By David Futrelle
In these troubled times, it’s good to know that the guys at One Angry Gamer have their priorities straight. Forget police violence, forget the tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths caused by Trump’s utter mishandling of the coronavirus. The crucial issue of our time is exactly how short the shorts of Faye from Cowboy Bebop should be.
As you may know, Cowboy Bebop is a famously sexy Japanese anime show from the nineties that Netflix is resurrecting as a live-action series.
But one element of the original might not make it into the reboot: the exceedingly skimpy clothing of the character Faye. In an interview with io9, you see, show writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach mentioned that Faye’s outfits will be toned down a scootch because “we need to have a real human being wearing that.”
Naturally this has made Billy D of One Angry Gamer even angrier. Accusing Netflix of having
a certain kind of formula … which almost always undermines the original work to push some kind of subversive, Left-wing oriented message,
he laments that their version of the
Cowboy Bebop show will not be faithful to the original, especially when it comes to how sexy Faye is supposed to be dressed.
Who likes short shorts? Apparently not Netflix.
Billy is especially outraged by the idea that cartoon Faye wears clothes not fit for a real human.
So basically, wearing short-shorts, thigh-high stockings, thong suspenders, and a cropped V-neck sleeveless halter-top isn’t something “a real human being” would wear?
Well, no, it’s not. I’ve seen plenty of skimpy outfits in my day but I’ve never seen anyone dressed like Faye walking down the street.
You mean to tell me that real women have never worn what Faye has worn?
Generally speaking, no.
So the women who attend sporting events in the summer wearing cropped tops and short-shorts aren’t real human beings?
He then shows women wearing much less revealing shorts than Faye. And without the thigh-high stockings.
You mean to tell me that celebrities like Lady Gaga wearing cropped tops and short-shorts with heels are women who aren’t real human beings?
Well, no, but to be fair Lady Gaga once wore a dress made entirely of meat that has its own entry on Wikipedia. One time she wore this. And another time she wore this. In other words, she’s not really a good bellwether for “what real people wear” in the real world.
In the comments, One Angry Gamer’s completely normal readers responded in completely normal ways.
“I’m just done,” wrote one.
let this shitty society burn and let the kikes take over and let everyone go extinct
Another responded:
Nah.
lets burn the kikes instead and take BACK the society we once held dear
only this time, no more sympathy for subhumans
Huh. If I were running One Angry Gamer I’d be a little more perturbed by my own readers’ inhumanity than by the exact shortness of Faye’s short shorts.
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@Dalillama and varalys the dark: You both make good points, but I would argue that the Ferengi still draw on the “greedy Jew” archetype whether the creators intended them to or not. However, your comments also show that the stereotype is (or should be) outdated because greed is part of the human condition, so no particular group should be singled out.
One more thing about Jar Jar Binks. The Phantom Menace was such a cultural event that 60 Minutes did a special on the film before it premiered. I remember seeing Jar Jar for the first time on that special and immediately realizing that the character would be trouble because of his Stepin Fetchit mannerisms. I assume that the only reason Jar Jar didn’t undergo major changes was that back then, no one dared to say no to George Lucas.
… WTF is nitter… OMG! THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED! It can even make RSS feeds from the twitter pages… PERFECT!
Are we forgetting the stereotypical “oriental” aliens as well in The Phantom Menace as well?
@Varalys
I thought about them but couldn’t remember their name. They’re problematic as well, I just couldn’t recall what they were called and didn’t mention them as a result.
If we’re looking at Star Trek as well, I’ve heard criticism that the Vulcans are stereotyped as Asian.
@Naglfar
I always figured the Vulcans were a bit inspired by Tolkien’s Elves.
Well the original Klingons were based on the damn Ruskies, then after Glasnost metamorphosed into a race of Genghis Khans. I think though that Star Trek has had the longevity to really explore all these cultures enough that they have outgrown the stereotypes that might have unconsciously (or consciously) fed into their creation and initial appearances.
@Cyborgette
At least a few episodes seem to allude to that, as Spock is referred to as an “elf” derogatorily in at least two.
As well, a google search suggests that a lot of other people have speculated on whether elves and Vulcans are connected.
@Ohlmann
Agreed. As long as they nail Faye’s attitude then Her attire doesn’t matter.That goes for all the characters .
@Fabe: I personally have no problem with Spike, Jet Black and Radical Edward retaining their animation outfits, although with Edward it might depend on the actress’ willingness to run around barefoot all the time.
Using ethnic stereotype to create a fantasy race is good in term of universe-building, because it mean less explanation to the audience and an easier characterization. It’s also really, really easy to create unfortunate implication.
Star Wars have pretty shallows and caricaturals races even by sci-fi standards, and Phantom Menace dropped the ball extra hard, because the races are just as shallow but are the one driving the plot. Which mean racial caricatures waging wars because they are too stupid to see the manipulation.
If you can see the commerce federation as the big corpos of america, the whole plot make more sense and feel more like an accusation of capitalism. But the aliens very obviously look more like asians and jews and whatnot than Apple and Google.
@personalpest
I’ll Agree with that,in fact I would prefer that they did but I also understand why the might be changing Faye’s out fit. But no matter what Ein must be a Corgi .
Yeah if they mess up Ein I will destroy the world.
So, what, a physical formula?
And the subversive message? “Bounty-hunting in space had a dress code (for reasons of pragmatism, if naught else)?”
Jessie gender has a great video on the rasist history klingons and lots of other star trek social issue videos they are really worth checking out
sorru I cant provide links because I am baf at tech
With TV, movies, and video games requiring so many people to create, it is quite likely there would be both less feminist creators who want women to be eye candy and more feminist creators who want women to be fully realized characters on the same team. I think in many cases these people came to a compromise where in the script, what they say and do, they would be a fully 3D realistic character, but in character design, what you see in screen shots, they would be unrealistic and sexy. This might make for some ironic moments, but it keeps the peace for the creators. This may have become an industry standard in Japanese Anime. Perhaps off topic, but a thought I wanted to share since Faye seems like the #1 example.
An interesting facet of sociology is that cultural notions can exist independently of their origin. With most “tropes” in media they appear so often because the creators saw something in previous works and then put something similar in their own work. This true of most of the examples others mentioned previously in the comments, though obviously if you follow the chain back in time you would quickly run into a harmful stereotype. I think these media tropes can only promote antisemitism if a person is exposed to the original antisemitic stereotype, but they can increase the effect of that antisemitic stereotype. As I see it the chain of subconscious associations can exist either across multiple people and works, or within a single person’s mind, though only when inside a single brain does it create that emotional reaction that leads to lifelong hate. Of course the more common the chain of associations, the higher the chance that somebody somewhere will make all of the connections. Still I would give the benefit of the doubt to fiction creators. The fact that they are replicating a trope with antisemitic origins is not proof they are unconsciously antisemitic. Though the fact that antisemitism exists throughout the culture both increases the power of the tropes as narrative tools, and increases the chance that the trope will promote antisemitism.
@Ohlmann
They are no more bad or brutal than the regular orcs, and the Warhammer Black Orcs are emphatically not as savage. They were the only orcs that never had a risk of being too busy fighting each other to attack their enemies.
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I wrote a very lengthy response, but thought better of it. Because whenever I do engage in this debate, the Horde’s defenders never engage in good faith – and right here you included things that the Alliance did not do in your argument, so I have no reason to expect good faith here, either.
I will just say three points:
1. I said the Horde were the Bad Guys. I did not say that the Alliance are the Good Guys. They actually are shades of grey (mostly very light grey).
2. It is not, and never has been, just the Horde’s leadership. They didn’t carry out all those war crimes with their own hands. A lot of times they make you do it.
3. I have been playing since BC, with mains in both factions. There have been several Horde storylines that made me feel sick to play, and that I have deliberately avoided ever playing again despite my swarms of alts. That never happened with Alliance storylines.
Just found this.
OMG.
https://evonomics.com/how-to-disguise-racism-and-oligarchy-use-the-language-of-economics/
@Surplus
Thank you for the link.
francis, is this the Jessie Gender you were thinking off?
I’ve never heard of OneAngryGamer until this weekend, and suddenly I’ve seen multiple references. He’s notable I guess? (he’s a he i guess?)
I note that Epic and Autodesk are on the list, but not Unity. Hmmm… pretty sure OAG would hate on Rigoletto if he knew anything about games making.
@numerobis
He’s somewhat notable for his over the top takes and conspiratorial thinking, as well as his namesake rage. The site appears to be run by one guy named Billy, so yes, he is a he.
He’s been featured on this site a few times before, most notably for various opinions he has on LGBT representation in media and his thoughts Nazi hunter TV programs (he isn’t a fan of either).
Totally OT to the OP, but tangentially related to the comments thread, I’d like to ask the commentariat here a question:
My wife and I were talking about the whole JK Rowling TERFiness thing, and she expressed that she agrees with the following aspect of the TERF argument: that the majority of transwomen don’t share the experience of growing up as a girl within society, and consequently, there are aspects of the experience of being a woman that most transwomen cannot claim as a part of their femaleness. She noted that it’s similar to the fact that women who weren’t raised in a repressive culture (of whatever stripe, but she used the fundamentalist LDS sects as her example) can’t claim that sort of struggle as their own.
Now, my wife is very anti-TERF in general – and indeed, anti-bigotry of all stripes. But she also strives to be very precise in pretty much all aspects of her life, and this is kind of throwing her for a bit of a loop. I honestly don’t know what to say to help her reconcile this. She absolutely doesn’t deny that transwomen are women, nor does she think that they should be treated differently than other women, but she feels some sort of distinction is needed; however, she recognizes that any distinction is an opening for discrimination. Hence the three-hour inconclusive conversation we just had.
I guess my question would be, does anyone have any ideas how I can help her work through this?
@Gaebolga
I’ll do my best to respond to your wife’s argument:
It is true that most trans* women had a different experience growing up than most cis women. But for any given cis woman, chances are many other cis women had a different experience due to race, class, cultural background, etc; so I feel like categorizing who is and isn’t a woman based on how they grew up is fallacious.
As for biological differences and experiences like menarche, it is true that trans* women have not experienced menstrual bleeding, but many cis women also haven’t due to infertility or lack of uterus. So defining womanhood based on something like having experienced menarche or female puberty as an adolescent excludes those cis women and is also fallacious.
As well, I haven’t heard any trans* women trying to claim that their childhoods were the same as cis women. We have unique stories and usually aren’t trying to claim to have grown up exactly the same as cis women. I know that as a kid I had a different experience than most cis women would have because I was perceived as a boy, and I wouldn’t claim otherwise. I would argue that it was not the same as most cis male childhoods because I had dysphoria and was a very GNC child, but that’s not the same as trying to paint my background as just like that of a cis woman.
I haven’t heard trans* women trying to claim those struggles as our own, so I’m not sure where this argument is from. As well, although we did not experience the same childhood as a cis woman, that doesn’t mean that we don’t experience misogyny much like that towards cis women in the present.
What kind of distinction does she mean? I’m not sure why there would need to be a distinction in most aspects of day to day life, beyond medical stuff it seems unnecessary.
TL;DR is that the argument of defining women based on some sort of universal female experience is flawed because there isn’t really a single experience all women have had, and that type of argument excludes many cis women as well.
@varalys the dark and @Naglfar: Are you talking about the Neimoidians? https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Neimoidian
With regards to Tolkien and the orcs; I can’t remember where I first came across this*, but there was some very problematic thinking when he came up with them. This article describes it really well:
https://tolkienland.wordpress.com/2018/01/21/tolkiens-squinteyed-orc-men/
* It was YouTube video talking about LoTR, but cannot remember exactly who so cannot give the correct credit. I think it was either Maggie Mae Fish or Lindsay Ellis, but could have been someone else…