I've lived most of my life in big cities, in the gayest neighborhoods, because the gayest neighborhoods are always down town, and I love down towns. It's also true that I am in fact bisexual, but it's irrelevant. I could be straight and still say I know the LGBT community very well. (
Even though I never liked the concept of an LGBT community, but that's a matter for another day, maybe I say that only because I'm bisexual, who knows.)
I agree with Jackolope. Kato doesn't have an exactly favorable view of the T part of LGBT, especially given the cross-dresser chapter. That representation showed gender dysphoria ("hiding a woman's heart") and cross-dressing as a humorous shameful pasttime. IMO that is probably the worst chapter of AoEx.
Katou's okama / trans ghost reminded me of Eiichiro Oda's okama characters. Eiichiro Oda has many okama characters. At first people might say these characters are horrible caricatures, and are absolutely unreal in so many ways. Mainly, people (who usually aren't even trans themselves) point at the fact that these characters are extremely flirty and doesn't care if the people they flirt with are uneasy. And I agree this is exaggerated. But it's not entirely false. Most of the trans people I've met are more or less like that. You know why? Because if they weren't, I wouldn't know they were trans; they would be hiding it. If a man wants to dress like a woman, or act like a woman, or be treated as a woman (or at least what people think women wear, do, and are treated like) (and same for the other way around), they have to be at least somewhat extravagant and not be scared of what others thinks, and therefore sometimes tend to go too far or not care enough about how people feel and how uneasy they might be. They're used to some people being uneasy around them even when they're not doing anything. So it's no wonder sometimes they're not sure anymore whether they've gone too far, and that sometimes they stop caring. The other thing people (who aren't trans) point out, is how absurdly these okama characters dress or act. But if One Piece thought me, and others, one thing is that you can't judge people only by how they look. If people could stop thinking about how much a character may be unreal or how a character may or may not influence the image of people in real life, if you just accept that characters are what they are and if you judge them as individuals, you'll see that characters like Bon Clay and Ivankov have their own flaws and qualities, their own backgrounds and goals, and no matter how they are, it's only true for them. Then maybe you'll realize that not only the okama characters in One Piece dress in absurd ways or act in absurd ways. And, more importantly, maybe you'll realize that beyond the absurdities Eiichiro Oda is creating each of these characters as individuals.
Also, there's a difference between presentation of characters who happen to be gay, and characters who have a fetishized gay relationship. The latter is obnoxiously prevalent in a lot of shounen/shoujo ai and fanwork, even Clamp. Still, AoEx has neither.
I'm not sure what you mean by "characters who have a fetishized gay relationship". Fetishized by whom? The fans? You mean when there's no relationships, but the fans like to think there's one?
I don't know if it answers what you meant to say, but...
Authors often purposefully make romance subtitle to let people decide whether there is romance or not, in an attempt to please everyone even though sometimes it ends up pleasing no one. In the case of gay romance, it's because they're aware that most people aren't interested in that. But it also often happens with straight romance, when the authors themselves aren't interested in that or don't want to make it the main focus of their stories.
Sadly, Kato solely presents LGBT or any reference to such as jokes (the cross-dresser, the inn keeper thinking Yukio and Rin were a gay couple, the joking cross-dressing of the male Exwires). You can argue Toudou and Lightning, but for them, their "fondness" doubles as further evidence of how creepy/weird they are. I don't think Kato's going to change though, and try to appreciate the manga for what it is.
What's wrong with jokes. All of these jokes sincerely made me laugh. And if jokes is all that I can get I'll take it.
Not to forget there was no in-universe bigotry (arguably, some people could say there's some meta bigotry, though I don't think so) the old lady was super accepting and when Rin saw the okama he just made the remark that she was in fact an okama and then acted fairly normal with her.
[EDIT: And even if there was in-universe bigotry, that wouldn't prove the bigotry of the author, that would only show that the author decided to represent reality.
But Katou didn't even go that way. None of her character seems bigoted. So I highly doubt she is.
Btw, it's not bigotry when characters are frightened by unwanted advances.
Izumo was frightened when Mephisto turned from a dog into a human and warped his arms around her. And they're a woman and a man.
Shura was frightened when Yukio took on her joke and agreed to oil her. And they're a woman and a man.
Do you think the people behind Neon Genesis Evangelion are bigoted? When they made one of the oldest most popular gay romance in anime that I can think of, between Shinji and Kaworu. And also made scenes like
this. That pretty much looks like what Lightning does. But whether Lighting or Kaji are gay or not. Or whether Shinji or Rin were frightened or not. I don't think that makes them, nor the people who created them, bigoted in any way. I think that's an open minded and accepting way to act.]
These days? I don't know about everywhere in the world, but in Japan at least, I haven't seen much changes during the last 20+ years. Shounen-ai and Shoujo-ai has always been around in manga, anime, video games, and others, whether it's only fanservice or completely canon story elements.
In our country, it's considered very awful. People mock you and humiliate you. Regardless of how the gay parade was held in one of our cities, people who came to the road showed them hate and shame. I'm not a hater, but I find it's very unnatural and disgusting. They break the law of every morality and when they say that "love has no rules," they are wrong. I'd rather encourage the love of people with big age gaps rather than two gay people.
Oh, sorry for not being clear. I didn't mean that I think these things are accepted everywhere in the world. I meant that no matter where you are, it hasn't changed that much in the last 20 years, as far as I know.
*takes out the knife that was just stabbed in the heart and throws it aside*
Yukio got mad and pushed her, that was wrong of him, he blamed himself for it.
Shiemi was insensitive for a moment there, that was wrong of her, she blamed herself for it.
They both contributed to this conversation going wrong and they both take parts of the blame for it.
You're right but I didn't really get it what you meant by Shiemi being insensitive towards Yukio cuz she was totally sensitive at that moment. She tried to speak with him about his problems, tried to solve his difficulties, being there for him and giving him her support. (unless you mean of her unintentionally friend-zoning him?)
I talked about this many times in many threads already, but to make a long story short, Shiemi failed at understanding Yukio, first, she dismissed his worries when she said he was wrong to feel alienated (and she should have understood that her feeling like she's his friend doesn't change how he feels), then, she turned the conversation to her and Rin's worries, also adding weight on Yukio's shoulders by saying they're worrying because of him, finally, mentioning Rin was in itself not a good idea since at that very moment Yukio was in a fight with him and trying to avoid him, and Shiemi knew that.
You're wrong. Holding a position of finding something disgusting is actively shaming the people involved, which is an act of hate.
Hate is not nice, but everyone has the right to hate. Unless you want us to call the thought police here? X)
I hate religions. And I have nothing against shaming or ridiculing religious zealots.
If I want to have the right to do that, everyone should have the same right to hate my ideologies and try to shame or ridicule me.
[EDIT: Shaming and ridiculing bad ideas and the people who holds them is the best way to change peoples mind.
The better an idea is, the harder it should be to shame or ridicule.
In the end, the best ideas should prevail.
That's what I think.]
Free speech is to protect all speech. Including the ones you disagree with, even the ones most people disagree with. If free speech can't protect controversial ideas, then there's no free speech at all. Because uncontroversial ideas don't need protection.
Right now in the US and in many western countries, saying bad things about gays is controversial, but a few decades back, it was the other way around. Without the west valuing freedom of speech, we might not have gotten where we are now. So we should keep valuing it.
Calling for hate speech is just a way to try to shut people down. It goes against free speech.
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