Do you think Dragon Ball had too much perv moments ?

[Fionordequester]

One would hope, but hope is something that is, sadly, unfulfilled in many cases. And in this case, it'd be a heck of a sacrifice. I mean, just check out that other thread about how DBZ impacted people's lives! I don't want anyone missing out on that!

[Gyt Kaliba]

I certainly wouldn't want them to miss out on Dragon Ball or any other series they'd like either - I know I'd personally go mad for a while if I had to give up my nerdy vices. But, there are times when such sacrifices would be necessary, is what I meant.

[penguintruth]

omg dragonball is so problematic heteronormal cis white male privilege slut shaming trigger warning

And then GIFs from Adventure Time, followed by debates about Princess Bubblegum and Marceline being OTP.

[Rocketman]

I've never said something like Dragonball would be the sole cause. But I think people have gotten so defensive over the video games kerfluffle that they are willfully ignoring that nothing exists in a vacuum.

[Gaffer Tape]

omg dragonball is so problematic heteronormal cis white male privilege slut shaming trigger warning

Okay, that literally did have me laughing out loud. It's not often I do that on a message board post, but I did.

I guess that should make it pretty obvious I don't necessarily agree with the notion that DB causes these ills, but I do think it's a fascinating subject to talk about. It's a chicken and egg scenario. And also the idea of the balancing act of being able to use fiction and humor to make light of serious situations and what's actually insensitive.

[Fionordequester]

I guess that should make it pretty obvious I don't necessarily agree with the notion that DB causes these ills, but I do think it's a fascinating subject to talk about. It's a chicken and egg scenario. And also the idea of the balancing act of being able to use fiction and humor to make light of serious situations and what's actually insensitive.

Honestly, I didn't really get the joke. Was that a clever reference to something that went over my head?

[Gaffer Tape]

I guess that should make it pretty obvious I don't necessarily agree with the notion that DB causes these ills, but I do think it's a fascinating subject to talk about. It's a chicken and egg scenario. And also the idea of the balancing act of being able to use fiction and humor to make light of serious situations and what's actually insensitive.

Honestly, I didn't really get the joke. Was that a clever reference to something that went over my head?

Are you talking about penguintruth's post, or the humor I'm referring to in what I quoted?

If it's the former, I find humor in the sarcastic recitation of hot button, important-sounding labels used to vilify and shut down anyone who doesn't agree with them. It was exactly the kind of "wave your butt in the air" deflating the conversation needed at that moment.

If you're talking about the latter, well... isn't that what this whole topic is about? That Dragon Ball uses real-life inappropriate subject matter for humor?

[Fionordequester]

If it's the former, I find humor in the sarcastic recitation of hot button, important-sounding labels used to vilify and shut down anyone who doesn't agree with them. It was exactly the kind of "wave your butt in the air" deflating the conversation needed at that moment.

Ah, I see. That's what I was wondering about. Thanks!

[Xell]

Tell me, when watching the three stooges for example, is your family shocked by the gratuitous violence? What they do in that show, like for example hitting other people with an hammer in the head, is violent, disrespectful of other's well being and much more harmful in reality than nudity or sex.

And yet hardly anyone has a problem with it. Why? Simple. Because its not real. There is a difference between reality and fictional works. Something can be amusing and funny in a fictional work while it really isn't in reality because of that difference. Dragon Ball's pervy jokes are exactly like that. A perv old man like Roshi for example would be creepy in reality, but in a fictional work like Dragon Ball its hilarious.

Understanding the difference between reality and fictional works regarding violence, but suddenly not understanding difference between reality and fictional works regarding nudity and sex is rather hypocritical, IMO.

I don't think my family would be shocked by gratuitous violence on the level of The Three Stooges..

I see where you're coming from, but how long can you say "I can accept this, this isn't a reality" before you start accepting things which are done in bad taste? I'll be honest, I've never laughed out loud at Kamesennin's shenanigans. At most, I've groaned or smirked, but I hardly find it hilarious. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be uptight over this, I'm just stating I'd be a little embarrassed to openly watch a cartoon where a talking pig wants to drug an underage girl and start feeling her up.

Kuririn being impaled by Freeza, I can accept. Goku getting punched in the crotch by #13, I can accept. A 16 year old girl who's naively on an adventure to wish her self a boyfriend potentially being molested? It hits a little too close to home for my tastes, and I think considering the stigma to a lot of anime amongst regular folk ("those weird porno Japanese cartoons? Who would watch those? Hentee porn?"), it doesn't help much for the reputation of anime in general.

[Cipher]

But I think people have gotten so defensive over the video games kerfluffle that they are willfully ignoring that nothing exists in a vacuum.

This really is the salient point here.

Also, Rocketman really hit it on the head a page back when he said it reinforces a cultural zeitgeist. It's not at all about one person seeing and replicating the behavior. No one is expressing a fear that a child will see Dragon Ball and become a rapist. That's ridiculous. It's about people seeing Dragon Ball, in addition to many, many other things that inform their view of the world, and becoming more dismissive of rape. And both the West and Japan are still dismissive as shit about rape/molestation/objectification.

I love the series to bits, but I'm not going to hand-waive that entirely because it really is a blemish.

It's a chicken and egg scenario. And also the idea of the balancing act of being able to use fiction and humor to make light of serious situations and what's actually insensitive.

Oh, it's definitely chicken-and-egg. Fiction both draws from and reinforces the attitudes of the culture it comes from. That said, I need not forgive Dragon Ball for making the conscious choice to lay another egg, or pretend that's not a flaw.

[Hellspawn28]

I don't think the perv moments are that bad. It's no different then what you see in theaters and the nudity in DB is PG-13 at best in my opinion.

[Fionordequester]

It's no different then what you see in theaters and the nudity in DB is PG-13 at best in my opinion.

...Which country do you live in? I have a hard time believing that the U.S. would pass that off as PG-13. Heck, I'm still, to this day, surprised that stuff like "Awful Movie" still managed to be PG-13, and that didn't even HAVE nudity in it!

[Hellspawn28]

I live in the US. There's a ton of PG-13 movies with perv moments and Titanic had a scene of breast which was PG-13. Some PG movies like a Terror of MechaGodzilla even had a boob shot as well.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Ratings can be weird and oftentimes have nothing to do with any content that anyone would really complain about. As a result, there's tons of PG-13 movies that really don't seem to have anything most would find offensive in them, and seem like they could have just been PG; and there are likewise lots of PG-13 movies that you sit there and wonder how the hell it didn't merit an R ('Little Nicky' comes to mind from what I remember of it).

It's often the stupidest of things that can make or break a rating too. For example, the Imagi TMNT film from 2007 was almost PG-13 due to a scene with a gargoyle eating a bird. No blood or anything, you don't even see the actual eating, just a pan and there's now feathers in the gargoyles mouth. Apparently this was deemed too dark though, and to keep their PG rating, they added a burp sound effect. That was all it took to mollify the ratings board.

Anyway, going back to the discussion at hand, I think I can see more what you mean now, Cipher, but at the same time I don't really see as rape or molestation getting handwaved away. When it happens in real life, it's still treated as a horrendous crime, so I don't see where the occasional joke on the subjects (especially ones with no ill will like what Dragon Ball has) has effected society. And, as far as objectification goes, that one is kind of a problem, but it goes far beyond sexual objectification.

I see where you're coming from, but how long can you say "I can accept this, this isn't a reality" before you start accepting things which are done in bad taste?

I'm not always the greatest fan of distasteful jokes, but it doesn't necessarily merit censorship or people making a fuss over it. I'm not big on Family Guy anymore really, having found more jokes that to me just seemed to be trying to be edgy and going for shock value rather than actual humor, but I still would never want it to be pulled from the airwaves just because some people don't know how to change the channel, no offense.

[Xell]

I'm not always the greatest fan of distasteful jokes, but it doesn't necessarily merit censorship or people making a fuss over it. I'm not big on Family Guy anymore really, having found more jokes that to me just seemed to be trying to be edgy and going for shock value rather than actual humor, but I still would never want it to be pulled from the airwaves just because some people don't know how to change the channel, no offense.

I wouldn't want it censored at all or even have a fuss made over it at all! I love Dragonball, manga or anime, I would just feel slightly awkward watching Goku patting Bulma's crotch or Bulma flashing to Kamesennin in front of my parents. To each their own I guess.

As for the Family Guy thing, I put that down to you seeing sense!

[Fionordequester]

I'm not always the greatest fan of distasteful jokes, but it doesn't necessarily merit censorship or people making a fuss over it. I'm not big on Family Guy anymore really, having found more jokes that to me just seemed to be trying to be edgy and going for shock value rather than actual humor, but I still would never want it to be pulled from the airwaves just because some people don't know how to change the channel, no offense.

Family Guy is different in that it was never meant for kids, while Dragon Ball is.

EDIT: Of course, that doesn't stop some parents from letting their kids see it, but, that's another issue entirely.

[rereboy]

I see where you're coming from, but how long can you say "I can accept this, this isn't a reality" before you start accepting things which are done in bad taste?

By using common sense there wouldn't be a problem in distinguishing stuff that goes too far and has condemnable objectives from stuff like DB's comedy.

It goes both ways. Society creates the shows, which then feed back into society, especially in raising children who are completely acclimated to the idea that blacks are inferior.

Even jokes fall into this. There is literally an entire genre of Polish jokes in the US, because it helped reinforce racism against Polish immigrants in the early 1900s. The whole "ginger" series of jokes began as hatred for Irish immigrants.

If you can make something a joke, and you can tell that joke over and over, you influence the perception of that thing. I mean, just look at this thread for people defending drugging a girl to molest her as "just a joke".

But it's just fiction, right? No way treating that as a joke could affect the real world....right?

In other words, TV shows and the like merely channel what is already there, just like they do with everything else. That's my whole point.

Stuff like that happens because people are racist or whatever is wrong with them. If TV shows and the like didn't exist, people would still be racist. Someone that is triggered by a TV show would most likely be triggered by something else. And guess what? People like that can't be isolated from all possible triggers, they can't be isolated from reality.

Blaming TV shows, videogames, movies, mangas, etc, is incredibly short sighted since any possible influence they may have by their own is the least important cause of undesirable behavior of them all and is pretty much negligible compared to the real underlying causes of such behavior.

[DBZAOTA482]

A 16 year old girl who's naively on an adventure to wish her self a boyfriend potentially being molested?

Bulma ain't no fucking naif. She's got a bunch of guns on her (and presumably more weapons of defense).

[Ringworm128]

Blacks were mistreated because America was founded by British people and the British weren't known for being open to other cultures same with Australia and Aboriginals. And since when is rape treated lightly? Apart from child molesters rapists are pretty much moral public enemy #1. And one of the main points of humor is making light out of dark/serious situations.

On the other hand, what if you're a recovering addict or something? If that's the case, why make it harder for them by sprinkling inappropriate stuff into material that would otherwise bring them great joy? Imagine someone addicted to porn reading Dragon Ball for the very first time, having a ball, when all of a sudden all the sexual jokes start coming in. He may not be pushed back into bad habits, but he'll probably look at the book, say "I can't read this! It has this stuff in it!", and he never looks into any of the other books.

You could apply that logic to pretty much anything. Someone on a diet? Better remove all the scenes of Goku and Buu eating food. Someone going through anger management? Better get rid of all the yelling and fighting. Someone who went to war and has PTSD might get into DB so we better get rid of the RRA and all guns so he doesn't have a flash back.

[Hellspawn28]

I think DonZ is basing the rating of DB from Viz's rating since our ratings are different compare to the ratings in Japan. I think we don't need cover up nudity to children unless it's full on sex. I mean being naked is apart of our body and I never like trying to cover up the whole world in front of children. I used to work for Wild Lake Middle School for work study and I remember we had a select of manga for kids to read in the Media Center. We were ask to puff off Dragon Ball because of the nudity, but we keep Watchmen. So Goku's dick is not okay, but Doctor Manhattan's dick is okay .