Dragon Ball and Centrism disguised as "A Desire for works to stop being political"

[The Monkey King]

Manga and entertainment should stay away as far from politics as they can.

Why? because it might offend you personally?

We don't want another situation like the Death Note, which featured a sudden appearance by President Trump.

Why? It made for a hilarious visual and made sense in the context of the story being told.

[Kunzait_83]

You literally are given an explanation for why something in Dragon Ball is the way it is, but instead of accepting that, you have to construe it as meaning something else because.... why? That Dragon Ball has to be political? That it has to be "deep"? You're trying to squeeze out the meaning of words of something that's already been explained.

This just in: something being political or having political content doesn't therefore mean its inherently "deep". Political content can be just as deep or shallow as anything else, and a given work having political content or being a byproduct of political content (as quite literally EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS) does not inherently confer it any degree of greater depth or meaning. It simply denotes that it is a work created by a human being with a pulse.

For just a random example of this: Canon Films, one of the single most successful low budget Hollywood movie studios of the 1980s, literally rose to success by way of pumping out a steady stream of action movies (you might've heard of a guy by the name of Chuck Norris: at least 70% of the reason you know him and why he's in the mainstream zeitgeist is because of the movies he made with Canon in the 80s) that were HUGELY overtly political in their content (covering topics as wide as Iran Contra, the Vietnam War, White Nationalism, the Cold War, Israel/Palestine, just to name a FEW examples) while also simultaneously being as birdbrained stupid, idiotic, and shallow as all get out. And they were FAR from unique in this regard in terms of the overall mainstream media landscape both back then and today at present.

Political does not always equal "deep" guys. Political in this context just means "something in the work that is reflective towards something tangible to real life". You know... that thing that art and stories are supposed to exist for in the first place.


I'm not making a joke or snarky comment here: I think genuinely, sincerely, there are a horrifying LOT of people on this forum (and fandom overall) who seem to legitimately not understand the basic-most dictionary definition of the word "politics" and all the various contexts in which it is used or is applicable.



Guys... this is remedial, grade school education stuff here. These are concepts you're supposed to understand by somewhere within grades K through 5th. School wasn't supposed to just be the place you go as kids to eat crayons and swap Yu Gi Oh! cards: you were primarily supposed to learn precisely this kind of shit there.

English 101? History 101? Social Studies? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

[Hellspawn28]

Art and politics go together like peanut butter and jelly. Anyone who has study art history (like myself) would know this. A lot of people only see on what is on the surface level and not anything else. Like these examples

[Cure Dragon 255]

Art and politics go together like peanut butter and jelly. Anyone who has study art history (like myself) would know this. A lot of people only see on what is on the surface level and not anything else. Like these examples

LOL Ultraism. The thing that cannot be missing from any good Superman story.

[Dr. Casey]

Art and politics go together like peanut butter and jelly. Anyone who has study art history (like myself) would know this. A lot of people only see on what is on the surface level and not anything else. Like these examples

I don't think most people would be completely oblivious to the 'war is bad' message in Gundam. At least in Gundam AGE, the only Gundam series I've seen, it was laid on pretty thick (I generally don't care about mecha but I watched AGE since it spans around 80 years and I always have to watch any series that depict the passage of time and characters' life stories; Flit's transformation from regular middle school kid to gruff hard-boiled middle-aged man to crazy unfettered grandpa was fun). When most people say that something is or isn't political, what they're actually saying is that it's not political in any way that's controversial or emotionally sensitive. 'War is bad' is a pretty uncontroversial stance that only becomes controversial if more specific wars are involved, mentioned, or alluded to. Giant robots fighting in space, with no direct allusions to real world wars, wouldn't cause a negative response in many people. (I don't know if Gundam makes allusions or references to specific wars, I haven't watched any outside of AGE, though I don't recall AGE making any allusions to real life wars - but the show did finish almost 12 years ago so it's not like I have the best memory of it.) Not to say that it could never be controversial even in its generic form, I guess some would take offense especially depending on the timeframe and social climate, but it's still a message that would be accepted amongst the vast vast majority of readers/viewers, unlike something like a TV show episode revolving around antivaxxers or anti-maskers that would cause major shitstorms to erupt.

Likewise, Freeza's army does put some of Toriyama's values and beliefs on display, but "Tyrannical mass murdering despots are bad" is likewise such an uncontroversial perspective that it's unlikely to ruffle anyone's feathers, so most people wouldn't register it as 'political.' The colloquial, mainstream definition of 'political' - even if it's an incorrect definition - is something with potential to be divisive and controversial and uncomfortable.

Not trying to give too much of my own thoughts on anything here, just trying to give the thread some direction, I guess, since it's important for people to be on the same page when it comes to definitions. The proper definition of political might be 'anything that relates to the real world or society at all,' whereas the colloquial definition used by the vast majority of people is 'anything that relates to divisive, controversial, hot-button topics.' Maybe knowing the other side's definition would make it easier for both sides to talk to each other. I dunno.

[Hellspawn28]

LOL Ultraism. The thing that cannot be missing from any good Superman story.

I think the meme meant to say altruism. I wasn't the one who made it, I found it browsing around the web.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

Art and politics go together like peanut butter and jelly. Anyone who has study art history (like myself) would know this. A lot of people only see on what is on the surface level and not anything else. Like these examples

To go back to the Freeza example even if Toriyama didn't expect the preteen boys in his target audience to understand the social commentary he was making with Freeza it's still there. Even if the manga only presented it as: "hey, Freeza and his soldiers are dicks, don't be like them" he's still trying to get his message across to his audience, just in a subtle way. People just don't think about it because as much as we love it Dragon Ball isn't known for its subtlety.

[Hellspawn28]

Manga and entertainment should stay away as far from politics as they can. We don't want another situation like the Death Note, which featured a sudden appearance by President Trump.

We had George Bush (or at least someone who looks like him) during the 2000s in the series. I don't see how Trump apperancing makes it more political?

[JulieYBM]

Comics and other mediums for telling stories should absolutely take our political leaders and make fun of them and how pathetic they are, actually. This is how art has been made since...the beginning of time.

[MasenkoHA]

Comics and other mediums for telling stories should absolutely take our political leaders and make fun of them and how pathetic they are, actually. This is how art has been made since...the beginning of time.

Also mocking political figures is one of the most milquetoast forms of satire. Imagine clutching your pearls over that.

[JulieYBM]

Comics and other mediums for telling stories should absolutely take our political leaders and make fun of them and how pathetic they are, actually. This is how art has been made since...the beginning of time.

Also mocking political figures is one of the most milquetoast forms of satire. Imagine clutching your pearls over that.

Exactly. Punching up never gets boring.

[jjgp1112]

I think the perception that media is more political has more to do with a lot of shows and movies these days being much more heavy handed and performative with the political overtones than in year's past, because modern writers - or maybe not even writers, just the executives that have an increasingly overpowered influence on the production of shows - don't trust audiences to grasp any message unless it's fed on a spoon with a pretend airplane. Heavy handedness used to be unique to Spike Lee movies and the biggest point of criticism for him, but now they're pretty tame by comparison.

Plus with marginalized groups more visible than before, it's more lucrative to make them think you're on their side.

And plus as Dr. Casey said, a lot of the political themes in the past were so basic that they don't even register to people as "politics."

[JulieYBM]

There's a lot of what I would call 'exective-friendly representation' in a lot of modern works, where the rep still feels very "executive wants to do rainbow capitalism, but isn't really letting said groups control their own representation." I remember getting this feeling a lot with, say, the trans representation in Supergirl (2015). While Nia (Dreamer) was indeed played by a very famous trans activist (Nicole Maines), the storylines around her were still very tame and cishet-friendly by comparison (i.e., it put forth that trans people needed to be patronized by so-called allies when they want to respond to the violence from their oppressors with violence). Now that Maines is writing DC comics, she seems a lot more interested in going harder with the writing, which I think is nice.

X-Men '97 is a recent series that feels a little more like the sort of works that queer people want. The criticism of the finger-wagging that minorities face from governments and cishet white people is really up front and center in every episode, and the characters all ooze queerness, even if nobody ever says it. We have direct confirmation in interviews that the series is inspired by the trauma of the Pulse Nightclub massacre, and 9/11.

Dragon Ball's commentary is far more subdued as a result, but I think that also probably just goes to show how little Toriyama really had to face. At the end of the day, he still had wealth and popularity out the wazoo, and even if Freeza's depiction is based on a general sentiment of "landsharks bad" it's not nearly as biting as it could be.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I know One Piece and its fanbase are...yeah... But one thing it ALWAYS got right, is that LGBT or even just their queer coded characters ARE NOT told to "not rock the boat" by allowing privileged groups walk over them and say they have no right to harness violence when faced with violence. Bon Clay, Ivankov, his people are shown and not just told to be badasses and they are not shown as wrong for doing so. Yamato is a great character that most of everyone loved and wanted to see join the Straw Hats.

[BlueChi]

Dragon Ball's political commentary peaked with Oolong being a literal predatory communist pig terrorising the local countryside. Granted, Toriyama didn't go all Great Leap Forward on us, but it wouldn't gel with the gag manga aspect of it. And it's also clearly not what Toriyama was focusing on throughout all of Dragon Ball.

I don't think Toriyama having to face a lot or just barely in his life has anything to do with it.
As someone also in touch with the queer space, and knowing a few people with minimal influence who can't divorce themselves from politics, it's funny to think that most of them are incredibly privileged and are desperately seeking to prove others of the contrary, and it just seeps through their work, be it in activism, blogs, etc.

Sometimes, a fun story is just that, and if there are some political elements in it, be it as satire or commentary, let them serve as nice little extras.