Topic Meme: Day 3
Jan. 3rd, 2014 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pockysquirrelangel_negra requested that I discuss diversity in the women of Power Rangers. OK, so, this is a HUGE topic. It could easily result in - and probably deserves to have - a long and in-depth meta essay devoted to exploring it. Fortunately or unfortunately, that's not something that's going to happen today. Not on a Friday night when I'm feeling mad lazy and have unfinished fic to write that's due tomorrow. Whoops.
But at any rate, lady Rangers. I LOVE me some lady Rangers. There's so much talk in the fandom world about female representation, and GOOD female representation at that - thank you, Tumblr - and all things considered, I think female characters are something PR tends to do pretty well. I won't say that there's absolutely nothing problematic about how the show portrays women, because that's just not true. But that's as much or more to do with problems in children's programming as a genre, in the sentai source material, and in the media in general that it is to do with PR itself. That said, here are some fairly disjointed words about my personal cheers and jeers pertaining to PR's handling of its female characters.
- PR usually does a fairly good job of constructing a racially diverse team - I'm giving you the side-eye on this one, Jungle Fury - and we've historically had female Rangers of all colors, and this is awesome. It's great that it's so easy for any young girl watching the show to find a hero who physically resembles her and that she can relate to. That said, it's been exactly HOW LONG since we've had a black woman on a Ranger team? Was the last one Katie?! That is kind of not cool. (Particularly since when there IS a black woman on a Ranger team, she's inevitably awesome...) What's with the last two teams looking SO much like each other? And really, show, on those occasions when there is only one female Ranger on a team, does it ALWAYS have to be a blonde-haired white chick?
- Re. personalities and team roles: This I think is hugely important, particularly since Rangers are so frequently adolescents and that stage of life is so much about who you are in relation to your friends and in the social structure of your larger peer group. PR does a pretty awesome job of portraying women with different strengths and different roles accordingly. I love when female Rangers are the brains of the team (Kendrix and Rose), I love it when female Rangers are the brawn of the team (Katie), and I especially love it when female Rangers are leaders (Delphine, Jen, Taylor, Charlie, Lauren, Gia...that's a damn good list!). Female Rangers don't even fit neatly into just one or even several cookie cutters, and that's a wonderful thing, once again because it gives people so much to relate to. For my part, I remember how jazzed I was to see Kendrix in glasses. Girls could wear glasses and still be cute! And even more so when Kira came along, looking like she dressed out of Hot Topic and playing the guitar and snarking all the livelong day. No complaints here, show. None at all.
- Re. career paths: And when we see female characters in PR who are adults, it gets even better. Awesome women in education? Ms. Applebee, Alyssa, Rose. Awesome women in medicine? Dana. Awesome women in the military? Taylor. In law enforcement? Jen, Katie, Syd and Z. In business? Hayley. In STEM fields? Oh god. Kendrix, Angela Fairweather, Kat Manx, Dr. K...am I missing anyone? Probably because PR has a fucking monopoly on badass lady scientists. YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE, KIDS.
- Re. sexuality and gender presentation: Unfortunately, it'll be a cold day in hell before we ever see a canon non-heterosexual romance on a kid's show, and that is what it is. We have Gia and Emma, and I'll take that gladly for the time being. Hell; the actresses even seem to ship it. I would dearly love to see more women on the show who aren't conventionally feminine, especially in the more recent seasons. It's been done before, albeit in a limited way, and tends to result in great characters when it happens. I love Vida for this, the amount of shade she throws about having to be the PINK Ranger, but I think Katie is my favorite example. Walks around in combat boots, has super strength, but also keeps a diary and is a hopeless romantic! Now THAT is a well-done balance of traditionally masculine and feminine traits.
- Re. women in mentoring roles: Show needs more of this in general, particularly since Shayla and Dimitria were not always the most effective mentors in the world. Then again, female Dr. K is one of my favorite PR mentors of all time, though, so there is that.
- Re. female villains: I love, love, LOVE, and did I mention LOVE PR's tradition of evil ladies. We've got Rita, who defeated Zordon himself AND tricked Lord Zedd into sharing his throne. We've got Divatox, who walks around in a ridiculously oversexualized costume but is generally way more concerned about revenge and booty than she is about men. We've got Astronema - I could write an essay on her arc alone. Trakeena - WONDERFUL character development. Tenaya - the sassmaster. I dig that PR doesn't pull punches with female villains or female monsters. Evil women are always presented as equal to evil men and as much or more a credible threat than the male villains.
... I feel like this post sucks and makes no sense, but if there's any other diversity/feminism stuff about PR you think I should touch on, just ask in the comments. Sorry, Angel. ^^a
Tomorrow's post is the story of how I got into fandom, particularly PR fandom, as requested by
tsukino_akume . And Day 5's post will be favorite fictional therapists, as requested by thesecondbatgirl .
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Date: 2014-01-04 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 05:56 pm (UTC)Fun fact
Date: 2014-01-05 01:41 am (UTC)Kelsey is technically supposed to be bisexual/homosexual. (I've heard both declarations from people who know the crew/writers.) You see it most obviously in her first focus episode with the astronaut Nancy Cooper. They share all the same markers as other het Ranger one ep romances, the intense eye contact, the hugging, Kelsey and her strengths being what saves Nancy. Obviously, they were limited by both being a kids show and being in the 90s/early 00s. There's also another scene Miss F gets trapped in the cave in, two scientists escaped. The Rangers cluster around the male scientist, except for Kelsey, who's off to the side, fussing over the female scientist on her own.
On a different tangent, I'd argue that Hayley and Kat Manx share co-mentoring with Tommy and Cruger. Though I'd love more female mentors in general. Maybe Gosei's older sister, having had her fun in her small, but powerful parrot body, comes back with a pirate ship to help out the Rangers? (Or his mom. That would be awesome and kinda hilarious.)
What do you think of what we've seen of the female Rangers after their term is up? Like Kira's musical success, or Kat going for ballet, or Jen's bad ass time cop in the black leather outfit?
Re: Fun fact
Date: 2014-01-12 06:47 pm (UTC)Hayley is definitely as much co-mentor/team mom as she is a tech. Kat's role is interesting. She's not so much mentor to the team in its entirety as she is...a personal mentor to Cruger? I mean, she's not his direct subordinate, and their professional and personal relationships are close enough that she has zero qualms about calling him out on his bullshit. This actually is probably why I ship them.
And your idea for Megaforce!Navi earns lulz of approval. XD
As for lady Rangers post-canon, I kind of wish there was more of this onscreen? I mean, I have scads of headcanon on where everyone ends up. But it's always nice for canon to recognize it. There was that Zeo episode about Tanya being offered a recording contract and the record exec being willing to wait for her, so it would have been nice to see a nod to that in Turbo after she graduates and gives up her powers. Alas. Headcanon this is and headcanon it shall stay.
In general there's such an emphasis on Rangers being able to follow their dreams when they move on from being Rangers - Kim's gymnastics career, Kat's pursuit of a career in dance, Kira's musical career all being great examples of this - that I approve of a lot. It's great to see female characters focusing on pursuing a career that makes them happy. It's even better when they keep leaving Tommy behind to do it. XD
And badass-timecop Jen is one of my favorite things in the world, but was there ever any real explanation for what she was doing and WHY? I mean, did she get a promotion? She's no longer a uniformed Time Force officer but rather a member of some kind of SWAT/Special Ops? How does that jibe with her role as a Ranger and part of that team? I think I may need fic about this.
Re: Fun fact
Date: 2014-01-13 04:18 pm (UTC)As for Jen, well, she was wearing the Time Force logo on her bad ass leather outfit. (And seriously, I would kill to get a shot of the whole team in those outfits. Especially Katie.) The impression I got was that the black leather outfit was likely a uniform for more tailing work. Jen was on mission to trail the MutOrgs, and the black combined with the cloak would make her far less likely to be seen than the standard white outfit that we see when Time Force was making obvious arrests.
Since Jen still had her morpher, it's likely that the Rangers in the future wound up functioning more like how Alex was pre-series. They might have non-Ranger back-up/partners, but in actual confrontations with mutants, would go in solo. (Looking at Jen's unmorphed weapons here, the blasters/rifle blaster are pretty powerful and speak of someone who's come packing to handle herself.) Especially since Ransik is arrested, so the assumption would be that most mutant criminals would be assumed to be weaker/acting alone. The fact that Jen hadn't engaged the MutOrgs before she dropped off the grid suggests that she realized that these ones were more powerful and was trying to get more information before calling in back-up to engage them, especially once she followed them to the past.
*coughs* Sorry, that was longer than anticipated. I've been working on Time Force backstory for that TF fic series I've been doing.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-09 04:35 am (UTC)