Forum - View topicINTEREST: Japanese High School Students Mix It Up for 'Sex Change Day'
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yotsubafanfan
 Posts: 653 |
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My high school did this my freshmen year, boy was it amazing! The Basketball players wore dresses and said in their most feminine voice "Heeeey Coach!" and he just face palmed in shame, it was hilarious! Sadly due to obvious reasons they never brought it back. But that was the most fun I've ever had in school. It's cool to see that this kind of thing happen, it's a great experience for everyone to try!
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yotsubafanfan
Posts: 653 |
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Actually believe it or not I live in one of the least LBGT- tolerant states in America, (Kentucky) and we actually did this my freshmen year in high school! Of course it was part of school Spirit week, but we did it! (Although this is very different considering we don't have school uniforms but a good majority of the school took part in it, even some of the teachers and the vice principals!) But we did it and had a great time too! Unfortunately because some of the boys wore "inappropriate attire like thongs and stuff they stopped having it after that one year, but it was still an amazing experience (although it really wasn't as bizarre for me since I'm a girl so that's used to wearing pants and my Dad's over sized football hoodies) but it's an experience everyone should go through, it really is a lot of fun and very educational!
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1781 Location: South America |
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Well, while I don't know almost anything about Japanese culture in general it's much more common to see cross dressing in anime than in western shows and films (well, comparing to Brazilian and American shows, though in Brazilian TV crossdressing for pure comedic purposes is very common).
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enurtsol
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Ha! Our school would have a field day with this! The biggest burliest guys would be the first in line! And they have to mind their manners too, like being embarrassed when they accidentally expose their chastity.
The young Justin Bieber and One Direction would fit right in!
In Western shows, it's not that weird anymore since it has already been done to death. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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There's a comedy rule that Bad Drag (like Sandler) isn't funny, period, but Reluctant Good Drag by someone who has to (like Dustin Hoffman), and trying to get out of it, is. The difference, apparently, is in the perception of why they're doing it. Most Bad Drag, like Tyler Perry or the Wayans, comes out of a basic misogyny, but in anime's case, most jokes about crossdressers usually have those who want to "not dream it, be it" (  ) as hideously unconvincing and delusionally failing at their attempts to be. (Consider D and "Miss" Captain Napolipolita from the Project A-Ko sequels, for ex.)
In a country where you're expected to Man Up to your responsibilities and not live in your own imaginary world, any personal attempt to make yourself into something you're (clearly) not is seen as pathetic, the stuff of ridicule, and reaching for less, and depicted as a buffoonish comic caricature of those who do. Extreme, perhaps, and a bit low, but not too far out of the imagination.
(Not to come to the defense of bullies--heavens no, not me!  --the fact that they've become a vague, shadowy Invisible Enemy to pile all responsibility, blame, and dismissive straw-man argument upon, and witch-hunt accuse anyone who even dares find fault, does cause one to devil's-advocate:
Isn't it, maybe, theoretically, just 1% possible that YOU might be the annoying provocateur, causing people to overreact and accuse you of being "shallow", "petty" or "immaturely self-absorbed"--And that the constant group-search for presumed unity and flashing of membership cards leads people to believe "you can't trust any of 'em" over individuality? Or do we lead holy blameless lives because we're so progressive? 
No attack here, just asking.) It is true that we'd take it wildly out of context over here--most of the posts in the thread are rich proof of that--but before we start jumping on the Rainbow Train about how we're Changing the World, it's pretty essential to take into account how much Japanese schools are not US schools. When roles are a thousand-year ingrained idea of the culture, "stepping outside social roles" is treated as a comic novelty of objective images--the stuff of goofy team and festival stunts--and even those who do in secret...don't do it very well, because they're not overly familiar with how. In a country where you're not even supposed to hold hands on the street (and where would that leave the overdoing-it-in-public LG community?), you gotta crawl before you can walk. Never mind wearing skirts, many Japanese single males are reportedly terrified to be seen taking cooking lessons, just to survive on their own. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Seriously? Even cooking is seen as humiliating by men in Japan? Then where did the decidedly mostly-male professional chefs come from? (I take it that culinary school is an exception, as you're training to earn status and to master an art.)
I read up on bullying in a lot of detail a couple years ago when I was a victim of workplace bullying--when I reported the guy, he was promptly fired, the person who fired him telling me that they don't tolerate workplace bullying in the establishment. I decided to look it up, as until then I thought bullying consisted of dumb jocks physically assaulting people smaller than themselves or threatening them with physical assault, and I learned about psychological bullying, then realizing the behavior I had read about happened all around me at middle school and high school. Even then, though, I knew that secondary school was one of the most, if not THE most societally repressive places I've ever been in. For the case of masculinity, both my middle school and high school were within gang territory. As a result, a good portion of the male student population idolized gangsters, and they would try to put on a tough look by shaving their heads, working out constantly to build muscle bulk, and swearing more than if Eric Cartman stepped on a nail. Most importantly, these guys liked to pick fights or at least appear threatening and imposing. (All in all, think Riley Freeman in The Boondocks.) Because they're trying so hard to look hypermasculine, their favorite targets tended to be guys with little to no interest in looking hypermasculine because they're different. They're the "other." That makes them fair game. Hence, a crossdressing day would never fly at these schools--not just because there'd be at least one angry parent making a big stink over it, but because anyone who might seriously consider crossdressing on such an occasion has likely been threatened by at least one of these guys. After all, as Riley would say, "You niggas is gay!" (A similar issue exists with girls, but the girls, too, desire a tough appearance, and girls who dress like guys appear tougher so there's no problem there.) I would suspect this type of environment is where the word "gay" came from as a catch-all adjective for anything disgusting or unpleasant. In my adult world, I don't hear it so much anymore though. Perhaps not every school is like this. I've been told before that my experiences at school seem to be nothing like other people's who grew up in other school districts (though among people who WERE raised in the Los Angeles Unified School District, more often than not they know exactly what I'm talking about). |
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buckybone
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This is exactly what happened when I was in high school (mid-2000s). We'd have a "gender bender" day during Homecoming Week, and the only guys who'd have anything to do with it were a couple of football players (being secure in their social position) and the class clown. Granted, I was nearly as terrified that I'd like wearing those clothes as I was of any potential reaction to me wearing them...
You're saying this as if that doesn't happen at least twice a year...yanno, the gay agenda and all that. 
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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From, well, aspiring professionals, who aspire to treat it as a profession. In anime, however, any otherwise capable male who even remotely displays a little competent kitchen talent--like Sakura's dad on CCS, or Chiaki on Nodame Cantabile--is usually depicted while happily and obliviously wearing the kitchen's one pink-with-flowers apron as a matter of necessity, and everyone else "Ahem  "'s and sweatdrops politely without comment.
Take a very close look at how and why 10-yo.'s use "Oh, man, that's so gay" as a catch-all adjective in the South Park sense-- 8 times out of 10, it doesn't mean "Displaying a different lifestyle"...Under their definition, it means something close to "Immature": Referring to someone or something who can't deal with being treated badly by others and asks everyone to be nice to them instead of being toughened enough to deal with it themselves, who deals with conflicts in a petty or emotionally manipulative "female" way ("I know you are, but what am I?...You probably have some issues of your own, so there!"), something which makes a fool of itself trying to show off wild gaudy ways in ways the rest of the crowd would find publicly obnoxious or humilating--Or in a nutshell, someone who just needs to get over themselves (as most do by the tween years), get a sense of their place in the outside adult world of what other human beings expect of them, and Grow the Heck Up--Which, of course, is a make or break issue in junior and high years. By high school, we're just getting a firm grip on our identities, and watching someone else get so caught up in themselves to go way off the rails doesn't make us "question ourselves", it's a big, loud illustration of how much WE might be getting it wrong, and we have to straighten our ties and redouble our efforts to avoid looking like that mess. (Which explains the hostility towards "nerds and geeks" who are "getting it wrong", and not as willfully or intentionally.) "Phobia" is also an easily misinterpretable word, as mentioned in another thread, "fear" is not the same as "Dislike". (For ex., I'm not, by dictionary definition, "afraid" of Justin Timberlake, but that doesn't stop me from wishing I could punch him in the face already. )
The idea that "The public is afraid of us, because they don't understand our free-spiritedness!" could also be seen as a bit, well, immature--like the Star Wars geeks at a con who say "They PH3ar our mad skillz!" when there's no one else around, or the Japanese's outright bullying resentment toward troubled hikkikomoris who should be seeking therapy claiming their "Freedom from the rat race" instead and turning it into a "cult" lifestyle--and cements the particular straight dislike of why supposedly grown adults would act like passive, petulant, unreasonable, attention-struck and self-indulgent third-graders. It's not "You are different from the tribe!", it's "I spent twenty years learning to act like an adult, why the crap aren't you?--And don't tell me it's because you had a mean dad or some jock snapped you with towels in the locker room, because I'm fresh out of violins... "
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Lili-Hime
 Posts: 569 |
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whoah there  over-doing it in public? talk about stereotypes and painting with a broad brush. I'm a lesbian (who occassionaly crushes on anime bishonens  ) and when I'm out with my girlfriend we're rarely that close because we're overly conscious of dudebro straight guys perving on us. Hell, strangers don't even know we're together unless there's context (like going to home depot to pick out house stuff).
It sounds just a little like someone gets their POV on LBGT people from what they see on TV / movies. I hope I'm wrong. And your argument sounds a little bit like victim blaming to me. Being different doesn't give people a license to pick on you. Like Finn (Adventure Time) says "Leave em alone. They just got problems. Everyone's got problems." I get that kids are usually immature and pick on anyone at all who's different, that's reality- but it doesn't have to be. Kids learn their bigotry from parents, friends, and the media they consume. If we can stop stereotyping people who don't fit into the idea of white, straight, rigid gender role types that should help (though I know it won't go away completely.
I don't understand why you find such people so obnoxious. If they're not hurting you, what's your problem? I do somewhat agree with you tho in that to me certain people hurt the idea that LGBT people are totally normal by acting outrageous and weird. As funny as Divine is, I can't argue that he probably didn't do much to help LGBT stereotypes. Some stunts people pull do seem to stem from an immature 'let's freak out the squares' attitude, which hurts the rest of us who just want to be accepted as no different from the next person. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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(I live in a New England college town, where girl pairs who look like Harry Potter from the last three movies if he'd been tribal tattooed, surgically attached at the palms, is not an uncommon sight... )
So why don't YOU start cleaning up your own house and complaining about the "freaks" who are giving your own reasonable blending-in a bad name, instead of circling the social wagons and saying "By insulting one of us, you insult all of us!"?... Which those of us who are also a bit publicly fed up with them will gladly take you up on that offer and try to insult "all of them" by insulting you. Anime fans know what it means to be intolerantly stereotyped for what you like--and what it means to have goofy extremist clowns in your ranks getting all the press--but that doesn't mean we live it at the expense of everything else just to get back at the Man: "Individuality" means individuality, not belonging to the Secret Pirate Treehouse Club ((hand-painted Little Rascals sign):"No Icky Girlz or Strate Bulees Allowd!"), and exchanging secret handshakes and codes between members. Unfortunately, belonging to The Club seems a lot more attractive to those unsure of their own identities out there in the cold, causing those who want to show off their "club membership", or to "freak out the squares", to start spray-painting their own club graffiti onto every mainstream pop-cultural wall: Remember that thread a while ago, about wondering whether Velma, Bugs Bunny or He-Man were "really" gay, nudge-nudge, wink-wink? Yeah, it's not "hurting" anybody to act like a one-topic attention-struck jackass and piss on everybody else's plate...
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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What? These female college students have short hair and tattoos and like to make physical contact with their partner using their hands!? Well CLEARLY this is behavior exclusive to lesbians and therefore supports your "Victims of bigotry totally bring it on themselves" thesis. Stop reaffirming the stereotype lesbians!!!
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I'd like to mention that at my high school, I would constantly see heterosexual couples constantly holding hands when they're not in class. They'd often spend the entire recess or lunch smooching, literally non-stop, out in the open, or on the stairs, or near doorways, anywhere where a lot of people would pass by. I have witnessed one such couple having problems entering a public transportation bus (outside of school) because, as they're holding hands, they can't fit side-by-side through the entrance, and they steadfastly refused to let go of their hands in order to enter more easily. While they didn't kiss on the bus (at least when I saw them), they did look for two side-by-side seats so they could continue to hold hands on the bus.
So couples publicly exclaiming to the world about their love for each other goes both ways. |
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