Naruto...A little Sexist?

[Char the second]

i noticed that is is like dragon ball but more fouscing on the charactors

[HeavyMetal]

Some cliche things have been said but I still think its matter of what type of shows you like.

I already named one that has action and female leads without some cheesy plot as an excuse for fan service.

[Rorschach]

Well, I haven't seen Naruto, but I will say that bean-counting doesn't really indicate whether a series is sexist or not. Given that a woman's leaping into action is so often just an excuse to show off a lot of flesh, one could certainly make the case that Sailor Moon is sexist in spite of the girls' speech to Jadeite in episode #13.

At the same time, one could argue that women leaping into action just to show that they can do everything a man can do is sexist too, since it indicates that women should stop being women and just try to be "one of the boys" as it were. (By this standard, Ripley from the Aliens movies and Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies are sexist because they are, as one critic put it, "Rambo with boobs." Xena is sexist because she's Hercules with boobs.)

And finally, as certain blowhards on these forums have indicated to me on numerous occasions, showing any woman in a traditional role can be thought sexist too, because they're supposedly setting back some holy quest for a feminist utopia. Hence, portraying any woman in a series at all can be sexist. But if you leave women out of the story altogether, that's sexist too!

My general conclusion from all of this: "sexism" is a poorly defined and overused term. I say any series is innocent until proven guilty. So long as the characters are being themselves and not trying to be anyone or anything else, the story is good.

[Zurno]

all the better reason to be a little more progressive...I understand that japan is little more conservative that the US, but still, the vast majority of series still illustrate at least one strong female charatcer, As far as I can tell Naruto has none...Now perhaps I'm the one being sexist...I dunno.

err japan conservative how so maybe the asian world views females a bit in dim light over there but definately not conservative and btw wat animes u been watching mostly all anime focuses on 2-4 males and maybe 1-3 minor females of course as a male i always love to see some more CLAMP for the story i mean

[HeavyMetal]

I wouldn't call Sarah Conner a Rambo with Boobs.

In the first Terminator she is rather femine in looks and mannerism. She is dependent on a guy from the future for protection until the very end.

In part 2 she has a gun, but she is still a protective mother.

Anyway you had good points so it doesn't matter.

(Besides I like stories where the machines are good and people are evil. Too some degree Terminator 2 has that. I am a big fan of anime that asks the question 'if we create something that is similar to humans is it human or just an imitation.' 'Are we playing god or creating a friend?')

A favored quote by Ian in Jurassic Park:

"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."

Elly follows it with the statement, "Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits Earth."

I would say Sailor Moon is not sexist because it deals with issues that often envolve girls. Of course that could be considered sexist becuase why do these topics apply to girls in particular etc.

It tends to be a double edged sword. I think the most important thing is that people question rather than accept society more so than finding an answer itself.

Besides historicaly a lot of womens movements are a little ironic.

Negative Side:
An example would be some of the feminist I have encountered that hate men, but are the most manly of women, sporting more facial hair than I.

Positive Side:
There was at least one that was not this way. The movement was lead by a married at home wife that enjoyed her life and had no direct benefit from the movement. It was a matter of principle and not self-interest. I wish I could think of her name. I remember her husband supported her actions and helped out. I think it was the 1920s fight for suffarge, but I could be mistaken.


Personaly by my own self contrived philosophy I prefer to view people in terms of individuals.

Naruto:

So unless Naruto said 'no I should handle this fight' impling gender role that stepped in on Sakura's equal liberty as an individual as opposed to an offer as a fellow Ninja I would hesitate to call it sexist.

I would just note the trend that the majority of the fighters are male as a statistical anomally. In the same manner that I note the different trends in musical taste between men and women as well as the neutral zones.

[Rorschach]

Well, of course, I don't really think the Terminator movies are sexist. As I say, the stories are innocent until proven guilty. "Rambo with boobs" or not, Sarah was doing what she felt she needed to do, with Kyle helping her get up to speed in the first film. (By the end of that movie, of course, she was ordering Kyle to get on his feet when he didn't think he could go on, and packing a gun in obvious protection of her unborn child.)

And though no one is an island, we certainly ought to be judged on individual merits, which I recommend for characters in a story, too. When they're a little too obviously sock puppets or cardboard cutouts, there's something wrong with the story.

There's also nothing "anomalous" about the majority of the fighters in a story being male: men tend to be born with more physical prowess than women, and hence, when wars were fought largely with muscle power, men tended to be on the front lines. What gives women a larger role in war nowadays is that so much more of it is fought with technology. Hence, an anime about war set in a less technological setting probably should have more men as its focus (as such, Scryed is an excellent series), whereas a war in a more technological setting (giant robot anime) demands that women get into the act more.

[Keaton]

Well, there are 2 males and 1 female, in there 3 some, its mostly been about Naruto, but there have been episoded based mainly on Sasuke and Sakura. Then there are those other character's, which are mostly male, since most teams are 2 guys and 1 girl, but they go into female prospectives also, just not as much cause most of it is circles around naruto. But ya have to think about it, do other male character's get as much story time as the females, not including naruto. The only reason it could be sexist is that there are more males them females, ause they go into everyones past and find out each personality, but there are just more male character's so you think thats there arent any female. But if you remember, the whole sakura cutting her hair, and looking after both naruto and sasuke, fighting for them and giving up her one most important thing for them, or hina, sticking up against her brother, and wouldnt stop giving up, showing her determination aainst all odd's, plus that was a pretty good fight she gave him too. Finally, I'd like to point out that right now, there on a questo to get that powerful girl to become the next Hokage, a female Hokage, how is that sexist?

[HeavyMetal]

Applause to Keaton.

Thank you for using examples from the show. I could not do it myself since I have only read part of the manga.

Use some spacing in the future. Its easier on the eyes, so more people will be willing to read your post.


So far I think we have gotten to the point that:

1. Naruto primarly features male characters, but is not really sexist.

2. If it is in some small indirect way it is sexist, it is likely not on purpose.

3. There are plenty of fan service shows about, but even some of those feature women as bold and independent characters (Often showing men as bumbling idiots really).

4. Some shows that do NOT have fan service postively feature female leads.

[Daio Kaji]

Hinata, sticking up against her brother, and wouldnt stop giving up, showing her determination aainst all odd's, plus that was a pretty good fight she gave him too.

cousin actually, their dad's were brothers
yes Hinata calls him Neji-ni-san (ni-san indicating big brother) but still, for all we know, ni-san/nisan could just mean a older male relative on relatively equal ground, so a brother and cousin would both be ni-san's

but ur argument still stands
Hinata i thought was a great character (as most of them are)
i also still don't believe Naruto is sexist, just involves more males than females... is there ANY 3 man cell that didn't involve 2 males and 1 female? even the Legendary Leaf Nins (orochimaru/tsunade/jiraiya) involved the 2-1 ratio, i can't think of any off the bat that don't follow this... maybe it's just for consistancey since the main cell (kakashi's) involves Naruto the main character and then adds 1 male and 1 female to keep things balanced and everything else just followed... mebbe

[Trident]

The original Shika-Ino-Cho team (the parents--shown briefly at the end of the Chuunin Selection arc) was an all-male team. And I'm reasonably sure that, if you looked at a number of the teams in various parts of that same arc, you'd see more males than females. I'd be interested to see what would happen if there were an entirely female team... I'd also like to see Sakura-chan actually get a special attack (other than incredible Chakra/mind control, as evidenced in her battle against Ino in the aforementioned arc). But that's a little off-topic.

Again, the sexism in much anime is due to Japan's ideas about gender roles. I don't think that Japanese people believe women to be inherently inferior to men. I'm pretty sure that they, like many people worldwide, just think that a woman's ultimate worth and strength stems from her ability to run a house and raise children (which by no means is an easy task). I'm reminded of a famous Greek orator whose name unfortunately slips my memory--anyway, he once said something to the effect of "a man's glory comes from everyone knowing his name; a woman's from being unknown." Essentially, the best woman wouldn't even have to leave her home; all of the domestic tasks would be managed from her room, and in particular she would never risk tarnishing her family's name by being seen with a man other than her husband. Now obviously this is an extreme. However, I suspect that the Japanese hold closer to this than they want to admit.

Interesting fact: The current princess of Japan is a very intelligent woman who served as a spokesperson overseas (I don't recall her exact role, but I think she was a representative of Japan of some sort--someone who would sit in at the U.N., stuff like that). She married the prince of Japan and bore one child--a girl. She is apparently receiving flak because she has not yet produced a male heir...