Is Dragon Ball a misogynist series?

[Insertclevername]

Misogynist?...no, I wouldn't say so. Sexist? Yes, it can definitely be seen that way. It can also be seen as quite homophobic, given all two of the homosexual characters in it.

Not having a lot of homosexuals doesn't make it homophobic. Negatively depicting those two gay characters (more so in the anime regarding Blue) does, however.

[Gaffer Tape]

Geez, I just don't get some of the open hostility in this thread. Granted, I totally expected it because I'm pretty sure this topic has come up before, and for some reason, people just have to break out the pitchforks for suggesting it or even soliciting opinions on it. I don't like when people go overboard with accusations of sexism (in either direction), but simply opening the subject up for discussion? There's absolutely no reason to get offended by that. Funnily enough, it seems to me to be the same kind of knee jerk reaction those people are livid against that they're having knee jerk reactions towards!

[Kid Buu]

Two homosexuals? I thought Blue was the only one?

[Kamiccolo9]

Two homosexuals? I thought Blue was the only one?

IIRC, there was one who hit on Goten during the 28th Budokai. I think.

Edit: Yeah, it was then. And it was Trunks he was flirting with, not Goten.

[Kid Buu]

Oh, the guy who looks like Mr. Slave from South Park?

[Kamiccolo9]

Oh, the guy who looks like Mr. Slave from South Park?

Yep.

[Rocketman]

In This Thread:

1. People constantly running for the other extreme.

"DB isn't friendly to homosexuals" "OH SO YOU WANT 20 DIFFERENT GAYS WITH THEIR OWN STORY ARCS HUH"
"DB's portrayal of sexuality might be damaging" "WHY DON'T YOU JUST BAN FOOD THEN HA HA GOTCHA THERE"
"DB doesn't have a great portrayal of women" "OH SO YOU WANT FLATCHESTEDwhateverthehellwasgoingonthere"

Stop it.

2. People not understanding that individual characters can all individually be fine while still making the collective mass not fine.

Woman being a mother - fine.
Woman being a one off joke - fine.
Woman being a minor character - fine.
ALL women characters being mothers, jokes or bit parts - not fine.

3. People arguing in a sexist way to prove nothing is sexist.

"If the main theme is fighting, is only natural that almost all of the fighting cast is male"

Why? Why couldn't Vegeta be a woman? Or Trunks? Or Gohan?

"I personally hate it when female characters can keep up with male characters who should obviously be way more skilled just because they're women."

So you also hated that Yajirobe could match Goku without any formal training at all, yes? And you must've hated Piccolo Jr for the same reason.

[RandomGuy96]

Misogynist?...no, I wouldn't say so. Sexist? Yes, it can definitely be seen that way. It can also be seen as quite homophobic, given all two of the homosexual characters in it.

Not having a lot of homosexuals doesn't make it homophobic. Negatively depicting those two gay characters (more so in the anime regarding Blue) does, however.

That's what I was saying; you can say that the series is homophobic because of the only homosexual characters in it. Both are portrayed very negatively.

So if a show doesn't have 20 openly gay characters with the occasional gay rights parade episode it's homophobic?

No, but when the only gay characters in the show are extremely negatively stereotyped, with one being a hyper-feminine woman-hating mass murderer and the other being an inappropriately dressed pedophile, it IS homophobic.

And once again Rocketman, you make me wish this forum had a "like" button for posts.

"DB isn't friendly to homosexuals" "OH SO YOU WANT 20 DIFFERENT GAYS WITH THEIR OWN STORY ARCS HUH"
"DB's portrayal of sexuality might be damaging" "WHY DON'T YOU JUST BAN FOOD THEN HA HA GOTCHA THERE"
"DB doesn't have a great portrayal of women" "OH SO YOU WANT FLATCHESTEDwhateverthehellwasgoingonthere"

[The Monkey King]

"I personally hate it when female characters can keep up with male characters who should obviously be way more skilled just because they're women."

So you also hated that Yajirobe could match Goku without any formal training at all, yes? And you must've hated Piccolo Jr for the same reason.

Yeah, Yajirobe coming out of nowhere and going toe-to-toe with Goku made no sense and kinda bothered me.
I could allow Piccolo Jr since he's King Piccolo's son and was born to be the strongest he could possibly be.
Heck I wouldn't be suprised if King Piccolo's martial arts skills were hereditary, it would make sense.

Even so you missed out the reason why it bothers me. When it's to send a message that girls can be just as good as guys no matter what cuz 'Gurl Powah!' just seems super immature and silly.

"If the main theme is fighting, is only natural that almost all of the fighting cast is male"

Why? Why couldn't Vegeta be a woman? Or Trunks? Or Gohan?

Because young boys like reading comic books with manly men punching each other in the face.
Gotta appeal to your target audience before social justice heroes.
And if Vegeta were a woman how would Vegito have worked?

[Roland_ELoG]

Yajirobe is a samurai, right? And those are known for their fighting prowess even in times of peace.

Even the fat ones.

[EXBadguy]

Videl getting beat is not sexist at all. She was in a fighting Budokai! Was she suppose to say "FUCK THE PLOT" and beat Sppovich? She did pretty good and still got beaten down. Goku and Vegeta took beatdowns worst than that. Krillin got FUCKING impaled. Yet all because Videl a female it's sexist. Seriously this is unbelievable. What about when 18 kicked Vegeta's ASS and broke his FUCKING arm. I bet that wasn't sexist. But Videl get her ass beat and it's sexist. What the fuck. It's more sexist to say that it's sexist because of these things. It's not fucking sexist. DB is not a misogynist series. It's an ACTION-Comedy-Adventure series. If a girl fights she might lose. If she does then she does. It's how DB works. I bet if Toriyama was a female the series would't be accused of being fucking sexist. Seriously this is worst than the whole "Gaming hurts kids" debate. Ugh I think I need a chill pill.

Sorry if I offended anyone or went overboard. But this kind legit pissed me off.

QFT!

I find the video games at least to be somewhat misogynistic cuz [cant remember which exact game] three of the female leads Super moves are to have men come and help them lol
Gohan swoops in for Videl
17 teams up with 18
(That's pretty bad IMO)

WRONG! First off, Gohan(Gt. Saiyaman) also had a super move with him teaming up with Videl. Same goes with 17(BT3) along with both him and 18 having different team ultimates in Budokai 3 and Raging Blast 2.

Woman being a mother - fine.
Woman being a one off joke - fine.
Woman being a minor character - fine.
ALL women characters being mothers, jokes or bit parts - not fine..

Unless you're giving an example, you know darn well it isn't all that. You don't see Videl or 18 being ridiculed all the time like Bulma and Chichi, but they all are strong willed. BTW, Launch ain't a mother.

God this thread. I can't believe some people are even taking those jokes seriously. And not all of them were flat-chested or big boobed. All of them were balanced. #stopbeingsosensitive

[SaiyaJedi]

I'm probably opening up a can of worms by posting in this thread at all, but I thought it would be worth pointing out that people seem to be conflating sexist with misogynist. Dragon Ball can certainly be construed as the former, particularly early on in the story, although it's worth noting that it reflects the society in which it was made. However, although Bulma's behavior is not always depicted in a flattering light, I think it's difficult to label the series as a whole misogynist, which would be actively expressing a low opinion, if not hatred, of women in general. It is possible to be well-intentioned (or at least not to mean any harm) and still be sexist, while it is rather more difficult to be misogynist without an undercurrent of contempt and implied threat.

[kei17]

"If the main theme is fighting, is only natural that almost all of the fighting cast is male"

Why?

No offense, but quite frankly, that's because women are physically weaker than men, which is a biological fact and the reason why many sports are not co-gender.

You might counter-argue that strength in the DB world largely depends on ki and physical reasons mean less than the real world. However, some cases like Goku becoming bulky when he uses Kaioken show how physical strengths work unless you experience some kind of breakthrough such as going to the next level of Super Saiyan. It occasionally is very ambiguous, but seems to be a consistent logic for Toriyama himself. So then, could Toriyama have introduced more strong female fighters by "breakthroughs" even though the reasons might be passive like being a cyborg? I guess so and wish he had done it. However, Dragon Ball is still about extreme martial arts fighting even after ki techniques being introduced and definitely not psychic battles or gunfights in which physical strengths mean nothing. "Men are stronger" logic is a fair-enough point that builds a sense of basic reality or plausibility there. It's not something directly linked to misogyny.

[Fionordequester]

Actually sex is good for us too, because if humans didn't have sex, we'd be extinct... and super horny.

Normally, sex is good, but only when used right. And your example falls apart when you consider that you can't hurt someone by eating irresponsibly the same way you can hurt them by having sex irresponsibly.

And you are basically defending that notion, I believe.

Exactly, so long as it doesn't go too far. I mean, the Z dub's of the early days did a ton of things wrong, but taking out a lot of the blood (and later just the blood that's actually moving off of the body) wasn't one of them. I wouldn't have gone as far as editing out all the peeing...or the tears...or the APPLE TREES...and I wouldn't have had Tien yelling about how he's going to grow his arm back...but the basic ideas were sound.

In fact, I remember a few years back that a kid jumped out of his apartment window because he believed that he could fly like in the cartoons he watched. Lets ban all those cartoons? Censor the cartoon to make it even more obvious that people don't fly in real life? . Its not the cartoons' fault that the kid was abnormal compared to the millions and millions of kids that watch cartoons and don't jump out of windows.

Well, that's...well obviously there are SOME people you just can't help, but that's no reason not to try.

That is not a good reason to allow censorship. At all.

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

If we followed that notion, then, if some stupid kid with severe problems killed someone and said that he got the idea from a videogame that had guns, then we would censor all the videogames with guns? How does that make sense..? Its not the videogames fault that the kid is stupid and has problems. If videogames didn't exist he might end up doing some other stupid thing or hurt other people down the road all the same.

That depends. Can we find many other cases similar to him? Can we put many different samples of many different kinds of people, put them in a room with games, under the same set of conditions, and consistently come out with a large majority of them becoming more violent, more abrasive, and for a good period of time? Of course one outlier out of a hundred isn't going to be evidence for anything.

But I believe, just from what I've learned, that the attitude of a society is a huge shaper of the beliefs of it's citizens, and in the case of Japan and what seems to be its attitudes toward sex, I don't think it's for the better...at least, if this episode of the Nostalgia Critic is to be believed (he speaks on the topic at 10:30)...hopefully Kei17 doesn't take TOO much offense to this ...

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videol ... ailor-moon

[Ringworm128]

Yajirobe was probably at least the same age as Goku, that's at least 16 years we never see for all we know he could've once trained intensely. It's likely he still did sice he probably relied on hunting for his meals.

Well, that's...well obviously there are SOME people you just can't help, but that's no reason not to try.

But why? They're already beyond help. Rape, teen pregnancies etc have been around for centuries, what made them do it? If anything going "you mustn't think girls are sexy" "looking at girls is bad unless you're married to said girl" etc would be more damaging.

If you over shelter kids you get Rod and Tod from The Simpsons.

[Fizzer]

Maybe there were gay characters who weren't obviously gay, because they aren't any type of steriotype. Maybe Yajirobe is gay. Maybe the King is gay. Maybe Goten is gay. There are actually several characters that people have long suspected of being gay. It's not a big deal, so they don't have to run around going "look how gay I am!" unless it's part of a joke, which isn't any worse that having a female body being part of a joke.

[rereboy]

"If the main theme is fighting, is only natural that almost all of the fighting cast is male"

Why? Why couldn't Vegeta be a woman? Or Trunks? Or Gohan?

I believe I was the one who mentioned that. As such, I'll answer.

Because women don't normally compete with men in terms of fighting in the real world. They usually don't have the interest to do so, their body isn't as powerful in terms of fighting and general physical prowess, and in every sort of fighting competition men are separated from women to keep it fair, reflecting those issues.

Add to that the fact that the target audience (young males) prefer to see a guy as the "super epic strong fighter" and I don't see how it can't be natural.

In fact, Dragon Ball actually didn't even separate women from the men in its fighting tournaments. That's already something that normally doesn't happen in the real world.

[Ringworm128]

You mean you didn't go "oh boy I hope it's an episode where they discuss women's rights" when you watched you're favorite show as a kid.

[rereboy]

And you are basically defending that notion, I believe.

Exactly, so long as it doesn't go too far. I mean, the Z dub's of the early days did a ton of things wrong, but taking out a lot of the blood (and later just the blood that's actually moving off of the body) wasn't one of them. I wouldn't have gone as far as editing out all the peeing...or the tears...or the APPLE TREES...and I wouldn't have had Tenshinhan yelling about how he's going to grow his arm back...but the basic ideas were sound.

In fact, I remember a few years back that a kid jumped out of his apartment window because he believed that he could fly like in the cartoons he watched. Lets ban all those cartoons? Censor the cartoon to make it even more obvious that people don't fly in real life? . Its not the cartoons' fault that the kid was abnormal compared to the millions and millions of kids that watch cartoons and don't jump out of windows.

Well, that's...well obviously there are SOME people you just can't help, but that's no reason not to try.

That is not a good reason to allow censorship. At all.

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

If we followed that notion, then, if some stupid kid with severe problems killed someone and said that he got the idea from a videogame that had guns, then we would censor all the videogames with guns? How does that make sense..? Its not the videogames fault that the kid is stupid and has problems. If videogames didn't exist he might end up doing some other stupid thing or hurt other people down the road all the same.

That depends. Can we find many other cases similar to him? Can we put many different samples of many different kinds of people, put them in a room with games, under the same set of conditions, and consistently come out with a large majority of them becoming more violent, more abrasive, and for a good period of time? Of course one outlier out of a hundred isn't going to be evidence for anything.

But I believe, just from what I've learned, that the attitude of a society is a huge shaper of the beliefs of it's citizens, and in the case of Japan and what seems to be its attitudes toward sex, I don't think it's for the better...at least, if this episode of the Nostalgia Critic is to be believed (he speaks on the topic at 10:30)...hopefully Kei17 doesn't take TOO much offense to this ...

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videol ... ailor-moon

You are failing to understand the real issues of those people.

If someone is influenced by porn or cartoons or whatever to do something bad when normal people aren't, then something is up with those people. They might have a highly suggestible personality due to various factors, in which case they will get influenced negatively by pretty much anything... They might have a negative take on sex because their parents/family considered it taboo and a sin... They might have all sorts of prejudices and complexes due to a less of an ideal upbringing... They might have had some trauma in the past that made them susceptible... They might be very lonely and depressed people who eventually develop a slightly twisted view on reality... They might have a real mental decease or disorder of some sort... Etc.

THESE are some of the REAL issues of those people. The way to actually fight those issues is with prevention and identification of those issues and with real support of those people and their issues.

Censorship doesn't tackle those issues at all. Its merely a poorly made "band-aid" which tries to isolate a very small portion of the population who might react abnormally to that piece of entertainment, hoping that that's enough for them to never react abnormally to anything, instead of actually helping that portion of the population with their issues and the root of their problems.

(And yes, its obvious that the great majority of people don't react negatively to porn or cartoon or whatever. Most people aren't on the street raping or treating women like they are treated in porn, or trying to fly out of windows or eat as much as Goku or whatever.)

You are trying to blame random "triggers" for their behavior, which can be ANYTHING (if it wasn't porn or cartoons, with their issues, it would probably be some other random thing, like a movie or a videogame or some jerk they meet on the street), instead of actually blaming the REAL causes of their behavior.

As I said, that's completely the wrong mentality and doesn't fix anything, since you can't isolate those people from reality. If you truly have a Psychology major, you should understand this, and act according.

You mean you didn't go "oh boy I hope it's an episode where they discuss women's rights" when you watched you're favorite show as a kid.

That too

[UpFromTheSkies]

"If the main theme is fighting, is only natural that almost all of the fighting cast is male"

Why?

No offense, but quite frankly, that's because women are physically weaker than men, which is a biological fact and the reason why many sports are not co-gender

Tell that to WWF wrestler China...




Men do have an edge over women because they have much higher testosterone levels which aids muscle growth, but women can build muscle and become just as strong or stronger than most men if they choose to do so.