>>1017748
I agree with
>>1017702
Mark Lily is clearly not a protagonist you're supposed to LIKE, he's just the straight man for the zanier characters to play off of. The show is not at all shy about making jokes out of how emasculated and wimpy he is. Even at his best he's portrayed as naive and too trusting. At every turn his efforts to do good are crapped on, like in the Manbirds episode where the arc of his adopted manbird baby ends with the estranged father manbird cursing and disowning him for being such a damn pussy.
The only characters that got Flanderized really badly were Dwayne and Grimes, Dwayne getting the worst of it by turning from an intimidating boss and sexual powerhouse into a wimpy momma's boy. Which would have been a funny twist in one or two episodes, but quickly redefined the character completely. Grimes was treated a little better but when you add together all his secret backstories revealed in the various episodes he goes from "grizzled" to outright unhinged.
>>1017808
He is, but those things were always portrayed in a negative light. Callie wants an open relationship and then gets insanely jealous when Mark starts seeing someone else and at the end of the episode the moral is "open relationships are trouble." The sex-change episode shows Mark constantly uncomfortable at all the gayness around him and seems to be a warning that if you're tolerant of gays and trannies you will actually have to live with the consequences of that, which could include having your girlfriend fuck you in the ass.
You don't have to be a gluttonous idiot to enjoy Fry or Homer as a protagonist, you don't have to be evil to be amused by Cartman, and I don't think you have to be a literal pussy liberal to follow Mark Lily through his adventures.