So someone brought up today how in the ’90s English version of Sailor Moon, they made Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune “cousins” but they didn’t take out any of the scenes where they were holding hands or kissing. Despite being too cowardly to show a LGBTQ+ couple in an anime.
What’s interesting to me is how many people believed this theory.
Because even as a kid, I knew this wasn’t true. Cousins really shouldn’t behave in the same manner that a lesbian couple would.
It really goes to show you the lengths some people will go to, to justify their discrimination against LGBTQ+ couples. Because there were people all over the comment section saying how that confused them as a kid. If you’re going to make a lesbian couple “cousins” then the least you can do is make it more believable.
I also hate that it was an issue in the ’90s to show this on screen. It took a long time for animated shows or animes to be able to show a couple that was part of the LGBTQ+ community. To my knowledge, Korra and Asami were the first LGBTQ+ couple to be shown, and even then they made them hold hands instead of letting them kiss.
A grown woman couldn’t kiss her significant other, but at the end of Avatar: The Last Air Bender a couple of kids kiss? Like they don’t see the stupidity and double standards in this?!
It’s just sad. How many people would have been comforted as kids had they allowed Uranus and Neptune to be who they truly were? How many people would’ve finally seen themselves on a television screen, and thought it was okay to be themselves? It’s just sad to me that this was such a missed opportunity because someone decided that it would be too much for children.
I didn’t even watch the last season of Sailor Moon until I was an adult, and even then I watched it in Japanese because it was never released in English. There was so much representation in Sailor Moon, and it just makes me angry that none of us were able to see it because someone decided that it shouldn’t be for minors.
As if there aren’t minors that have realized they weren’t straight before, and really could’ve used a character to identify with?! Representation is important and representation matters.
Linda M. Crate’s works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is the author of seven poetry chapbooks, the latest of which is: the samurai (Yellow Arrow Publishing, October 2020). She has also authored three micro-collections, and four full length poetry collections.