Theme: LGBTQA+ Pride - Jo from Lumberjanes

[locuatico]

Let me begin by mentioning this: Lumberjanes has plenty of LGBTQA+ characters. However, I am focusing on Jo because I have something of a personal story with Jo. Not because I identified with her but because someone I know online did and it meant a lot to her. (for privacy sake, I won't mention who she is, but we still are mutuals on Tumblr)


Lumberjanes is the story of the Lumberjanes camp for girls, focusing primarily on the girls from the Roanoke cabin. Among them, there are April and Jo, who were childhood friends long before going to the camp. (as a sidenote: The creator, Noelle Stevenson, is also the person in charge of the new She-Ra show)

First of all, let me begin with one page from chapter 12:



This was the first time the story implied that Jo was trans. one day, while discussing the series online, I casually mentioned that the comic had (then) recently implied she was trans by showing a photo of her as a child and looking like a boy.

She then went nuts because Jo was her favorite character and she was really hoping she was trans like her. She then went on to get caught up to the series uop to the (then) current arc, talking a lot about how she hoped the series would confirm it.

a little context, during the arc, the girls meet up with one of the boys from the all-boys camp "scouting lads" whom Jo does not like for some unkown reason and a lot of other sutff happens related to treasures and camp director Rosie's ex-girlfriend.

Then issue 17 came out.
(page count: 4 out of 24)









This moment meant so much to my friend that, a few months back in a she-ra discussion, she commented how she had complete faith on Stevenson delivering on She-Ra due to how much having Jo helped her at an awful point of her life.

Comments

[goattoucher]

:wipes tears: Yay.

[icon_uk]

And this is why representation is so bloody important!

When it's done as well as this, that's so much the better of course.

I have a friend who is hoping that the hints that She-Ra's Bow might be trans are true too.

[leahandillyana]

I don’t think so. Stevenson & co don't have intellectual property rights to She-Ra, and thus every decision must go through the guys who wrote the cartoon in the 80s. It is much easier to add original queer characters (Bow's dads) or make minor characters queer (does ANYONE remember who Spirenella and Netossa were supposted to be?) than to have main characters reimagined as queer. Voltron gives a perspective: the queer characters were either new (Ezor, Zethrid, that shark guy, I BET Acxa & Veronica were supposted to be an item too) or those deemed non-essential to the franchise (Shiro).

[locuatico]

Don't quote me on this. But I believe some of the people who worked on She-Ra have gone on record saying that, if done today, they would have included queer characters.
On top of that, Erika Scheimer (daughter of the founder and who is lesbian) has gone on record to say everyone working in the show (and filmation in general) was very queer-friendly years before the new She-ra was even a concept.

While he has said he is in no way involved with the new show, She-ra's co-creator J Michael Straczynski (yep, he worked on She-Ra) has been supportive of the LGBT+ community and he did co-create sense8 alongside the wachowski sisters.
Plus, and only slightly related, he actually defended the show from the people who criticized the new designs or claiming it was disrespectful to the original show.

This is not to say it is 100% sure Bow will be trans, but, as far as dealing with the show's creators? it seems they would be on board.
Now, would Mattel (or whichever company currently owns the rights. And who, in turns, probably have final saying) be on board with that? I can't say.

[icon_uk]

Not sure about that, the old writers don't own the series either, it's entirely down to whoever holds the licence for the dolls currently, as they are the primary intellectual property (probably misusing that term horribly in this context), just like IDW could do all sorts of things with the Jem licence (as could Jon Chu in the movie), without having to consult Christy Marx even though she wrote the series bible.

Madame Razz isn't a big deal in the current iteration, but was a regular in the original series and the way she refers to the last She-Ra suggests a history.

I'd consider Shiro, as one of the five Paladins to be very essential to the franchise the series set up.

You may well be right of course, but in contrast, look at Saint Seiya, where the new Netflix series will genderflip the Andromeda Saint from male to female and they're absolutely core to the series.

[leahandillyana]

Intellectual property rights belong to the person or company who is stated as creator of the property/ies in the patent, but they can be sold later. They can also be licensed for creation of further merch, like dolls, comics or cartoons. But in the end, it is the owner that has a final say in how their property is adapted.
It is much less controversial to genderflip or racebend characters, or give them more diverse body types, than to make prexisting characters queer, at least in the USA.
As for characters' importance, it is in context of the original work. For franchise, Shiro is not important, as his original counterpart stopped being a pilot early into the series (his story arc is about him considering himself a failure and later reinventing himself in a new role) and doesn't appear in either second season or the sequels. He's not considered a paladin proper, which is why the new guys could go wild with him.

[beyondthefringe]

d'awwwww. Cute.

[leahandillyana]

I somehow completely missed her being transgender when reading the comic.

[rainspirit]

I felt really smart for catching it. And it made me consider Jo to be my favourite Lumberjane. (She was already up there in terms of brains and style, so this wasn't much of a jump!)