GT and misogyny

[Champa The Destroyer]

Like, guys, its okay to enjoy problematic material while also wanting fiction to do better. You don’t need to perform Olympic level mental gymnastics to explain how the writing in GT (or really Dragon Ball in general) wasn’t sexist because Pan had more screen time than a bunch of male characters because as we all know Twilight isn’t sexist because it has a main female character and was written by a woman therefore not sexist.

I couldnt agree more, I feel as though there's a lot of fiction that has....less than okay themes in part of it, and it's almost inevitable for people who consume a lot of fiction to encounter something like this.

[WittyUsername]

I don’t think it matters one way or the other that Pan couldn’t go Super Saiyan. There’s no reason that would prevent her from needing to be rescued by Goku.

[coola]

In Polish soap operas, when evil woman mellow down, she usually lose all her spunk, and become background character. Similar thing happen to DB girls after they arc is over.

[MasenkoHA]

I don’t think it matters one way or the other that Pan couldn’t go Super Saiyan. There’s no reason that would prevent her from needing to be rescued by Goku.

You’re right it doesn’t matter. But the reason provided by the show runner DOES matter.

[JulieYBM]

I have my issues with Twilight considering the supposed target audience of tween and teen girls but I'm also more inclined to give slack to a woman writing a woman when it is clearly her self-insert tale. I'd actually have to read those books to give them a real analysis though, of course.

Bah, this is why I mostly just read fiction aimed at horny adult trans women now.

[jjgp1112]

Like, guys, its okay to enjoy problematic material while also wanting fiction to do better. You don’t need to perform Olympic level mental gymnastics to explain how the writing in GT (or really Dragon Ball in general) wasn’t sexist because Pan had more screen time than a bunch of male characters because as we all know Twilight isn’t sexist because it has a main female character and was written by a woman therefore not sexist.

I couldnt agree more, I feel as though there's a lot of fiction that has....less than okay themes in part of it, and it's almost inevitable for people who consume a lot of fiction to encounter something like this.

That's why I don't really think art has any real higher purpose or hardline moral responsibility...reality informs art far more than the other way *shrugs*. As an actual adult I've never needed a show to make me realize what's actually wrong.

I mean, 95% of the music I listen to is 90s gangsta rap that proudly wears #problematic stuff on its sleeve. But hey, that's what the crack era brings you. I will never feel the need to justify its moral standing, nor will I particularly care about it enough to seek its validation on a message board. Entertainment's easier that way. Of course, I'm an advertising creative so feel free to say my entire approach to this subject is inherently cynical ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[JulieYBM]

Media is what spreads misinformation and leads to marginalized people being misunderstood and harmed. When reaching for a large audience you do have a responsibility to not harm and misinform.

I mean, I hate to keep falling back on shit but The Silence of the Lambs and other films like it fucked up trans women for years. Now imagine a children's series using its wide platform to tell kids they or their siblings can only rely on boys and they should be dependent simply for who they are. It's fucked up.

[Lord Beerus]

Media is what spreads misinformation and leads to marginalized people being misunderstood and harmed. When reaching for a large audience you do have a responsibility to not harm and misinform.

I mean, I hate to keep falling back on shit but The Silence of the Lambs and other films like it fucked up trans women for years. Now imagine a children's series using its wide platform to tell kids they or their siblings can only rely on boys and they should be dependent simply for who they are. It's fucked up.

I hate to go off topic, but you bringing up how much films like The Silence Of The Lambs dehumanised transgender people reminded of this excellent video concerning the Transphobia in media I saw a few days ago.

[MozillaVulpix]

Surprised this thread has gone for 11 pages and I feel like no one has actually talked about Pan's role in-depth, but I guess that's just the nature of these things.

Some points I'd like to bring up:

• Besides the obvious lack of Super Saiyan, despite many, many times she could realistically get angry or was emotionally traumatised enough to 'justify' it, there's also the 'girls get stronger when they're crying!' scene. Even if you don't think of the very gendered and narrow-minded message that sends, it also doesn't even end up being true, when you think of how many times later on in the series Pan cries and neither gets a power-up nor is able to any more significantly stronger.
• Basically everything to do with her and Mr. Satan? In the second half of the series, Mr. Satan is basically assigned to the role of "trying to stop Pan from getting involved in the fights because she's just a kid". Sort of like Chi-Chi, in a way, except it definitely feels like the audience is supposed to take Mr. Satan's side on this. The worst offender of this being after she gets hurt by Super 17, and Mr. Satan mournfully stares over her unconscious body, saying "If only we never taught you martial arts, this never would have happened to you...". There is so much sexism you can unpack in the implications of that it could be a thread in of itself.
• The fact Pan isn't even just a Damsel to motivate Goku to fight to save her, she also gets into incredibly traumatic situations (nearly getting sexually abused by an doll otaku, her parents and family literally trying to murder her, becoming the vessel for an Evil Dragon and needing to sacrifice her life to save the Earth), and these things, at the end of the day, seem to serve no major purpose besides making the audience want to see Goku beat the crap out of whoever did this to her. Kind of like the 'Women in Refrigerators' trope. Pan cries over seeing her father and uncle try to kill her, tearfully asks Goku "Am I a bad girl?", and faints from the shock. The story then becomes about Goku taking revenge for what just happened to her.
• The fact they keep falling on these tropes throughout GT's 64 episodes makes it also both become very repetitive from a storytelling function and harder to ignore as just 'some pseudo-filler subplot'.

[ABED]

I'm with you on all of those point except for Mr. Satan. One can easily just interpret that as Grandfatherly concern and not inherently sexist.

[JulieYBM]

Great list, Mozilla. I've been too busy IRL to do a deep-dive (aside from watching the trans panic Evil Dragon episode the other day). Those are super damning.

Media is what spreads misinformation and leads to marginalized people being misunderstood and harmed. When reaching for a large audience you do have a responsibility to not harm and misinform.

I mean, I hate to keep falling back on shit but The Silence of the Lambs and other films like it fucked up trans women for years. Now imagine a children's series using its wide platform to tell kids they or their siblings can only rely on boys and they should be dependent simply for who they are. It's fucked up.

I hate to go off topic, but you bringing up how much films like The Silence Of The Lambs dehumanised transgender people reminded of this excellent video concerning the Transphobia in media I saw a few days ago.

Yeah, it a good video. Philosophy Tube's video, Renegade Cut's video and the Disclosure film are also super good and I cannot recommend more. The Philosophy Tube video is extra hilarious because she wound up realizing she was trans a year later and only just came out in 2021.

[JulieYBM]

I'm with you on all of those point except for Mr. Satan. One can easily just interpret that as Grandfatherly concern and not inherently sexist.

Paternalism is still misogyny. Misogynists do not always think that they are misogynists.

[Dr. Casey]

I'm with you on all of those point except for Mr. Satan. One can easily just interpret that as Grandfatherly concern and not inherently sexist.

Paternalism is still misogyny. Misogynists do not always think that they are misogynists.

I think ABED's point is simply that Pan is a 9 year old, and so the concern might not be because she's a girl but because she's a small child and that the concern would exist even if she was a boy. (Not that anyone was concerned for 7 year old Goten or 8 year old Trunks, and the concern for kindergarten-aged Saiyan Saga Gohan was minimal, but there's not necessarily a double standard there since GT was handled by different writers from the Toriyama-penned Saiyan and Buu.)

[MyVisionity]

It's sexist either way. Yeah Satan's a grandfather but his grandchild happens to be a girl. Because of that, his "grandfatherly concern" becomes sexist.

And just because the concern would exist if she were a boy doesn't mean the concern for Pan isn't still sexist.

[Dr. Casey]

And just because the concern would exist if she were a boy doesn't mean the concern for Pan isn't still sexist.

It does if the gender plays no role in his protectiveness or his thought processes, but I haven't seen GT for almost a decade so I don't remember the nuances of the situation. I would have to see it again to determine if it's a "girls are extra fragile" thing or a simple "third graders shouldn't be involved in life-and-death battles" thing. If it's a mixture of both, sure, there's some sexism there. If it's the latter and the latter alone, then no. Not that GT is completely devoid of sexism either way, since "girls are stronger when they cry" is really cringeworthy.

[MyVisionity]

And just because the concern would exist if she were a boy doesn't mean the concern for Pan isn't still sexist.

It does if the gender plays no role in his protectiveness or his thought processes, but I haven't seen GT for almost a decade so I don't remember the nuances of the situation. I would have to see it again to determine if it's a "girls are extra fragile" thing or a simple "third graders shouldn't be involved in life-and-death battles" thing. If it's a mixture of both, sure, there's some sexism there. If it's the latter and the latter alone, then no. Not that GT is completely devoid of sexism either way, since "girls are stronger when they cry" is really cringeworthy.

Gender always plays a role, it can't be removed from the situation. And the thought processes are irrelevant. As long as Satan is behaving that way and speaking that way about a girl, the sexism is there regardless. He is reinforcing and perpetuating the sexist patterns, and in turn the show is doing the same thing.

[Dr. Casey]

I'm guessing I'm misunderstanding you, but it almost sounds like you're saying that being critical of a girl is automatically sexist no matter what.

[Shaddy]

I think it would be more justifiable if we hadn't seen literal seven year-old super saiyans in the Buu arc who could hold their own perfectly well.

[MyVisionity]

I'm guessing I'm misunderstanding you, but it almost sounds like you're saying that being critical of a girl is automatically sexist no matter what.

Not "no matter what". It depends upon what is being criticized and how it is being criticized. And what kind of social patterns are being acted out.

[DragonBallFoodie]

I think this thread is really sad.

I don't think DB has been misogynistic. We've had strong female characters in the show: Bulma, Lunch, Chi-Chi, Android 18, Videl, and many other action females who make their impact on the story.

Also I do not believe that a woman who decides to stay at home should be mocked or put down for that choice.

Also consider that in the 80s and 90s a lot of women were portrayed in anime as being fine with being housewives, feeling that to make a home and keep it going was as significant as the work people generally did. And some stories portray them as being more competent and sensible for such a choice.

It'd be nice if in current times some female fighters could come out of retirement, but that will rely on who the writers will pick.