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Sailor Moon, LGBTQ censorship and martyrdom


Dr. C
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In the wake of the release of the final batch of Viz brand Sailor Moon dub episodes being released, I felt that it would be appropriate to address what i call the revisionist pop.culture history of Sailor Moon where LGBTQ representation is concerned.

Such narratives will ignore that parents played a large role in the censorship efforts of networks at the time and while I don’t condone homophobia by no means, I can at least appreciate parents having the utmost concern for the emotional and psychological well-being of their children since the modern variant involves letting the tablet do the parenting. 

Second of all whether it’s the infamous genderbending, (Or the infamous rebranding of lesbian lovers as cousins with unintended incestuous  overtones) we have to keep in mind the context of the internet becoming more prolific and the cognitive dissonance created by such a popular show being censored in this way.

The argument I put forward is that, lesser (in popularity) anime dubs would have continued the trend of these overt censorships but the popularity of Sailor Moon made it such that LGBTQ issues were forced out into the open. Children and parents alike had to wrestle with the cognitive dissonance of seeing their favorite anime butchered to such an extent that unintended implications (such as pro incest) forced people to beg the question is presenting a same sex couple In a manner of mundane existence was such a bad thing?

In short, I propose that LGBTQ rights would not have advanced nearly as much in society without the prominence of the debacle of Sailor Moon’s censorship. The butchering of a  beloved childhood show served as a martyr to advance the cause. 

Consider the opposite vein of reasoning. It’s a much more politically conservative time and we get our way with no censorship. Suddenly such overt sexual depictions cause reactionary sexually conservative notions in our generation from the shock of it and we find ourselves in a very different landscape than presently.

Sailor Moon is a compelling case study that sometimes the best play to advance socially progressive ideals is to let the opposition throw eggs on their faces.

Yeah it would have been nice to have a dub that was truer to the source material but I think the inconvenience of waiting this long is largely outweighed by the cultural impact of the censorship of Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune.  

Looking forward to a fun discussion in this significant chunk of pop culture history! 

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