Original air date: 10/22/2003
The metrosexual craze hits South Park, making sissies out of straight men, while Kyle, Mr. Slave, and Mr. Garrison fight back, as Kyle is getting bullied for not joining in and Mr. Slave and Mr. Garrison think the craze is stereotyping homosexual men who aren't Camp Gay.
"South Park is Gay!" contains examples of:
- Bad Boss: Craig
- Bait-and-Switch: The episode looks like it's about to end with Kyle ditching his friends for good as a result of everything he endured throughout the episode... only for Kyle to reluctantly rejoin them.
- Bittersweet Ending: The metrosexual fad ends and everything is back to normal, but Kyle is understandably bitter that the boys abandoned him when he refused to fit in, made worse since none of them apologize. Kyle reluctantly sticks with them.Kyle: (frustrated) Goddamnit.
- Fantastic Slur: Parodied. During the metrosexual trend, the boys start using "straight" as an insult.
- Giant Enemy Crab: The Crab-People."Crab People! Crab People! Taste like crab, walk like people!"
- Here We Go Again!:
- After the metrosexual fad ends, HBC brings back the Latin (American) fad and sure enough, the boys and men of South Park go right for it.
- The second the metrosexual trend dies out, the boys all go back to casually using "fag."
- Hypocritical Humor: Gerald and Sheila are okay with the metrosexual craze until they see Kyle following the trend.
- Jerkass Ball:
- Stan and Kenny refuse to help Kyle when he gets beaten up by the other students and don't apologize at the end, instead telling him to just get over it.
- Token is shown to be mocking Kyle for not being 'metrosexual'. Also, he and Butters are part of the crowd that beat Kyle up for standing out.
- Karma Houdini: Everyone went unpunished for beating up Kyle and although Kyle was upset with Stan, Kenny, and surprisingly Cartman, he easily forgives them, despite how mean they were to Kyle.
- Kick the Dog: The boys at school brutally beat up Kyle for not taking part in the metrosexual trend and his friends callously abandon him for it too.
- Makeover Montage: Parodied. This episode has Kyle go through two of these — the first one so he can be metrosexual, and the second one is forced upon him by the Crab People to become a Crab Person himself.
- Mama Bear: Sheila wants to stop the metrosexual craze after Kyle gets beaten up for not being part of it.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: To end the metrosexual fad, Kyle, Garrison, and later the mothers travel to New York to kill the Queer Eye guys. Considering that the Queer Eye guys were Crab People plotting for world domination, murder really was the best solution!
- Noodle Incident: The Crab-People tried to take over the world before, by using The Jeffersons.
- Parody Assistance: The cast of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy saw the episode before it aired on TV. They loved it and allowed their show's theme to be used.
- Redundant Romance Attempt: The men and boys of South Park adopt the "metrosexual" craze that is sweeping the country (i.e. they start acting effeminate and become obsessed with grooming and fashion). At first their wives and girlfriends like the way their men are more hygienic and willing to communicate, but after a while they start to grow tired of how self-absorbed and narcissistic the men are getting. At the end of the episode, the men abandon metrosexuality, and their women admit that men need to be masculine even if that means they're sometimes gross.
- Rule of Three: At three different points in this episode, a character gets an idea of how to deal with the metrosexual fad and exclaims, "I know what I/we must do!"
- Shout-Out: "Out of the malls and into the streets!"
- Skewed Priorities: The men are too worried about messing up their looks than stopping the fire.
- Soft Glass: Subverted. Mr. Slave is severely hurt by breaking through the window by both the force of hitting the glass and being impaled by glass shards.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Or rather, "Stop Being A Stereotypical Version of A Culture You're Not A Part Of." South Park's gay community quickly becomes frustrated by straight men co-opting the most unflattering aspects of their culture.
- Take That!: At the metrosexual fad of the early 2000s.
- They Know Too Much: When Mr. Garrison accuse the Queer Eye guys for not being gay at all, they're forced to reveal themselves as the Crab-People to Garrison, Mr. Slave, and Kyle, and captured them for digging too deep.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: At first, the wives enjoy their husbands' metrosexual mannerisms, but soon tire of their inflated egos and being too scared of ruining their good looks.
- With Friends Like These...: Stan, Cartman and Kenny leave Kyle to get beaten up for not being metrosexual.
