I’m not gonna claim to be a Cis-Het Male who is or has become completely immune to Toxic Masculinity. I do have a temper that I sometimes lose control of. But to a typical dude bro who’s offended by the phrase itself, I’m definitely a Beta Cuck.
I have had an attraction to certain media that is presumed in the mainstream standards of American Society to be “for girls” almost my entire life. Also in the more traditionally male oriented stuff I like I frequently find many of the female characters the most relatable and/or likeable.
The thing is Sailor Moon may very well be the first. I have memories of watching the show early Sunday mornings on the UPN, meaning before it’s Toonami run and before Buffy was ever on TV. And I never watched any Buffy till 2000, likewise Xena I didn’t get into until it was already airing its last season in 2000/2001. And the chick shows I got into that are considered even weirder for a guy to like mostly came much later, besides maybe Party of Five but even that I didn’t catch till Scream 2 was already on home video.
My relationship with Sailor Moon was rather complex. There was a time when I thought of it as a guilty pleasure, for some reason more hesitant to admit to liking it then Buffy and One Tree Hill which I talked about on my main IMDB account but used a sock puppet for posting on the Sailor Moon board. That went away over time of course.
Also for a long time being into Sailor Moon didn't much lead to me watching other Magical Girl Warrior shows. I caught some Wedding Peach during the same era I got into Noir partly because it's Dub was being made and promoted at the same time by some of the same people. But I didn’t complete that show till last year or maybe the year before. For some reason I heard of Saint Tail on some website and was interested but never really tried to watch any of it.
It was in 2014 that began to change, my interest in the Sailor Moon revival is what brought me to Hulu and then the recommendations Hulu had on the Sailor Moon pages lead to me checking out both Madoka Magica and Utena, and then other Anime not so closely related to the Magical Girl genre like Rose of Versailles. And from there I dove down even further and have now seen countless hours of Pretty Cure and then most recently the stuff I talked about at the start of this month.
The fact that I cared about Sailor Moon enough in 2014 to be that interested in the revival had a lot to do with how into Pretty Little Liars I was, I knew there was overlap between those fandoms because of my Facebook friends. What I’m not so sure on is to what extent having that past history with Sailor Moon was a factor in my being open to PLL in the first place.
I really feel like I became the true Feminsit and LGBTQ ally I am now from watching PLL and engaging in it’s Fandom for seven years. My thinking on those topics used to be more “centrist” for lack of a better word. But now I feel I’ve become as radically Lefitst as a Cis-Het Male can be on those topics. And reading everything Heather Hogan said while talking about PLL was a factor in moving me on that path. However, the fact that I watched Utena and then read VraiKaiser’s analysis of Utena in the midst of that period also sped things along. And Utena I probably wouldn’t have watched without knowing it’s connection to Sailor Moon.
I’m sure there are many with experiences similar to mine. The thing about the Magical Girl Warrior is that even the most properly Shoujo incarnations have the ability to appeal to guys, girls, and others who wouldn't usually watch girly stuff because they’re essentially Superhero shows. And then the versions presumably marketed at men do not lose the feminine heart of the genre. If there are a lot of people watching only the late night Anime Magical Girls and not the Shoujo ones, I think it’s more the massive number of episodes you have to plow through then being turned off by them being even more girly. In fact that issue is why completing Wedding Peach took me so long and why I still haven't finished most not Dubbed Pretty Cure seasons or the two Magical Girl Thief shows I'm interested in.
There is also of course the cynical assumption that many guys only watch these shows because they like looking at girls in short skirts. Ironically my personal tastes tend to find them Sexier in the Shoujo shows. The characters in Nanoha, Madoka and Yuki Yuna are cute but not sexy. If you wanted to ask me which Magical Girls are even sexier then the Sailor Scouts I’d point you to Wedding Peach.
The thing is Magical Girls aren’t the only girly media where the girls are Sexy. Every actress on OTH and PLL is a pretty damn attractive and some friggin Lifetime movies are among the Sexiest films I’ve watched. But your typical dude insecure in his masculinity isn’t gonna actually watch those shows or read those books to Fap to them, there’s no need when a simple Google Image search will provide more than enough pics of the actress in question. No, anyone actually watching a Magical Girl show likes the product they’re seeing beyond that. At first it may be just for the Superhero stuff, and for some it may stay that way. But there are many for whom watching this stuff has opened their minds to a more feminine perspective.
There are plenty of times when these shows address masculinity in an interesting way. Like the Pretty Sammy episode with the hyper masculine delinquents. They make an effort to help normalize guys being feminine and girls being masculine which undermine certain more cynical assumptions about the genre. Many Feminist love that Be A Man song from Mulan as an unironic celebration of the positive traits society codes as Masculine, in a way the Magical Girl Genre has plenty of moments that can be just like that.
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