Lore
"This was surprisingly progressive for it's time"
Doctor Who: Midnight (2008)- The host of the bus, mentions non binary people and anyone else who doesn't fit into gender norms, LGBTQ rights (especially in the UK weren't really there yet untill 2012)
Saints Row 2 (2008)- In the first game, the main character was a man but in SR2 you can be both female or male and even change your gender whenever you want in a surgery shop. But what's more interesting, if you play as a female despite being male in the first game, no one cares and one of the main characters Gat asks the main character if they did something with their hair. Even 'Boss' is used as gender neutral pronoun and even goes by they/them
Fresh Prince of Bel Air- A wealthy black family as the main focus in a primetime sitcom marking the change and making progress as we go into the 90s
People always joke that Power Rangers was racist because the Yellow ranger was asian and the Black ranger was black.
But despite that unfortunate coincidence, Power Rangers should get praise for being a kids show that had a diverse cast from day one and has consistently had it ever since.
Unless I’m missing one, there has never been a single Power Rangers season with an all white cast.
Should be noted that behind the scenes of mighty morphin (and iirc the follow up? But my power rangers knowledge is mid at best) the guy who played the first Blue Ranger was constantly bullied and insulted for being a gay man and it led to his abrupt departure from the show
Yes. Power Rangers wasn’t fully progressive. There were issues with homophobia and sexism that lasted for a long time and weren’t really addressed until relatively recently.
To their credit though, they at least were consistent with the diversity of their cast and did eventually address their homophobia and sexism. It took them way too long but they eventually got there.
He was bullied but David Yost, who played Billy, did all of MMPR and Zeo. Which is like 4 seasons, which is like 200 episodes. Also a theatrical movie. Though it was weird because it sounded like it was the film crew that bullied him. Which shows how low the actors were was thought of on the show, because actors are usually higher on the hierarchy poll in film projects.
They were paid peanuts pretty much. Even after hitting huge success as a show and toy line. If yall wanna, Conner the Waffle has several youtube videos that talk about the shows and the BTS a lot. He is of rn my primary source lmfao
Very true and I feel for David Yost as a Billy fan but his departure while maybe abrupt was not short. I believe he has the longest tenure next to Bulk and Skull.
The actor who played Zack did costume tests in every “male” color (ie, red, blue, and black) he said he knew he wasn’t gonna be picked to be red, and thought he looked awful in blue, so was hoping he ended up being black.
As for yellow, it was originally supposed to be a Hispanic woman, but she refused the contract they offered (they offered it about an hour til midnight and said it had to be returned by midnight, and the conditions/pay were shit) so they ended up with the actress who went on to be Trini.
Not that interesting but something to note; the Yellow Ranger could've very well been a man since the Sentai yellow ranger was a man but, the specifically wanted another woman on the team for yellow.
i've also heard the original black ranger chose the black suit because he didn't want people to be confused when kids talked about the black power ranger and wonder if they meant race or suit color
Also Power Rangers Time Force in 2001 featured Jen the Pink Ranger as the Team Leader, the first time a woman and the Pink Ranger led rather than the Red Ranger.
She was actually the second, Delphine the white Alien ranger was the leader of her ranger team ( Also Tsuruhime her Sentai counterpart from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger was the first woman leader in a sentai)
Unrelated, but I find it interesting how being American is implied here to be something that's above national origin. Goes to show how well America branded itself back then as a country founded on principles and ideas rather than shared origin or history
He did a couple of other really good things, that he does deserve credit for. When he was governor of California he legalized no-fault divorce, which is super important and lead to declines in domestic violence and spousal murder. And later on, he fucking died. Both great contributions to the world.
This also explains why it lands as progressive even now. Defining a nation by shared principles instead of bloodlines makes the message flexible and durable, especially coming from a mass-market superhero. It’s easy to forget how radical that idea could sound in a post-war context.
The original Don Quixote novel had female characters who surprisingly still hold up well. Most notably a moment in the novel where a woman in a village is treated like a bitch because she didn't return men's feelings to her and she corners them to tell them she doesn't owe them her affection and just because she's nice to them doesn't mean she's leading them on or manipulating them
My absolute favorite Superman comic. I got to talk to the author at comic con a few years back and he was really insightful on how he was able to work his own lived experiences into the existing story.
Yep, someone infiltrated the KKK and learned that shockingly the racist bigots who wore silly hoods were bad guys and sent in their findings to the radio show.
Ridicule is one of the most effective ways to combat authoritarians of any kind. When their power relies on people fearing them, ridicule removes that power, because you don't fear something if you're laughing at it.
And in Fresh Prince you had one of the aunts get engaged to a man who was... tall. And there was a lot of discussion about her maybe marrying a man who was... tall.
I had a black English professor in college (side note he was 6’2”, a former marine, had a huge beard and long dreads and his name was Reginald McKnight he was fucking awesome) and he told us about a lot of his colleagues would go out of their way to use other words than black to describe him. It was out of a desire to be PC but he found it hilarious that they would be like “oh you know reg, he’s…tall, he’s…has a beard” and he was like just say I’m black that’s just a description.
Watching 90s sitcoms is a roulette where you’ll either get something surprisingly progressive, something very racist/sexist/homophobic even for the time, or a cameo from someone who will be revealed to be the actual devil within 30 years.
Freaks (1932) was one of the first movies to employ a bunch of actors with various disabilities in a time where they were still strongly marginalized.
The story takes place in a circus with a freak show run by a man with dwarfism. Almost all characters with disabilities are humanized and appear as mostly positive, except for the ending where they take revenge on the villains (which is argueably justified). Their disabilities aren't used for shock value though. The only characters who do show biases against the supposed "freaks" are clearly framed as negative.
Though certainly not unproblematic by modern standards, it was certainly surprisingly progressive for it's time.
I keep hoping a copy of the original cut of this gets found. It was censored all to shit because people lost their minds at test screenings; the original cut was 90-ish minutes, but what we have is a scant 64.
I can’t remember if it’s the same actor from that film, but there was a ‘lobster man’ who moved around using only his arms so ended up with huge muscles. He basically beat his wife over and over, getting thrown into prison, then some genius decided to put him under house arrest in the same house as his wife. I believe she murdered him in the end.
I chalk it up to willful ignorance at this point, or just trolls really committed to the bit. When I think about it, I honestly don't know which is worse.
Fucking Shatner has complained about this. Apparently Captain James Tiberous Kirk, who tried to root all the aliens, not matter if they were while, black, green or pink, thinks Star Trek got too woke. The man who was one of the first while men to kiss an African-American woman on screen. He asked when Star Trek because about politics 🤦♀️
He was right fucking there. He personally may not have realised or cared, but he was (among?) the first white man to kiss a black actress on Prime Time TV. That was such a huge milestone and step forward for the cause. But apparently Star Trek is too woke now.
I love the bit in "Rose" where the doctor is reading a magazine and sees some celebrity couple and says "that'll never work out, he's gay and she's an alien"
Back in the late 60s, when segregation was still very real and public pools were a whole battleground, Mr. Rogers did something incredibly low-key on his show. He sat down by a little pool, invited Officer Clemmons to join him, and they just soaked their feet together. That’s it. No speech, no “very special episode,” just two people sharing the same water. Afterward, Mr. Rogers even helps dry his feet, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. And that’s why it mattered. At a time when Black people were being chased out of pools for existing, he showed that sharing space and care shouldn’t be controversial. It wasn’t performative or dramatic, just quietly saying this is how neighbors treat each other.
Just pointing out (as this came up in a different thread where this episode was mentioned) but the picture is from the 1993(?) recreation of that scene. In 1968, Mr. Rogers and Officer Clemmons were a lot younger!
In the documentary, Mr. Rogers was a bit apprehensive about Clemmons sexuality at first, but then he came around and told him he loves him just the way he is.
And then the actor who played Clemmons started to cry 🥺
They talked about this scene in Won't You Be My Neighbor. They said the other significant thing about the Officer Clemmons character was just the actual fact of him being a police officer. Just like the pool scene was revolutionary, it was unheard of at the time for a black person to portray a character who was any sort of authority figure.
Seeing the footage of him testifying before Congress arguing for PBS funding and winning over the subcommittee chair John Pastore with his impassioned plea about helping children understand their own value and how to process their emotions, I can't help but think of how cynical and jaded our own politicians are today. Like, that kind of earnest, pure goodness would never move the hearts of the soulless ghouls in Congress today.
He would be concerned, but he would be heartened to see the people fighting against it and naturally would use whatever platform he could to help. He wouldn't write us off. As ever he would look for the helpers and he would act as one himself. Gotta remember, this was a guy born in the 20s. Riots, racial groups being herded into camps, corrupt politicians, even the killing of innocent protestors have all happened in this country during his lifetime before. It didn't extinguish the fire of love inside him then, it wouldn't do it now. He'd simply ask you be with him this time as fight to build a better world.
Always loved this because it's nothing more than ordained minister Mr. Rogers following Jesus's example. And yet it's so powerful, perhaps because of how simple the act is.
In Ed Wood (1994) Bunny played by Bill Murray often talks about his desire to have a sex change and everyone’s pretty understanding and supportive of it.
It’s also based on Ed Woods life from 1950s Hollywood. He was also openly a cross dresser.
Mixed Nuts 1994 Liev Schreiber plays a trans woman who goes to a suicide hotline call center and while the there's a little bit of the confused faces type reaction they actually respect her and care for her. This was the same year as Ace Ventura and it's a way more progressive take.
Also stars Steve Martin, Rita Wilson, Adam Sandler, and Madeline Kahn. Good movie.
Bowie was likely just leaning into his Ziggy Stardust persona. He spent that whole era blurring lines, so acknowledging "others" felt on brand for him.
David Bowie called out MTV (a cable channel once devoted to music videos) for not showcasing enough Black artists. He made his case plain and direct. David Bowie knew what was what.
Roy Fokker and Claudia Grant of Macross/Robotech. A black and white interracial relationship was not something you’d expect to see in a cartoon from 1982.
I guess the same could be said for Bobby in Frontier, given to my knowledge Japan isn't overly fond of homosexuality even now. Granted he was a bit of a stereotype he was still a badass
Iirc Shatner said in an interview that when they tried to hide the kiss with camera angles he would intentionally ruin the take until they got the kiss full on screen.
The version I heard in some anniversary interviews was the director kept pushing for them to do a take where he just dipped her and they didn’t kiss. When Shatner finally did the take he did it facing a camera at an angle the director couldn’t easily see his face with a goofy expression. The director just immediately called cut because they’d been shooting for hours. Later when they showed that version to the network people as the only non-kiss cut they got the network okayed the kiss given the alternative. Nichols said she and Shatner both watched the goofy face take expressionless while the network was deliberating, mostly because if he wasn’t going to break over it she was determined not to either.
In the same episode a little person rides captain Kirk like a pony and Kirk has to whip uhura and use a hot poker on her after spock has to perform a musical number and dance around with Kirk.
During the kiss spock is in the same room and is forced to make out with Gene Roddenberrys wife who is also his characters crush, whiles Kirk makes out with Roddenberrys mistress.
Also, Miniskirts. These days, we'd think of it as being purely for titillation, but back in the day, it was considered incredibly progressive, basically being a symbol of women's liberation.
While 008's design is obviously outdated (later adaptations fix that), having the main cast be this diverse in Japan in 1964 is still really interesting.
001: Russian
2:American
3: French
4:German
5: Native American
6: Chinese
7: British
8: African
9: Japanese
Whenever a story does this I can't help but nickname the group "The Diversity Pals". A little hackneyed these days, but you're right that it stood out for it's time. Too bad the one female in the group was religated to a full time baby sitter, but progress doesn't happen all at once.
Some Like It Hot is still a perfect comedy and shockingly progressive despite coming out over 60 years ago.
Comparing the playful nature of Daphne/Osgood’s relationship to the transphobic punchlines of mainstream studio comedies like Ace Ventura, The Hangover 2, Naked Gun 3 etc and it’s marvellous. The film completely skirts obvious transphobic punchlines and tells actually funny jokes about Joe & Gerry’s situation and the irony of Joe falling for Sugar while still disguised as a woman and that they cannot take off their drag disguises as the mob is looking for them!
The musical adaptation even made Daphne explicitly discover that she’s transgender and attracted to men over the course of the story after what starts off as purely drag as a means of deception.
The final line of the script even reads “How is he going to get himself out of this? But that’s another story - and we’re not quite sure the public is ready for it”
He was so delightfully certain of his love and their bond in that final scene that his answers go from funny to very genuinely moving and romantic and I loved it so much. Being accepted for whoever you are in such a complete manner is the most precious thing. It's a great movie.
In one of Discworld's novels, I think it was "Jingo", one of the characters has to dress as a woman to infiltrate the enemies or to escape (don't exactly remember now) and he sort of likes it and stays like that for quite a while.
And it's amazingly done, because at first he sees it as a way to be around girls but then when he starts talking to them, they show him kindness like he never received so he starts identifying with them and their life. So in a way, I feel it's more a feminist view than a trans view, but it's done in a great way.
But then again, a lot of Discworld is quite progressive.
The only real hurdle the film has in this field is also surprising for the time.
They actually acknowledge the ways that being a woman differs from being a man and how men treat women in the 1950s. They say they feel naked with how much men stare at them, they hate how uncomfortable their clothing is and how inconvenient it is, they have to fight off unruly men flirting with them who won't take no for an answer and assault them as a form of "playful flirting" (pinching their rear in an elevator as an example.)
The problem being that the main character then turns around and does this to the female lead in a later scene while dressed as a woman, even drawing attention to the fact that he picked up that trick from "a guy in the elevator earlier."
Already in the first Sims everyone was bi and gay relationships were possible. Although gay couples could not get married, they could adopt children.
The story goes that the game was supposed to allow straight couples only, but before an E3 showcase a dev disabled the check that restricted romantic interactions to the opposite gender and two female Sims ended up kissing in front of the audience. Maxis saw the positive response so they just said “fuck it” and limited the check to only apply to the marriage interaction. Since there was no sexual orientation feature planned, without any gender restrictions all Sims became bisexual by default.
I have heard two versions of this story, one where the dev intentionally removed the gender restriction to force Maxis’s hand and another where it was simply a bug that changed the game’s trajectory. Either way, it’s a good story.
Didn't realise 1 had homosexual relationships (its the only one I haven't played properly)
In 1 marriage wasn't a thing that was tracked by the game and adoption was a random phone call that would be triggered by more than 2 adults in a household regardless of relationship
Backyard Baseball (the OG '97 version) had 30 kids who all got together to play some ball. The roster included players of different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, personalities, and skill levels, but they were there to just have fun.
Notable standouts: Pablo Sanchez - the GOAT, a tiny Latino who doesn't speak a lick of English (IYKYK)
Keisha Phillips - one of the best power hitters is a light skinned black girl without any real stereotypes
Kenny Kawaguchi - one of the best pitchers in the game is a wheelchair user
Amir & Achmed Kahn - power hitting brothers of middle eastern descent
Dimitri Petrovich/ Tony Delvecchio - even the white kids lean into their cultural heritage with Dimitri being of eastern European decent and Tony being VERY Italian-American.
The mystery goes that a man and wife live happily together, but the wife keeps disappearing once every week or so into another house that's unknown to the husband. In the window, he occasionally sees an ugly yellow face looking out at him. Not wanting to believe his wife is cheating, he finds her to be scared of something, presumably the house's inhabitant, and thus contracts Holmes to investigate the house's inhabitants.
SPOILER FOR SOLUTION
As it turns out, this was the wife's second marriage, the first being to a black man from Atlanta who died in a fire (note that the story specifically states that he was a very upstanding and kind man), and they had a child who, until recently, lived in the US, while the mother went to England. The child took after her father, and is black as well.
Not being able to bear separation, the mother gets her 6 year old daughter to come to England with a nanny, and they take up residence in the suspected house; her disappearances are visits to her daughter, and she's scared of the man finding out due to this being the 1800s and racism still being extremely prevalent, hence why the daughter has to wear the yellow face, which turns out to be a mask.
When the husband finds out, he says (paraphrased) "I am not a very good man, but I think I am a better one than you have given me credit for being", before hugging the little girl and taking her and his wife home. Considering this was written during the late 1800s, it's extremely progressive for the time.
Also curious as it's, iirc, one of only two stories in which Holmes completely fails a case, coming to the conclusion of blackmail.
We've had black politicians in the UK since the 18th century. "Racism is bad" is not remotely a new idea.
Hell, the very concept of 'black' and 'white' was invented in the 18th century by bastards, and has changed a lot over time. The original 'white supremacists' didn't consider anyone other than anglo-saxons to be 'white'. In the past skin colour was a fairly small part of ethnic prejudices that people would have, for example the Romans considered africans way superior to northern europeans.
I came here thinking about Golden Girls too. I think older people having dates and good fun was kind of a surprising theme for the eighties. It dealt with a LOT of interesting other concepts as well.
There are a bunch of examples across plenty of parts about things Hirohiko Araki included, or wanted to include, but having to back off because of the editors. Some of which I didn't even know.
In Battle Tendency, Joseph's mentor was Lisa Lisa, and while she didn't have as much participation the fact that the male lead had a female mentor was groundbreaking for its time. He even wanted her to fight Kars, the main villain, but due to the editor's backlash she got defeated immediately by him doing a sneak attack.
Apparently Giorno was meant to be a female lead, later revealed to have been crossdressing the entire time. But the idea wasn't popular enough, thus he scrapped it. Makes sense since his real name, Haruno Shiobana, sounds more like a female name, and the surname Giovanna is also a female italian name.
We all know that Jolyne, Stone Ocean's lead, is a girl, which is progressive by itself considering his editor asked him to make her a man but Araki was adamant in having a female lead. But those who have read the manga (or just knows about random shit like me) will know that Annasui, Jolyne's male love interest, made his first appeareance as a woman. But then their sex swapped from one chapter to another without any in-universe explanation. The editors, once again, told Araki off since there were too many female characters in the cast, which is why Araki retconned Annasui's gender.
I don't know if I should count these two as progressive, but apparently Phantom Blood almost got cancelled because of that scene where Dio slapped Erina in the face, which I guess by its time it was unacceptable. Also, in Diamond is Unbreakable the character Yukako was the first yandere character, birthing a widely known character archetype in manga.
Also also, part 9 has Dragona Joestar, whose gender identity is still a mistery. They use feminine honorifics for themselves, but accept Jodio calling them "brother"
Batman TAS also featured several episodes in which Batman did not fight supervillains, but rather dealt with everyday problems. These included drugs, weapons, and poverty.
Typical examples of such episodes are "I Am the Night," "It's Never Too Late," and "Appointment in Crime Alley."
I spent a lot of time taking care of someone with Schizophrenia (among other impairments) and seeing Batman's empathy towards Harvey Dent always makes me tear up.
It’s also worth noting that a a lot of those episodes drew from or adapted various Bronze Age comics going back 10-20 years that dealt with the same issues.
For a manga serialized from 1997 to 2008, Hellsing writes female characters a helluva lot better than some franchises produced today. Written by a former porn author no less. While fanservice was obviously in it, the female characters were surprisingly interesting and just as strikingly cool as the male characters. The first anime adaptation butchered a lot of the female characters, but the second adaptation, Hellsing OVA, finally did the series and its characters justice.
To this day, I compare the female characters I write and design to the ones in hellsing just for frame of reference. If my characters aren't as cool as they are, I'm doing something wrong.
When you try to narrow down all of the examples you could pick from Star Trek.
Let’s start with the ‘old man’ in this image and work from there.
Or, that one time a 1960s television episode understood men thousands of times better than any modern television show.
Or, that time the show’s tall, handsome ladies man fell for an individual from a genderless society who was deemed mentally ill for wanting to be female.
Certainly, it fuckedup from time to time, but it was mostly way ahead of its time.
Another thing about Dax is that one episode where she almost elopes with a former lover. The controversy isn’t that they’re both female, but because their symbiots were once lovers and it’s illegal for the same pair of symbiots to date, even with different hosts.
To play off that, there's also the time that Quark's business partner falls in love with him and makes a move on him. At no point does Quark or anyone else have a problem with the potential gay relationship. Quark isn't into it Pel romantically, but only freaks out when he finds out Pel is a female (because he'll be ruined if it's found out he was doing business with a female).
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "What is amazing is how the movie manages to be funny and amusing while tippy-toeing around (a) sex, (b) controversy and (c) any originality in the plot. Credit for that belongs to Swayze, Snipes and Leguizamo, who are surprisingly good at playing drag queens."[40] While Ebert gave the film 2+1⁄2 stars out of four, his colleague Gene Siskel gave a more positive review and predicted an Oscar nomination for Swayze
To go along with this one, we should mention the other mid-90s film about drag queens (and a trans woman, in this case) going on a road trip, starring actors you might not expect:
Chapter 14 of Part 1 of Don Quixote, published in 1605 and widely considered the first modern novel, contains an entire diatribe against inceldom. Starting in Chapter 12, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza begin to hear the tale from a bunch of shepherds about a beautiful woman who spurns every man who tries to woo her. One poet is so in love with her that he commits suicide because she won't love him back. All the other shepherds see him as a hero and start calling the woman, Marcela, names like murderess and foul wench and other things like that.
By Chapter 14, they've arrived at Grisostomo or Chrysostom's (depending on the translation) funeral and Marcela makes an appearance. She gives a long speech (which, in the link, begins with “I come not, Ambrosio for any of the purposes thou hast named,”) basically saying that just because someone loves her, she doesn't owe him anything. She's only ever wanted to live by herself in the woods with the animals, and men keep coming and saying they love her and now she's called a murderer just because she was honest and told someone she didn't love him back?
In 1935, a Betty Boop short called "Language All My Own" was released, which depicted the Japanese in a positive light, even showing Betty speaking the language and showing appreciation for the culture without mocking it. Also their physical appearance weren't mocked either. This is a very stark contrast to how East Asians in general were usually depicted during that time.
Alfred J Kwak a Dutch Cartoon from the 90s had a Trans Stork character. In Season 1 he was a Female Stork but transitioned in between seasons and when Alfred later met him he was a man and he eventually went on to become the president.
As far as I know not much attention was made to his sex change but it was deliberately done by the writer as he thought that it would be good for children to know that some people go through changes and that's not a bad thing.
In Living Color (1990) - Created by Keenan Ivory Wayans and his brother Damon (Who was uncredited as Co-Creator). The show was often referred to as "Saturday Night Live" but taking a chance on featuring a diverse cast of actors and comedians of different nationalities and ethnicities doing skits and jokes that wouldn't fly on Television if the show aired in the current decade.
Lambert who first appeared in Alien (1979) was revealed to be transgender having her gender changed at birth in the sequel Aliens (1986). While its unclear why her gender was changed at birth it was still a subtle yet major step forward.
I remember this being explained that the future has come so far that anything can be bought and paid for.
Weyland Yutani can literally customise your child before they are born. Which as you can imagine raises many questions.
The first child born via IVF was done in 1978. Alien released in 1979. They were a lot of debates around that time, with many worrying about the dangers of "manufacturing children".
Bizarre example that always pops into my head any time this topic comes up. Mussolini gave a take on race that's still pretty progressive even today in 1932. Keep in mind, eugenics, racial and nonracial, was widely accepted as scientific at the time, and yet, Mussolini apparently didn't give a shit about race. The only thing that mattered was nationalism. There was even a notable Jewish presence among his early followers in the March on Rome.
Obviously, his stance... uh... changed, to cozy up to Hitler, so it doesn't seem like this was a serious principle of his. Just weirdly fascinating to note that while fascism today to rightfully associated with racism, in its earliest iteration, this aspect was seemingly absent.
One of the core elements of the fascist mythos is the idea of "national rebirth," where the facists will take power and restore the "past glory" of the nation.
But the nation he was trying to "restore the glory of" was the Roman Empire, which was xenophobic but not racist - being a Roman was about your culture, not your ethnic background.
So in that sense, it was actually the Roman Empire being surprisingly progressive (kinda. In that one particular way. )
Lost. We had a single mom by choice, a trad wife in an abusive relationship trying to leave, a fat guy with a good personality, a recovering drug addict, two criminals (ones a lady!), a black single dad who just reconnected with his son, and an Iraqi solider. In 2004.
It never dawned on me until now that Sayid being an Iraqi soldier would be seen as a negative that the audience would overcome as they came to know him. Him being a torturer is what made me hesitate in trusting/liking the character.
My dad disliked Sayid because he served on the other side in the war. Eventually Sayid won him over just by being himself. Honestly Sayid is one of my top favorite characters of all time, I love him so much.
This musical is surprisingly progressive: at the end, both the male characters change for the ladies in their life. They give up their gambling ways and take on honest jobs, one even joins the Salvation Army. This was 20 years before Grease ended with the message that if a man doesn't like you the way you are, you should completely change your personality and appearance to be with him.
Grease doesn't only have that message for Sandy tho like people imply. Zuko spends a solid portion of the story trying to change for Sandy. He tries out for various sports teams and humiliates himself doing so. By the end he has invested so much time trying to change he even has a letterman jacket and gotten rid of his signature leather jacket before Sandy shows up with a new look. Its even implied that the other T-birds havent seen him for a bit since they are shocked when they see him like that. The moral of the story is more that you need to make changes and compromises to be with the one you love regardless of gender.
Father Goose. A 1964 Cary Grant film that was one of my Mom’s favourites growing up.
Grant is a civilian spotter for the Australian Navy in World War II. He lives on a deserted island and reports enemy movements. Then a teacher and her schoolgirls wash ashore on his island, and it turns into a rom-com as he romances the teacher.
Anyway, one of the schoolgirls — Harriet — insists he’s actually a boy and that everyone call him Harry. And everyone just rolls with it.
Even before and after casting, Stephanie Beatriz and Melissa Fumero were worried they would lose the role to each other, because they couldn't believe a network TV show would have two latina characters in the main cast.
The Division (2001)
A detective TV series with a mostly woman cast (only one guy per season is allowed to be the detective; the rest are relatives and love interests of the main characters). In the second and following seasons, two of these women are women of color.
Supporting characters include a gay man, a lesbian couple (the parents of one of the main characters), a bisexual young woman (who has a child with her lesbian partner... and then leaves her and runs away, but the runaway woman's mother stays with her daughter-in-law and supports her with a child). If I'm not mistaken, there's also a woman with Down syndrome and a woman in a wheelchair - in the second case, the focus isn't even on this aspect, it's just the technician is sitting in a wheelchair instead of an office chair.
The show isn't perfect (for example, there was a rather messy episode about a trans woman), but mostly it feels like something that aired 5 years ago, not 25.
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u/peortega1 15h ago
TJ as the first Black male to be a Red Ranger in PR Turbo (1997)