Quote:
Originally Posted by RealJames
and where do you stand?
and more importantly, where do you think Japanese society stands on the topic, generally?
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Me? I really don't mind transvestism as a whole; it doesn't annoy or disturb me. As for those particular ones cited above, I know nothing about them so I can't really comment; For me it would depend on their personalities as to if I found them endearing or abhorrent or not, not their cross-dressing. Same with gay idols. Pineapple Dance's Louis makes me howl and smash the remote control to MAKE IT STOP GET OFF MY SCREEN JUST NO!, but I quite like John Barrowman. TBH as far as Japanese screen icons go, i'm more annoyed by that girl who eats a lot.
I think this is absolutely nothing new. Cross-dressing in the Japanese media has been going on for literally centuries; there's not really an ingrained heavy-duty historical cultural bias against it. These are basically the modern day equivalent of onnagata but (I assume) rather less artistically skilled. Considering the sheer number of anime/manga/drama/films/tv shows out there in Japan which feature one or more character cross-dressing, it's really practically common place. I distinctly recall a whole game show where the purpose was to dress high school boys up as girls and send them on little 'dates' (it was very innocent) with male talents. Malice Mizer built a career off of it. So have umptybillion Vkei artists since. Japan doesn't seem bothered by it. It's cute/funny/or just 'there' like anime is 'there' as far as different people are concerned. As MMM said, they're people on TV with a gimmick, like 90 bajillion and one other 'talents'.
Oddly, I can't see what the fuss about Japanese transvestite talents are because it's REALLY not like it's a) as i said before, anything new, or b) alien to the foreign market too. Some of the most popular anime's abroad have featured gender-bending and cross-dressing, not least including Slayers, Sailor Moon**, Naruto, Hana Yori Dango, Fruits Basket, Ouran High School Host Club, Bleach, Gravitation, One Piece and virtually anything ever by Kaori Yuki. That's just off the top of my head. The inclusion of this hasn't alienated a foreign market. Actually the only one I have literally ever heard people moaning about (Asides from crazy evangelicals) is that demon guy from.... that butler anime. Red hair. Apparently the manga-ka revealed he's a MtoF transexual, which sunk a lot of BL fandom ships and incurred fangirl outrage.
There's also western skit artists too, who frequently cross dress; Little Britain's Vicky Pollard, emily and florence derive most of their comic effect from the fact that they're played by men. David Bowie, Marlyn Manson the entirety of Queen and others besides have done it just for kicks and a big fat profit.
** Yes this was edited out in the Anime but the english language manga release had no such qualms.
/ long post is long.