More Namekians die, a potting shed plunges Emily into despair, Paige revels in world building and Grant proposes a spinoff.
Lorelei’s Covert Maneuvers! A Tragic Assault On Emily’s Sensibilities!
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More Namekians die, a potting shed plunges Emily into despair, Paige revels in world building and Grant proposes a spinoff.
Gilmore Ball Z 
Lol don’t think we’re more “woke” than Japan because many shows nowadays are rife with gender politics which are a blight on society. Japan and DBZ is better off without that garbage.
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I’ll admit, as a woman, I disagree. I’m really glad some shows are doing a better job of creating more fully fleshed out women characters (Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 99, The Good Place are all great examples of this on networks and I really do love what Amy Sherman-Palladino is doing these days with Mrs. Maisel) and I’m really glad to see women creators who have the platform to talk about the issues that affect them.
What shows were you thinking of that do it badly? -Paige
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The problem with gender politics in tv and society in general isn’t the creation of strong interesting female characters or giving women a platform with which they can use to discuss issues that affect them. The problem with gender politics is too often they’re being forced onto shows and creators to push that ideology in a positive light with no room for criticism else people could be labeled as sexist, misogynist, etc. These shows you’re speaking of: Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 99, The Good Place, and Steven Universe; I haven’t watched them but I think its safe to assume they were made by their creators with gender politics in mind. They had something to say and said so in an interesting way that people liked and it wasn’t forced on them. You said if DBZ were made today (and in the west instead of Japan) they would probably have more gender politics inserted; you’re probably right. But the thing is, DBZ didn’t need gender politics then or now. Boys and girls fell in love with DBZ many years ago because of the magic of a simple show with punching and screaming, humans and weird alien creatures shooting lasers out of their hands and blowing up planets all with fascinating stories to tell and creatively designed characters to adore. If DBZ were made today, feminists would likely lament the lack of strong female characters in the show (which fans have brought up plenty of times before and is a legitimate criticism) and practically demand the show writers try to be more “inclusive”. There are plenty of shows already that appeal to your gender politics, but the idea that DBZ needs more of that is an absurd one that comes from a person with an obvious lack of love and appreciation for the series. I hope that as this podcast progresses you’re not continually looking for things like “did this episode pass the bechdel test?” Or “Are the women in the show having their lives ruined by the men around them?” and instead look at things like the internal struggles the characters are facing and how those struggles affect their actions. I know DBZ may seem like a simple minded punching and screaming show for young boys, but it does go a bit deeper than that if you’re willing to look.
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Grant here. I’m sure Paige has some things to say but I wanted to clarify a few things because I think our intent is being misunderstood here:
1. Just because we point out issues (that you yourself admit are legitimate) with the show doesn’t mean we are completely writing it off. If you’ve been listening you have surely seen the points where Paige also praises the things the show does right. You can have issues with something while still loving it, and I think the accusations of a shallow reading are unwarranted.
2. Nobody is actually saying the show should be “about” gender politics. We don’t actually want the show to stop and discuss Namekian pronouns. We do it on our show because we (and others) find it amusing, but really the only thing we lament in the show itself is that the women are props 90% of the time.
3. The shows Paige mentioned do not match your judgment of them. Maisel is the only one that takes a deep dive into issues of sexism. Steven features gender queer characters, but that is never the point of the show. The others are simply well written shows that happen to have diverse casts. Again, nobody wants every show to be talking about gender politics in the forefront, they are just examples of shows that are GOOD and are partially strong because they showcase different people from different walks of life. Gender politics in media is not the boogeyman you’re making it out to be, especially not in the context of our dumb little podcast.
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Paige here. I do have things to say here. I agree completely with everything Grant said (sidenote, this is my favorite essay explaining his first point: https://film.avclub.com/if-you-like-return-of-the-jedi-but-hate-the-ewoks-you-1798284198), so I won’t repeat what he said.
I feel like something we need is a good definition of terms, especially when we’re throwing the word “gender politics” around, it’s good to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. I think of gender politics as looking at how we treat different genders, which actually makes it very hard to have a show that doesn’t engage in “gender politics” at all. I’d argue that even if it didn’t mean to, by mostly relegating women to props, or hysterical bimbos (with some bright spots in between, and hopefully more to come when we get the androids), they are very firmly portraying an idea about the relationship between women and men (and Namekians). To say that DBZ doesn’t engage in gender politics is to ignore that (even if it’s not a conscious one) the way it uses gender is a choice.
I don’t know that it’s fair to say that there’d be more gender politics “inserted” if they made the show today, when I said that I’d hope they had more strong female characters. I know you don’t have an issue with interesting women characters, but I think there’s a false dichotomy there. There might be more interesting women not because they feel the need to shove in political correctness, but they might also see ideas for cool women characters because of a great cycle of diverse characters (I see more interesting characters that don’t look like the characters I have, I want to create a character like that. Someone else sees them and the cycle continues). I’d argue that this can kind of be seen in the end of Super, where there are a lot more female characters who are as fleshed out as a lot of the men are without needing to actively push any agendas. You refer to more progressive gender balance as “that ideology” but I don’t know whats insidious about it.
You also mention that a generation of boys and girls fell in love with DBZ and that’s 100% true. Sure, it skews more male, but there are plenty of girls who grew up loving Goku and Vegeta and women who love watching Gohan and Piccalo kick butt as adults. Women love a ton of series that have all male casts, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a problem. We kinda had to because the number of offerings of shows with female protagonists in action shows was, not great. There’s a reason Kim Possible, Kimberly and Trini, and Buffy Summers mean SO much to the women of my generation, firstly because they were awesome, but secondly because for the most part, we were feeding off crumbs. DBZ might have been even more beloved by the women who watched it if it had a character who was both female and not an idiot. I feel like 18 will probably step into that role some when I get later in the series (I really hope so), but that doesn’t mean I can’t critique it now. There was (and still is) a very real belief in publishing that things with women in it are for women, but things with men it are for everyone. Whether you call the cognizance of that gender politics or not, I would say that the fact it exists in the first place is the existence of unhealthy norm of male dominated gender politics.
Just because I have Gilmore Girls (which, by the way, is aimed at women but still bothered to have good male characters), doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to complain that there are faults elsewhere (I feel like we agree there). I complain because there’s still a huge imbalance in the characters that men and women get that represent them and women are positioned better to see those gaps (although big shout out to the men who choose look and help).
I complain because I care. People asked for more women in Star Wars (and more racial diversity which is related but not the current point) because they LOVED Star Wars. If I complain about DBZ, it’s not because I’m not seeing the internal struggles of the characters (I’m loving what they’re doing with Vegeta in the Frieza saga which we’re recording now and I honestly wish the show had even more stuff like that so I’ll be excited to see it) and it’s not because I don’t value what the show does. If it was fluff that I didn’t care about at all, it wouldn’t matter to me if it was sexist garbage or genderprogressive garbage, it’s not worth my time. I care because I see so many ways the show is good, and it deeply frustrates me when that’s used as an excuse to not give that same love to half of the human species who could bring even more to a fun show.
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w/r/t Namekkians and gender, it does seem to lean towards a gender-neutral masculine sort of thing; in Japanese, all of the Namekkians have male voices and actors save Dende (who was recast for Kai, and is played by a famous female VA that iirc was seen as stunt-casting). It’s actually explored a bit in some of the videogames; in Xenoverse and Xenoverse 2, while your Namekkian Original Character Do Not Steal’s voice selection is limited to the Male voices, they are unaffected by any of the skills or equipment that has different effects on males & females. Namekkian NPCs in the game also comment pretty often on not understanding Human/Saiyan gender differences, romance, culture, or cooking.
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That’s actually really cool.
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