Lilian McElroy

PREFACE : ON TREY AND MATT

South Park was created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone; they are two USamerican white men, presumably straight, who grew up in the 80s and 90s. And as such, their vision of queerness is a bit different and more limited to what Millenial/GenZ members of the LGBTQ+ community are used to know. They also have views that can be considered dated and offensive to said community.

This preface is here to remind the reader who read this essay that there will be cisheteronormative actions/sentences present in it, and that is not my opinion on anything; It is Trey’s and Matt’s.

The main theme of the subject will start by basic readings on Kyle’s views of his own masculinity, as well as Stan’s and Eric’s, since they are the two people he interact with the most, as well as influence how he talk and think.

PART 1 : HEALTHY/TOXIC MASCULINITY ON KYLE, STAN AND ERIC

Stan’s and Eric’s relationship with their own masculinity are opposite of each other: Stan possess, as of season 28 of South Park, a relatively healthy view on it, while Eric is shown to think and act on toxic masculine values;

On Stan:

Stan is an introspective and sensible character, who reflect on his identity and life experience quite a lot; while the results may vary, he often comes out of these introspective episodes in a positive manner, and while he (and others) is still confused on his sexual orientation, the view he has on his gender expression is assured, as shown in the episode "Spring Break", where he is not fazed at all by Randy’s nagging and attacks on his apparently lack of manliness, instead ignoring it and calmly playing his tabletop game with Tolkien.

Note that I won’t reference his initial confusion on transness here, as it is a question of gender and NOT on gender presentation or masculinity; those two things are separate i.e. butch women and fem men. Stan is currently neither. His confusion also mostly stemmed from the fact that he was confused about how he could still love Wendy if he happened to be a boy, not on his own gender.

On Cartman:

Cartman is a sexist character, who use femininity to demean boys (namely Butters and Kyle, sometimes Stan), and attack girls (Wendy) on their supposed dysfunctional feminine traits/body parts. He often boast himself up by acting/playing the role of traditional masculine authority figures.

However, he is also seen playing feminine roles during plays, for example during "W.T.F" while playing wrestling, or dressing in drag for dancing shows. This could possibly mean that he forces himself into what he perceives as the pinnacle of masculinity, to appear strong and tough, despite having some interests on feminine presentation.

On Kyle:

Kyle may seem similar on his perceived masculinity to Stan, but this is not quite true: while he is not forcing toxic habits on himself, he has an insecure view of his gender expression and questions it a few times during the show.

This could be the result of Cartman’s remarks on his behavior, pointing out that Kyle “talks and act like a girl” whenever he does something that annoys him.

Kyle is also seen, during episodes framed as having “girls VS boys” issues, either hesitating joining the boy’s side ("Weiners out"), or aligning his actions and opinions on the girl/women's side ("Pee", "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy").

His view on his masculinity is, as is for other parts of himself, impermanent during the show. In early seasons, he is seen as similar as Stan, and thus is quite boyish.

But, as the show goes on, he starts having more individuality in his personality, and the writers shows it in his hobbies, way of talking and mannerism.

PART 2 : GENDER PRESENTATION AND PERCEPTION ON DAY TO DAY BASIS

Kyle have tastes and gestural mannerisms seen as girly by western societal standard.

This type of behavior isn’t seen in other boys during the show, except with Cartman when he is playing a girl persona, or Kenny, when he dresses up as Princess Kenny.

He can also be interpreted as the “girl” during satire episodes/scenes depicting stereotypical tropes seen in movies and series, or even paralleling established couples within South Park itself.

Examples:

Ass Burger: when Stan confronts Kyle while drunk and starts being verbally violent, Kyle tells him that this is over and that he “is with Cartman, now”. Cartman enters the scene, asking if everything is okay. This is a parody of the stereotypical scene in romantic movies where the ex boyfriend comes and confront the woman, who is with someone else. Can be played at the beginning or the end of an episode/movie, depending on who the protagonist is.

Guitar Queer-O: Stan is seen “driving” his toy car, while reminiscing of his time spent with Kyle playing Guitar Hero, stops abruptly, think for a while then backtrack, following with a scene where he seeks Kyle and apologize, saying he needs him, while a romantic music plays in the background (I get the “Queer” in the episode’s title, alright). This is a parody of similar scenes in romantic movies, when the male protagonist lets his love interest go/ has an argument, rethink his decision and run back to her.

Stan and Kyle seem to parallel Randy and Sharon, respectively, during some episodes where Stan get fame/his arrogance cloud his judgment and acts in an egoistical manner and sometimes hurting people in the process; Kyle is here to confront him on it, similar as Sharon.("Butterballs", "South Park Sucks" to name a few)

There is also parallels to be made with Gerald and Sheila about Cartman and Kyle respectively, during these two scenes, from the same season, in particular:

Other small scenes to note:

- In “Help, my teenager hates me!” Kyle is seen casually applying Sheila’s makeup on his face and not minding when she asks why he did it. Gerald answers “he’s experimenting” and leave it at that.

- In “Conflict of interest”, when the whole class is confused and interested in knowing the Webelo’s kid gender, Kyle is one of the only ones not interested by it; the other two being Timmy and Butters. Moreover, he gets annoyed when Cartman asks him what gender he thinks the kid has. Kyle’s reaction is accentuated by the fact that the kids Cartman asks right after (Stan, Kenny and Clyde) directly and casually speculate on it.

- the gag in "It Hits the Fan" where Cartman says “don't mind Kyle everyone, he has a little sand in his vagina”, and Kyle responds with “there's no sand in my vagina” instead of outright refuting the fact that he have one to begin with;

- in “Turd burglars”, when Kyle watch the VHS about intestinal microbiote, the voice-over instruct the viewer to touch their balls. Kyle hesitates, then only reaches down when the voice says, “If you don’t have balls, touch whatever is down there”.

The last two point could be used to argue on a trans or even an intersex headcannon, rather than gender presentation, but it is linked to it nonetheless.

Gender non conformity is even more accentuated when he plays pretend with his friends.

PART 3 : GENDER EXPLORATION VIA ROLE PLAYING GAMES

During the show, the kids have played a lot of role playing games and, for the most part, have kept it to playing male characters; however, in some iteration, Eric, Kenny and Kyle have diverged and played as girls/other gendered characters:

On Cartman:

This is the most visible one because of how flashy his characters are; in some one note plays, Cartman is seen playing as a girl in "W.T.F", dress up as one for one of his schemes ("Freak Strike"), and use drag for dancing ("AWESOM-O", "Butterballs"), and many more iterations.

An interesting thing to note here, is that in all of their long play games, Cartman has played traditionally masculine male characters, not as in classic male heroes like Stan, but as utlra masculine stereotypes or bestial characters (A bearded, rugged dwarf in WoW, A (what he imagines in the SoT game introduction) bearded wizard in the Console wars and the Stick of Truth, and a cis straight racoon mutant in their hero playtimes).

On Kenny:

During their Stick of Truth plays, Kenny takes the role of Princess Kenny. It is first played as a joke, until her tragic backstory is revealed. It is a direct parallel of Kenny’s entire character, as a comic relief given depth later on, especially with his Mysterion persona.

On Kyle:

Kyle, while staying with male character during one note gameplays, has the most variety when playing long term games:

- When playing the MMORPG World of Warcraft, he is one of the only boys playing as a girl. When being nagged on by Cartman and Kenny for it, he doesn’t mention nor say anything, and continue playing as one. It is not mentioned during the rest of the game;

- when playing the Stick of Truth, Kyle is the high drow elf king. Elves are seen as an androgynous/effeminate race in pop culture, being referenced in a negative light in a dialogue during the game Snow Day. Kyle wears a long robe with intricate, sparkling (sequins?) patterns, as well as jewelry;

- when playing as their hero personas, Kyle plays as a gender neutral, asexual alien. He also made sure that his costume portrayed that neutrality.

It kind of worked, but I think he could’ve made an effort to look less chopped imo. It's just my opinion, but it needed to be said. That’s a fucked up, chopped little alien here.

PART 4 : JUDAISM AND ANTISEMITISM

It is important to note that, for a good part of history, Gentiles have been denying equal footing to Jewish men, in part by denying their masculinity; and it is actually a theme present in South Park, via Eric: during a lot of episodes, Cartman shoots down Kyle’s speeches by feminizing and sexualizing him.

It is both linked to his antisemitism and his sexism, viewing Jewish people as inferior to him and femininity as lesser than masculinity. Nonetheless, this does not negate the fact that Kyle HAS been portrayed in the show as gender non conforming, and we should see these iterations as Cartman weaponizing this to assess his supposed social superiority to Kyle and NOT to deny Kyle’s gender expression.

CONCLUSION

During the time South Park has been airing, the writers have been portraying Kyle as gender non-conforming, but more frequently on later seasons, as in the earlier ones they were still figuring out his personality.

And no, the quote “I like being a dirty, filthy little boy” does not in ANY WAY, negate the MANY iterations where he acts and talks the opposite;

- Two third of the descriptors used in this sentence aren’t true anymore, as Kyle has become a germaphobe;

- It is an episode of earlier seasons and, as written above, they were still figuring out Kyle’s personality and tried to differentiate him more to Stan;

- a metrosexual man isn’t queer; it is a cisgender, heterosexual man appropriating gay culture while not engaging with it, even explicitly separating himself from it. This has been explained in the very episode;

- Kyle has been portrayed despising being seen as a stereotype, mainly because it could be used to demean him by Cartman; which is why, while being hostile to the trend, his goals has been aligned with the two ACTUAL gay men of the episode, Mr Garrison and Mr Slave.

Kyle is gender non conforming and seeing him as the most masculine of the main boy is a misreading of the show or a proof that his character is deliberately ignored in favor of fanon cisheteronormative portrayal for ships. A sort of wokejoshi situation, if you will. Please refer to the graph.

I’m very bad at conclusions which is why my college professors hated me. I hate you and your stupid haircut too, Patrick.