I wrote about SheZow, a Canadian cartoon now on The Hub. SheZow is a girly superhero whose power is passed down from generation to generation via a ring. Well, a boy put on the ring and now becomes SheZow, complete with long styled hair, skirted costume, and high-heel boots, whenever there is a "shemergency." "Her" powers diminish when she's not girly enough ~ for instance, if her hair gets badly messed up or she's not wearing pink. I say "her" because there is no gender issue, really. He's a he, except he has to look like a girl when the powers kick in. He doesn't savour the girl role, or eschew it. He's just SheZow and enjoys the superhero role, ignoring the girl role.
There is one big problem with SheZow:
It's horrible. The jokes are mostly puns on par with the "shemergency" noted above.
But it's been getting attention on the idiot web sites ~ you know the ones: the ones that scream how horrible it is that a boy is (gasp) dressed as a girl. They clearly have no idea what's going on in the cartoon and their complaints have nothing to do with the show. And if they watched it, they'd realise that, well, as I said above, it's horrible.
HOWEVER, I dug around on the Discovery web site until I found a place where you could leave a comment. I commended them for helping to show that what you wear has nothing to do with who you are and what you can do.
If you'd like to contact The Hub to encourage stretching gender boundaries, you can go here.
In the meantime, I'll watch it so you don't have to.
Friday, August 2, 2013
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I have not yet seen the show, but this was the sense I got from some of the online materials. "Trans" or not, I imagine feminists can't stand the stereotype reinforcement going on.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't expect the writing to be very good, most kids cartoons these days aren't (with perhaps the exception of phineas and ferb). I do like that it gets younger kids used to the idea of a boy dressing up as a girl. Perhaps the next generation of adults will be more open minded.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing.... A while back, I was walking past a television that was on a show I had never seen. There was some obvious t-activity. I looked up the show and found it was Phineas and Ferb.
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