Topic Meme: Day 3

[pockysquirrel]

 angel_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 .