Gay Bash (Drawn Together episode)

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Gay bash redirects here. For the practice of discrimination against gays, see gay bashing.

"Gay Bash" is the third episode of the animated series Drawn Together.

Storyline

The houseguests are given a new sewing machine, and no one is more excited about it than Xandir. Captain Hero accuses Xandir of being gay, which Xandir denies despite several "gay tests" confirming it. However, a bizarre ritual involving the ancient Wood Beast finally makes Xandir acknowledge that he is, in fact, a homosexual. To make him feel better, the other houseguests throw him a party attended exclusively by homosexuals (a "gay bash", parodying the term gay bashing, meaning a violent attack against homosexuals), during which Xandir accepts that he's into kinky gay sex. Not all of the guests turn out to be friends, though: Bizarro Captain Hero, with whom Captain Hero once had a gay affair in a men's room, shows up, threatening to reveal their secret. More importantly, however, Pac-Man, to whom Xandir confesses his homosexuality, turns out to be Ms. Pac-Man in drag. Since Ms. Pac-Man is best friends with Xandir's girlfriend, Xandir realizes his girlfriend will find out his secret, and he's not sure he's ready to face the consequences. Foxxy convinces Xandir to call his girlfriend and tell her that he's gay. He does, and even though she's facing death again, she refuses to let Xandir rescue her, telling him in no uncertain terms that it's over.

Xandir is unable to deal with the shock from this, so he decides to commit suicide, stabbing himself repeatedly. However, as a video game character he has many lives in reserve, and spends most of the night killing himself before the other housemates complain about being kept awake. Before exhausting his last life, Clara convinces him that maybe he could wish himself heterosexual, so with the help of a magic lamp, he sets out to do this. The genie of the lamp is offended by Xandir's wish and refuses to grant it, but after Xandir threatens to commit suicide again, the genie reveals that not only is he himself gay, but he is attracted to Xandir. The genie is then promptly kidnapped by Xandir's archnemesis, allowing Xandir to retain a sense of self-worth by replacing his neverending quest to save his girlfriend with a neverending quest to save his boyfriend.

Meanwhile, Spanky, upon discovering that Ling-Ling is a master at sewing, puts the creature to work as a one-man sweatshop, sewing bootleg basketball shoes to sell to the NBA. This angers the child laborers of a real sweatshop in Vietnam, who show up and beg Spanky not to put them out of business. Spanky flat out refuses, so they try to kill him by turning themselves into a Transformer and attacking him. Spanky remembers just in the nick of time that the thing Asians crave above all else is honor, so he promises to give Ling-Ling honor in exchange for saving him. After Ling-Ling uses his super powers to defeat the sweatshop workers, he and Spanky earn a substantial amount of money by selling the immobilized children as basketball shoes, and Spanky gives Ling-Ling a paper hat reading "Honor."

Musical number: "Ling-Ling's Lament", sung by Ling-Ling in pseudo-Japanese (without subtitles) as he mourns for his carefree days running around a Pokémon-like fantasyland. As the song nears the end, Ling-Ling's reminiscences suddenly turn violent, and he envisions himself brutally murdering Spanky.

Also the "Ling-Ling Battle Song", a montage of scenes from Episodes 1, 3, and 5, in which Ling-Ling leaps into battle, is presented during the end credits and - vocals inserted into the action - during his battle with the Vietnamese Transformer Kids. The song is rather long, however only the initial lyrics are utilized in the episode, as follows:

"Ling-Ling into battle go, fulfill destiny of soul;

Sever skull of adversary, shove it in the poohpooh hole!

..All the children sing: kill kill kill kill, die die die; kill kill kill kill, die die die!"

Notes and inside references

• Xandir officially comes out of the closet in this episode; however, the writers had already told the audience Xandir was gay in the opening credits of the series premiere.

• During the interrogation, Xandir puts a rubber glove on his left hand in anticipation of retrieving the lamp from Wooldoor's rear end, but uses his right hand to reach inside Wooldoor's rectum.

• Three of Drawn Together's regular cast members also provide voices for additional characters in this episode.
• * Captain Hero's voice actor Jess Harnell voices Bizarro Captain Hero.
• * Cree Summer, the voice of Foxxy Love, provides the voice of Xandir's girlfriend.
• * The leader of the sweatshop kids is voiced by Ling-Ling's voice actor Abbey McBride.

Animated cameos

• During the gay bash, two characters with blurred faces join Xandir: Elmer Fudd from Looney Tunes (with a brown moustache) and Snagglepuss. Since Snagglepuss is a kids' show character, he has no sexual identity in reality, but there is a long-running joke among animation fans that he is gay, due to his fussiness and his affected manner of speech (which is duplicated fairly faithfully in this episode).
• *The characters' faces are blurred even in the DVD version, presumably because of copyright issues.

• Another guest at the gay bash is Ms. Pac-Man, who is pretending to be Pac-Man. Both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man are video game characters created by Namco; this episode spoofs the fact that the only real difference between the two visually is that Ms. Pac-Man wears a bow. The version of (Ms.) Pac-Man that appears in this episode comes from the 1980s animated ''Pac-Man series.

Cultural references

• The sewing of the fake sneakers refers to the phenomenon of trademark piracy, which is common in East Asian countries (with Ling-Ling's participation in the activity serving as an in-joke reference).

• When Toot puts Xandir's ring in her breasts to force Xandir to put his hand between them, a close-up shot of Toot's cleavage reveals, in a realistic-looking painting, that her breasts are full of acne, dirt, and telangiectasia. This is an homage to the animated series The Ren and Stimpy Show, where disgusting realistic close-up paintings like this were frequently shown.

• The pterodactyl-powered record player is a reference to TV's first animated sitcom, The Flintstones, where many of the Flintstones' appliances were powered by miniature prehistoric animals, who frequently made wisecracks along the lines of the one the pterodactyl makes here. ("It's a living!") The fat woman that Captain Hero is shown having sex with later in the episode repeats the line.

• After Ling-Ling demonstrates his sewing skills, Spanky introduces himself to Ling-Ling and hands him his business card. In Japan, it is customary to exchange business cards (if you have one) with a new acquaintance, especially on a professional basis. In this instance, the gesture annoys Ling-Ling because he and Spanky have been living in the house together for several weeks, and thus should be on familiar enough terms to make such a gesture unnecessary.

• The gay test that Foxxy administers to Xandir is produced by the Acme Corporation, the fictitious company that supplies Wile E. Coyote with all his devices for capturing the Road Runner.

• The ritual in which Xandir is found to be gay is a parody of a scene in the 1980 film adaptation of Flash Gordon.
• * The Wood Beast from that ritual can be seen later in the episode with the houseguests when they confront Xandir about making too much noise while killing off his extra lives.

• Foxxy's line "Everything the light touches is gay!" is taken almost verbatim from Disney's The Lion King. The line is accompanied by the word "homo" being sung by an African choir in a manner reminiscent of the movie.

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