Apparently so. At least that is the view of Peter Sagal from NPR. He wrote an article about how he took his wife and three daughters to see Horton Hears a Who! was disgusted because Ned the Mayor had 96 daughters and one son. He states:
In a new subplot added by the filmmakers, the mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters. He has one son. Guess who gets all his attention? Guess who saves the day? Go ahead, think about it, I’ll wait.
No I won’t. What’s so irritating about this casual slap at daughters is the sense that the makers of the film didn’t really mean it. They seemed mostly interested in riffs on pop culture and jokes about violating bodily integrity. But what writers are told, you see, in Hollywood notes meetings, is that every character has to make a journey, towards something he needs and ultimately gets, and what they decided the Mayor of Whoville needs was a better relationship with his son. Here is a father with 96 daughters — 96 amazing, beautiful, unpredictable, mysterious, distinct, glorious human beings — but gosh, what in the world is he going to care about? I know, let’s give him a moody silent uninteresting offspring, but this one’s got a Y chromosome… that’ll be boffo box office!
Have the clowns who made this movie ever met a daughter? Have they dated one? If they did, did they meet the daughter’s father? Did they then ask that daughter’s father if there was anything more dramatic, interesting, arresting, and moving to him than his relationship with his daughter? Did they ask him if he might find that a close relationship with said daughter might be something he would care about? What do they imagine that we do — sit around, and watch our daughters grow and change and suffer and fail and triumph — and idly wish for something more INTERESTING?
Well, I will not bother asking if Sagal has ever met a son or dated one (a rather stupid remark either way) or met a son’s father or ask a son’s father if there was anything more dramatic, interesting, arresting, and moving to him than his relationship with his son or ask him if he might find that a close relationship with said son might be something he would care about or if he imagines that they sit around and watch their sons grow and change and suffer and fail and triumph — and idly wish for something more interesting because apparently Sagal does.
It is great that as a father he loves his daughters that much. However, it is disconcerting that he uses that love and affection to attack a father’s love for his son. Frankly, there have not been that many movies that portray father-son relationships all that well lately, and Horton Hears a Who! may be one of those films too (I have yet to see it). But to vilify this scenario so much as if it were an intentional attack on girls makes no sense. Half the children in this country are boys. Many of them do not have their fathers in their lives. It is sad that Sagal never once bothered to consider that maybe the father-son relationship in Horton Hears a Who! might help those boys get a sense of what a father’s love is like. Maybe it might remind boys of their fathers who have passed. Sagal does not seem to consider boys or the fathers of boys at all.
He goes on to state:
We got into the car outside the cinpeplex and I was quite in lather, let me tell you. How come one of the GIRLs didn’t get to save Whoville? I cried.
“Yeah!” said my daughters.
“And while we’re at it, how come a girl doesn’t get to blow up the Death Star! Or send ET home? Or defeat Captain Hook! Or Destroy the Ring of Power!”
“That’s rotten!” cried my daughters.
“How come Trinity can’t be the One who defeats the Matrix!” I yelled.
“What are you talking about?” they said.
“You’ll find out later,” I said. “But here’s one: how come a girl doesn’t get to defeat Lord Voldemort!”
“Well, wait a minute, Papa,” they said. “None of us would want to mess with him.”
I took their point. But I still wanted to grab that fictional, silly mayor of Whoville by his weirdly ruffled neck, and say, you see those 96 people over there? Those girls, those women, those daughters? You know what they’re saying to you, every minute of every day that you waste thinking about anything else?
They are shouting at you. They are shouting:
“We are here! We are here! We are here!”
According to the plot summary, the Mayor’s son Jojo does not even speak out of fear of disappointing his father. It is truly sad that Sagal paints the Mayor’s concern for his depressed and silent son as wasting time thinking about “anything else.” Perhaps Sagal is just speaking as father of only girls, but to be honest one wonders whether he would treat his own son, grandson or nephew as so utterly and completely undeserving of attention.
As for Sagal’s attacks on male heroes, god forbid he ever finds out Naruto. That series is nothing more than boys trying to find love and affection. What I find so problematic about Sagal’s attack on male heroes is that it is an attack on male heroes. In his anger he does not suggest creating female characters, but totally removing male characters. Leia should be the hero. Trinity should be the hero. Hermione should be the hero. And the male characters? Well, like Jojo from the film, they should be totally ignored regardless of how depressed, anxious, moody or hurt them may feel.
In short: we do not need them.
Many feminists like Sagal treat male heroes as inherently sexist and inherently bad and inherently useless. Not because there is anything specifically wrong with the characterization or the story or the plot, just because they are male and that jibes against feminist theory and opinion. It is interesting to read some of the complaints as feminists attempt to bemoan how there are no female leads… by noting in the first couple of posts how common female leads are.
The irony is that if any male complained about a show like Buffy or films like Alien focusing on females he would get lambasted for being afraid of strong women. Gender should not matter, he would be told. You should be able to identify with the character because it is a good story, not because of the way the character looks.
Funny how gender suddenly matters when the character is male.
This used to happen to me well cos I had the audacity to point out that Joss Whedon is an unrealistic utopian (in more unflattering terms). After I took the people who used to launch this shaming attack to a nearby dojo and showed them the unrelenting onesidedness of mixed fights, they quickly dropped their ‘women can do it all’ attitude.
Oddly, I have NEVER met a single woman who has taken a martial arts class who subsequently thought that men are afraid of so called ’strong’ women. Wonder why that is…..
That is because the phrase is used as an attack on a guy’s masculinity, not actual fear as in “What real man would be afraid of women?” That is part of irony of such comments. Feminists who use them are essentially perpetuating the very sexism they claim they want to change.
You couldn’t be more wrong.
And despite how much I love it, there are problems with Buffy, there’s quite a critique in that thread.
Also, way to point out TWO examples to prop up your point.
I pointed out two examples because I was referring to how feminists would react to males no liking or watching those kinds of shows and films, not because those were the only ones I knew of. There are plenty:
Elektra
Ultraviolet
Catwoman
Aeon Flux
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Charlie’s Angels
Tomb Raider
Kill Bill
Sin City (none of the females were villains)
Dark Angel
The Sarah Conner Chronicles
The Bionic Woman
Alias
Painkiller Jane
Tin Man
Wonder Woman
Joan of Arcadia
Xena: Warrior Princess
Birds of Prey
Blood +
Sailor Moon
Kim Possible
The Life and Times of Juniper Lee
The Powerpuff Girls
These were just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. There are many more movies, films and tons of anime that focus on female characters and have them ending the conflict or driving the plot. So the argument that there are not any female heroes and they never to save the day just does not hold any water.
One could make an argument that female-driven stories are not all that popular, but then one would have to ask why if women make up half the potential market and are probably aware of these shows, films, novels and comics they are not flocking to support them. One would also have to reexamine the feminist position on gender in entertainment, especially if feminists believe it is necessary to show women as heroes for young girls’ benefit, but apparently do not think it is equally necessary to show males as heroes (and not demonize them) for young boys’ benefit. There may be a reason beyond “misogyny” that explains why boys prefer male heroes and therein why the film, tv and comic book industry, supported by a largely male audience, focuses on male heroes.
In public schools, feminized churches, and our popular culture, a uniform standard of good behavior has emerged: just be nice. This is not enough. It ignores te unique excellence and distinct roles to be played by men and women in a healthy social life. But this is no matter to advocates; for them, sex differences are merely a social construct designed to subordinate women. Differences must be hammered out.
Boys who show energy and initiative are labeled as sufferers from attention deficit disorder and quickly put on Ritalin. Worse, older masculine ideals are put down as archaic, oppressive, “sexist,” and barbaric. This has led to a degradation of both sexes. Men are increasingly predatory or useless, fathering kids they quickly abandon, leaving their older wives with children, and retreating from responsibility with a cynical demand for equal treatment. If they are less anti-social, they are wimpy, insecure, and superfluous figures. Women, in the name of equal rights, find themselves barren and unattractive after investing their prime years in a career that does not live up to billing in terms of fulfillment. Even if they manage to settle down, masculine virtues like emotional self control and bearing are in short supply among their mates
A good example of a female-lead anime is Mai HiME. The cast is majority female, with 15 important female characters (almost all of which have great power) and 4 important male characters (2 of which are vilains, the other 2 lack power in comparison to everyone else).
Another female-lead anime is Noir. Two female assassins who excel at their jobs. Males are almost always the vilains (notable exceptions are there), while if there are female characters, they are important, powerful or leaders (hardly ever goons who get shot without having a second, like the majority of male characters in it).
Thirdly, there is Princess Tutu, an anime that seems to be somewhat based on German (though it’s in Japanese), based on ballet with a majority of female characters. It’s a magical-girl type of anime and the girls are the ones to advance the story really, the main vilain is a guy again. Notable in it is the presence of two rather sadistic characters, one male, one female (sadistic in personality, rejoicing in the misfortune of others).
I enjoyed Noir, but was rather annoyed by the slow DVD release. I also liked the unedited Cardcaptor Sakura. Pretty much anything by CLAMP has fairly strong female characters. And then there is Miazaki’s work which always features compelling female characters.
In comics, my favorite book for a long time was Batgirl until they retooled it and tried to push the story away from Cassie fitting into her role as Batgirl and turned it into Cassie becoming a “typical girl,” which was followed by turning her into a villain. However, the series is worth picking up in trades, if one can still find them.
And one of my favorite manga/anime, Full Metal Alchemist, features a host of incredibly strong female characters, although the Elric brother are the focus of the story.
TS, you’re missing the point. In all of the shows you named with strong female leads, there are also strong men present. In the Horton movie, Sagal was pointing out that the movie completely overlooked the possibility of having strong females and relied only upon a single male to “save the world.” There was no balance in Horton. Therein lies the difference.
In most of the films, comics and shows listed the male characters are at best secondary characters that rarely ever save the day and rarely, if ever, are the focus of the story. This is not unusual in storytelling. The protagonist of the story is typically the best developed character and everyone else is fleshed out slightly less. In some instances there is nothing much to the secondary characters at all.
That is what makes the complaint so odd. Most of the films, comics and shows listed above routinely have the day being saved solely by a single female character, and yet one finds this “balanced.” Change the genders and suddenly it is “unbalanced,” even if it were exactly the same story. So far no one has suggested changing the story on any level beyond simply making one of the daughters “save the day.”
On a story level the complaint makes no sense. Essentially, Ned the Mayor would have 96 daughters and one depressed, anti-social, completely silent son that feels he cannot meet his father’s expectations whose needs Ned would ignore to instead focus on one of his daughters who would for some unknown reason wait until the last minute to speak in order to save the Whos. This would mean that Jojo would either inexplicably break his silence at the end of the film to join in the Who shout or that he would be totally silent–and therefore useless–and could (and should) be removed from the story altogether.
The only way to justify his presence is to either make him an antagonist of his father, flip the genders entirely (having 96 sons and one moody daughter) or make the son one of the main protagonists, playing on the fact that he does not speak for most of the film until the end. The filmmakers chose the latter, most likely because they wanted to play on the father/son dynamic. Socially and culturally speaking, sons are required to earn their father’s love, pride and respect, and the message from the film seems to be that just like with his daughters, Ned’s (or a father’s) love, pride and respect is automatic and unconditional for all his children; Jojo does not have to be anything other than who he is, just like his 96 sisters.
That seems like a great message and one that probably would resonate with males and females regardless of the gender of the characters. That is what makes it even odder that feminists would complain about the film. It is as if one is admitting that if the characters do not look like one does (or in Sagal’s case match his own experience as a parent) then one is totally incapable of identifying or empathizing with the characters. That says far more about one’s own prejudices and biases than it does about the filmmakers.
The problem isn’t with a single book, movie, TV show or whatever. The problem is with a TREND. A list of 25 is nothing but anecdotal, and honestly, much of that list is populated by women who are either sex objects or uberfemme or both. The Catwoman movie, btw, is if anything more evidence of this trend of weak women in TV and movies. Originally, Catwoman does not need any hoodoo magic to make her badass- she’s just NATURALLY that way. But pre-powers, Movie Catwoman is a shy, demure woman working in cosmetics, who is rescued by a man and then falls in love with him, which is essentially the plot of every crappy movie ever. Not to mention they totally changed her moral outlook on life. Let’s face it- they just wanted an excuse to stick Halle Berry in a leather catsuit, because that’s the only thing “Patience Phillips” and the original Catwoman have in common. They turn her into a timid little secretary in Batman Returns as well. Look at pretty much any comic book to movie adaptation. X-men’s original script had Rogue saving Wolverine, whom Magneto would kidnap because he needed the adamantium to complete his machine, but this was nixed. X3’s Callisto? What. The. Hell. Pretty colored tattoos do not equal full-body scarring and a missing eye, and the original Callisto does not suck up to topsiders. Look at Mystique’s hanging all over Magneto, and willingly taking The Cure in Magneto’s place, and her obvious youth after taking said cure. She’s a freaking LESBIAN with Destiny, ffs, serves only herself, and “was not born last week- or last century for that matter”. “The Spirit” casts Silken Floss as “a sexy and intelligent secretary”, when she is originally DR. Silken Floss, a nuclear physicist AND surgeon. Over and over and over, strong, non-stereotypical women in written fiction are bowlderized in movie adaptations, and big surprise when the “original” female characters are of the same archetype. The “Horton Hears A Who” plot edit is just one more in a long list. The original book did NOT portray women as being an obstacle to the happy ending, so why did the folks down at Hollywood decide to add that?
So look at your list again. Eliminate any characters that are portrayed as sex objects over power fantasies, any characters whose weakness is their male love interest, and any character that is sugar and spice channel all day, every day. There are still a few on there that are good female counterparts to these male power fantasies, but it’s a much shorter list, because most of the movies you listed were not made for women. They were made for men who like the idea of having sex with women who are powerful–but not TOO powerful, and of course we must always emphasize that they are very feminine and available and fuckable. THAT is the problem.
There is no trend unless one specifically targets certain genres, in which case one could make the same argument about women being overly featured in to character studies, romances and a large portion of erotica and period pieces. Action/adventure stories, spy stories, sci-fi and fantasy were genres initially created to target a male audience, it is not surprising that the characters are designed to appeal to that audience.
One will get no argument from me that Catwoman was a total waste of money. However, comic book movies are notorious for altering characters. For example, in Batman and Robin Bane was made into a stupid, lumbering grunting thing whereas in the comic he is incredibly intelligent and skilled. In X-men Sabertooth was inexcusably bad, Toad was basically Darth Maul with a tongue and Cyclops was a moody wimp who got killed by the love of his life–off screen. Interesting characters like Beast, Nightcrawler and Angel received the weakest explanations possible. And then there was last year’s Transformers… Male characters do not fair any better and if anything they are treated quite worse.
Actually, the writers followed the book’s plot fairly closely. Sour Kangaroo being one of the antagonists and a Who named Jo-jo saving the day is in the original story. More so, Audrey Geisel has been very specific about allowed changes and gender changes do not seem to be something she allows, so it is fair to assume that Jo-jo’s initial gender is male (I have not read the book, so I cannot state whether it was ambiguous or whether the character was shown in the book). Basically this means that all the writers did was expand the story to make it feature length. There is no evidence to suggest they intentionally attacked or ignored females nor can that be construed from their film without a most severely skewed preexisting position on what a children’s film should be.
Again, this kind of position results from a severely skewed preexisting position of what such stories should be. If one looked at each of those stories one would be hard pressed to find any instance of females being used as disposable grunts, thugs or foils. One would also be hard pressed to find females randomly beaten up or killed just to demonstrate the female protagonist’s power. In every instance the disposable people are always male. And in most instances the evil, depraved character is also male. Not only that, but in most of those stories the female characters have little to no trouble trouncing male villains, even villains who are reportedly badasses (like in Kill Bill vol.2).
As for the sex appeal aspect, this past weekend I watched a host of spy films and the males characters were almost always very masculine, available and fuckable. This holds true for many actions films, dramatic leads and a host of other genres, including just about every story meant for a female audience (assuming males play in significant role in the stories to begin with). So again, one’s complaint is valid only to the extent that one sticks to specific genres, in which case one must first ask who the target audience is.
I’m covering certain genres because these are the genres that my friends and I watch, and that is what we talk about, and that is what I know. We aren’t huge fans of Harlequin novels or erotica. I was under the impression that there were about two main characters in each romance novel, one of each gender, and that this was related to heterosexism rather than misandry.
If you haven’t read the book, it is a little dishonest for you to judge whether or not the plot was followed closely. The problem is not that a man saved the day. The problem is that the subplot, in which his 96 sisters are an obstacle to saving the day, was added. The original book placed no emphasis on his gender, nor were any siblings mentioned. I’m not a professional writer, but I assume are other ways to add story length without adding the “one boy > ninety-six girls” slant to a story that had no such subtext in the original.
Women are quite often used and abused as plot devices, and in ways that men are often not subjected to. I haven’t seen many cases of a heroine’s (totally helpless) boyfriend being abducted by one of her enemies, or of male heroes being raped for the sake of “characterization”. Both are popular memes for female characters. They’re also killed, depowered, enslaved, mutilated, etc., just as their male counterparts (see “Women In Refrigerators”).
Finally, the difference between sexualization of men and women in films is the point of view in which it is presented. The guy gets laid because getting laid ups his awesome factor, and makes more guys want to be him. The girl gets laid because she’s hot, and guys want to screw her.
I don’t see how “target audience” is really a good excuse for any of this. DC and Marvel reps both have stated that they are trying to get girls to read more comics, and why wouldn’t they? It’s poor business sense to ignore half of your potential market. Even if we were to accept that only men read comics because comics are made for men, it is pretty disturbing if men enjoy or accept stories about Ms. Marvel being impregnated through rape, or Starfire being forced into marriage.
Romance and erotica stories are by and large told from the female perspective and generally feature rather archetypal/stereotypical male characters for her to fall for. In some instances the stories are sophisticated, but in most instances the stories maintain the stereotypes, though it has become more common for certain types of romances to add a modern twist, i.e. making the male interest a cheater and usually “bisexual.”
Um, no it is not thanks to Wikipedia. And again, Audrey Geisel is very particular about what changes she allows and plot has never been one of them. Of all the films made, none of them have fundamentally altered Seuss’ original story, so it seems highly unlikely that Geisel would suddenly allow it.
The objection Sagal raised was not that the 96 daugthers were an obstacle, but that none of them got to save the day and that Ned was wasting time “thinking about anything else” than his clearly more important daughters. However, in no way have they even been presented as an obstacle. They do not prevent Jojo from speaking, they do not cause him to feel distressed, they do not make him think he is not good enough for his father and they do not prevent him from saving the day. They are a subplot ploy, but they serve a totally different function. By Ned having 96 daughters he has a ready-made excuse for not noticing his son’s obvious needs and therefore cannot be presented as a typical emotionless, uncaring father. They also highlight the loneliness and isolation Jojo feels by literally making him the odd one out.
That is not even historically accurate. If one reads older sci-fi, fantasy and action adventure stories the male sidekicks were routinely kidnapped, knocked out, tortured, threatened with barely veiled rape and sometimes killed. This still continues in these genres, although now the sidekick no longer has any value beyond being the pitiful comic relief. He is saved only because the hero has to save everyone, not because he has any particular value. The characters are often so useless that even when killed their deaths do not effect the main protagonist (or the story) at all.
The difference is that this treatment of males is so common and so pervasive that it goes completely unnoticed, and when mentioned gets readily denied. This is how the same people who complained about Sue Dibny and the Spoiler conveniently forget about the Blue Beetle, Hawkeye, the Vision, Joseph, Jason Todd, Bukcy, Azrael and a host of other male characters randomly killed off to either serve as a plot point or because no one liked them (see Infinite Crisis, Avengers Disassembled). And then there are characters like Superboy and Kid Flash who were killed over money.
Actually, it is not if by specifically targeting other groups DC and Marvel stand to lose their core audience, which happens to be the case. The fact is that female superheroes do not sell well. When marketed to a male audience the heroines are rarely popular on their own and usually cannot sustain solo titles. When targeted to a female audience male readers immediately notice it and figure that the stories are not meant for them and therefore do not read them. So the Big Two’s only decision would be to either risk losing their core audience by changing male characters to female characters–alienating fans of both the original character and of male characters–or they can create new female characters (or they can change male characters) targeted at an audience that generally shows a disinterest in comics–and again alienating their core audience.
Coincidentally, even when stories do target and are marketed heavily to females the books do not sell nearly as well as their male counterparts. This is best seen with US manga sales, in which shounen (boys) manga generally outsells shojo (girls) manga. Ironically, a large portion of the people buying shounen manga are female.
As a practical matter, it is seems rather odd and ultimately arrogant and narcissistic for any group of people generally disinterested in a given form of entertainment to demand that the creators change their stories and shift focus from their fan-base to appeal to another group. This would be akin to men demanding that day-time television shift its market from middle-age women to college-age males because some of them are at home during the day. No network would do it because they would risk losing their wider viewership.
“This is best seen with US manga sales, in which shounen (boys) manga generally outsells shojo (girls) manga. Ironically, a large portion of the people buying shounen manga are female.”
Well, it seems the distinction (boy vs girl manga) holds strongest in Japan, where roles are clearly defined and any deviation is pretty much seen as a threat. Ironically they have no problem with transsexuals if they are conventional for the other role, because buddhism, unlike christianity, doesn’t condemn in the same way.
Many shojo anime and mangas have had a lot of success with boys, it depends on the title and genre (within shojo).
Escaflowne (the anime) is rather unique in that it combines shojo and shonen into one. It has a shojo drawing style (bishonen), and the story is told from Hitomi (a rather independant short-haired female student)’s point of view. The shonen side is with giant robot armors (well they seem to be entirely mechanical, and driven by dragon hearts) and combat.
In manga they have done a shojo version and a shonen version. It seems only the shonen version got to North America in the end. The manga is extremely different from the anime, with only key points remaining consistent.
To name a few very popular shonen anime:
Dragon Ball (Dragon Ball just like that, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT - it’s all a continuation), which is insanely long.
Naruto (and Naruto Shippuuden, which is set 2.5 years later), which is also rather insanely long, having 397 chapters of manga currently, and 274 episodes (amongst which 85 fillers).
YuGiOh. Though they sort of censored many parts of the manga for the anime. The target audience of the manga seemed to be higher than that of the anime. It’s pretty common in the manga to have the protagonist and his friends under death threat, especially in the early story. The alter-ego of the protagonist (called Yami Yugi) is also more evil in the manga, making some people insane.
Ranma ½. It’s an old series, though younger than Dragon Ball. It seems to have a lesser audience. It’s a reference for many in the transgender community due to the main plot device (changing sex with contact with water, depending on the temp).
As for shojo that are also very popular, there is Sailor Moon and it’s plethora of sequels.
Those are the ones I know that made it to North America. I know many more Japanese anime that may never make it, or have never made it (not on TV anyway).
There are plenty of manga and anime stories that appeal to both audiences, however, in the US the bulk of the most popular stories feature shounen–i.e. male-focused–stories. These stories generally feature few female characters and usually those female characters are not part of the general plot. Even in Naruto characters like Tsunade and Sakura play only small roles, although both of them (like all the characters) get their moments to shine.
It remains unclear why male-focused stories tend to be more popular than female-focused stories, but this trend seems to hold true regardless of what culture one looks at, particularly when it involves action adventure stories. If anyone wants to change that, the way to go about it is not by attacking male-focused stories or changing male characters into female characters, but by writing stories for a female audience, developing the audience and demonstrating that there is a desire for those kinds of stories. This probably will not attraction many boys or men, but it would create a new genre that would target a currently untargeted audience.
That seems like a more practical and fair way rather than barring or banning male-focused stories or forcing them to be politically correct.
There’s few female characters in Naruto, true.
Tsunade, Sakura, Anko, Kurenai, Tsunade’s assistant (her name is not said enough to remember), Hinata, Ino, Temari, Chiyo.
Male characters include:
Naruto, Sasuke, Jiraiya, Kabuto, Iruka, Orochimaru, Kakashi, The first 4 Hokages (5th being Tsunade), at least the 3rd and 4th Kazekages, Gaara (5th Kazekage), Kankurou, Kiba, Shino, Shikamaru, Choji, Lee, Gai (it sounds like ‘mighty guy’ for his full name - but is translated as Maito Gai), Ibiki, Neji, Yamato, Sai, Itachi, Pein, Madara…
(those are central characters more or less - or play an important role)
Though the value of friendship, the hardships of loneliness and rejection and mentor-student relationships are explored rather in depht.
Tsunade’s assistant’s name is Shizune. The reason for the small female cast is the same as it would be if it were a Western story: the target audience is young boys. Unsurprisingly, boys do not want to read about girls, they want to read about the adventures of other boys. So, most shounen stories feature male characters more prominently.
I don’t particularly agree with the part where Ino and Sakura flashback to being children, and where it was explained that “flower arranging is important for kunoichi”. I really see no way it would be of importance, as a ninja skill (sure it can be nice as a skill at all, but what is it doing in a ninja training??).
The difference between male and female ninjas is rarely brought up in the story itself though, the distinction seems to hold mostly in name since many of the female characters are pretty strong. They just rarely adopt a masculine attitude towards improving and competing.
By the way, Lee’s training is rather insane… 7000 push-ups on his thumbs in a row, while injured. He should be rippling with muscles lol.
This truly sad that I know this much about Naruto, nevertheless…
In the story, kunoichi need to learn flower arranging in case they are sent as a spy and need to pretend to be like an average woman. In other words, the mark would never suspect she was a ninja.
I know the reason, but male spies need no such training to appear like ‘normal citizens’, they only need to avoid drawing attention and keeping their chakra low (since ninjas would detect an increase in its surrounding).
I also don’t see the function of flower arranging as a spy. I mean, knowing or not about the flowers meaning, or what goes with what…I’m sure most people don’t know, or don’t care, and won’t ‘test’ someone on this topic (especially if they are clueless themselves).
As a recomfort, you should know that the cartoon network in Canada labels it as 18+ for violence, language and such. Funny that a mange/anime aimed at teenage boys would be restricted to adults (though no one checks).
I’m almost 26 too, and I know all 397 chapters and 274 episodes.
I would imagine that male ninjas need no such training because males in general do not arrange flowers in the Naruto world. They would likely receive training on how to convincingly appear like other people, say a cook or servant, but it is something that Kishimoto chose not to show.
The other thing to realize is that the target audience is young boys and so the activities that boys and girls are seen training in are going to differ. Flower arranging is seen as a girl activity while doing ridiculous amounts of push-ups that would rip the muscles from a normal child’s bones is seen as male. I think Kishimoto is simply following the typical stereotypes and then playing off them when it works in the story.
Different cultures react in strange ways to violence. In the English dub they initially edited out a lot of the blood, changed the swears to “darn” and “shoot” and in some cases cut scenes. They stopped doing it after a while (or so I heard as I refuse to watch the English dub), but in the manga the swears were in the first two volumes and later edited. The most recent alteration was Rock Lee’s use of Drunken Fist, which was changed to Potion Punch in the manga and Loopy Fist in the anime.