Re: Powerful men hating women
TBH, I do think "hating women" is a strong way to put it, but I think it is fairly obvious that the people at Toei at the time were pretty misogynistic... It was quite an eye-opener for me when a friend of mine pointed out that pretty much 99% of Roshi's perverse antics in the show are anime-only additions... It's really quite shocking when you realise that pretty much Toei's go-to anime padding tactic was to cut away to Roshi doing something perverted in an attempt to give the audience a laugh... -_-
And really, the misogyny in Dragon Ball isn't just on Toei's end. Toriyama wrote a grand total of five women in primary roles in the 11-year-long original manga run; Bulma, Lunch, Chichi, Videl, and #18.
Of them, Lunch is rather underused in a lot of her run (for some reason she stayed behind for the 21st Tenkaichi, then she was given nothing to do in Red Ribbon or Piccolo Daimao) then wasn't present at all in the last two thirds of the manga run; Chichi is flanderised and downplayed as an annoying, nagging housewife despite strong initial characterisation, and while Videl similarly has a strong start, by the time the main Boo arc plot kicks in, her agency in the story is totally removed, and her role becomes "The girl who worries after Gohan."
In fairness, I'm pretty sure Toriyama has admitted himself that he's not great at writing women, but acknowledging a flaw and addressing it are two different things. (Though, in fairness, he does seem to have got better at it with Super. Still a long way to go, but he's improved, certainly)
For GT specifically, as noted, Pan was approached as a damsil in distress. One could easily try to solely blame one or two people for this, though the way this is talked about seems to me to be something that would've been discussed in formulation of the show, which would have involved many of Toei's writers, and would have been done with strong influence from Toriyama himself; remember that Toriyama did designs of basically all the main characters in the initial cast, he signed off on every story they were doing in the first chunk, and in general, he was heavily involved in GT's initial formulation. I'm sure there were people involved who weren't happy with it, but it seems the majority were either in support of it, or didn't care (which, really, is just as bad as being in support, in this case).
So... GT was formulated by some people with misogynistic attitudes, and that clearly bled into the work. It's not at all out of line to suggest that GT probably wouldn't have passed the Bechdel Test even if it had lasted long enough to have loads of regular slice of life episodes.
(For those unaware: The Bechdel Test is an idea named after Alison Bechdel, the woman who came up with it, who came up with it as a comment on the state of female representation in media; a piece of media passes the test if there are at least two women in it, who have at least one conversation that isn't about a man, or men in general. In case it needs to be said, it doesn't really say anything about the quality of a work, but it does say a lot about the attitudes that went into making it if an ensemble piece that ran for over a decade didn't have a single scene where two women talk about something that isn't a man... Though, granted, I haven't actually scrubbed through all of Dragon Ball to confirm this for certain, but I'm pretty sure the original 1986-1997 TV run fails the test. Anyway, the test has more broad applications than examining one work; take a look at which Oscar-nominated movies over the past few years pass the test, which action movies pass the test, etc. It's quite interesting. See also: The Mako Mori Test, inspired by Pacific Rim, which is far more forgiving; it's simply "Does a female lead have an arc that doesn't revolve around male characters?"... I don't think Dragon Ball passes that one either)
...
Having said that, we are ultimately exploring the realm of fantasy, so no reason we can't imagine an idealised version of GT where they would have done an episode where the girls hang out and get to have an episode largely to themselves. And Pan goes Super Saiyan at some point in the extra arcs, etc.
SupremeKai25 wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 5:45 am
Why would it go any longer? Episode 64 was clearly the definitive conclusion of GT. Omega Shenron, who was the strongest non-Super villain, was defeated and the universe was saved, Goku left with Shenron and went God only knows where, and the world was pretty much at peace. At this point the show would just be a slice of life anime where people have fun during peace time... which would be terrible. Yes slice of life episodes are always welcomed after a very serious arc, but an ENTIRE ARC of people shopping or playing with their dog? Hell no.
If u want GT to go for longer than 64 episodes, you'd have to overhaul the entire show as you yourself acknowledged by making the pacing longer.
The reason GT had a conclusive ending in episodes 41-64 is because Toei very clearly knew those would be the last. If GT had gone on longer, episodes 41-64 would have been quite different.
The entire show wouldn't have overhauled, but I imagine we'd have had at least one further full story arc between Baby and Evil Dragons. (Super #17 barely counts as a story arc to me; it's a 7-episode mad dash to set things up for the Evil Dragons arc, to take them to their perfect ending)
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.
