How Workaholics Flipped the Gay Panic Script

When you are a comedy fan, you learn to let your principles slide a lot for the sake of the lulz. Because hey, joke-me-ups aren't really the best place for, like, ethics and shit. You roll with the punches, even when they are punching down, and your only regret is how redundant, thus boring, thus significantly less funny, the old lazy tropes can become. That's why when a joke rolls along that not only innovates, but does so in a way that brilliantly critiques the old, bad jokes, and actually is a joke that makes you laugh, you really laugh your fucking balls (and/or ovaries) off.

Thàt's how I felt recently catching up on Season 5 of Workaholics, when I saw the episode "Gayborhood", wherein the Dudes flip the classic "Bros Confront Gay Panic!" Trope right on its' ass and fuck it, hard (but not without love). 

As a gay person, I'm generally ready to be the butt of jokes, to get that butt fucked by homophobic-ass jokes. I'm so used to it that, like your mom, I'm not really surprised or even offended, just kinda disappointed. I was actually really excited to see the cast play out a gay panic scenario and it never even occurred to me to ask for more. But they gave me more. Much, much more. 

Spoilers ahoy, by-the-by.

The episode takes a turn when the Dudes decide to embrace their perceived accidental three-way-gay orgy and remain close friends - really close friends, with benefits, totes comfortable putting their hetero balls in each other's hetero faces to transcend literal and metaphorical obstacles. They flipped the gay panic script by making a joke of how comfortable they could be with each other's bodies imitating gay sexual positions - way funnier than Cliched fear of gayness (or of reading a blog explaining jokes to you, at least). This is how comedy really transcends - and it proves that you don't need to rely on bigotry to crack people up. & for that I gotta give my main dawgs mad props, as they might say. Well done, Sirs.