Children's Network Launches Transsexual Superhero Show

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THis should make some people here quite happy.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/05/28/Children-n...

Nancy Cole

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UGH! The comments!

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WHY did I look at the comments? Especially when the article itself wasn't particularly friendly in the first place!?

Anyways. Sounds interesting. I hope it actually proves friendlier than the article or its comments.

Abigail Drew.

Not to get too into

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Not to get too into politics...but seeing where the article comes from...it doesn't surprise me. Breitbart is an ultra-conservative media outlet (if you can call it that). These are right-wingers who frankly are extremist in their views.

That being said, the idea for the show seems nice. The article and comments just reflect the uneducated masses that sort of thing caters to.

Samirah M. Johnstone

More info

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erin's picture

Anyone interested can do a search for some less slanted news on the new show. The comments at the site Nancy linked to are quite hateful.

We've had similar stories here and in fact, I have two unpubbed ones with similar themes on my drive. There's even some rather odd fanart out there since this is not a new show in Australia, apparently.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

And the name is…

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I had to go to the linked site to find the name of the show to do a search for other news items. The show's name is "SheZow."

You still have to go a fair ways down the search results to find something that's not negative.

GeekGirl

Animes

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revolution's picture

There have been several Animes created in Japan about gender and sexuality stereotypes. unfortunately as they were stereotypes and not true points they never communicated the serious of the issues they were presenting to their audiance. This issue however is on long and complex argument which unfortunately i can't lay out here.

I do however want to point out an anime i know that had a similar theme that was pointed at kids, Sailor moon. For those who don't know about Sailor moon, it was an anime about a 13 year old girl who becomes a hero of the light to fight against the darkness.

As it was an anime, 13 really looked like 16 but, again, that is another matter involving long complex arguments. The main point i am trying to make is that for a 1990's Anime it did push the boundaries of both Japanese Broadcasting and American broadcasting by showing several characters who did not conform to gender and sexual norms. Its major as America actually presented it to its viewers.

The anime presented 2 3rd season main characters who were lesbian lovers, 1 of which happened to be inter-sexed but presented more as a boy. The American butchers heavily presented this to try and make the children think they were a straight couple.

The last season of the Anime was rejected by the US because 3 main characters of the last season were TG similar to the character of the show presented in this blog.

As it was the 90's America was still very blue collar and i can understand the reason for rejecting the last season and butchering the 3rd season. With how Japan allowed Sailor Moon to be presented it came across to their viewers as denial/ignorance.

Lets hope this show can present its central themes in a better light then what was allowed in the past. Hopefully in doing so it can bridge some of the current gaps of denial and reality.

To be fair though...

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While they are not generally intended to be a serious exploration of the issues, they are at least not horrible caricatures.

While the characters in gender-bending anime have unique problems when it comes to gender and sexuality, it's not those problems in and of themselves that are being made a joke of, but rather the situations that develop around and because of them.

So while they are hardly doing much to educate the masses, they are at LEAST desensitizing the issue. Making it less of an issue, if you know what I mean.

As for Sailor Moon... I honestly never paid it much attention. Maybe I should look into it now. Fansubs. Americanized versions of ALL anime suck. But especially ones dealing with gender even in a "funny" way. And this sounds like a serious treatment. I can't begin to imagine how much murder was done to the Americanized script.

Abigail Drew.

Agreed

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revolution's picture

I do Agree that they indeed help to sensitize the issue.

Another good example of this is the anime Your Under Arrest. Its a series about Japanese traffic cops and the various situations the run into. Its moderately comedic but has some very serious situations that the main characters are involved. one of the main characters was an undercover cop who while undercover cross dressed and passed very convincingly. When the main characters find out there is some tension but ultimately acceptance. Throughout the series the creator tended to bring it up at times that the character was still physically male as a comedic situation that they could have gotten involved in but it served to remind the audience that it is out there and its fine.

I feel however that most of the time if the character is female to male in the anime then its passed of as acceptance due to cultural beliefs while if its male to female it tends to be comedic in nature. This helps to sensitize the masses but i feel on most occasions its doing so in the wrong context and giving off the wrong reasons for why its okay.

Unfortunately i still am only scratching the surface of this issue. there are a lot of gender bent characters in anime series of which they cover a wide range of issues some of which we are happy to see portrayed in the light they are while others are portrayed in my opinion wrongly.

In either case its nice to know it is being looked at.

The target ages are 2 - 11

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Andrea Lena's picture

The chief executive of the Hub, who may or may not have been high (and leftist) when she greenlit this project, is Margaret Loesch. Loesch commented, “When I first heard about the show, my reaction was ‘Are you out of your minds?’ Then I looked at it and I thought, ‘This is just funny.’”

So unlike the print comic transgender character in the Batgirl series; a character who is intelligent and honest and real - we instead get a character and a treatment which is once again meant to be funny. What part of funny and TG would appeal to a kid to begin with? With no real life role models, we're once again left with a parody-like portrayal where the boy at least doesn't have to stay a girl and only becomes one to merrily fight crime?

Where's Bugs Bunny when we need her?

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

I found a bit more...

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Got to watch the full first two episodes, actually, along with some commentary from a coupla self-proclaimed otaku... Anyhoo... It's just Yet Another Gender-Bender. It's neither really positive, nor really negative... The only thing of note at all is that it's coming here at all. The show itself? Kinda just is. Kinda Ranma-esque in a way.

Abigail Drew.

Watching the first.

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Even with the cometary was really funny. I have been subjected to hours of Johny Test and a lot of other recent cartons my kids love to death, so having this was not as painful as I was prepared to suffer through. I hope to see more of this series in the future.
Just having this to make things not so crazy different may have a real benefit. Little boys playing SheZow for Halloween may just help things normalize.

Still chuckling

Michele

PS
I will let you know how this goes over when my kids see it.

With those with open eyes the world reads like a book

celtgirl_0.gif

Got it here

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We have The Hub, along with a whole bunch of other kid-oriented channels. Wikipedia tells me it used to be Discovery Kids, and, as one of their original shows is My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which is insanely popular, I think a lot of people have probably heard of it. It's also on most cable and satellite services.

-- Jane

Um with a simple google

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Um with a simple google search you could watch the first 8 or 16 episodes depending on how you look at since there are two 15 min episodes per episode with a mini opening credits in the middle.

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