Author: Gabriel Persechino-Forest Published: June 13th, 2018
For starters, Anime Feminist published an article about Lupin the III: Part 5 which opens by criticising a panty shot that offended them and then moves on to criticise the homosexual gags in episode 2. It even talks about how the series fails to “include” certain segments of the fanbase. Include them? This isn’t a brunch, its a TV series. It doesn’t have to include anyone and quite frankly its pretty sad if people need an avatar of themselves to be able to appreciate a work of art. One of the beautiful thing about fiction is its ability to tell so many stories from so many perspectives yet some insist this be changed to a standardised and sterile rendition that always includes the same group in the same way.
Coming back to the homosexual part, apparently, making gay jokes (And they were jokes) now amounts to “Alienating a segment of your fanbase” and while the article admits itself the gags are not mean spirited and are on pare with established character behavior, the author decides to invent a conspiracy theory based on the random assumptions that works of art and artists have a responsibility to consider an imaginary “Second meaning” to everything in their series that supposedly speaks of the industry, tropes, the audience and so on… With this bit of mental gymnastic out of the way the author proceeds to frame the joke as targeting its gay audience in a mean spirited way; well that makes sense. They are then responsibilizing the staff for the fanfiction made on their series then claiming the homosexual comedy is somehow an intentional attack on that; even going so far as to imply it is sad that they won’t make the two characters involved (Lupin and Jigen) kiss on screen because they fantasise about it. Then they make it into a “Straight people are after us” conspiracy.
Now you might say “But if only they understood it was just a joke.” But remember that there is no common ground with these types of people (The perpetually offended):
It doesn’t matter if the writers actively intended to exclude queer audiences. If you punch someone and then say “just kidding!” that doesn’t un-break their nose.
No compromise with these people. They also follow up by accusing the staff of being homophobic and having ill feelings towards homosexuality and the audience. Now is that true? I don’t know, I don’t personally know the staff of Lupin the III but I know that basing such accusations on a single joke you didn’t appreciate is the definition of slander.
Another article focuses on Ms. koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles and criticises it for making jokes about homosexuality again. Non of them were mean spirited, it’s just a problem that they exist, apparently. The series is a comedy and as such it is normal that all of its elements are open to comedic reinterpretation but apparently that is now a foreign concept. Comedic series must deal with their themes in a serious and respectful way, you know, what comedy is known for. It then unfairly compares the series to Laid Back Camp, in spite of the fact that one is a straight up comedy and the other a slice-of-life and therefore have different ways of handling relationships; basically complaining about Ms. Koizumi for no other crime than being a comedy.
Apparently, you cannot make jokes centered around homosexuality anymore. But why? Jokes about straight people are made all the time and about any other type of people as well. It is usually not mean spirited and most viewers know this. But then you have to remember that these people have no sense of humor and have been waging an ongoing crusade against fun since the media gave them a voice.
The same website also attacked FLCL’s new series for having a character who dresses like a girl but without using that to make some sort of socio-political point and the worse offence of all: They focused on the pretty girl sitting down but didn’t show a panty shot of the overweight crossdresser! Yeah, because we all know the audience totally wanted to see that (No offence intended but it’s a basic fact that the audience will find certain things attractive and others not so much and those in charge of the series decided to not alienate the majority of their viewers). The problem with forcing your politics down everyone’s throat is that you force people to sit through crap that only makes sense in your head and then you’re surprised when they don’t watch your series (Read your comics, play your video games…) and call them sexist and bigoted for it. The funny part is they go on to admit that the series wasn’t being antagonistic towards people who crossdress but that still doesn’t get in the way of an unnecessary political statement.
Then they move on to attack moe and “Silent” characters as being insensitive to those who have real mutism and even a bit misogynistic to; is any trope safe from their politics? To be fair, for probably the first time ever, they said something positive about how anime handles an issue (Mutism in this case) so they can not complain about everything when they try. The same article also randomly attacks Guilty Crown. I say this because they’ve done it before and I quite frankly don’t know why they so vehemently hate that series.
Over on Kotaku they decided to attack Sword Art Online: Gun Gale and even though they are not even talking about the original series, they took the opportunity to criticize its depiction of the female characters and do everything but call it sexist by name because, you guessed it, FANSERVICE!!!! OMG!!! Someone saw something sexy, call the morality police! Perhaps it’s just me but the constant Dark Ages style sexual repression and slut shaming of 4th wave feminism is getting hard to take. Anyways, they then criticize the series (Gun Gale, the one they were suppose to be talking about since the beginning) for not having introduced stereotypical, Western social politics into its premise and having the audacity to actually focus on the series’ stated themes and purpose.
Source: Article Image: Lupin the III: Part 5 episode 2
Further Reading:
-The Implication of Anime’s Mainstream Status
-Western Attacks on the Anime Medium