There is an edit war going on currently about Garfield's gender. There's a quote from a
Mental Floss piece being used to support none; there's no source cited there for male.
It seems to me there are three options:
- List its gender as none, citing Mental Floss
- List his gender as male, either citing a source in the infobox or with a source cited elsewhere in the article
- Omit his gender entirely
Option 1 might entail pronoun changes throughout the article.
What I would like to see is
discussion here about which option is best supported by sources and best complies with WP policy. Edit summaries are not a substitute for talk-page discussion. I would prefer to have the discussion move here naturally, but if I need to enforce it by reverting it to
the last version before the edit war started and protecting the article, I'm prepared to do so. —
C.Fred (
talk) 15:36, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Garfield's gender has clearly been established by Jim Davis, creator of Garfield and the final authority on all issues related to Garfield canon. According to Davis, Garfield has no gender, race, or nationality. If one could locate another source where Jim Davis states, as explicitly as he states in the
Mental Floss article, that Garfield's gender is male or female, then this would give rise to a serious controversy in Garfield canon. Yet no such source has been identified, and I highly doubt one will ever emerge. In fact, I consider the thought as laughable as the idea of a steam train being more efficient than a diesel train.
David "The Milk" Milkberg (
talk) 21:52, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
While the
Mental Floss quote clearly does specify the gender as none, it also implies Garfield's pronoun is
he/his, so there is no need to change pronouns throughout the article.
passcod (
talk) 21:59, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
There's a fourth option: to provide both genders, each appropriately referrenced: "Male[1] and/or none[2]". (Note, for 'male' I think only the 1981-07-28 strip should be cited, as it's the only one that looks at self-identification. Cat owners and even vets can be wrong about even physical sex let alone gender; one of my cat's vets always refers to her as "he" while the others say "she" so *someone's* probably wrong here.) I think providing both is best, to avoid erasing either aspect of Garfield's identity and because it's not Wikipedia's call to decide which facts are true, only to report what the sources say. Here the sources say two things, so we should report both. I suggest the above order purely due to the chronology of the sources. --
Zeborah (
talk) 23:25, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Considering the actual quote, "By virtue of being a cat, really, he’s not really male or female or any particular race or nationality, young or old." I don't think it is clear that Davis is literally saying that Garfield has no gender. It looks more like he is saying that his gender is not readily apparent, like it would be for a human character. Throughout the strip characters, including Garfield himself, refer to him as male. Without something explicitly saying that Garfield has no gender, I don't think we have a strong enough source to make that assertion.
Torven (
talk) 05:54, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I feel that taking the Mental Floss quotation to mean that Garfield is literally and canonically genderless is taking the quote wildly out of context:
“I would like for readers in Sydney, Australia to think that Garfield lives next door,” Davis says. “Dealing with eating and sleeping, being a cat, Garfield is very universal. By virtue of being a cat, really, he’s not really male or female or any particular race or nationality, young or old. It gives me a lot more latitude for the humor for the situations.” Clearly this is a comment explaining the philosophy of Garfield's universal appeal, and not an attestation that Garfield is (or that Jim Davis believes the character of Garfield to be) literally genderless (or ageless, or without nationality, etc.) Throughout the strip, every character (including Garfield himself!) constantly refers to Garfield unambiguously as male, and always using male pronouns. Here is but a small sample of strips I found after a cursory search on garfield.com:
- Garfield adopts a superhero persona he names "Amoeba Man", using male pronouns and once referring to himself as "fella": https://garfield.com/comic/1983/06/20 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1983/06/21 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1983/06/23 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1983/06/24 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1983/06/25
- Jon refers to Odie and Garfield together as boys: https://garfield.com/comic/1978/11/12 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1984/12/25 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1999/02/22 ; https://garfield.com/comic/2014/07/27
- Jon refers to Garfield singly as a boy or a man: https://garfield.com/comic/1979/04/19 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1979/06/02 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1980/09/14 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1981/10/11 ; https://garfield.com/comic/2000/11/20 ; https://garfield.com/comic/2011/11/27
- Jon refers to Garfield (disguised as a human) as his son: https://garfield.com/comic/1980/10/01
- Garfield plainly refers to himself as a "boy cat" and a "bachelor": https://garfield.com/comic/1979/08/20
- Garfield refers to himself as a "bad boy": https://garfield.com/comic/1981/07/28
- Garfield refers to himself as a "guy": https://garfield.com/comic/1981/08/12 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1981/11/07 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1981/12/27 ; https://garfield.com/comic/1999/11/24
- Garfield's magical talking bathroom scale (probably a proxy for Garfield himself) refers to Garfield as a "young man" and a "boy": https://garfield.com/comic/2008/01/17
- A cat brushes off Garfield's advances and calls him, generically, "Jack": https://garfield.com/comic/1981/02/15
- Garfield refers to himself as a renaissance man, and another cat refers to him as both a man and a boy: https://garfield.com/comic/1984/11/04
- A cat refers to Garfield as "guy", and Garfield refers to his own "manly pose": https://garfield.com/comic/1984/12/08
- Arlene refers to Garfield as "fella": https://garfield.com/comic/1981/10/08
- Arlene implies Garfield's gender identity differs from her own, which is identified in the strip as "girl": https://garfield.com/comic/1983/05/25
- Garfield thinks to himself he'd "make a lousy father": https://garfield.com/comic/1983/06/05
- Garfield refers to himself as a "kind of guy": https://garfield.com/comic/1984/05/15
- Arlene refers to Garfield as a "him": https://garfield.com/comic/1984/10/24
- In a Sunday title/precomic, Jim Davis has Garfield roleplay a prince, not a princess: https://garfield.com/comic/1988/07/24
- In a Sunday title/precomic, Jim Davis has Garfield roleplay a scoundrel that self-identifies as a "him": https://garfield.com/comic/1988/10/23
- Garfield refers to himself as a "regular guy": https://garfield.com/comic/1993/02/23
DrCliche (
talk) 07:14, 26 February 2017 (UTC)"
