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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@Naglfar
I didn’t find the question offensive at all. It’s an interesting thing to consider, the intersection between different identities.
I’m sorry if my question was insensitive, I was just wondering what kind of personal experience you might have had with the intersection between sexual and gender identity. I didn’t intend to bring up bad memories or make you feel any less valid.
I’m glad to hear that you feel more confident and comfortable with your sexuality now.
@Catalpa
Proposition 8 was the one that banned gay marriage in California. Are you maybe thinking of another one?
BTW your question to me was fine, I just wanted to make sure my prior question hadn’t been hurtful to anyone.
Every amendment to the Constitution of the US, and the Constitution itself, was passed by voting. You might question the wisdom or utility of some of these amendments, but the fact that suffragettes worked and demonstrated and agitated for years and years doesn’t change that the 19th amendment was passed after a series of votes. The agitation and the vote were both instrumental; agitation without the vote would have accomplished nothing, and without the agitation the vote would have never been proposed.
@PoM
In fact, no amendment to the Constitution has ever been subject to a popular vote, nor is there any legal method of doing so. Try again.
@Catalpa
Point the first: That was built on massive direct action, as you noted. Point the second: the implication of the statement that one should vote to enact change in a representative government is that one should vote for representatives who will accomplish said change. While there are some small jurisdictions that allow for popular referenda on some issues, the great majority of legislation is passed by legislative bodies. Furthermore, the barriers to entry involved in getting a measure on the ballot are generally prohibitive. Note that there’s never been any popular referenda that have addressed racism in any fashion.
@Naglfar
Was it? Shit, sorry, I’m not super well versed in US politics. My bad. I remembered that there was a referendum that legalized gay marriage in some states and that was the first one that came up in my google search. Should have read more, whoops.
@Dalillama
Those are fair points.
@PoM
Addendum: Also, “If we ignore all the direct action, then voting changes things without direct action” is a pretty crap argument.
@Catalpa
Is it possible you were thinking of Maine Question 1, Maryland Question 6, or Washington Referendum 74? Those were various popular voted ballot questions that legalized gay marriage in their respective states.
@Dalillama
Did I mention a popular vote? Try again yourself.
I guess it’s fortunate for me that that’s not remotely the argument I was making. Votes happen because people ask for things. That’s the reality. If you want to disregard every vote that happened after someone asked for something, then it’s not any wonder you think voting is dumb.
Whilst I do think it is worth voting, even if only trying to prevent a worse result, the current conversation reminds me of this book (which I’ve never actually read).
Does change for the worse count?
If so, may I present to you … Brexit. 😛
@PoM
The question at hand is whether voting will enact positive change by itself. It will not, and never has. It’s not just that people ‘asked’, people fucking rioted. Black people have been asking for better treatment for centuries, and gotten fuckall. Natives have asked that their treaties be respected; they aren’t. Asking doesn’t accomplish jack shit. Positive change has to be forcibly demanded if it’s to occur in the US. This has always been the case, because the US was designed from the ground up to ensure that most people do not have a voice. No amount of propaganda about shining cities on hills, bastions of democracy or any of that other bullshit changes the bare fact that we live under a system designed by genocidal slaveholders to ensure that they retained power in perpetuity. And until people like you fucking acknowledge that, progressive politics will continue to be marginalized and ignored by the powers that be.
@Surplus
I’m specifically talking about US politics, I’d need to do some research for a proper fisking of Commonwealth political history.
And that question is both loaded and meaningless because no vote ever happens until someone asks for something.
Rioting is just people asking for something in a manner that breaks the law. It’s not at its most basic any different from my making an appointment with my state senator and discussing what I want from her; the difference is all in the forcefulness of the ask, not in the underlying fact of asking.
Some asks are in back rooms and some asks are in the streets, but both of them are asks and laws come from people asking for stuff and then the vote happens.
I haven’t spread any such propaganda so I’m not sure why you’re bringing this up.
Define “people like me” because I have serious doubts that you know the first thing about what I am like.
@Naglfar
Yeah, those are the sorts of referendums I was thinking of. Thank you for providing them!
I will never understand why there should ever be a conversation about voting versus direct action. It’s not either or.
You have to vote for candidates that are willing to be convinced to enact progress. Then you have to push them through direct action.
I’m seeing all these voting doesn’t matter takes lately and it’s concerning.
There’s an argument to be made that, like the police, the roots of the existing government and power structures are too corrupt to ever be able to be reformed from within the system.
That said, until the revolution actually happens and a new system is put in place, there’s no excuse not to vote if you’re able to. Voting does not mean you’re obligated to support the system during all the other times you’re not voting.
@Catalpa
In my experience, a lot of anti voting takes come from a certain sort of leftist who thinks that the only way for change is a magic revolution that will magically fix everything, and there’s no point in trying to fix anything in the interim. This is not a realistic outlook, so from a pragmatic standpoint I think it’s much better to do what we can with what we have (incl. voting, activism, community organizing, etc) rather than setting our hopes on a revolution that may or may not happen and would be unlikely to instantly fix everything.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve noticed as well, and it’s frustrating. We shouldn’t allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.
@WWTH
The point I’m hammering home is that just voting will never be enough to enact meaningful change, and saying “Just get out and vote” is a bullshit statement that discourages people from undertaking the activities that actually do catalyze change. To wit, strikes, mass demonstrations that are willing to persist through violence and bullshit, outright riots, violent confrontations with police and other authorities, etc. Voting, by itself, has never accomplished change in the US, and never will unless there’s a drastic change in the governmental system. So, until then, people who want change need to demand it via direct action, not just ask for it by voting for the politician with the shiniest rhetoric.
@Dalillama
I understand that there’s a risk of people going “hey, I voted Democrat, my duty to progressiveness is done”, but I don’t know that yelling at people that voting is useless is the best way to encourage people to take up direct action.
In my experience in volunteering with the NDP (Canada’s most prominent left-wing party) during election times, I’ve been made more aware of causes impacting my community and Canada as a whole, made networking connections with activist groups, and grown in my commitment to rally to make things better. It’s possible that I could have done all those things without being involved in the voting process, sure, but is there really only one “correct” way to engage in leftism? Becoming more politically aware is a stream that has many tributaries, and making people feel shitty for what they already do seems like it would only be discouraging and alienating, rather than encouraging them to join in more radical action.
I’m not saying that all activism has to be nice, niceness doesn’t force those in power to change, but I do think that we could stand to reserve the hostility towards our opponents rather than our allies in most cases.
@Catalpa
Once again, for the hard of understanding. You cannot just vote for change in the United States. Voting for a Democratic candidate, in and of itself, accomplishes exactly nothing in terms of effecting political change, never has, and never will. Therefore, statements such as
” Things change when people get out and vote” are demonstrably false. Creating change requires more than voting.
@Dalillama
This 100%. One of the many reasons we have riots is explictly because voting Dems over and over hasn’t seemed to decrease Police Violence and Murders on any meaningful level.
A relevant short essay by Sincere Kirabo may help to illustrate what I’m getting at:
You can’t vote out the system, and the system is fundamentally rotten.
@ Dalillama
Oh I didn’t know you were a believer in a Lost Cause myth! My mistake.
Seriously, claiming Lincoln was at all not an abolitionist is a good way to expose being a complete ignoramus. He only campaigned a more moderate anti-slavery platform because he thought it was the only acceptable option. When the slavers revealed that, no, any degree of limit on slavery was a cause for war, that’s exactly how the Emancipation Proclamation became an idea worth noting. And the fact he considered it at all was because he even was willing to entertain the idea of “blacks deserve to serve in the armed forces”, which he would not have done if he was a racist.
Oh yeah, and you know a way the Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t immediately overturned? Lincoln winning reelection against McClellan.
Keep picking those cherries.
Much to the surprise of absolutely no one. After all, the card still says “Moops”; whatever disagrees with your particular historiography is obviously wrong, and if people want to actually confront you, you throw up objectives for them to get through to be “rational.” Truly, you are a master of rhetorical strategy through the declaration of “I win.”
Which is why nobody has actually argued the bolded bit. Nope, not even me; I was going against your apparent position that voting for the lesser of two evils was for suckers, when in fact that agrees with your claimed position here. I just provided an example because otherwise, you would have blown me off for not confronting your challenge directly, and thus, a “hypocrite.” That is generally what “challenges” mean, in my experience.
Part of the problem is that discussions like this are never actually about voting versus direct action. In my experience, it’s always implicitly assumed that anyone who criticizes the system as not being democratic enough does neither voting nor direct action. The reality is that it’s harder for various marginalized people to vote, and that can naturally make it harder to justify going through the effort at all (this is reflected in voter turnouts). To me, the whole point of democracy is that the levers of change are accessible to everyone. Apparently to many others, though, this current implementation of democracy is the only kind of democracy there is, accessibility be damned.
I’ve seen so much hostility to just floating the idea of building alternatives to depending on a liberal state to solve our problems. So many people act like the system we have now is eternal when it’s only a few centuries old. If we’re going to talk about feeling shitty, that right there personally makes me feel very shitty.