THESIS: AN EXAMINATION OF AMERICAN TELEVISION’S DARK HORSE SITCOM “IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA” (Doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University).

And of course thank you to @lgbdee for helping me and @sunnykeysmash for unknowlingly giving me something to use as a source and a good read lol. And thanks to everyone who participated in all the polls and surveys i put out, it was a huge help and I was able to get a MUCH larger amount of data on my surveys than my classmates did which I count as a win on it’s own even though I have no idea what my marks for this assignment were.

Also if you’re going to read any of the sources above I highly recommend “Amusing abusers and humourless survivors: analysing the role of comedy in media representations of sexual violence” by LB Rose. I genuinely really enjoyed reading it and reread it later too.

[the-sound-ofrain]

gender oppression is the result of language.

post modern feminists

the crux that the above statement holds is how the society & their derogatory remarks has been gender based. the common connotations that we use in daily life more often shows the patriarchal approach since the ages.

for ex : in the modern times, the women reproductive part is used as a term to symbolise a person who's weaker in any manner, who's lacking gut approach a task. while on the other hand men's weakest point - 'the testes' is again used to define the same feeble will of a person as in "you don't have balls man".

the society/the family/the group has always used language mechanisms to lower the standard of a woman. one might hear it on a daily basis. for ex : in Dangal Movie Amir Khan quoted " मारी छोरियां, छोरो से कम हैं के" at a moment it feels like wow but then you realise that even to lift up the girls spirit he's actually accepting that the bar set up by the boys is actually higher than the girls. he's actually establishing a mere fact that girls are not equal.

let me give you another example: tiger shroff's famous meme "छोटी बच्ची हो क्या" nobody questioned why not ’ बच्चा ’ which symbolises that yes the society accepts that the women are the trademark of 'crying'.

every slang which modern society uses to show the anger is based on demeaning a woman or her body parts & even the woman enjoys using such slang which shows how effortlessly the language has penetrated our mind.

once we start making ourselves of the fact that the major part of our life is governed by the kind of language or dialects we use. we can change the discrimination in any major grounds.

-apollo

[beary-eyed]

So tired, I finished my PIP, not really finished it, it still needs editing but it's all written. 8360 words! Done!

[avamations01]

DISNEY'S WOKEISM

Hey guys, It's Ava! I'm currently a Year 12 Society and Culture Student and as a part of my PIP (Personal Interest Project), I am conducting a Questionnaire on the Walt Disney Company's attempt to add diversity and modern ideals within their films. My goal for this questionnaire is to gain the opinions of Disney's modern audience (Hence Tumblr).

Thanks for taking the time to fill out my form!

[trushe-and-poetry]

A friend's guide to providing comfort -

[gaystropod]

Hello! Anyone in gen z (10-25) wanna help a guy out and fill out a google form i need done for an assessment? It shouldnt take too long and it will help me greatly :)

Also if by some chance you are a member of generation x (40-55) HI. I have a form for you also :))

[greeds]

[thoughtportal]

As the maker of small things I found this manifesto to be incredibly inspiring and hopeful.

small technology, small economy, small community

[wwwfa2023]

Are we failing?

As we wrap up our discussion and reading of Under the Udala Trees I am reminded through this story of the issues we as a society, as a whole, as a world face. I mention in my paper, “ This isn’t just a story but a reflection of what is happening around us. How do we fix it? Can we fix it? Where do we begin?” This quote helps in reflecting on that, in my opinion. There are so many stories in the world of those who have struggled the same way Ijeoma has. As a society, we tend to feed stereotypes. This quote generated new questions, as a society do we owe it to ourselves to make the necessary changes or continue feeding into the stereotypes? Are we as a society failing each other and ourselves by becoming the real victim of our own doing?

[pxper-cranes]

How animation as a medium is mistreated

Hey, guys. I was hoping some of you could take time to do this form for one of my major works for school. I need data specifically on the perceptions that people have on animated media and cartoons and stuff, so i thought Tumblr might help. It wont take long and It would really help me boost my data outside of just my school. Thanks!

[ronaldmcdonaldstastytits]

Always Sunny Research

Hello Sunnyblr I’m LJ and I’m looking for people to interview for my assignment. The assignment is on Representation in Always Sunny and I need a cross cultural component so since I only started watching Always Sunny this year I decided I could do my cross cultural component as an interview with someone who has been watching Sunny for longer than I have. 

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in helping me with please fill out the form below, you don’t need to answer anything you don’t want to :) thank you all in advance!!

https://forms.gle/JRntPCjc4eCqQjuW8