[SPLIT LIP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Annuga

Wait, so...
Two yellow Rangers being girls and there still being the Zyuranger nod but not the one you wanted means they HAVE to have a male and female green Ranger in this continuity? What?

I think he's saying there's no real point to it.

There's nothing gained by making Tommy a girl and not just bringing in a new character or a previous unused female Ranger to be the new sixth. Plus, it's kind of disrespectful to teh original character. And yes, people like the original character, he's one of the most if not the most popular Ranger ever.

"But Split!" I hear people reeeeee-ing in the distance "How would genderbending Tommy be disrespect? There's nothing wrong with being a girl!" You're right, but there's nothing wrong with being a guy, either. If the character's gender doesn't matter, well there's no point in swapping it now is there? Plus, it's not exactly being equal if you have to swap the gender of a pre-established male character just for more female prominence. If you're going to use Tommy, use Tommy, not a totally new character with the same name. I mean, people would've went berserk if they didn't have a black (as in African American) ranger, or if Trini was made male. Because, w-w-w-well, that's not being all-inclusive!

And that's really the crux of it: it'd just be a gimmick, doing nothing to strengthen the character, and just there for out-of-narrative reasons. It's like when movies pander to the Chinese market. What, you're gonna try and say the Chinese don't deserve to be represented? Of course you're not saying that. Or what about when they replaced Rocky with Justin to appeal to kids?

My vote: Keep green Tommy a dude, introduce new girl charatcer (or someone like Kat) and surprise us by making her the White Ranger. Powers get swapped all the time, and Tommy himself has had five different suits, so it's hardly incongruious for a ranger to be a colour they weren't before, plus it would make things more equal and be a clever way of adding to the cast without swapping out actors/characters like in MMPR. (since there's really no good reason to rotate out the cast this time) Or, have Tommy start Green, then lose/pass his powers onto a girl, and he becomes white, and we have a team of seven Rangers.

My point is: for all the talk of the genders needing to be equal, and they should be, making it a gimmick out of it seems insincere and pandering. It's like dividing up cookies between two children. You spend more time making sure both parties are happy than you do actually adapting the source material.