Single Girl Only Sentais - Problem or No?

[ChiPsiUp]

You know, I still don't get how having 2 females is less offensive than having 1. Never understood why those same people don't demand for an equal number of females at all times. Either way, the females are always outnumbered in Sentai.

In a 3-person squad, it's usually 2 males to 1 female.

In a lot of 5-person squads, it's 3 males to 2 females.

And considering many of the extra Rangers that join the team later are usually male, that makes even more males outnumbering the females.

It's not about who outnumbers who. My initial point is that when there is only ONE girl, her personaly just becomes "the girl". Every sentai member has to have a different personality to distinguish themselves from other members. It makes it boring if the show just has 5 people who have more or less the same personality but in different color clothes. So we have the cool one, the smart one, the strong one, the goofy one, etc etc. There's tropes that sentai follows, fairly predictably.

When you have TWO girls, they need to be distinguished from each other, so they will be given different personality traits.

When you only have ONE girl, she doesn't need any distinguishing, everyone else is a guy, so writers just write her as "the female one". This doesn't ALWAYS happen, but it feels likely.

It's like, imagine in an american movie, and most of the cast is white. Except there is only one character who's black. And his ONLY personality traits is "act like the stereotypical black guy".

It's not a problem if the writing is good, they can easily avoid the pitfall. But sentai's writing isn't consistently good, and when it goes bad it goes pretty bad.

 

[Dr Kain]

Toei gave a reason for not having a yellow ranger? Where?

As for an all girl Sentai series, no thanks. Series that tend to have all female characters these days put fan service over substance and story telling.

 

[Bigdog]

Toei gave a reason for not having a yellow ranger? Where?

As for an all girl Sentai series, no thanks. Series that tend to have all female characters these days put fan service over substance and story telling.

Sailor Moon worked ,and it went live action to boot. I wouldn't mind it as a one-off deal series to test the waters , but I feel it would need to be done under a crew that wouldn't turn it to fan service in five seconds.

 

[Painted_Outlaw]

Toei gave a reason for not having a yellow ranger? Where?

Takahito Ohmori (the Chief Producer for Kyoryuuger) said this regarding the absence of a yellow ranger:
henshinjustice.net/2013/02/18/why-there-is-no-kyoryuyellow/

 

[PsychoGokaiger]

As for an all girl Sentai series, no thanks. Series that tend to have all female characters these days put fan service over substance and story telling.

Stereotypes aren't prophecies. Though comics are different medium, there's an X-Men #1 hitting soon of a new series starring an all female team with Storm etc. It's being handled seriously.

Also, for the record, you mention fan service over substance, but those two aspects aren't connected. Some things do have fan service and a lack of substance, but you can have both in one piece of entertainment. But that's a whole 'nother topic, sexuality will only make this topic even more complicated. Plus, with how much the guys are pretty boys in these, I'm sure these shows are fan-service for those attracted to them as is too. :coolshades:

Anyways, I'd be very cool with an all female show, but I would wonder why there are no males. It feels more natural with both genders on the team, since you'd figure that'd happen. But sure, 3 girls 2 guys sometime, why not.

 

[Bigdog]

Stereotypes aren't prophecies. Though comics are different medium, there's an X-Men #1 hitting soon of a new series starring an all female team with Storm etc. It's being handled seriously.

Also, for the record, you mention fan service over substance, but those two aspects aren't connected. Some things do have fan service and a lack of substance, but you can have both in one piece of entertainment. But that's a whole 'nother topic, sexuality will only make this topic even more complicated. Plus, with how much the guys are pretty boys in these, I'm sure these shows are fan-service for those attracted to them as is too. :coolshades:

Anyways, I'd be very cool with an all female show, but I would wonder why there are no males. It feels more natural with both genders on the team, since you'd figure that'd happen. But sure, 3 girls 2 guys sometime, why not.

I agree this this. :thumbs:

You know, I still don't get how having 2 females is less offensive than having 1. Never understood why those same people don't demand for an equal number of females at all times. Either way, the females are always outnumbered in Sentai.

In a 3-person squad, it's usually 2 males to 1 female.

In a lot of 5-person squads, it's 3 males to 2 females.

And considering many of the extra Rangers that join the team later are usually male, that makes even more males outnumbering the females.

And lazycoconut does have a point, even though I was mostly joking about that gender bending line. Power Rangers has gender bended many rangers through history, but they managed to stop doing that in Dino Thunder and RPM. So maybe they are beginning to see what people like me have been saying from the start, the numbers don't matter that much. Maybe it is about how each character is written, or maybe they understand that there IS such a thing as being too PC.

They mainly didn't genderbend in Dino Thunder or RPM or JF because the roles not to mention colors being unprecedented in either. It took a few golds to get a female Gold for example in Deka and a full one in Go-On/RPM. Though to be honest, it could have been easily bent either way, but it would feel weird in a sense thinking about it. So far, we have two series tailored to the 4:2 ratio on the way, but what of Busters? It could be easily done, but if Silver or Gold is done :

-Gold would lose the opportunity to be cast with Chip as Gold. Not sure of the likelihood of his casting, though.
-Serious rewriting and whatnot would have to be done to write Beet J Stag out of the Silver role sans armor and support. Might be too much money. A gender bend would be stranger even.

 

[Daikamonohashi]

Just because you can point at something and call it sexist, doesn't mean it actually is. More likely than not, it's just coincidental.

Toei and Japanese studios don't have to follow the same Politically Correct rules you've grown up with, nor are they concerned with western ideals of equality. This is why Power Rangers tries to keep their Male to Female numbers about even, and it's why they always try to hire a multiracial cast for the Rangers.

We shouldn't talk about these things because they aren't actually problems and they simply won't change.



Ever.

 

[lazycoconut]

We shouldn't talk about these things because they aren't actually problems and they simply won't change.

Ever.

Translation: "Don't talk about this! You might start to think other people deserve consideration!"



(Note: I do not agree with the sentiments expressed in the above image, I'm just presenting an opposing view)

Speaking of comparing the sexes, the males cast are usually several years older than the females. That's a bit odd to me.

It's because the prevailing view in Japan is still that women should get married and stay at home with kids (although that's slowly changing, and more women are not doing either.) Thus, they don't want to show a woman who is still devoted to battle after her early 20s - by that time, she's supposed to have "grown up" and be thinking about marriage instead. It also means that female idols start their careers earlier, so the girls who audition for Sentai are probably younger than the guys; typically, Sentai casts are made up of inexperienced idols just starting out. GoseiPink's actress said that she almost wasn't cast because she was 22 and they thought that was too old

 

[kuroihikari]

But it really isn't a problem. Only the PC crowd seems to think it is because their feelings were hurt.

Like I said, no rights were taken, no opportunities were denied. It's just a company banking on its customers perceptions.

 

[lazycoconut]

But it really isn't a problem. Only the PC crowd seems to think it is because their feelings were hurt.

I was referring more to the almost century-old image advocating that women in the real world be banned from voting. And it seems to me there are plenty enough people "hurt" by the mere suggestion of more female characters