The times they are a changin'. The fact of the matter is that you can simply "get away" with more stuff now than you could back when Sailor Moon was airing. Of course, Shezow could still end up being cancelled, if the Hub chooses to cave into pressure from groups like One Million Moms... so I guess we'll just have to see how things go.
Although choosing to air this show IS a ballsy move, I feel like there's a lot of misinformation about it... words with the "trans" prefix keep getting thrown around, like "transgender" and "transexual," but I don't think Guy (AKA Shezow) is either of those things. I don't even think he'd qualify as a transvestite.
Guy doesn't physically become a female, so he's not transsexual. He doesn't identify as a female (as he puts it, "I'm a dude!" ), so he's not transgender. As far as him being a transvestite, that's debatable. As I understand it, a transvestite has a strong
desire to dress as the opposite sex/gender, or gains pleasure from doing so. However, Guy's initial attitude towards wearing the Shezow getup is embarrassment and reluctance, which gradually gives way to acceptance. He doesn't WANT to dress up like a lady-- he WANTS to be a superhero, and dressing up as a lady happens to be the only way for him to do so.
That said, I still consider the show to be pretty progressive, in that it points out and shatters various outdated gender conventions. The Shezow character is basically a satire of what marketers would come up with if they put their heads together to create a superhero for young girls. "Let's make her wear pink!" "Yeah, and all her crime-fighting gadgets will be cosmetics!" "Yeah, and she'll be all about 'girl power'!"
But it really starts to sink in how silly all that is when its mistakenly applied to a boy, instead.
Even if he's not trans himself, I can see how Guy could be a relateable character to the trans community. There's a scene in one episode in which he's having a nightmare about playing in a football game, when he suddenly realizes he's wearing the Shezow outfit under his jersey. One of his teammates asks him, disbelievingly, if he's wearing a dress. His reaction-- a defiant "Yes, I am. You got a problem with that?" pretty much speaks for itself.
Cerise Hood
gaia_nitemareleft I don't care that it's a trans-whatever character. I care that it just looks like a really sour, Western rip of Ranma 1/2 in a way.
I disagree. Seems to me there's more differences than similarities. Shezow's a superhero, Ranma's a martial artist. Guy changes clothes but not sex, Ranma changes sex but not clothes. Guy's transformation is required for him to use his abilities, while Ranma's abilities stay the same regardless of which form he's in. Guy usually transforms on purpose, while Ranma usually transforms by accident.
They both gained their power/curse by accident, but honestly... I don't think they have all that much in common.
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