avery

I mean, I hate a good chunk of Kalos saga's writing decisions so... of course I despise Showcases being a girls only activity lmao I would even argue that XY's popularity is even a determining factor for the change in contests in JNs (⚆3⚆) I mean it sure is interesting only Serena was allowed to participated in the watered down "spetacular" contests that worked exactly like showcases...

But that's not here nor there. Onto Showcases being girls only: I hate when people bring up the "idol" aspect to defend Showcases being gender segregated, because;

male idols exist. In fact, K-pop, with its pletora of boybands started to explode worldwide around 2012-2019 before becoming the pillar of pop culture that it is today. american boybands have been a thing and extremly popular at that since the 90s? Why not capitalize on that aspect as well?

the most popular idols in japan tend to be part of an idol "group". I've talked about this before, but if pokeani really wanted to emphasize the idol aspect and culture of their own country, why not focus on something meant to be done as a group instead of the individualistic approach they actually went for?

So not only showcases were deliberately written to exclude men for no real reason but also to force competition between girls when the focus could easily have been on sisterhood and women working together towards a shared goal instead. Men cant be artists and female rivalry! That's two on two on the gender essentialism bingo👍

And another thing that reeks of misogyny in showcases that was never a problem in contests before is all of the girl's aesthetics and presentation. Like you said, amongst all the girls that appear in Kalos showcases, there's literally 1 single performer whose style is somewhat more masculine (and that's me being extremely generous?! this is not masculine, she's just not wearing a skirt)

Not only there's no place for boys in showcases, neither there is for masculine looking girls. Not only are characters like Drew and Harley not welcome in this environment, but neither is Zoey. Congrats, you created an tournament that excludes everyone!

All the girls there are expected to wear flowing skirts and do pretty dances where they float in the air like fairies, to be feminine, to be pretty, to be perfect. If they make a mistake, they dont get enough votes and not even as much a second chance. If they are creative and step out of the norm, they are activelly punished for it.

Never ever forget Jessie's first showcase attempt and how she got to dress up herself and her pokemon with matching outfits that emphasized the ghostly aspect of her ghost pokemon, pumpkaboo's pumpkin shape and also made reference to the french fairy tale Beauty and the Beast AND SHE LOST!!! Because the audience deemed it UGLY!!

And when you look at the freestyle rounds, all of them were created to fit in with Serena and not for her to adapt to them. That's a writing flaw and not really a sexism issue in my eyes, but the fact that the only ´possible challenges the writers could come up for Serena were *checks notes* dressing up. baking. vague trivia quiz. baking again. rhyhorn-fucking-herding; it creates a pattern that does reeks of mysoginy.

And your point about Jesse and her pumpkaboo too, I really hate that the system is purely based on biased voting from viewers, because it makes showcases more boring in the sense of you’re expected to fit into a singular mold in order to win the audience’s affections. Jesse please go back to contests i swear you’re more loved there

part of the reason contests worked before in hoenn and sinnoh was because it was judged less on general appeal but on how the trainer makes an effort to emphasize a Pokémon’s greatest qualities.

Like with Dawn’s pokemon, part of her learning experience as a coordinator and a trainer was learning to adjust to her Pokémon’s wants and appeals. Her whole flaw at the beginning of the show is that she prioritizes what she THINKS will make the judges happy or what she THINKS the audience will love, over looking deep into what makes her pokemon click. that is a solid message that it’s better to find something that best accentuates you PERSONALLY over trying to conform others into a box that could possibly be deemed “acceptable”. but here comes showcases to throw it all OUT THE WINDOW and say “yeah you do need to conform to other’s beauty standards if you want to succeed haha”. And I hate it sm

I also think this subtle misogynistic tone also extends to the pokemon themselves because all the pokemon shown in them (at least from what i remember in the show) were all cutesy or graceful type pokemon. when you look at serena’s (*cough* ABSOLUTELY PITIFUL *cough*) team, ALL of them fall into either beautiful or cute conventions for pokemon. that is also what makes it boring and weirdly bioessentialist because it messages that girls should not be allowed any ugly pokemon or that ugly pokemon or not worthy to be cute or whatever. even though majority of dawn’s pokemon consisted of the stereotypically cutesy or graceful pokemon (plus the whole decision to not evolve piplup bc the writers thought it was ugly), i do appreciate at least they let her swinub evolve. i remember when watching the show for the first time i was convinced they’d just let it stay as a swinub. but they had the boldness to evolve it fully into mamoswine and its (imo) one of her most ICONIC pokemon. I really wanted an arc for Serena where either her pancham evolves into pangoro, or she catches a rather ugly looking or more edgy looking pokemon (idk say muk, or a garbodar, or a garchomp for instance), and try to make it work in a showcase. not only would it ACTUALLY give her a real challenge in these showcases (because i swear the first round competitions in showcases are so BORING compared to appeal contests rounds), but it would be great messaging to people that everyone has the potential to be beautiful.

Another frustration of my with the innate separation of showcases and gym battles which you did mention, is the whole thing with showcases being girls only and gym battles being boys only. not only does it REEK of misogyny, but i dislike it because i think it mitigates the connection between Serena and ash—because in the show the best were shown of them supporting each other and helping them out is like words of encouragement. that’s fine and all, but when you compare it to how the dp writers connect ash and dawn’s storylines, it kind of falls apart a bit.

now before I yap I do want to clarify I AM NOT COMPETING THESE TWO AS ROMANTIC SHIPS. I love both satohika and satosere equally, however i when i analyze their pairs because i can get…..a little bit too fixated on analyzing dynamics (do not mention shinsato around me i will be annoying as FUCK). with dp, the writers make a deliberate effort to find ways for Dawn to actively engage with ash’s challenges (i.e her decision to battle maylene in order to get maylene’s confidence back because she knows the struggle of not feeling good enough at your goals, and Dawn often seen helping him train for his gym battles), and vice versa with ash (him taking inspiration from dawn’s contest practice and taking her performances and implementing them into his battle style, his genuine interest in participating in some of the contests like the Wallace cup or the jubilife contest). Most important thing to note is that this works for the benefit of BOTH of them. they take time to understand one another’s differences between gyms and contests and they come out as better trainers because of that intersection (am I making sense??? 😭😭😭).

but neither ONCE does Serena or ash help each other actively. Serena rarely battles in the show outside of team rocket shenanigans and rarely do we see her battle train with Ash (the only time i recall them ever battling each other one on one was quite literally the SECOND TO LAST episode), Ash doesn’t take ideas from her performances, absolute DROUGHT.

And also your comment on Tierno. He does NOT fit into gym battles like genuinely he could actually be a successful performer with his whole dance schtick.