So I bought the Legend of Korra comic, and I haven't read it yet... mostly because I've been spending all of my spare time really drunk, because I have once again lost every single ounce of ability to be happy about anything ever and I am contemplating suicide attempt #4 ...although if you get to #4 and still can't fucking do it, then you just must suck at everything. I mean I could do it but I don't want to go splat off the roof and all the other options would be messy. Living in NYC I have about as much a chance of buying a gun as I do of buying a space shuttle, so I'll just keep eating high-cholesterol foods and just wait for the inevitable.
Om nom nom nom. Good lord I have a dark sense of humor.
So anyway my wifey reads the thing and I mention in passing that I thought Kya was pretty hot and she was like "oh well you wouldn't stand a chance she's a lesbian" and for some reason I actually felt disappointed. Seriously, I've never felt that way before but I must have actually had a thing for Kya that I didn't even realize I had because it felt like it was such a "swing and a miss" moment I was just like ...uhhhhgg. At least Kuvira doesn't mind getting a bit of hetero-action (if you told me she was off the table I would have just lost it). It might be because they are just so intelligent and confident, which I very much dig, or you just know that either gay or straight Kya could teach you a thing or two about how to fuck like a pro. ...And it's definitely the choker + silver hair also. I mean I don't even think Bumi or Tenzin would mind at this point, she's a big girl she can make her own decisions ...like to want Poon and not D... DAMMIT, I can't keep her on the waifu-list now!
So you doin' anything later or... or what? ;)
Why the fuck am I even bringing this up? Because AMERICA. No not monster trucks and guns (though that stuff is cool, I mean... you know it is), and not MAGA hats and flags (I am much more likely to burn a flag in protest than to wave one ...thank you Texas v Johnson), what I mean is that the United States of America is a diverse country, probably one of the most on the planet. The limited history of the USA allows for legal limitations regarding what in other parts of the world are strictly protected cultural institutions. The USA has no anti-blasphemy laws, you can't say that about Pakistan or Ireland. The USA has no official language, you can't say that about China or Poland (or even Canada). And although it wasn't always the case, the USA has no official race that people have to be in order to be citizens, you can't say that about Saudi Arabia, or Japan (seriously, Japan is awful about that kind of thing, go look it up).
That means that although Japan makes most of the best anime, some of it isn't as relatable to American audiences as domestic American productions because there is simply less genuine diversity. Everyone looks exactly the same. (OMG he's turned total SJW holy shit!) ...no. What I mean is that no, there aren't zero examples of other people who are not Japanese, but have you ever thought about how many characters are supposed to be Japanese that you have actually been imagining as Caucasian this whole time? Yeah... let that sink in. So when a character is put in a Japanese anime that isn't assumptively Japanese, it is usually (not always) done in an exaggerated form to just scream at the audience "GAIJIN" or "GAY" or "WEIRDO" (of course there are definately some gay Japanese Weirdos out there... good for them) or just exaggerate whatever they are going for. Of course there are exceptions, Tokyo Godfathers, Gunsmith Cats, Cowboy Bebop...almost anything about WW II, all that, but those are exactly that... exceptions, not average occurrences.
Yes I got to meet Kenichi Sonoda in Chicago in 1998 when I took him to the O'Hare ATC tower (remember kids, I used to be way cooler than you). And he told me that neither of these two are in any way Japanese.
The same is true for LGBT characters. Not only do most anime out there telegraph the most stereotypical aspects of what people assume about LGBTQ people, they are super unapologetic about it. (I left out A-sexual and I guess all the other things to be... I don't know... people that have sex with alligators ...which is not animal abuse because if you are having sex with an alligator, that alligator is letting you do that, no two ways about it. And do not search for "alligator sex" ok, remember when I warned you about giraffe-porn?)... I mean, Tiger & Bunny was a cool show, but ...c'mon nobody acts like that. OK I actually know someone who basically acts exactly like that (Daemon from the comic store was a huge muscular black dude, spoke like a valley-girl and was gay as a fairy *his words not mine* and I actually flirted with him when I was a freshman in high school just to get the employee discount... nothing ever happened, but I wonder how he's doing) but T&B was still going over the top with the thing.
Except for the nails?
So coming back to why the fuck shit hell am I even mentioning any of this, is that there are now shows, movies, and books out there like Korra, and like the new Lego Elves series (yeah it's for kids, so people aren't going down on each other or dropping dead left and right like an episode of Game of Thrones) and even My Little Pony (seriously there is no way that Vinyl and Octavia are not an item) that have diverse characters in them that don't make a point of 4th wall obliterating exposition regarding the fact that they are who they are. The not-making a big deal about it is what's cool. Maybe it's just because I grew up in NYC and seeing 2 dudes kissing or playing strikebox with an interracial kid my age was no big deal, but with things being what they are today, you can't do enough to make sure that people understand how to avoid bigotry through collective experiences and not simply use pontification to get the point across. American entertainment media is a powerful tool in that process. And for fans of animation, it is important to remember that in the USA, it will be our domestic productions that have the largest and most significant impact in creating that environment. ...Also probably Canada. ...With their stupid metric system.
Seriously, when some of our parents were alive, doing this was illegal. There still needs to be a lot more social progress made out there, but I think it will be American media entertainment that makes the most effective impact on ensuring people exposed to it have their values solidified or their minds changed (probably depending on their age).
This... this is the worst thing I have written. Not that the message is something I think is terrible, but I think this reads like a high school freshman's Livejournal or something equally retarded. I used to be better at the word-making but I either have mid-stage mad cow disease or after all these years the Wernicke-Korsakoff is finally kicking in. But there is so much issue-fatigue out there that these issues can seem not even interesting to talk about anymore. And I get blowback. Seriously, just this year alone I have been called sexist, alt-right, gun-nut, libtard, faggot, nationalist, white nationalist (because that makes a difference apparently), racist, communist, and some wackadoo sent me a message who was convinced I was part of an organization which used chem-trails for something.... dumbass, if I was, I'd be getting paid way more than I am now! At least I wasn't putting it in the water to turn the frogs gay. Stupid frog-metric system. ...that's a thing, shut up.
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