YMMV / Community S 6 E 04 Queer Studies And Advanced Waxing

• Author's Saving Throw: Dan Harmon was previously criticized for the portrayal of the queer community in the season three episode Advanced Gay, where all of the on-screen queer characters were portrayed as Camp Gay stereotypes. Harmon admitted that his critics had a point and promised to be more aware of how the show portrayed the community in future episodes, and here the queer community is given a more nuanced and respectful portrayal.
• Awesome Music: The "Gay Dean" cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" is insanely catchy, hilariously silly, and surprisingly poignant when it's later played as a Dark Reprise during the episode's climax when one of the baby birds dies.
• Catharsis Factor: Abed and Elroy not letting the Dean off the hook for indirectly killing two of the three birds. They each give him a Death Glare, and Abed calls him a "bird-killer".
• Jerkass Woobie: While the Dean is indirectly responsible for the deaths of two baby birds, he eventually has a My God, What Have I Done? moment and confesses his guilt to the "Save Greendale" Committee later on. Additionally, he spends most of the episode at least somewhat in the closet and a major Slave to PR — which is clearly killing him inside — but he does it since he's been convinced that it will help the school.
• Spoof Aesop: Chang being made into a genuinely great actor through the director's horrible abuse of him seems to be implying that acting as a Jerkass Prima Donna Director and subjecting your actors to emotional, verbal, and even physical abuse is perfectly fine as long as it gets a good performance out of them.
• Tear Jerker: The scene where Abed discovers that one of the baby birds has died.
• The Woobie:
  • This is one of the few episodes where you can feel really sorry for Chang as he is humiliated while sincerely wanting to fit. By his acting, you can also feel that the subject matter of Asian actors being race-profiled in the industry is important to Ken Jeong.
  • Annie. Since the director never bothered to correct her, she truly believed that she had talent as an actress, only to see her dreams crushed, when it turns out that the director did not correct her because he had no faith in her to begin with.