this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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I've been feeling down lately and I started re-watching futurama for some good nostalgia, but it keeps making transphobic jokes which is kind of just making me feel worse. Anyone have any suggestions for comfort shows to watch?

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

The Owl House

Adventure Time

Tuca & Bertie

Over The Garden Wall

[–] paultimate14 21 points 7 months ago

Steven Universe

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

[–] agent_flounder 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Bluey!

It’s cute, it’s short, and it’s great for de-stressing! I put it on almost any time I’m feeling anxious or depressed

It’s written so wonderfully, and can be fully enjoyed by adults just as well as kids

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Came here to say Bluey!! My partner and I (both grown ass adults) watch it together and cry tears of joy as we let it re-parent us!! Such a wonderful show!

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Ted Lasso

Adventure time

Steven Universe

Out Flag Means Death

The Good Place

What We Do In The Shadows

[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (1 children)

To add what has already been mentioned: She-Ra and Steven Universe.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Steven, especially the first few seasons is super feel good low impact chill show.

Gravity falls is also pretty great for this.

[–] gaael 20 points 7 months ago

Our flag means death - comedy about an english lord becoming a pirate, their crew and adventures. It's funny, cute and often heartfelt.

[–] daddybutter 20 points 7 months ago

Schitt's Creek and Ted Lasso are great feel good shows with inclusive themes.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

My ultimate comfort show is Star Trek: the Next Generation. If it's just me in the house and nothing good in my video queue that's what I'll turn on for noise.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

My partner and I have been really enjoying Spy X Family. Its a nice little found family/comedy series with very wholesome content.

The premise is that the titular Spy has an assignment to make contact with a total shut-in who only appears in public for events at his son's school. So the Spy adopts a child from a shady orphanage and meets a woman who is willing to fake being his wife to get his child into the elite school. Of course, the child he adopted can read minds and the woman he fake married is secretly an assassin. No one but the child knows the truth about everyone and they're each so focused on hiding their own secrets they don't catch on to the others. The series isn't complete yet, but so far the major theme is them coming to genuinely value their little family as more than a convenient facade.

Its just such a cute show, and I go back and forth between cackling and tearing up at how cute they all are. The only thing I think is particularly off about the show is the assassins brother. He's a secret police officer and also incestuously obsessed with his sister. Its a weird inclusion, but he is made fun of by the narrative for his behavior and that is enough for me to still enjoy how good the rest of the show is

[–] cheeseandkrakens 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Bee and Puppycat is my comfort show

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I don't remember there being transphobic jokes in The Golden Girls, so maybe that?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Just the opposite! There's an episode with a trans man, and it's (according to one trans person on youtube) a really good portrayal. It might be both the most progressive and least problematic sitcom out there

[–] ChexMax 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

30 Rock is my comfort show - it's on Hulu rn. It's definitely a little dated, but is still very funny! Also Bob's Burgers is pro lgbtq+ and has over a dozen seasons, so plenty to keep on all the time! Also on Hulu

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

pushing daisies!! ❤️❤️

also my so called life

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

oh and schmigadoon if you have apple tv :)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

It’s always a good choice to watch Avatar

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (6 children)

I assume that you are in the US - and I don’t know if this is available- but the BBC show ‘The Detectorists’

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[–] OmenAtom 8 points 7 months ago

Good Omens was fun

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Trailer Park Boys

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

My partner and I were going to rewatch Futurama soon, since we wanted to watch the old ones before getting into the reboot. I'm not going to enjoy that as much as I thought I would, am I?

As for recommendations, I don't know if I would call it a comfort show since it can get really disturbing at times, but Doom Patrol is a great show, lots of fun and super queer.

[–] themeatbridge 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

There are a few episodes where being trans is almost the entire premise.

There are two different "Gender Bender" episodes where Bender is either cross dressing to act as a heel in pro wrestling, or surgically altered to become a fembot and compete in sports.

There is another episode where an alien removes the gender differences for the crew, and then changes the gender of the crew. They shoot a saucy pin-up calendar.

And then there's the Dungeons and Dragons episodes where Hermes is a hermaphrodite centaur.

Oh, and the mind swapping episode where everybody changes brains, but that's more Freaky Friday than gender swapping.

[–] Moneo 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Pardon me if it's rude to ask but do you mind explaining why those episodes are transphobic? Specifically the Bender gender swaps, I don't remember the other examples you mentioned.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The wrestling one is just somewhat off kilter? It's not outright transphobic, more just kinda silly. It doesn't reference gender as an identity as much. More so gender as performance I'd say. It's a comparatively brief portion of the episode compared with the Olympics based one. The rest of the episode is pretty great tho and is all about a misogynistic asshole getting his comeuppance from a downtrodden woman who's always been told that fighting is for boy's. It's actually a great episode.

The Olympics one is self evidently transphobic. The premise is he's not actually a woman, he's doing it to beat fembots at the olympics. In the episode he undergoes hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery... well the robot versions of those things. He is portrayed as having done this purely to win at sports. There has long been an established hate conspiracy narrative about trans women transitioning to beat women at sports. It was around back then, and this episode plays into the narrative quite a lot.

Futurama is my favorite animated show of all time. I love it with all my heart and for literally about a decade I skipped the gender bender Olympics episode every single time it came up. But I've come to appreciate some aspects of its very transphobic very misogynistic narratives. It's not something I'd sit and watch for fun, but as time as passed some small moments have stood out to me as being kinda interesting deconstructions of what gender is and the complexities of personal identity. Like when bender struggles with the idea of "detransitioning", even if it's for the wrong reasons and doesn't accurately portray any kind of transfeminine struggle in a genuine light. You can tell they sorta had half an idea what gender identity was and the ways in which trans people struggle with it. But the motives are never gender in and of itself, it's never about who bender is but always what he gets from gender performances.

Make no mistake though. It's among the worst. Not because it's the most hateful vile episode of any animated show ever, but because it's Futurama. I hold that show to a very high standard, as do a lot of people. They punched down on trans and gender diverse people there. They had no reason to do that. They played into a frankly insane amount of misogyny to make it all fit together too, in a way they hadn't done as much with other episodes. Look at Kif, look at all his episodes and the many ways his character deconstructs gender and sex in positive ways that show tolerant and informed viewpoints. It's not like they didn't know how to handle gender complex characters.

But with that one episode they just really gave a big fuck you to gender diversity, to gender diverse people, to trans women, and broadly to gender and sexual minorities as a whole. The whole thing is profoundly disappointing to me to this day. It's not enough to ruin the show for me, I love the show way too much for that. But it's embarrassingly bad and dishearteningly bigoted from a show that I expect so much more from.

[–] Moneo 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well, I still don't entirely understand what specifically about the episode makes it transphobic but I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

This is a weird grey area for me. I see it as a silly episode where bender does some reprehensible shit, sort of learns his lesson but than continues being a shitty person. I don't remember anything about the episode that makes it stand out from other episodes where he similarly exploits some facet of society (foster kids, soup kitchen, pimp are a few that come to mind). However, given my perspective it's very likely I've overlooked aspects of it and I am not trying to defend the episode just understand what I'm missing.

Again, I'm sorry if I'm being rude or this is not the place to discuss something like this. Feel free to ignore me or tell me to go away.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Core egg memory unlocked, I was obsessed with the Freaky Friday remake with Lindsay Lohan And Jamie Lee Curtis and would watch it again and again wishing I could wake up and be a girl in about 7th grade.

I'm sure most guys spend this amount of time and energy on that thought hehehehe

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Dogs in Space

Farscape

She-ra and the Princesses of Power

All are scifi, the top two are sillier and the bottom two are longer and get a bit serious and emotional at times.

If you haven't seen Farscape and you like scifi space opera wackiness and Jim Henson puppets, seriously give it a go. It's very comforting and fun.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Farscape is a deep cut.

Even Sillier than that is a British comedy called “Red Dwarf” and as far as I recall there is no transphobia. The closest I remember is an episode where the main character ends up in an alternate dimension with the female version of himself. They hit it off and the male main character of the series ends up pregnant, to his distress. At the time I remember it being a really interesting way to bring up gender dynamics without being too laboring, though it’s been a while, and I also haven’t seen the new seasons they apparently made after the show got cult status.

Edit to add: a Reddit thread has this to say about Red Dwarf and being trans

In series 8, Kryten is assigned to women's prison wing, just because he doesn't have a penis when he clearly resembles a male, sounds like a male and acts like a male. That's regardless of the fact that he has no chromosomes because he's an android (not even gynoid, so another good point). The show makes it out as ridiculous that the only reason why he's treated as female only because of his lack of penis.

Also, in the episode DNA, it's shown that when he's turned into human male, he's still an android on the inside because he clearly feels discomfort from certain dysphoria, where he finds appliances sexually attractive and inability to adjust to human biology lacking robotic features.

Edit to add to the edit, I forgot the ships on board computer actually does upgrade themselves to present female

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Holly upgrading to female is the first trans representation my GenX child self saw in life.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago
  • Pretty Cure
  • Hakumei and Mikochi
  • Non Non Biyori
  • K-On!
  • Owl House
  • Star Trek TNG
  • Aikatsu!
  • Little Witch Academia
  • According to Jim (it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure there's no homophobic joke in it)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

The good place :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've heard good comments about Orange is the new black, although I've never watched it.

I just remembered The Last Of Us series came out, but I forgot to check it out.

I rewatched Sailor Moon not too long ago, and it's pretty LGBTQ+ friendly for something out of the 90s.
Whatever you do avoid the dic dub at all costs.
The VIZ dub is pretty good, but the DIC dub is garbage.
The originals can get repetitive at times.
The reboot has better pacing with a less helpless main protagonist, but some of the story bits made more sense to me in the originals.

YMMV

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Holy shit. Orange is the new black is great and I like the show, but the biggest trigger warning in the world for trans femmes. There is some incredibly disturbing, and accurate depictions of trans hate crimes. :/

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