The Big Picture: Boy's Own Adventure

[Redd the Sock]

I'm torn. One the one hand I have dignifying anything out of Fox news as anything but the ranting o someone off their meds. On the other I want to toss that final season of Sailor Moon at them (Sailor Stars) and sit back and watch the frothing mouths. Hell, just about any uncensored season of that show should set them off.

Sadly I have to be the bigger man and say Fox's job is to be outraged at stuff like this, so it's better to leave them be as it's always something: The Muppets, Mass Effect, Sesame Street, The Lorax, to name a few. It'll be over in a week and they'll find something new pushing the _______ agenda to ***** about. Don't treat them as anything but the joke they are.

 

[Ukomba]

I'm torn. One the one hand I have dignifying anything out of Fox news as anything but the ranting o someone off their meds. On the other I want to toss that final season of Sailor Moon at them (Sailor Stars) and sit back and watch the frothing mouths. Hell, just about any uncensored season of that show should set them off.

Sadly I have to be the bigger man and say Fox's job is to be outraged at stuff like this, so it's better to leave them be as it's always something: The Muppets, Mass Effect, Sesame Street, The Lorax, to name a few. It'll be over in a week and they'll find something new pushing the _______ agenda to ***** about. Don't treat them as anything but the joke they are.

At least they don't control the IRS.

 

[Falseprophet]

Huh, that's pretty odd. I'd've thought that the lesbian and gay communities would be the most open to this, seeing as many of them would have faced rejection and discrimination for their own sexuality. And it's particularly ironic considering that very few of them are actually likely to be 100% only attracted to their same gender all of the time. Guess it shows that bigotry is an equal opportunity character flaw.

People are complex and inclined towards their particular group. (i.e., "Me and my brother against my cousin; me and my cousin against my neighbour; me and my neighbour against that outside") When a society marginalizes a large swath of people, then seems ready to offer some of them a level of equality and acceptance they weren't offered before while still excluding the rest, it would be an extremely altruistic and moral act to say "you take all of us or none of us". Very few people can make that step: history is full of examples co-marginalized people throwing each other under the bus to get ahead, whether ethnic, racial, political, or religious. It's hard to expect sexual orientation would somehow be immune.

 

[SD-Fiend]

Get out of the kiddie pool Bob. You are crushing the children against the wall.

Someone needs to draw that image.

 

[Zer0Saber]

Do you know how many movies have been made in the last 35 years that have men dressed as women as the main point of the movie? Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, John Leguizamo played transvestites in "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" and you got Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, oh I just found a wikipedia list it's pretty big http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dressing_in_film_and_television ...................Shakespeare.(Besides men playing female roles he had a play where a woman pretended to be a man.)... This crap has been going on for ages. Not just adults cross dressing but kids too in some movies. the only thing a little different is that this is the gag of a kids the show.

Oh, and gay ninjas broke into my house and made my whole family gay, then destroyed my family.

 

[Ukomba]

I have one question...and it's a very serious one.

When can we finally sue/criminally charge Fox News and/or any of these other overly conservative groups for what basically amounts to harassment of the GLBTQ community and those that support them?

Seriously...this crap is getting out of hand and a line needs to be drawn.

Interesting questions. Would conservative groups be able to criminally charge CNN/ABC/MSN and liberal groups in return? Or would this only be for specifically approved ideologies?

 

[MB202]

Wait... "Gumball" quality? MovieBob LIKES Gumball? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a decent show and all, and I just LOVE the visuals and the way it blends different styles of animation, but the actual show itself... Eh... Wouldn't put it in the same camp as Adventure Time, though. As for Shezow, I don't feel interested at ALL in seeing this show, mostly because the visuals don't seem that impressive. Not to mention, most people who've seen it haven't saying good things about it, and not just the anti-LGBT nutballs, either. And having seen the clips of it... Boy, and people thought the horse-related puns in MLP were bad. These are just cringe-worthy!

 

[an annoyed writer]

Quoted for attention!

Bob, you made a few good points here, and I'm as annoyed by Fox's shenanigans as you are, but I'd like to inform you of a misconception that you made in your video: it is not a transsexual cartoon, but rather a transvestite or drag superhero cartoon. Transsexual people, such as myself, have the full gender identity of out target gender, instead of our birth sex, as opposed to the main character of that show, who stated clearly that he's a dude. It's not that I don't appreciate the idea and the sentiment, but rather that I don't really relate to the character as much as one might hope. It feels very much like the outsider's idea of what goes on, rather than our perspective.

 

[IndomitableSam]

I guess none of the guys at Fox ever watched Cybersix. Oh wait, that's because the morons banned the show in the US after its first run because of the crossdressing superhero.

Where else do you see an androgynous woman jump between being a male teacher and then fighting Nazi mutants with her "Brother reborn as a Jaguar"?

Still one of my favorite intro songs ever.

As for this issue? It was on the Canadian news here this weekend, I think, and basically it was "The Americans think this is a big deal, apparently," and then our news went on to interview the creator in a very professional manner. The creator was basically scratching his head. I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said "I thought it was a funny concept for a guy to dress up as a girl to be a superhero, so that's why I made it."

 

[Rblade]

the absolute funniest part about this is how fox doesn't seem to realize all this does is make more people watch it. I mean I doubt strict tea party parents were letting their kids watch friendship is magic in the first place.

 

[LostintheWick]

And yet when Beast Boy or Ben Ten turns into different SPECIES nobody could gives a fuck.

Considering how often the rhetoric goes:"If we allow gay marriage, people will start marrying their dogs next" it honestly wouldn't surprise me if this becomes an issue someday. And that makes me very sad.

Also, I think Bob was joking when he claimed the gay agenda is communism, but I've had somebody tell me to my face and without the slightest hint of sarcasm that teaching children homosexuality is okay is socialism. I tried explaining to him that socialism has literally nothing to do with anyones sexual orientation, but it was a lost cause. So, yeah, you might actually be right, Bob.

I need a fucking drink now.

You should also throw in that socialism isn't an inherently negative thing either It's how we have roads, police, firefighters, etc.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

The idiots making a huge deal out of this no doubt saw the PINK outfit and went crazy!
A BOY... in... PINK?!!!!

However, just check the first of this articles' points:
http://www.cracked.com/article_19780_5-gender-stereotypes-that-used-to-be-exact-opposite.html

Pink used to be a very MASCULINE color for a long time!
Take that, every crackpot berating a male from any age for wearing pink.
Take that, and a whole lot more, grrrrr!

 

[DarklordKyo]

I haven't watched the show (yet) but I agree with Bob that representations of gender in the superhero genre are very problematic. One thing that's very cool is how the character of Batwoman has evolved from a bad joke about being a female Batman to one of the coolest characters in DC.

Yet I'm not sure that She-Zow! is quite as helpful to LGBTQA acceptance as Bob made it sound, even with all the qualifiers he put on there. The joke still relies on a strict gender binary, and I can't imagine that it strains itself to teach the kids about the nuances of recognizing your own identity. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.

Yeah, I think that ponies and Batman are really the only things currently keeping the Hub humming.

Speaking of, I'd like to thank Bob for taking what I feel is the best stance on the pony fandom, that since he doesn't care too much about the show the fans' existence does not affect him and therefore he doesn't talk about it except where it becomes relevant, and then only in passing. No lectures about how some fans take it too far, no discussions of how it affects the larger culture, he is just aware of it as a thing.

To be fair, there's also Animaniacs.

 

[Vanquishuer]

So its like Kampfer without all the titillation.

 

[Lightknight]

Interesting. I would never have heard about this show without such a fuss being made about it. Maybe we're about to see the streisand effect in action. This definitely isn't what they think it is so it's interesting. Then again, having lived through the ridiculous "Harry Potter will teach your children to summon Satan over your dead cold corpse" era I'm not surprised by and not even listening to that crowd anymore. *sigh*

Great reporting though, thanks for being the counterbalance on the issue. A sane person in a frantic room can make all the difference.

 

[Orekoya]

Spoiler: Clever things

Meanwhile, in the 40s...

And 50s...

And 60s...

And 70s...

And 80s...

And the 90s...

And over at Japan...

And THIS...

Given that the entire show is built around this like it was a throwaway gag that won't be thrown away, I find this post all the more clever and accurate. I mean so far all the jokes in the shown footage was 'Tee-hee, that boy's in a dress.' with varying degrees of subverting that.