Parents' Guide to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Diverse Representations

This satirical comedy was created by a team of three White men. The only female lead is a stereotypical blonde White woman who seems lost in the clouds at every turn. Characters pretend to be disabled to score dates, use the "N" word and other slurs, and make fun of people with intellectual disabilities. Characters of color appear only when the social commentary calls for it—e.g., during an episode where two White men try to get accepted by a group of Black people as proof they aren't racist. A couple episodes include White leads in blackface, which the series later addresses with the characters' appearing to have learned their lesson. Across several seasons, a conservative Catholic main character represses, questions, and eventually comes to terms with being gay; during this journey, he's intensely homophobic and even punches a trans woman (who's then misgendered and made fun of by the leads). The trans character, played by cisgender woman Brittany Daniel, later reappears in a happy marriage and the leads use her pronouns accurately. Like many long-running series, earlier episodes rely on stereotypes and clichés but try to course-correct over the years. Still, directors over its 16 seasons are all White and mostly male.