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Louis Dor
Mar 02, 2017

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Getty Images/iStockphoto
That Garfield is a hot air balloon. That much we can agree on.
People are arguing over whether the cartoon cat Garfield is a girl cat or a boy cat or an undefinable cat.
Garfield’s creator, Jim Davis, was interviewed by Mental Floss two years ago.
In the interview, he said:
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.
Satirist and part-time troll Virgil Texas got hold of this quote and took it to Wikipedia.
I have updated the Garfield Wikipedia entry to reflect this fact. https://t.co/icgEE6Q11o https://t.co/XUAH3wZkcl— Virgil Texas (@Virgil Texas) 1487898909
Since then, a war quickly ravaged on the Garfield page.
Somebody added 19 citations of Garfield's gender on the Garfield Wikipedia talk page. https://t.co/pTZx4ThNBD https://t.co/uAIMUZ3ygL— Virgil Texas (@Virgil Texas) 1488141849
Garfield swapped genders on the site 20 times in two-and-a-half days. Also, his religion was briefly cited as Shiite Muslim.
People were angry.
Never forget the Great Garfield Gender Wikipedia War of 2017 https://t.co/CY8S2JZs9p https://t.co/m1hWpRbdhc— irony guy (@irony guy) 1488286227
@virgiltexas they gendered him right on the text! "HE's not really male or female" WTF— Jorn (@Jorn) 1487978425
An administrator stepped in, and declared Garfield is male, citing a handful of comic strips as evidence.
The page was locked against edits until March.
In an effort to resolve the situation, the Washington Post contacted Jim Davis, who said:
Garfield is male. He has a girlfriend, Arlene.
We can't wait till people start citing Roland Barthes' The Death of the Author in their argument, concerning the gender of a cartoon cat on a free community-curated internet encyclopedia.
Go outside, people.
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