Mr. Garrison - Character History

Character History

Born September 26, Garrison grew up in Arkansas, speaks with a Southern accent, and claims to have a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Denver Community College (as seen in the episode "The Entity"). Mr. Garrison's sexuality is complex. During the entirety of the show he has had heterosexual and same-sex relationships, both as a man and woman. Across the series he displays myriad conflicting and ambiguous sexual identities, which he clings to exclusively for long periods of time. This may have some relation to the multiple personality disorder, which Mr. Garrison manifested in earlier seasons through Mr. Hat and Mr. Twig.

Garrison also revealed racist tendencies in many episodes. In the episode "Chef Goes Nanners", Mr. Hat, his puppet, was a member of the local Ku Klux Klan, which Mr. Garrison resented and insisted to Chef that he wanted nothing to do with. However, in the later episode "Here Comes the Neighborhood", he tries to get rid of the "richers" (who were all black) using Klan techniques, such as wearing their robes or burning crosses. Although throughout the episode, both Mr. Garrison and the rest of the townsfolk make no reference to the "richers" being black (seemingly oblivious to the fact), in his last line of the episode that his intentions were at least in part racist ("at least we got rid of all those damn ni..." ). In the episode An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig he quotes: "Genetic engineering erases all of God's mistakes, like German people". In "Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo" and "It's Christmas in Canada", he suggests that the town get rid of all the Mexicans, but Mayor McDaniels repeatedly declines to do so. Exactly why he wishes to do this has not yet been explained. These are two examples of the many instances throughout the show's history where Mr Garrison has expressed contempt for the Mexicans, though in the episode "D-Yikes", Garrison relies on Mexicans to help him in a plan to thwart Persian Nightclub owners. Despite the fact that he seems to portray racist manners, he sometimes will inform his student Eric Cartman of when the nine year old is doing something intolerant or offensive (as seen in "The Snuke").

For the first three seasons, Mr. Garrison was the third-grade teacher at South Park Elementary School. He was portrayed as a closeted homosexual and was ashamed and afraid to be open about it as a result of this. Garrison constantly held a puppet known as "Mr. Hat", which he used as a sort of second, more aggressive personality, as well as for emoting his internal conflicts. It was suggested that Mr. Hat (and subsequently Mr. Twig) were manners through which Mr. Garrison could express his repressed gay feelings. Though Garrison staunchly denied he was gay and tried to completely keep it a secret, he acknowledged that Mr. Hat and Mr. Twig had homosexual fantasies.

It has been established that Garrison has had heterosexual relationships as a male, as with Liane Cartman, with whom most of the town has had sex at some point. Possible same sex relationships include Stephen Stotch in "Butters' Very Own Episode", and he sought a tryst with Cartman in "Cartman Joins NAMBLA", in which Garrison solicited sex from a minor in an online chat room, and after meeting him near the South Park docks for sex (only then discovering then that it was Cartman, his own student), he was charged with soliciting and subsequently told by the school to take time off from his job. In his sabbatical, Garrison wrote a romance novel that he intended to be purely heterosexual in nature; titled In the Valley of Penises, it contained 6,083 instances of the word "penis". Along with his other works, it sold well until he learned that it won the Gay Pulitzer Prize and was deemed to be "the best work of homoerotic literature since Huckleberry Finn". At some point after that, Garrison had a nervous breakdown and fled South Park to become a hermit, where he eventually came to terms with his gay tendencies. At this point, he openly embraced his homosexuality, and informed everyone of this fact. He even went so far as to cheerfully proclaim himself a "fag" repeatedly to anyone he encountered. He was re-hired by South Park elementary, but as the kindergarten teacher, as his old job was then held by Ms. Choksondik. By the end of the sixth season, in the episode "The Death Camp of Tolerance", he was promoted to the fourth grade after the death of Ms. Choksondik. This was a move on the principal's part to avoid any semblance of sexual-orientation discrimination against him. However, when Garrison found that he could sue the school for substantial compensation if he were discriminated against, he attempted to be so offensive he would be fired. To that end, he abandoned his puppet counterpart in favor of a human assistant, "Mr. Slave", his personal BDSM slave and lover. He then proceeded to perform several sexually explicit homosexual acts in front of his students, including putting the class gerbil into Mr. Slave's rectum. His plan, however, did not succeed, and he was instead praised for being "courageous". It has been implied he has scatophilic tendencies in "Proper Condom Use" when the majority of sexual acts he taught to the kindergarten class involved feces or defecation. Chef refers to Mr. Garrison as a "complete pervert."

His changing sexual identities are a continual source of problems. Despite having come out, Garrison continued to be ashamed of it as part of his continual emotional and psychological problems. In "The Brown Noise", he also was in despair over the fact that his father had not sexually molested him as a boy, believing that he didn't love his son. Garrison Sr. considered having sex with his son in order to save his life, but he instead had recording artist Kenny G., whom Mr. Garrison thought was his father, sexually assault him. In "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" as well as "Jakovasaurs", it was implied that Mr. Garrison has practiced bestiality with Cartman's pig and a pigeon, respectively.

By season nine, Garrison transitioned from being a man to being a woman in "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina", taking the identity of "Mrs. Janet Garrison." She was then rejected by Mr. Slave, who no longer found Mrs. Garrison appealing to him, as he is gay. During this period, Mrs. Garrison remains attracted to men, just as Mr. Garrison had been, although the attraction had technically become heterosexual because Mrs. Garrison was now a woman. However, in the season eleven episode "D-Yikes!", fed up with rejection by men, Garrison embraces lesbianism, and begins having relationships with women.

By Season 12 Garrison is frustrated with the sex change—seeing it as a bad mistake—and was suspended from teaching until she had learned how to cope with her situation without bothering her fourth graders with it continuously. Utilizing a penis grown on the back of a mouse, Garrison underwent surgery again and became, once again Mr. Garrison. Immediately following surgery, Garrison displayed the contempt for homosexuality that was one of his trademarks in the early shows.

As a teacher, Mr. Garrison is almost completely inept, regularly teaching bizarre and pointless lessons, such as showing Barnaby Jones videos to the class for eight days, asking the class why Chubby Checker left The Beatles in 1972 (even though he was never in The Beatles to begin with, who broke up in 1970) and teaching the students how to tell the difference between a prostitute and a police officer. On the other hand, he will occasionally teach the children advanced subjects such as theories on evolution, Stalin and Communism. He also failed to punish Cartman for making jokes about breast cancer in Breast Cancer Show Ever, and only punished him when he defecated on his desk. Despite his cynical nature he appears to genuinely enjoy his job, falling into a depression when he is fired or is suspended from teaching. He also carries a gun and badge with him in class at all times.