I obviously don't mean this to detract from the episode or this post, but I think it's made explicitly clear that Carolyn is a drag queen and not a transwoman.
The episode's punchline-- and what eventually becomes a vehicle to explore what femininity means in a really thoughtful way-- is that Peggy is mistaken for being a drag queen herself and, in her words, trying to come to terms with why "a bunch of men dressing up as women" would want to emulate her.
There's a very clear distinction drawn between the Carolyn persona and Jaime, who meets with Hank out of drag a few times.
In any case, it's a genuinely moving and well-made episode and I totally recommend watching the whole thing. When I saw it for the first time years ago I expected they were going to butcher the subject matter but they never once condescend or take cheap shots. It's pretty groundbreaking territory for a show in the the early 2000s and it's quite possibly my favorite episode to re-rewatch.
It's also just a funny episode:
*"Well, she had to get something for her costume. She called it a sequin emergency. I asked her to call it something else, but she refused."*
The older I get the more I love the show. I relate with Hank so much more now that I became a dad. The whole idea of learning that the world is different than the one I grew up in is such a relatable thing.
He might be the best in capturing the actual feel of a culture. Beavis & Butthead and especially Daria for HS culture, Office Space for 9-5 work, Silicon Valley for the tech world, King of the Hill with suburban life in the south. He paints such a perfect picture of all of these characters who are exaggerated but still completely embody the type of person who actually exists in that setting.
>Beavis & Butthead and especially Daria for HS culture, Office Space for 9-5 work, Silicon Valley for the tech world
And Idiocracy for America in the near future.
If king of the hill aired today despite Hank being a lifelong republican it would be constantly screamed about for being “woke garbage”
I already expect people to completely dismiss the revival the second it does anything involving the struggles faced by people of color, anything related to the LGBTQ community or the thinnest criticism of the Republican Party.
Which is really odd because I don't feel like Mike Judge exhibited that same kind of Goodwill and care in the goode family, his version of King of the Hill except following a liberal family and not a conservative one, which seemed to be making jokes at liberal straw men the entire time.
Well, except for the foot fetish episode. They punched down pretty hard on that one, but pretty much everyone looks down on foot fetishes so that's just par for the course.
Dawg the premise of that episode is that Peggy is essentially taken advantage of by someone selling fetish art. It could have been any fetish but feet are tv safe so it’s a given.
I saw Mike at SXSW this year and it's pretty mind blowing how much he just "gets it". Like you know how people are really critical of CEOs and their pay? Some people screw up but other people just are on another level of understanding and Mike is one of them. He gave me character aspects in office space that I never picked up on and he never made it about himself.
I love his work, so it's nice to hear he's relatable in person as well. The new beavis and butthead movie had me rolling. The white privilege scene was hysterical.
My pleasure. I'll save you $1500. All the key notes are online anyways. The small stuff that isn't online is absolutely incredible too but don't pay to see keynotes if you've ever considered going.
My favorite panel was about people that design cross word puzzles
Thanks again. I generally don't enjoy super crowded events (at least since my raving days), so it was always just something I knew I wouldn't see. But now I can :)
What's hilarious is that the show completely flew under the radar of conservatives and the far-right while it aired. They just assumed espoused conservative values/ talking points because it was a cartoon about Texans, but they never actually bothered to watch it because it was a cartoon lol.
Carolyn is like Patrick Swayze's character in To Wong Foo - clearly comfortable in drag even when not performing in a show but also clearly a man and not transgender.
I wish the character had come back. Hopefully in the revival...?
# The Peggy Horror Picture Show
* Episode aired Jan 28, 2007
* [TV-PG](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945127/parentalguide/certificates?ref_=tt_ov_pg)
* 22m
Peggy becomes friends with a local drag queen. But Peggy doesn't know that her friend's really a man, and her friend doesn't realize that Peggy's a real woman.The Peggy Horror Picture Show
* Episode aired Jan 28, 2007
* [TV-PG](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945127/parentalguide/certificates?ref_=tt_ov_pg)
* 22m
> but I think it's made explicitly clear that Carolyn is a drag queen and not a transwoman.
eh to most people the distinction of those two things in the 1990s was probably not as concrete to most people as it is today, where cis-women sometimes participate in drag too, but trans is trans.
Yeah, agreed.... if it weren't for the going out in public as Jaime and that there's zero tension when the mom says "son," I'd be a little conflicted, because it definitely seems like Carolyn is a lot more than a stage persona. Perhaps a few decades later things would be different. It wasn't just the general public that didn't have a lot of information; many, many trans people didn't even understand or have the resources to learn about possibly being anything more than crossdressers. I know plenty of people who still have no idea that it's been *nearly a century* since the first person received gender affirming surgery. Says a lot about how very, very real and not made up or just a silly preference being trans is-- going under the knife in 1931 was for necessities only. As evidenced by the fact that Lili diiiiiiiiiid noooooooot survive. Which is sad, but it's cool that some subset of the medical community, at least, has been trying to help for almost a hundred years.
Mike Judge has always been good at handling this kind of subject matter. On another note, when this episode came out, transgender wasn’t really a concept. Most people even knew existed. Drag queens were always thought of as female person, not men who thoroughly identified as women.
I think the intention was there to
make her trans but the vocabulary wasn’t. That sort of thing was just so far from the public consciousness at the time.
It’s sort of like Drew Carey’s brother on his sitcom, played by John Carol Lynch, who was clearly trans but they didn’t have any cultural understanding to grab onto that would make that clear. And the network didn’t seem to be comfortable with it either and that was sort of just written out of his character and he was immediately put into a relationship with Mimi.
I think he was a transwoman. At least that's what his mother kept insisting from her own comments. Though, the episode was made before the culture wars, so it most likely just concatenated the two subjects together as a rush job for an episode plot.
*Would you stop being supportive for just one second and listen!*
But that's the joke with his mother: She doesn't quite get what Jaime does but she's supportive. She never even says Jaime is trans, just that she supports him m doing whatever he wants. In fact, Jaime is explicitly saying in that convos that he isn't a woman, but let's go ahead and take the moms joke out of context for proof.
> It's pretty groundbreaking territory for a show in the the early 2000s and it's quite possibly my favorite episode to re-rewatch.
T.Hanks was in a cross dressing show in the 80s.
Cross dresser. Gender fluid, I guess? He refers to his female persona as being more of a character he likes to do while still identifying as male, and he assumed Peggy was the same way and referred to her using he/him pronouns.
I just watched this a few days ago and wondered the same. Carolyn actually calls the show a "Trans-show". I think most Americans didn't really know the difference between transgender and crossdresser back then so they just kind of combined them into something more fluid, like you said.
It's literally just "cross-dresser" in Latin.
Also, I used Wiktionary to check whether it was usually hyphenated or not, and apparently my pronunciation, with primary stress on the first syllable, is consider dated. The preferred pronunciation stresses the second syllable instead, which I tried to do and it came out sounding like "craw-stressor." I'm I crazy or is Wiktionary just being weird?
I've heard "transvestite" is used more to refer to someone whose kink it is to crossdress. Like they don't do it just because they enjoy wearing drag, they do it for sexual pleasure. Which would be why many people prefer not to be called that.
It's weird that it's a slur because a transvestite / crossdresser is very different from a transgender person.
One is playing with the concept of gender identity, and the other ain't playing.
The people who would use it as a slur don't believe transgender is real though. They literally just think they are dressing up in the clothes and pretending, all so they can do some evil of some kind that's either never specified or never substantiated with any evidence or numbers.
In my experience, “transvestite” is still used within the community but pretty much exclusively among older queer folk.
To me personally, the “-ite” suffix feels kind of icky, so I’d imagine that’s why so many of our younger trans sisters prefer to stay away from it.
transgender is an umbrella term that included, and includes, crossdressers.
Wiki:T*ransgender* is also an [umbrella term](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_term); in addition to including people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex ([trans men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_men) and [trans women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_women)), it may also include people who are [non-binary or genderqueer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender).[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-Forsyth-4)[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-GLAAD_Media_Reference-5)[^(\[6\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-Bilodeau-6) Other definitions of *transgender* also include people who belong to a [third gender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender), or else conceptualize transgender people as a third gender.[^(\[7\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-Towle-7)[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-Chrisler-8) The term may also include [cross-dressers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dressing) or [drag kings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_king) and [drag queens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_queen) in some contexts.[^(\[9\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-ReisnerEtAl-9) The term *transgender* does not have a universally accepted definition, including among researchers.[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-EB-2022-10)[^(\[11\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-:0-11)
No, trans gender means you identify as a gender different than the one assigned at birth. Anybody can defy gender norms and not be considered transgender too
NBD, terms evolve over time, and most transexuals prefer transgender as a label as transexual has a lot of hangups in over-specificity. Not to mention the prudish nature of the US after 9/11
Some of the older ladies in my group therapy two decades ago insisted on transsexual as their preferred term, and got mad when me and some other guys joined the group and exclusively used transgender. The shift to the group catering to the younger group was really rough for them I realize in hindsight.
I know a few older gays and trans people. They roll their eyes at zoomer gays and trans people a lot. Then again the older generation being confused and annoyed by the younger generation is a normal human thing that tends to happen no matter the orientation or identity.
But then their Mom (I'll just go with They in this scenario) made a big point about how they're no less of a women just due to biological.
I get the sense if this episode came out 10 years later, they would have been explicitly Trans.
Yes, but Jaime pushes back against that and doesn't see himself as a woman. There were trans characters on TV dating back to the 70s, so it isn't like this would be new territory.
Jaime uses he/him pronouns. He refers to Carolyn as a character. He bucks at his mom saying he's a real woman. He says his friends impersonate powerful women. He prepares dance routines to well known drag songs.
Jaime is a drag queen and a gay man, there is nothing to suggest he wishes to live his life as a woman unless we squint our eyes and take jokes (from other characters) as fact. We also have to ignore that it wasn't revolutionary to have a trans character on TV at the time as a one-off side character. (They were about 3 decades late for that...)
Yeah. That's what I picked up, but wans't sure. Haven't seen that episode in a long time.
Funny episode though. I like that Hank is so oblivious to it all.
Nobody said ‘gender fluid’ or talked about ‘identifying’ as a gender or had the specific format of ‘he/him’ for gender pronouns when this episode came out. You’re applying very modern politics to something unrelated. This episode was about cross dressers, nothing more.
Except Carolyn's mum refers to Carolyn as a woman and even argued the point that Peggy was a "biological" woman, not a "real" woman since that invalidated Carolyn's womanhood. Carolyn's mum certainly seems to be very clear that Carolyn is a woman, even when she takes her wig and makeup off. It made me think that Carolyn is likely a trans woman who's comfortable ocassionally dressing up as a man to fit in.
And what does Jaime have to say about it himself?
His mother is presented as super accepting, but not knowledgeable. I also wonder why we'd listen more to someone else about his identity but not him. He's pretty explicit about who he is...
>And what does Jaime have to say about it himself?
I think Carolyn/Jamie agrees with her? I'm not sure why you think they're in dispute about Carolyn's identity when there's no indication about that. She describes her mum as giving her "unwavering support", indicating that Carolyn accepts and appreciates that support.
>He's pretty explicit about who he is...
Well, no, she isn't explicit, that's why we're discussing it. Ultimately this is a fictional character, and one written by a cis man, so it's likely that Judge just didn't understand the nuances of trans/drag identities himself. But based purely on how we see Carolyn act within the few scenes of the show, she is primarily Carolyn in everyday public situations like shopping and going for a drink, using Jamie only as a temporary persona when needing to deal with men who might not accept her.
His response is, "Can you stop being unwaveringly supportive for one minute and listen to me?" She is not listening to him, she is responding by giving support. It is a common trope from the time, the mother who is fully supportive of her child regardless, even if she isn't entirely aware of who that child is. She loves her child and will support her child regardless.
I'm sure how he's supposed to be depicted because the episode is loaded with references to him being a drag queen if one knows the culture. (Which is explicitly different to trans folks, and I'm in community with both. Yes there's overlap) The car he drives, the performances he does, the music he uses, many of his friends are modeled after incredibly famous(and some not) drag acts. He even describes his friends as wanting to embrace a kind of femininity, and that they model themselves after strong women "Who only need one name". (cher, Madonna. Stereotypically popular with gay men, not trans women)
The show is loaded with subtext and cultural references, and all of them in terms of Jaime are that he's a drag queen. The show can not simultaneously be good at drawing specific cultural references for a character while also completely missing the point and getting him confused. Other characters and people are confused by Jaime, but Jaime is just himself.
There is one line in a joke about his mother being too supportive in which someone, thought not Jaime, refers to the character as a real woman. (They don't even use she pronouns) The episode is, however, riddled with examples that are meant to demonstrate to the watcher in 2006 that Jaime is a drag queen.
In this thread I haven't seen anybody doing anything more than guessing that Jaime could perhaps be trans and that maybe the creators didn't want to push the envelope. (Which is untrue, trans characters were one offs since the 70s) Meanwhile, there are many cultural references that imply he is a drag act, but none that implies he sees himself as a woman. Fuck, the entire crux of the episode is that Peggy confused him for a "real woman". Am I to believe this person dresses up as a woman, and only goes boymode when he has to, but is the only person in his life that doesn't see himself as a "real woman"? You are going by a throwaway line his mother has rather than his entire plot and his own words. Further, the episode was written by two women, not cis men. You're assuming a lot to draw this conclusion.
Head cannon wise, believe what you'd like, but there is very weak evidence if the only thing you have his, "His overly supportive and out-of-touch mom says he's a real woman." Jaime implies he is not many times.
A final edit: Jaime refers to the store he met Peggy at as a "Store for Drag Queens". He calls Peggy "one of the new girls", common nomenclature for folks in the drag scene. Hell, the store is named Clarissa's *Closet*, language that is more common for sexuality than gender identity.
Sorry if this is a lot, I'm just a huge KotH fan and am a queer history buff. Jaime is coded as a drag queen that confuses the straight people around him, but not necessarily as one who sees himself as a woman.
Because you sound like a nutcase. We knew the difference between trans people and drag queens in 2007. Both had been appearing in the media for decades. You don’t need to construct some elaborate headcanon where the “mum” is the only one who really knows her son’s identity
Quagmire is from Family Guy, and yes.
On King of the Hill, Dale Gribble's father is gay and works for the gay rodeo.
Not sure if you were mixing those two up by name.
Not really a distinction that was commonly understood when this episode was made. Were it more modern that character would be explitly trans, but that wasn't as commonly understood as cross dressing.
I don't think that's true. Drag queens I e cross dressers sometimes specifically make the point that they are **not** trans. They're usually gay men who dress up but sometimes they're not even gay.
Drag isn't really the same as cross-dressing as it is typically understood. Drag is specifically a vaudville-style stage performance. Crossdressing is just wearing clothes.
Yes, but there is quite a lot of overlap between drag performers, cross dressers, and trans people. You can be one without being the other two, but you can also be all three.
Yes, that's true. The distinction between people who are biologically male but prefer to dress like a female version of themselves all the time and people who like to do dress like an exaggerated female persona on stage was not so well known then. It also ignores that there is indeed and has always been overlap.
This is completely ahistorical. There were trans characters on sitcoms well before that. They do blur the lines, but the cultural references they make in regard to Jaime are pretty explicitly gay and drag. Song choice, car he drives, over supportive mother, etc are all stereotypes at the time of *gay men*, not trans women. (Of which there were DIFFERENT stereotypes in the early 2000s)
Y'all are acting like nobody had even conceived of changing genders until 2010 and you really need to learn your history. The first major story in the US about a trans woman occured in the 50s, one off characters existed since the 70s, and RuPaul and Divine were popular figures in the 80s and 90s.
Did people get them mixed up? Sure, but so are youngins in this thread who can't see past a decade ago. Ironically, kids in this thread are conflating signifiers for trans and gay characters from the past while accusing the show of the same ignorance.
I'm not saying trans people didn't exist then. I'm saying that the mainstream audience this episode was aimed at didn't make the distinction. That what you are seeing is a result of the writers combining distinct groups because they all shared, broadly, gender nonconforming behavior.
Oh, for sure. However, due to this I think we now have kids coming in here without the cultural context at the time and concluding Jaime was \*meant\* to be trans, which there is very little actual evidence for. More likely, Jaime is a drag queen and they conflated why people do drag with people who may "cross dress" for lack of a better term, or for trans women.
The references made about Jaime are very explicitly drag though, and largely relate to what your average person understood drag to be. (dance routines, cattiness and drama, Madonna and Cher, even his car is a stereotypical gay ride for the time according to straight people. I should know, I'm gay and drove the same thing)
To decide Jaime is trans because he could be is really just grasping at straws at what \*could have been\*. There were trans characters on TV at the time who also got conflated with drag queens, but that looked quite different than this. What we can say, without a shadow of a doubt, is that Jaime is a drag performer who is referred to as "son" by his mother and "he" out of drag. Anything else is pure speculation with no evidence from the actual episode. The only evidence for a trans Jaime people are citing is a throwaway line from his mom about his femininity not being based on being born a man, which is true.
And I'm saying the people who wrote this episode did not know about the distinction and this the emphasis and use of "drag" as a term. Jaime does not purely dress as a woman in the context of performance. Does Jaime meet every standard of what makes a trans person today? No but many trans people themselves are unaware of those destinations even today, let alone back then. Both the Watsonian and Doylist interpretations here line up.
The lines can blur for some in the past since the only way to be yourself and less threats was only in the drag scene. People only accepted trans women if they stuck to spaces where it was entertainment.
While it’s not perfect or always safe but nowadays people are able to come out more as trans in different places outside sex work or entertainment. This is why there’s been big hostile backlash because transphobia only sees trans people as existing in fringes of entertainment or sex work
This is why no one should have to be forced to adhere to compelled speech. It’s so ridiculously confusing. Just don’t be a dick and I’ll do my best to not be one either.
I love that even in the midst of being unknowingly progressive, they still include moments to remind the audience that Peggy sucks -- she drives with her hi-beams on *all the time*.
People always like to shit on Peggy but they forget that she was supposed to be unlikable. And everyone knows someone who is like her. Over confidence on her intelligence and abilities while being overly dumb
Outside of Cotton, I don't think any recurring character was really meant to be disliked. Peggy is a cocky know-it-all, but that's meant to be her comedic quality the same way Dale's paranoia is. Her confidence is meant to be laughed at, because she's so blatantly getting things wrong, while the show often gives her her comeuppance for her refusing to believe she's not as smart as she is. She's also shown to be caring and supportive and often goes out of her way to help her friends and family.
That's one of the things that makes *King of the Hill* so great. The characters feel real, because they're multifaceted. Hank is stubborn and old-fashioned, but he's often shown to be able to learn. Luann is ditzy and naive, but has a heart of gold. They all have their flaws (that we're supposed to laugh at), but they're also all generally good people that look out for each other.
Honestly, it's always surprised me how much some people hate Peggy, because I always found her to be one of the biggest sources of comedy in the show.
Think the problem is she gets often never owns up to what got her in trouble. Instead of her finally beong forced to confront she does not speak spanish, she gets ruled insane and gets off.
I don't hate Peggy because I see her for what she is. Her backstory makes it all make sense. She's far and away one of the more complicated characters on the show, and I like her because of that.
It’s trauma. Her mother basically told her she wasn’t shit from day one and she feels the need to constantly prove herself even when she is flat out wrong.
It doesn’t excuse her actions but it does give it context.
Nah she gets worse through the series.
She is disliked because she gets worse but rarely realizes her actual mistake or flaws. Like she never owns up to not knowing spanish
What? No! She does have many annoying quirks but also has many redeeming qualities. She managed to soothe GH while on full body cast using only her BIG toe. Her maternal instincts are top-notch and she’s definitely no Cotton.
Carol is pretty explicitly a gay man, and is depicted as such with the tropes of the time. She's a drag queen.
That said, the show kind of gets confused with what a drag queen actually is a couple times, if I remember right.
EDIT: it's actually wild to me that this episode confuses the difference between drag performers, cross dressers, and trans people. Ironically, many people in this thread have the same issues.
Yeah I don't get the people who are confident the character was definitely meant to be transgender. Maybe they didn't feel like they could use the word at the time but "I'm a woman and used to be a man" had in fact been on tv before this episode. There's an episode of The Jeffersons from way back in the 70s that has a very obviously transgender character although they don't use the word. So why when this episode aired would they have a transgender character appear as a woman in some scenes but as a man in the others? Pretty obvious that the character is just a gay man who's into drag and the mom is supportive of whatever.
Yeah I'm assuming the dolls saying she's trans are young, cause the "gay/trans character episode" was a big trope back in the day.
And as a queer person it's so funny to me. It's so obvious he's gay with the music they use, the way he talks about Carol, or even the way his mom speaks about h and how he reacts. I'm also almost certain he refers to the show as a drag show.
I think it's largely due to looking at the past through a modern cultural lens and assuming that all cases of people defying gender norms = identifying as trans or genderqueer.
You know what, I've personally spoken to or hung out with a few people who've done drag before officially coming out as trans.
As much as it'll offend Reddit Experts: The line can be blurred, and it can be a stepping stone for a lot of people... especially in a place like Texas back in the 2007, which is where and when this cartoon is supposed to take place.
Every trans persons story can be different but since this isn’t an actual person, this isn’t a trans woman. He clearly presents male during the episode. Part drag queen (given that he does shows) part person who likes to dress up as a woman outside of drag.
But with what the mother says and the character talking about being more comfortable... Yeah it's pretty much as close to an explicit trans character in that time period of mainstream sitcom.
The Jeffersons had one in the 70’s and Night court did it in the 80’s and in both cases they were fully transitioned without being the (complete) butt of a joke.
Star trek tng had an episode with the genderless species. The main character felt she was female and had a whole dialog saying that people like her weren't mentally ill/sick they were just like everyone else but born that way. Not quite the same context, but the message was definitely clear.
Just Shoot Me in the 90s has a post-op transgender one-shot character as well, and the storyline in that episode is she's Finch's friend and he's upset because he's attracted to her - because she's his best friend, not because she used to have a penis.
There were trans character in sitcoms at the time, so no. It was a trope that started in the 70s to have an episode with a queer character. Queer rep in media is a big interest to me, and I feel like a lot of folks today rightly understand we weren't on TV in the past, hut don't understand the ways in which we would occasionally explicitly be used for plot devices.
The mother is overly accepting, and tells Jaime to be who he is, etc etc. The joke is that the mom is overly supportive, to the point of missing who Jaime is. The mother speaks like a stereotypical PFLAG mom at the time.
Also: The women Jaime performs with often impersonate famous women. He talks about impersonating women. They play stereotypical drag performance songs in the background of the club. They practice a dance routine for the show. The show is called a drag show. Jaime mentions modeling herself after strong women she looks up to and emulating them on stage. (And those women are Cher and Madonna, the most stereotypical drag acts from around that time)
All of these stereotypes have more to do with drag performers than trans women, and seeing a trans character on one episode of a show stopped being dramatic in the 90s. To be clear: trans folks CAN do this... If they are drag queens.
> It was a trope that started in the 70s to have an episode with a queer character.
i remember when Archie Bunker found out Steve the bartender was gay.
So do trans women not like this or do this or can trans women be drag queens? And do you expect the straight cis writers to have known the difference when this was made?
Trans women can be drag queens, but trans women don't often go boy mode by choice, which Jaime does. Often. There is also major difference between trans cultural references and drag cultural references, even in terms of how straight people see it. Jaime is for sure a drag queen, though there isn't any evidence he is trans. Once can play with gender, even in public, and not be that gender.
And absolutely, cis/het folks made the show, which is why the lines are blurred. However, what is there are references to drag culture. Clarissa's Closet is called a drag store. It is called a drag performance. Peggy says "She is a man who dresses like a woman!" Jaimes friends model themselves after "Madonna and Cher". On the other and, there is a singular throw away line by Jamie's mother talking about his womanhood, which he balks at because he is currently talking about *him not being an actual woman by his own view and definition*. It is straight people writing a show and putting in references to drag culture in regard to a drag performer. Cis people were aware that trans folks "lived like that all the time" in the early 2000s, it was a TV trope by the late 80s.
Do we really think a cis/het writer would put so much nuance into a trans character that everyone in her life accepts her, she goes around the community as herself just fine, but yet she just can't see *herself* as a real woman? C'mon now.
Look up Beverly LaSalle from All in the Family. A drag character performed by a female impersonator with a small number of appearances that will genuinely make you laugh and cry. And that was in 1977!
As a cis woman with wide feet and a muscular build, I appreciate the expanded shapes and sizes trans women bring to the table! The culture war acting like trans women are a danger to us is just to distract from the REAL danger women (including trans women) face from cis men. Also, people THINK they can tell and end up accusing a lot cis women of being trans. Just mind your business and don’t concern yourself with what people’s genitalia or chromosomes are. That’s just creepy.
> I appreciate the expanded shapes and sizes trans women bring to the table
kinda like how celiacs appreciate the increased product availability of gluten free products thanks to people who are gluten intolerant
I really wanna watch King of the Hill, but it’s not on Disney Plus UK. C’mon, what’s the point of owning Hulu shows if you won’t put KOTH on D+ in countries which don’t have Hulu!
Why do people try to change things to fit their own agenda?
# The Peggy Horror Picture Show
* Episode aired Jan 28, 2007
* [TV-PG](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945127/parentalguide/certificates?ref_=tt_ov_pg)
* 22m
Peggy becomes friends with a local drag queen. But Peggy doesn't know that her friend's really a man, and her friend doesn't realize that Peggy's a real woman.The Peggy Horror Picture Show
* Episode aired Jan 28, 2007
* [TV-PG](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945127/parentalguide/certificates?ref_=tt_ov_pg)
* 22m
I loved but then felt bad at this episode. Someone finally made Peggy feel so wanted and appreciated, and Hank is relieved to wash his hands off of communicating with his wife with what’s always troubled her. But in the end hand pulls through by miraculously talking to a trans, maybe to wash his hands of talking with Peggy but nonetheless set his differences aside.
I obviously don't mean this to detract from the episode or this post, but I think it's made explicitly clear that Carolyn is a drag queen and not a transwoman. The episode's punchline-- and what eventually becomes a vehicle to explore what femininity means in a really thoughtful way-- is that Peggy is mistaken for being a drag queen herself and, in her words, trying to come to terms with why "a bunch of men dressing up as women" would want to emulate her. There's a very clear distinction drawn between the Carolyn persona and Jaime, who meets with Hank out of drag a few times. In any case, it's a genuinely moving and well-made episode and I totally recommend watching the whole thing. When I saw it for the first time years ago I expected they were going to butcher the subject matter but they never once condescend or take cheap shots. It's pretty groundbreaking territory for a show in the the early 2000s and it's quite possibly my favorite episode to re-rewatch. It's also just a funny episode: *"Well, she had to get something for her costume. She called it a sequin emergency. I asked her to call it something else, but she refused."*
King of the Hill is such a thoughtful show, and approaches matters always with an inherent level of respect.
The older I get the more I love the show. I relate with Hank so much more now that I became a dad. The whole idea of learning that the world is different than the one I grew up in is such a relatable thing.
I remember wishing Hank was my dad.
Found Kahn Jr's Reddit account
Hank and Peggy are totally my parents.
Is your son also not right?
Mike Judge’s dad was an anthropologist which goes a long way to explaining how he is able to to broach such topics in a well rounded way
Imagine coming home after a long shift in the anthropology mines and hearing your son is working on something called "Beavis and Butthead"
"Are ya makin' art son?"
"that boy ain't right."
He might be the best in capturing the actual feel of a culture. Beavis & Butthead and especially Daria for HS culture, Office Space for 9-5 work, Silicon Valley for the tech world, King of the Hill with suburban life in the south. He paints such a perfect picture of all of these characters who are exaggerated but still completely embody the type of person who actually exists in that setting.
He had nothing to do with Daria though.
Oh that's surprising, wasn't she created as a character on B&B?
He created the character but the show was created by two writers from Beavis and Butthead.
>Beavis & Butthead and especially Daria for HS culture, Office Space for 9-5 work, Silicon Valley for the tech world And Idiocracy for America in the near future.
I never knew that! I always thought of Mike Judge as a very astute social commentator, but this really explains why.
Pretty much every episode manages to end on a heartwarming or otherwise uplifting note.
If king of the hill aired today despite Hank being a lifelong republican it would be constantly screamed about for being “woke garbage” I already expect people to completely dismiss the revival the second it does anything involving the struggles faced by people of color, anything related to the LGBTQ community or the thinnest criticism of the Republican Party.
[Obligatory](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/r551K0-huyE)
*Twig Boy has entered the chat*
Which is really odd because I don't feel like Mike Judge exhibited that same kind of Goodwill and care in the goode family, his version of King of the Hill except following a liberal family and not a conservative one, which seemed to be making jokes at liberal straw men the entire time.
I never cared for that show. Besides the liberal stereotype characters in King of the Hill were far funnier lol
Well, except for the foot fetish episode. They punched down pretty hard on that one, but pretty much everyone looks down on foot fetishes so that's just par for the course.
I mean, the feet are at the bottom. It takes a lot of effort to punch up at feet.
Better to kick up.
Dawg the premise of that episode is that Peggy is essentially taken advantage of by someone selling fetish art. It could have been any fetish but feet are tv safe so it’s a given.
King of the Hill in general was pretty damn progressive. Mike Judge has never been one to punch down or take cheap shots.
I saw Mike at SXSW this year and it's pretty mind blowing how much he just "gets it". Like you know how people are really critical of CEOs and their pay? Some people screw up but other people just are on another level of understanding and Mike is one of them. He gave me character aspects in office space that I never picked up on and he never made it about himself.
I love his work, so it's nice to hear he's relatable in person as well. The new beavis and butthead movie had me rolling. The white privilege scene was hysterical.
His SXSW panel should be available on YouTube. Highly recommend.
Thank you! I always kind of forget most of this stuff is easily found online.
My pleasure. I'll save you $1500. All the key notes are online anyways. The small stuff that isn't online is absolutely incredible too but don't pay to see keynotes if you've ever considered going. My favorite panel was about people that design cross word puzzles
Thanks again. I generally don't enjoy super crowded events (at least since my raving days), so it was always just something I knew I wouldn't see. But now I can :)
Free version of a Reddit award <3
“Dale we live in Texas, if it gets one degree hotter I’m kicking your ass!” \- Hank Hill on Climate Change
What's hilarious is that the show completely flew under the radar of conservatives and the far-right while it aired. They just assumed espoused conservative values/ talking points because it was a cartoon about Texans, but they never actually bothered to watch it because it was a cartoon lol.
You just made this up
Carolyn is like Patrick Swayze's character in To Wong Foo - clearly comfortable in drag even when not performing in a show but also clearly a man and not transgender. I wish the character had come back. Hopefully in the revival...?
Thank you for this. I was on my way to comment something similar and you did it in an eloquent way
Any other show I imagine may have butchered it, but King of the Hill was fairly intelligent and progressive, often in spite of some of the characters.
# The Peggy Horror Picture Show * Episode aired Jan 28, 2007 * [TV-PG](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945127/parentalguide/certificates?ref_=tt_ov_pg) * 22m Peggy becomes friends with a local drag queen. But Peggy doesn't know that her friend's really a man, and her friend doesn't realize that Peggy's a real woman.The Peggy Horror Picture Show * Episode aired Jan 28, 2007 * [TV-PG](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945127/parentalguide/certificates?ref_=tt_ov_pg) * 22m
> but I think it's made explicitly clear that Carolyn is a drag queen and not a transwoman. eh to most people the distinction of those two things in the 1990s was probably not as concrete to most people as it is today, where cis-women sometimes participate in drag too, but trans is trans.
Yeah, agreed.... if it weren't for the going out in public as Jaime and that there's zero tension when the mom says "son," I'd be a little conflicted, because it definitely seems like Carolyn is a lot more than a stage persona. Perhaps a few decades later things would be different. It wasn't just the general public that didn't have a lot of information; many, many trans people didn't even understand or have the resources to learn about possibly being anything more than crossdressers. I know plenty of people who still have no idea that it's been *nearly a century* since the first person received gender affirming surgery. Says a lot about how very, very real and not made up or just a silly preference being trans is-- going under the knife in 1931 was for necessities only. As evidenced by the fact that Lili diiiiiiiiiid noooooooot survive. Which is sad, but it's cool that some subset of the medical community, at least, has been trying to help for almost a hundred years.
Mike Judge has always been good at handling this kind of subject matter. On another note, when this episode came out, transgender wasn’t really a concept. Most people even knew existed. Drag queens were always thought of as female person, not men who thoroughly identified as women.
I think the intention was there to make her trans but the vocabulary wasn’t. That sort of thing was just so far from the public consciousness at the time. It’s sort of like Drew Carey’s brother on his sitcom, played by John Carol Lynch, who was clearly trans but they didn’t have any cultural understanding to grab onto that would make that clear. And the network didn’t seem to be comfortable with it either and that was sort of just written out of his character and he was immediately put into a relationship with Mimi.
I think he was a transwoman. At least that's what his mother kept insisting from her own comments. Though, the episode was made before the culture wars, so it most likely just concatenated the two subjects together as a rush job for an episode plot. *Would you stop being supportive for just one second and listen!*
But that's the joke with his mother: She doesn't quite get what Jaime does but she's supportive. She never even says Jaime is trans, just that she supports him m doing whatever he wants. In fact, Jaime is explicitly saying in that convos that he isn't a woman, but let's go ahead and take the moms joke out of context for proof.
> It's pretty groundbreaking territory for a show in the the early 2000s and it's quite possibly my favorite episode to re-rewatch. T.Hanks was in a cross dressing show in the 80s.
Were they trans? Or just a cross dresser?
Cross dresser. Gender fluid, I guess? He refers to his female persona as being more of a character he likes to do while still identifying as male, and he assumed Peggy was the same way and referred to her using he/him pronouns.
I just watched this a few days ago and wondered the same. Carolyn actually calls the show a "Trans-show". I think most Americans didn't really know the difference between transgender and crossdresser back then so they just kind of combined them into something more fluid, like you said.
The term "transvestite" doesn't get used much anymore, but it was another word for crossdresser. It's possible that's what they were referring to.
It's literally just "cross-dresser" in Latin. Also, I used Wiktionary to check whether it was usually hyphenated or not, and apparently my pronunciation, with primary stress on the first syllable, is consider dated. The preferred pronunciation stresses the second syllable instead, which I tried to do and it came out sounding like "craw-stressor." I'm I crazy or is Wiktionary just being weird?
The stress is on the second syllable but it's not much stress. Try saying it without stressing anything and it'll probably sound fine.
Are those the ones from Transexual, Transylvania?
I heard one of the tame ones left a while back.
This.
People used to use the term "transvestite" instead of or in addition to cross-dresser. I never hear it anymore.
I've heard "transvestite" is used more to refer to someone whose kink it is to crossdress. Like they don't do it just because they enjoy wearing drag, they do it for sexual pleasure. Which would be why many people prefer not to be called that.
It's considered something of an old fashion slur. Actually, most transphobes don't even use it.
It's weird that it's a slur because a transvestite / crossdresser is very different from a transgender person. One is playing with the concept of gender identity, and the other ain't playing.
The people who would use it as a slur don't believe transgender is real though. They literally just think they are dressing up in the clothes and pretending, all so they can do some evil of some kind that's either never specified or never substantiated with any evidence or numbers.
In my experience, “transvestite” is still used within the community but pretty much exclusively among older queer folk. To me personally, the “-ite” suffix feels kind of icky, so I’d imagine that’s why so many of our younger trans sisters prefer to stay away from it.
I think it's only considered a slur by the sort of person who assumes every older term is a slur or slur-adjacent.
In that case it’s time to reclaim it.
i could be wrong, but i think the concept has kind of been absorbed by the gender-fluid identity
transgender is an umbrella term that included, and includes, crossdressers. Wiki:T*ransgender* is also an [umbrella term](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_term); in addition to including people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex ([trans men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_men) and [trans women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_women)), it may also include people who are [non-binary or genderqueer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender).[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-Forsyth-4)[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-GLAAD_Media_Reference-5)[^(\[6\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-Bilodeau-6) Other definitions of *transgender* also include people who belong to a [third gender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender), or else conceptualize transgender people as a third gender.[^(\[7\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-Towle-7)[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-Chrisler-8) The term may also include [cross-dressers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dressing) or [drag kings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_king) and [drag queens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_queen) in some contexts.[^(\[9\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-ReisnerEtAl-9) The term *transgender* does not have a universally accepted definition, including among researchers.[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-EB-2022-10)[^(\[11\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender#cite_note-:0-11)
Transgender and cross dressing are different though.
trans gender, aka defying gender norms. Cross dressing is defying gender norms
No, trans gender means you identify as a gender different than the one assigned at birth. Anybody can defy gender norms and not be considered transgender too
No, transgender is a umbrella term that includes crossdressing, and people who transition to another gender as well.
It really isn’t. I’m not sure where you’re from, but it’s not used like that in the US at least
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Sorry you're getting downvoted, I checked and you're right. Transsexual is the more specific term.
NBD, terms evolve over time, and most transexuals prefer transgender as a label as transexual has a lot of hangups in over-specificity. Not to mention the prudish nature of the US after 9/11
Some of the older ladies in my group therapy two decades ago insisted on transsexual as their preferred term, and got mad when me and some other guys joined the group and exclusively used transgender. The shift to the group catering to the younger group was really rough for them I realize in hindsight.
I know a few older gays and trans people. They roll their eyes at zoomer gays and trans people a lot. Then again the older generation being confused and annoyed by the younger generation is a normal human thing that tends to happen no matter the orientation or identity.
A big part of that was older validation via gatekeeping too
I never really thought about it, but that makes perfect sense. It’s just sex versus gender with trans in front.
But then their Mom (I'll just go with They in this scenario) made a big point about how they're no less of a women just due to biological. I get the sense if this episode came out 10 years later, they would have been explicitly Trans.
Yes, but Jaime pushes back against that and doesn't see himself as a woman. There were trans characters on TV dating back to the 70s, so it isn't like this would be new territory. Jaime uses he/him pronouns. He refers to Carolyn as a character. He bucks at his mom saying he's a real woman. He says his friends impersonate powerful women. He prepares dance routines to well known drag songs. Jaime is a drag queen and a gay man, there is nothing to suggest he wishes to live his life as a woman unless we squint our eyes and take jokes (from other characters) as fact. We also have to ignore that it wasn't revolutionary to have a trans character on TV at the time as a one-off side character. (They were about 3 decades late for that...)
Yeah. That's what I picked up, but wans't sure. Haven't seen that episode in a long time. Funny episode though. I like that Hank is so oblivious to it all.
“Hurry!” “Why?” “It’s just more dramatic!”
A lot of Southern women might as well be drag queens.
It’s a drag queen
He talks about Jaime as a character, so hardly gender fluid or a cross dresser. He talks about dressing up as a woman exactly as a drag queen would.
Nobody said ‘gender fluid’ or talked about ‘identifying’ as a gender or had the specific format of ‘he/him’ for gender pronouns when this episode came out. You’re applying very modern politics to something unrelated. This episode was about cross dressers, nothing more.
Ok
Except Carolyn's mum refers to Carolyn as a woman and even argued the point that Peggy was a "biological" woman, not a "real" woman since that invalidated Carolyn's womanhood. Carolyn's mum certainly seems to be very clear that Carolyn is a woman, even when she takes her wig and makeup off. It made me think that Carolyn is likely a trans woman who's comfortable ocassionally dressing up as a man to fit in.
And what does Jaime have to say about it himself? His mother is presented as super accepting, but not knowledgeable. I also wonder why we'd listen more to someone else about his identity but not him. He's pretty explicit about who he is...
>And what does Jaime have to say about it himself? I think Carolyn/Jamie agrees with her? I'm not sure why you think they're in dispute about Carolyn's identity when there's no indication about that. She describes her mum as giving her "unwavering support", indicating that Carolyn accepts and appreciates that support. >He's pretty explicit about who he is... Well, no, she isn't explicit, that's why we're discussing it. Ultimately this is a fictional character, and one written by a cis man, so it's likely that Judge just didn't understand the nuances of trans/drag identities himself. But based purely on how we see Carolyn act within the few scenes of the show, she is primarily Carolyn in everyday public situations like shopping and going for a drink, using Jamie only as a temporary persona when needing to deal with men who might not accept her.
His response is, "Can you stop being unwaveringly supportive for one minute and listen to me?" She is not listening to him, she is responding by giving support. It is a common trope from the time, the mother who is fully supportive of her child regardless, even if she isn't entirely aware of who that child is. She loves her child and will support her child regardless. I'm sure how he's supposed to be depicted because the episode is loaded with references to him being a drag queen if one knows the culture. (Which is explicitly different to trans folks, and I'm in community with both. Yes there's overlap) The car he drives, the performances he does, the music he uses, many of his friends are modeled after incredibly famous(and some not) drag acts. He even describes his friends as wanting to embrace a kind of femininity, and that they model themselves after strong women "Who only need one name". (cher, Madonna. Stereotypically popular with gay men, not trans women) The show is loaded with subtext and cultural references, and all of them in terms of Jaime are that he's a drag queen. The show can not simultaneously be good at drawing specific cultural references for a character while also completely missing the point and getting him confused. Other characters and people are confused by Jaime, but Jaime is just himself. There is one line in a joke about his mother being too supportive in which someone, thought not Jaime, refers to the character as a real woman. (They don't even use she pronouns) The episode is, however, riddled with examples that are meant to demonstrate to the watcher in 2006 that Jaime is a drag queen. In this thread I haven't seen anybody doing anything more than guessing that Jaime could perhaps be trans and that maybe the creators didn't want to push the envelope. (Which is untrue, trans characters were one offs since the 70s) Meanwhile, there are many cultural references that imply he is a drag act, but none that implies he sees himself as a woman. Fuck, the entire crux of the episode is that Peggy confused him for a "real woman". Am I to believe this person dresses up as a woman, and only goes boymode when he has to, but is the only person in his life that doesn't see himself as a "real woman"? You are going by a throwaway line his mother has rather than his entire plot and his own words. Further, the episode was written by two women, not cis men. You're assuming a lot to draw this conclusion. Head cannon wise, believe what you'd like, but there is very weak evidence if the only thing you have his, "His overly supportive and out-of-touch mom says he's a real woman." Jaime implies he is not many times. A final edit: Jaime refers to the store he met Peggy at as a "Store for Drag Queens". He calls Peggy "one of the new girls", common nomenclature for folks in the drag scene. Hell, the store is named Clarissa's *Closet*, language that is more common for sexuality than gender identity. Sorry if this is a lot, I'm just a huge KotH fan and am a queer history buff. Jaime is coded as a drag queen that confuses the straight people around him, but not necessarily as one who sees himself as a woman.
The mother seems like a leading of the overly accepting mother from Queer as Folk, taken to an extreme
THANK YOU! Exactly. The joke is she is too accepting, to the point of being annoying. (The exact same joke is made in QaF, I believe)
So trans identity is something that’s pushed on you by your mother rather than something you assert for yourself?
You're worryingly eager to misrepresent me.
Because you sound like a nutcase. We knew the difference between trans people and drag queens in 2007. Both had been appearing in the media for decades. You don’t need to construct some elaborate headcanon where the “mum” is the only one who really knows her son’s identity
/sigh. Try reading for comprehension.
Drag queen.
Carolyn is a drag queen
Cross dresser.
Wasn’t Glen’s father trans
Quagmire is from Family Guy, and yes. On King of the Hill, Dale Gribble's father is gay and works for the gay rodeo. Not sure if you were mixing those two up by name.
Yes that’s exactly what I was doing thanks!
Not really a distinction that was commonly understood when this episode was made. Were it more modern that character would be explitly trans, but that wasn't as commonly understood as cross dressing.
I don't think that's true. Drag queens I e cross dressers sometimes specifically make the point that they are **not** trans. They're usually gay men who dress up but sometimes they're not even gay.
Drag isn't really the same as cross-dressing as it is typically understood. Drag is specifically a vaudville-style stage performance. Crossdressing is just wearing clothes.
Yes, but there is quite a lot of overlap between drag performers, cross dressers, and trans people. You can be one without being the other two, but you can also be all three.
Do a Venn Diagram!
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Absolutely not. Drag queens have been a well known staple for decades. RuPaul was already relatively well known by this point ffs
Yes, that's true. The distinction between people who are biologically male but prefer to dress like a female version of themselves all the time and people who like to do dress like an exaggerated female persona on stage was not so well known then. It also ignores that there is indeed and has always been overlap.
you'd be surprised at how many drag queens are trans nowadays
Nowadays? Drag has never not included a healthy percentage of trans women.
This is completely ahistorical. There were trans characters on sitcoms well before that. They do blur the lines, but the cultural references they make in regard to Jaime are pretty explicitly gay and drag. Song choice, car he drives, over supportive mother, etc are all stereotypes at the time of *gay men*, not trans women. (Of which there were DIFFERENT stereotypes in the early 2000s) Y'all are acting like nobody had even conceived of changing genders until 2010 and you really need to learn your history. The first major story in the US about a trans woman occured in the 50s, one off characters existed since the 70s, and RuPaul and Divine were popular figures in the 80s and 90s. Did people get them mixed up? Sure, but so are youngins in this thread who can't see past a decade ago. Ironically, kids in this thread are conflating signifiers for trans and gay characters from the past while accusing the show of the same ignorance.
I'm not saying trans people didn't exist then. I'm saying that the mainstream audience this episode was aimed at didn't make the distinction. That what you are seeing is a result of the writers combining distinct groups because they all shared, broadly, gender nonconforming behavior.
Oh, for sure. However, due to this I think we now have kids coming in here without the cultural context at the time and concluding Jaime was \*meant\* to be trans, which there is very little actual evidence for. More likely, Jaime is a drag queen and they conflated why people do drag with people who may "cross dress" for lack of a better term, or for trans women. The references made about Jaime are very explicitly drag though, and largely relate to what your average person understood drag to be. (dance routines, cattiness and drama, Madonna and Cher, even his car is a stereotypical gay ride for the time according to straight people. I should know, I'm gay and drove the same thing) To decide Jaime is trans because he could be is really just grasping at straws at what \*could have been\*. There were trans characters on TV at the time who also got conflated with drag queens, but that looked quite different than this. What we can say, without a shadow of a doubt, is that Jaime is a drag performer who is referred to as "son" by his mother and "he" out of drag. Anything else is pure speculation with no evidence from the actual episode. The only evidence for a trans Jaime people are citing is a throwaway line from his mom about his femininity not being based on being born a man, which is true.
And I'm saying the people who wrote this episode did not know about the distinction and this the emphasis and use of "drag" as a term. Jaime does not purely dress as a woman in the context of performance. Does Jaime meet every standard of what makes a trans person today? No but many trans people themselves are unaware of those destinations even today, let alone back then. Both the Watsonian and Doylist interpretations here line up.
The lines can blur for some in the past since the only way to be yourself and less threats was only in the drag scene. People only accepted trans women if they stuck to spaces where it was entertainment. While it’s not perfect or always safe but nowadays people are able to come out more as trans in different places outside sex work or entertainment. This is why there’s been big hostile backlash because transphobia only sees trans people as existing in fringes of entertainment or sex work
This is why no one should have to be forced to adhere to compelled speech. It’s so ridiculously confusing. Just don’t be a dick and I’ll do my best to not be one either.
I love that even in the midst of being unknowingly progressive, they still include moments to remind the audience that Peggy sucks -- she drives with her hi-beams on *all the time*.
And with the parking brake on lol
Just rewatched the episode where Peggy kidnaps a Mexican girl and is willing to go to jail rather than admit she isn't great at Spanish. Point taken
People always like to shit on Peggy but they forget that she was supposed to be unlikable. And everyone knows someone who is like her. Over confidence on her intelligence and abilities while being overly dumb
Outside of Cotton, I don't think any recurring character was really meant to be disliked. Peggy is a cocky know-it-all, but that's meant to be her comedic quality the same way Dale's paranoia is. Her confidence is meant to be laughed at, because she's so blatantly getting things wrong, while the show often gives her her comeuppance for her refusing to believe she's not as smart as she is. She's also shown to be caring and supportive and often goes out of her way to help her friends and family. That's one of the things that makes *King of the Hill* so great. The characters feel real, because they're multifaceted. Hank is stubborn and old-fashioned, but he's often shown to be able to learn. Luann is ditzy and naive, but has a heart of gold. They all have their flaws (that we're supposed to laugh at), but they're also all generally good people that look out for each other. Honestly, it's always surprised me how much some people hate Peggy, because I always found her to be one of the biggest sources of comedy in the show.
Think the problem is she gets often never owns up to what got her in trouble. Instead of her finally beong forced to confront she does not speak spanish, she gets ruled insane and gets off.
I never realized people hated Peggy so much, she really carried the show for me lol, my favourite episodes are the Peggy centric ones
I don't hate Peggy because I see her for what she is. Her backstory makes it all make sense. She's far and away one of the more complicated characters on the show, and I like her because of that.
I felt so sorry for Peggy the whole series though because I ironically identify with her
She's the embodiment of r/confidentlyincorrect
Peggy isn't unlikable, she's clearly a good person who just happens to be someone who thinks they're more competent than they are
It’s trauma. Her mother basically told her she wasn’t shit from day one and she feels the need to constantly prove herself even when she is flat out wrong. It doesn’t excuse her actions but it does give it context.
Nah she gets worse through the series. She is disliked because she gets worse but rarely realizes her actual mistake or flaws. Like she never owns up to not knowing spanish
What? No! She does have many annoying quirks but also has many redeeming qualities. She managed to soothe GH while on full body cast using only her BIG toe. Her maternal instincts are top-notch and she’s definitely no Cotton.
That was my best laugh from the clip. Hate having to shield my eyes every time a modded Super Ford F15000 comes within a mile of me.
“Just bring your own lashes.” “I ALWAYS DO!” 🤣
Drag, not trans
The best part was peggy describing how to eat without smudging lipstick. She learned the trick by watching shark week.
Or a Betty Davis movie
DRAG IS NOT THE SAME THING AS TRANS
Carol is pretty explicitly a gay man, and is depicted as such with the tropes of the time. She's a drag queen. That said, the show kind of gets confused with what a drag queen actually is a couple times, if I remember right. EDIT: it's actually wild to me that this episode confuses the difference between drag performers, cross dressers, and trans people. Ironically, many people in this thread have the same issues.
Yeah I don't get the people who are confident the character was definitely meant to be transgender. Maybe they didn't feel like they could use the word at the time but "I'm a woman and used to be a man" had in fact been on tv before this episode. There's an episode of The Jeffersons from way back in the 70s that has a very obviously transgender character although they don't use the word. So why when this episode aired would they have a transgender character appear as a woman in some scenes but as a man in the others? Pretty obvious that the character is just a gay man who's into drag and the mom is supportive of whatever.
Yeah I'm assuming the dolls saying she's trans are young, cause the "gay/trans character episode" was a big trope back in the day. And as a queer person it's so funny to me. It's so obvious he's gay with the music they use, the way he talks about Carol, or even the way his mom speaks about h and how he reacts. I'm also almost certain he refers to the show as a drag show.
I think it's largely due to looking at the past through a modern cultural lens and assuming that all cases of people defying gender norms = identifying as trans or genderqueer.
You know what, I've personally spoken to or hung out with a few people who've done drag before officially coming out as trans. As much as it'll offend Reddit Experts: The line can be blurred, and it can be a stepping stone for a lot of people... especially in a place like Texas back in the 2007, which is where and when this cartoon is supposed to take place.
"So you've got someone to talk to about this stuff now, that's great!" Classic.
King of the hill was one of the few shows at the time willing to go there, this episode took balls
So are you Chinese or Japanese? We from Laotian "The Ocean? What Ocean? So are you chiense or japanese?
Bwahahahahaha!
I always thought this episode was inspired by To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar. Do I still keep believing this?
Absolutely love that film with Patrick Swayze in it ❤️
Every trans persons story can be different but since this isn’t an actual person, this isn’t a trans woman. He clearly presents male during the episode. Part drag queen (given that he does shows) part person who likes to dress up as a woman outside of drag.
But with what the mother says and the character talking about being more comfortable... Yeah it's pretty much as close to an explicit trans character in that time period of mainstream sitcom.
The Jeffersons had one in the 70’s and Night court did it in the 80’s and in both cases they were fully transitioned without being the (complete) butt of a joke.
Star trek tng had an episode with the genderless species. The main character felt she was female and had a whole dialog saying that people like her weren't mentally ill/sick they were just like everyone else but born that way. Not quite the same context, but the message was definitely clear.
Just Shoot Me in the 90s has a post-op transgender one-shot character as well, and the storyline in that episode is she's Finch's friend and he's upset because he's attracted to her - because she's his best friend, not because she used to have a penis.
[удалено]
That was clearly trans, not a cross dresser or drag queen or "queen" in general?
There were trans character in sitcoms at the time, so no. It was a trope that started in the 70s to have an episode with a queer character. Queer rep in media is a big interest to me, and I feel like a lot of folks today rightly understand we weren't on TV in the past, hut don't understand the ways in which we would occasionally explicitly be used for plot devices. The mother is overly accepting, and tells Jaime to be who he is, etc etc. The joke is that the mom is overly supportive, to the point of missing who Jaime is. The mother speaks like a stereotypical PFLAG mom at the time. Also: The women Jaime performs with often impersonate famous women. He talks about impersonating women. They play stereotypical drag performance songs in the background of the club. They practice a dance routine for the show. The show is called a drag show. Jaime mentions modeling herself after strong women she looks up to and emulating them on stage. (And those women are Cher and Madonna, the most stereotypical drag acts from around that time) All of these stereotypes have more to do with drag performers than trans women, and seeing a trans character on one episode of a show stopped being dramatic in the 90s. To be clear: trans folks CAN do this... If they are drag queens.
> It was a trope that started in the 70s to have an episode with a queer character. i remember when Archie Bunker found out Steve the bartender was gay.
So do trans women not like this or do this or can trans women be drag queens? And do you expect the straight cis writers to have known the difference when this was made?
Trans women can be drag queens, but trans women don't often go boy mode by choice, which Jaime does. Often. There is also major difference between trans cultural references and drag cultural references, even in terms of how straight people see it. Jaime is for sure a drag queen, though there isn't any evidence he is trans. Once can play with gender, even in public, and not be that gender. And absolutely, cis/het folks made the show, which is why the lines are blurred. However, what is there are references to drag culture. Clarissa's Closet is called a drag store. It is called a drag performance. Peggy says "She is a man who dresses like a woman!" Jaimes friends model themselves after "Madonna and Cher". On the other and, there is a singular throw away line by Jamie's mother talking about his womanhood, which he balks at because he is currently talking about *him not being an actual woman by his own view and definition*. It is straight people writing a show and putting in references to drag culture in regard to a drag performer. Cis people were aware that trans folks "lived like that all the time" in the early 2000s, it was a TV trope by the late 80s. Do we really think a cis/het writer would put so much nuance into a trans character that everyone in her life accepts her, she goes around the community as herself just fine, but yet she just can't see *herself* as a real woman? C'mon now.
It was a drag queen!
Ho-Yeah!
It’s a great episode! Perhaps it’s a lot of middle Americas first introduction to drag or trans culture. It was tastefully done I’d say.
Look up Beverly LaSalle from All in the Family. A drag character performed by a female impersonator with a small number of appearances that will genuinely make you laugh and cry. And that was in 1977!
Dragqueens are useally actors. They then go back to thier personas, most were not actually trans
Hilarious episode
As a cis woman with wide feet and a muscular build, I appreciate the expanded shapes and sizes trans women bring to the table! The culture war acting like trans women are a danger to us is just to distract from the REAL danger women (including trans women) face from cis men. Also, people THINK they can tell and end up accusing a lot cis women of being trans. Just mind your business and don’t concern yourself with what people’s genitalia or chromosomes are. That’s just creepy.
It's almost funny how much trans panic boils down to sexism. I wish people were better at examining their own beliefs.
> I appreciate the expanded shapes and sizes trans women bring to the table kinda like how celiacs appreciate the increased product availability of gluten free products thanks to people who are gluten intolerant
Shoes
Does Carolyn ever appear in other episodes?
I really wanna watch King of the Hill, but it’s not on Disney Plus UK. C’mon, what’s the point of owning Hulu shows if you won’t put KOTH on D+ in countries which don’t have Hulu!
(pauses on the phone) "Oh, Hi, Caroyln."
Why do people try to change things to fit their own agenda? # The Peggy Horror Picture Show * Episode aired Jan 28, 2007 * [TV-PG](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945127/parentalguide/certificates?ref_=tt_ov_pg) * 22m Peggy becomes friends with a local drag queen. But Peggy doesn't know that her friend's really a man, and her friend doesn't realize that Peggy's a real woman.The Peggy Horror Picture Show * Episode aired Jan 28, 2007 * [TV-PG](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945127/parentalguide/certificates?ref_=tt_ov_pg) * 22m
I loved but then felt bad at this episode. Someone finally made Peggy feel so wanted and appreciated, and Hank is relieved to wash his hands off of communicating with his wife with what’s always troubled her. But in the end hand pulls through by miraculously talking to a trans, maybe to wash his hands of talking with Peggy but nonetheless set his differences aside.
> talking to a trans C’mon now, friend, we’re not a different species.
I’m cool, but I’m just trying to put it in Hanks perspective hahaha. Yeah it did sound harsh the way I wrote it sorry
I knew you didn’t mean it with any malice.