Yes, I realize all my posts are late but whatever. At least they're still coming.
Today, I'm going to talk to you about Power Rangers. Last year I did Power Rangers fanfiction for my nano. This was a thing a lot of people found strange and not just because I had never written a piece of PR fanfiction in my life. No, because it was a children's show with a target of little boys about people who fought badly-made monsters in multicoloured tights. And it's a little hard to describe the appeal of this to a lot of people. Here's a few takes on it.
I'm a geek. We geeks tend to like things others might find strange for little reason other than we like them and think they're awesome. I also like comics where superheroes fight overly dramatic villains in multicoloured tights. I like magic and supernatural things. I like fairy tales. I like family-friendly movies that have dancing and singing. I like Bollywood. I like a million different things that someone or the other is goig to have a problem with or think is immature or silly. I've been like this all my life and I find I care less and less about what people think of me everyday.
I'm horribly idealistic. I've seen bad things happen. I've seen good people turn hard and bitter, losing in both love and life. And yes, some days I don't believe in either of those little things. But there's this little girl in my heart. She believes that people can get happy endings. She believes that good can defeat evil. And she believes that sometimes fate is on your side. Sure the stories in PR are sometimes a little simplistic...but they're full of hope. And hope is something we live without too much in this world. Hope is what we return to. The hope that when we're walking late at night and we're scared, there'll be a hero when we need one. Everyone won't just look away and assume it's someone else's problem. And hope that sometimes we're that hero, that we can save other people just as much as they save us. We can make a difference. It's more than just a hope that good can overcome evil, iv's watching people who are not that much different from us do so and make us feel like we could do so. Which brings us to the next bi.
I'm a girl. Some people would say this works against me since Power Rangers is technically a "boys show." Those people...don't really know Power Rangers all that well. These days, there's a million shows girls can watch about girls who fight crime and make a difference and do interesting things without having to run into this stigma. But I grew up on boys shows. When other girls pretended to be princesses, I was pretending to be batgirl. My friend would be catwoman, who I thought was so much cooler but she was older and got to decide. I was always a bit dissatisfied with batgirl, she was kind of an adjunct to batman, the way robin was. I liked the Xmen girls way better. I could never figure out if I liked Rogue or Storm better. Jubilee was just annoying and Jean Grey was nice and all but she just wasn't as cool. Spiderman was an awesome cartoon too. My favourite character was the Black Cat, though I thought Madame Web was really cool. And I loved the Power Rangers. Kimberly was a hardcore gymnast who ended up leaving the team to compete in the PanOlympics. Trini was a martial artist as good as any of the guys who ended up at a World Peace Conference. And that's just the original team. Over the years, there have been female rangers who were former villains, doctors, fighter pilots. They've been scientists and rockstars and racecar drivers. But, mostly, they've been role models. They've been friends who went out and taught us to be brave. They inspired us. The female audience of Power Rangers is sometimes a bit overlooked but one thing they've never been is ignored. There has always been females on the team and they've always been these individuals who showed us a million different ways to be and that it was alright to be who we were, whoever we were.
I'm a romantic. Romance is another thing that isn't really associated with Power Rangers...unless you're a fan. Power rangers fandom basically runs off pairings. We have come up with more ways to get our favourite rangers together than you can possibly imagine. It would take so much less work to find a non-pairing story in Harry Potter or Buffy or Firefly. For a show about fighting, very little of the fanfic surrounding it is about fighting. It's a little crazyweird for people who don't get this undercurrent of romance that winds its way through the show and through our hearts.And yet. Looking back on my past, I can't help thinking back to Tommy and Kimberly of the original Power Rangers seasons. Out of all the couples i saw on tv, they were my idea of what a relationship looked like. They were caring. They were supportive. They were hopelessly romantic. And all of us girls who watched were a little in love with Tommy because of it. It was almost a running joke back then, if a girl watched Power Rangers, the first thing people did was ask if Tommy was her favourite guy in that sickening voice people do. (To be clear, my favourite male ranger back then was Billy.) For two and a half years we watched the relationship of these two.We watched as Kim stood by Tommy when he lost his powers and we saw her reaction and happiness when he came back as the white ranger. We watched them comfort each other when bad things happened and celebrate when the good ones did. We watched Kim show up to Tommy's tournaments and Tommy drop Kim off at the gym for late night practices. And while we were happy for Kim when her dream of being a professional gymnast worked out, we were sad she was leaving the team and that she was leaving Tommy. We knew we'd never see her again and kinda knew the people running the show were going to try to get Tommy and Kat together. We did not expect them to have Kim break up with him via a letter and every fanfic writer since has probably tried their hand at fixing this or dreamed of doing so. There have been a bunch of awesome couples since and I could go on forever about each of them but I won't. I've probably gushed too much already. You get the point.
So there, some reasons for my Power rangers fixation. And hey, it's not like I'm the only one these days fixated on a children's show. Seriously my obsession for Power rangers is no worse than the obsession of others for My Little Pony. Right?
;)
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