Forum - View topicANNCast - El Gee Bee Tee
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yuricon
 Posts: 145 |
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Yes, absolutely! We're so used to seeing overt intolerance and discrimination as the conflict. But it's the passive, accepted and social acceptable bigotry that any marginalized group has to live with that isn't often seen in media. The movie Hidden Figures did that, as well. The KKK is one thing and it's hrrible, but it's not the totality of racism. Not being able to use a bathroom is once again something we're actually talking about in the 21st century. Yaichi's passive homophobia is so ingrained he didn't even know it existed. Watching him having to acknowledge it before he can deal with it, is so powerful. Last edited by yuricon on Fri Feb 10, 2017 5:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
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Great podcast, one that I was hoping to hear for a long time. Being a gay anime fan is com-pli-ca-ted. And the fact that I just don't see myself anywhere in it makes me really wonder if I have any place in this fandom.
It does seem to feel like certain people don't want to make you feel welcome (*cough*}) Speaking of complicated, I feel like I have to be the big dissenter for My Brother's Husband...and heart-breakingly so! Because I know that Tagame's heart is in the right place, and he's genuinely trying to raise awareness and educate and tell this very human...But it really just feels like an after-school special to me. Very saccharine and cringy. I'll definitely buy it when it comes out, because it's something important...but I really don't think I'd call it a quality work. |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3017 |
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I know people who felt the same way about A Silent Voice with regards to representing ableism, but I think it's important to consider that many of these series aren't "preaching to the choir", and that oftentimes media that is trying to raise awareness can come across as saccharine to those who are already deeply familiar with the issues in question. |
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Chrysostomus
Posts: 335 |
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- one "censored" kiss - the engagement rings are for "good luck" (Victor says as he puts them on) - no unambiguous love/marriage declaration (think JJ in his last performance) - Yuri, using every single opportunity to point out that "our relationship is not like that!" They dance around the issue and don't address it. It speaks volumes that JJ of all people was allowed to ceremoniously confess his love in front of half the world but neither Yuri nor Victor did. |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
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I 100% agree with you. It's focus arguably probably is on educating and changing the minds of hetero people rather than making bitter old gay dudes like me feel better about themselves and I think the latter is genuinely important and necessary. I definitely won't knock it for that. I just...don't really like any of the characters or the tone, so it just feels kind of disappointing to me. There's one moment in what I read (about 18 or so chapters so far?) which I really liked, and that's when it's brought up of how Mike and his husband got together. Mike goes "Oh umm...we met at a party! (thought balloon: "I'm way too embarrassed to tell them that we met through a dating app"). That's a deep cut! That's a situation I can relate to. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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As nice as it is to hold up YoI as a direction hopefully anime will go in the future, one must remember 2016 was also the year of Super Lovers (Boku no Pico for women) & Drifters (like watching a teenage boy who's just learned (wrongly) what a twink is & can't wait to impress his mates by saying it a lot). Both of those have second seasons this year (a little disappointed SL wasn't picked for weekly reviews again). I'm not sure YOI will, since it'll probably be more profitable to cross sell that shit in other mediums before returning to animation maybe in 2018.
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Aleximonious
Posts: 6 |
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Great episode, I made an account just to comment on it. Jacob, the manga you were trying to remember was probably Astra Lost In Space. (The reveal happens in chapter 23, but I'd recommend reading 1-22 for context). I definitley like the fact that spoiler[Luca] is intersex, I do however feel that the way it was revealed could have be handled better.
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bassgs435
 Posts: 272 |
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Drifter's 2nd season was actually announced for "20xx" which means "sometime before the XXI century ends". The reason being, that there's not enough manga material out at the moment for another anime season, and Hirano is very slow. So I'd doubt Drifters'll have a 2nd season this year
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garlogan78
Posts: 171 |
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This~ Pretty much every gay anime character isn't gay /for/ gay audience members to relate to or for purposes of /representation/. Putting aside Hourou Musuko or Aoi Hana, I can't even think of any that aren't baiting to some extent [disclaimer I haven't seen like any anime pre 2006]. |
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Keichitsu0305
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I might have misheard but I thought Jason mentioned asexuality in the podcast? If so, then I'm glad to hear that; I identify as Gray A.
For Valerie's Boku no Pico, a more widely accessible CR equivalent pedo anime would be Super Lovers. XP I agree with Erica that the powerful seme x weakling uke is annoying, repetitive, and has horrible subtext, it's gotten to the point where I've been super selective of what BL manga I consume. One pet peeve I have with yuri manga is the saturation of high school/middle school girls who act like some of the most frilly, airheaded teenagers I've ever seen; it seems rare to read a josei like yuri with adult characters. This isn't in terms of positive representation but, just an interesting BL/GL manga in general. Jacob thank you for mentioning that sh*tty episode from Gargantia!! I loathe the "5 o' clock shadow uber effeminate gay rapey man" stereotype more than anything; it's never been funny and 90% I will ditch the show if it comes up. Queen characters, cross dressers, and proudly effeminate men are fine (Fire Emblem gets "better" in the movie) but, I would rather gag on a spoon than see that sh*t again. I could see Yuri! on Ice as the modern (less surrealistic/visually symbolic) Revolutionary Girl Utena in terms of refreshing representation for LGBT+ but, their themes differ IMO. Utena can be viewed as a rejection of social norms, tackling the complexity adulthood while examining your childhood ideals, and, of course, transforming into cars as a metaphor for rescuing yourself rather than wait for some nonexistent prince to save you. Yuri embraces cultural diversity, enjoying your passions with moral support, and embodying your inner pork cutlet bowl femme fatale for the one you love. :3 |
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fencer_x
Posts: 277 |
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jfc did they just hold up Takanaga Hinako's works as doing good for BL and something positive??
y i k e s Takanaga is teaming up with Nakamura Shungiku to keep BL the nasty rape-filled issue-laden genre it's been in the past. Can we maybe not pretend like something being popular means it's good? Especially not stuff rife with rape and emotional blackmail pretending to be romance? Dark stuff is great, and there's nothing inherently WRONG with liking that kind of stuff, but being oblivious to how terrible a representation it is and just...well TERRIBLE in general is a bridge too far. |
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Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
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I really dislike it when people push for characters to be transgendered when they don't actually know what transgenderism is. They will write a multiple page essay going into their headcanon and why character X is transgendered despite the fact the character refer to themselves as their biological sex like Chihiro from Danganronpa. People also mistake someone cross-dressing as being transgendered despite the fact cross dressing is not related to it, or as proof that they're gay. Pokemon's dub writers and VAs tried to push the whole "Kojiro is gay because he crossdresses" thing when it's supposed to be a reference to a type of Japanese theater. Kinda a racist/offensive thing to do looking back at it.
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2092 |
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Well, I guess if you don't mind your characters looking like jerks. It's one thing to be in a situation you don't like, it's another thing to be rude about it. Otherwise you're sending the message of, "hey, are you gay, "ugly", fat, or nerdy? Well, you better not flirt with anyone!" If the person is actually being invasive of the character's personal space or downright molesting, then yes that's not cool (like that lesbian in Baka and Test, respect Minami's personal space!), but a character should not be mocked for "daring" to express interest in someone. It's not cool and it's definitely not funny. |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 974 Location: Kansas |
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On the topic of Yaoi/Yuri vs Actual depictions of homosexuality - I've been debating for a while whether I wanted to post this because I don't want to make it sound like I'm encouraging the fetishizing nature of Yaoi - but because I've heard Jacob talk a lot about friends and others who liked Yaoi but hated homosexuals, I wanted to share my story. Sorry if it's too long-winded.
To set the stage, I grew up in "God hates Fags"-town Kansas. So as you can imagine, very few people, if anyone, was openly gay here in the 90s. Consequently, I spent the first 9 years or so of my life unaware the homosexuality was even a thing. Men loved women and women loved men, and there was no reason to believe it was any other way. I distinctly remember, at age 5 or so as I was learning to read and therefore read everything, asking my mom what the aforementioned signs meant. She told me that F word was a very hurtful thing to say to someone. Being a very empathetic child, I never said the word again and felt uncomfortable every time I saw it. So a number of years later, I was just becoming a big anime fan and started reading Dragonball Z fanfiction. In the process, I kept coming across ones with the pairing labeled "Goku/Vegeta". I thought, that must be a typo. Boys don't love other boys. But I saw so many of them, my curiosity got the best of me, and I read one. It was... as you would expect. As much as I hate to admit it, I was initially repulsed. Why would a boy kiss another boy? That makes no sense. I told my fellow fanfiction-reading friend about the fic I read and how disgusting I thought it was. And she said, "I don't think it's gross. I like Goku/Vegeta." "B-but, it's two guys!" I protested, and she shrugged and said "So? Love is love." My mind was blown. I made more anime-loving friends in middle school, and before we knew it, all of us were reading Gundam Wing fanfiction and debating on pairings. And yes, I'll begrudgingly admit that we were those teenage yaoi girls who "squee'd" and the idea of maybe one day seeing two real life gay guys holding hands or something. But it did something so important for all of us, having grown up in this backwards town. It made us aware that there were real people that loved other people of the same gender. It got a little more complicated in high school. One of my friends, who was probably the biggest, dirtiest yaoi fan (and real gay porn!) in secret, said that she thought homosexuality was a sin. I was seriously flabbergasted. "How can you say that when you spend all of your free time reading Vash/Legato fanfiction?!" and she didn't have an answer. On the opposite side, I had a friend with an enormous collection of Yaoi manga who later came out as a lesbian. I realized how complicated sexuality really is and struggled with my own. That first friend aside, an interesting thing happened with the rest of my friend group - we all became huge advocates for gay rights. Even though most of us had never met a person we knew was gay until high school, we were immediately able to empathize. If our favorite characters existed in real life, we would want them to be happy and have the same rights as straight couples, right? We "converted" many of our friends and family, the same way my friend did when I was 10 and found that DBZ fic. "Love is love." My dad walked in on me watching Gravitation, and became really interested in the drama. "I'm not into guys or anything, I just want to know what happens next..." he said. Last time I saw him he expressed interest in seeing Yuri on Ice. People often begin to warm up to people with other interests and lifestyles by knowing people who are affected. My friends and I grew up in a town where, even now, most gays are fairly closeted, and so we hadn't knowingly met anyone who wasn't able to marry their partner, or couldn't talk about it for fear of losing their job or family. So through Yaoi, and anime fandom in general, we were able to start to understand the issues faced by LGBT. Don't get me wrong, I know how many things are wrong with the depictions of gays in Yaoi, but I just wanted to share how much of difference Yaoi made in my little circle of naive friends. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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Yeah...I'll admit that one of the first anime I completed all the way through in elementary school (Baka and Test) had a predatory lesbian character, and might've been my first time seeing a canon gay character in anime. Not the best representation.
Cosplay Complex is one of the most offensive depictions I've seen; not only is there a predatory lesbian, but she's also a pedophile. Said predatory lesbian gets raped (but seems to enjoy it?!) by the other lesbian character while trying to attack an elementary school girl. |
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