Entry tags:

essay, kitt, sexism

Kitt's Role In The Series
Cross-posted from the board, where some discussion followed. :)

Other topics on this general subject matter include Why Does Kitt Race With The Penn Crew, Sexism in Dragon Booster, the Canon Sue thread starting around here, my Slithercorp recap, and the text below giving the exhaustive list of eps and Kitt’s role in them plus an account for each female DB character.

A quick disclaimer: I hardly imagine the writers wake up each morning wondering how many women they can oppress that day, but think of it like social skills: you can act like a wild polecat trapped in a small bathroom out of entirely innocent motives, but that doesn’t make it unreasonable for other people to be annoyed. Likewise, sexism can be disseminated as a result of ignorance as well as intentional misogyny. Please also note that male-centric doesn’t have to mean useless female characters with cookie-cutter personalities, and quite frankly it’s demeaning to a male audience to assume that they can empathise with a character from another dimension who rides dragons as long as they’re not a character from another dimension who rides dragons and happens to be a girl.



The Exhaustive Facts About Female Characters In Dragon Booster

If you decide to wade through this, please correct me if I’ve left anything out or got something wrong. Thanks!

Kitt’s Role In Episodes: The Complete List

1. The Choosing - Part I. Kitt tries to ride Beau and fails.
   
2. The Choosing - Part II. Kitt rescues Lance and Parm, and gets rescued by Artha.
   
3. Into the Fire. Lance gets kidnapped and Artha saves him. I don't think Kitt appears in this one? If so, good on the writers for keeping her out of an episode where she was useless.
   
4. Opposing Force. Artha saves the day, Parm and Lance reveal the wraiths. It’s been a while since I saw it, but I don’t remember Kitt doing anything, and she isn’t mentioned at all in the ep discussion topic. Again, I'm not sure whether she was in this episode, but useless.
   
5. Fanning the Flames. Kitt is justifiably angry at Artha. The writers make her do something stupid as a result. Artha saves the day and Kitt returns to him. She does help in the final fight, demonstrate her skills and give Artha a race tip, but the sexist nature of the general plot is repeated much more egregiously in Slithercorp.
   
6. The Stand. Beau gets mind-controlled but Artha calls him back. Kitt’s name doesn’t appear in the ep transcript. Useless.
   
7. The Horn of Libris. Kitt races with Artha, helps out with red energy equally to Lance, is the only one in the Penn Crew who knows where Moordryd's compound is, and breaks in more nimbly than Artha. She also helps Sarjo get out, but that's while Artha's actually fighting.
   
8. All Is Not Lost. Useless.
   
9. Three Times a Hero. Gets kidnapped while Lance, Artha and Parm are the three heroes.
   
10. The Lost Track of Doom. Part of the adventure and the race, interacts with Parm and helps him out with thruster gear, helps Artha save the day at the end. Somewhat useful as a sidekick, but still only a lesser Artha in terms of skill and plot relevance. On analysis (scroll down): this episode could have been much the same if Artha had gone through the adventure by himself with Parm's guidance from a distance.
    
11. Pride of the Hero. Fairly useless.
    
12. Misjudged. Doesn’t even get to play drag-ball. (Later we see Artha getting extra advantage yet again by Kawake’s younger brother, Best Drag-Baller In The City, playing with him to secure his Academy position, ironically enough winning using gear types that perfectly suit Kitt.) Useless.
    
13. The Chromatic Dragon. Lance climbs through the pipe to spy on Word. Kitt helps a little with getting the marking gear, but she gets defeated by the Army. She’s only really useful in the fight as another warm body on Artha’s side, and loses. The end bit really gets me: evil!Brutaris is menacing the group, the Army change sides to help them, Artha volunteers to get the bonemark off, Lance is first distraction, Parm saves him as second distraction--and then Artha saves Parm by removing the bonemark. Kitt just kind of cringes in terror.
    
14. If It Ain't Broke. Like everyone else, Kitt messes with the gear. Less relevant to the plot than Lance, who bonds with Stewardd and raids the Dragon Eyes' tent.
    
15. The Rules of Power. Helps out a little, but fairly useless. Artha, Beau, and Khatah’s blue dragons save the day.
    
16. Broken Bonds. Useless. A friend of Lance’s is introduced.
    
17. Faster Than Fear. Useless. Lance beats the Shadow Track.
    
18. The Leap of Lorius. Useless. Artha makes the leap, explicitly going one better than her. She’s a nice person who congratulates him.
    
19. The Wraith Booster. Useless. Lance bonds with Moordryd while she and Parm abandon him. Fails at fighting wraith!Artha, unlike the reverse in Slithercorp.
    
20. Artha the Drac. Fairly useless.
    
21. The Prophet's Motive. Spouts Girl Power lines. Imprisoned while Wulph helps Artha save the day. Almost useless.
    
22. Still Waters Freeze. Almost useless. Alerts Mortis, which doesn't actually achieve anything, and sits around to watch the episode climax.
    
23. The Mechanist. Useless in the main plot. Ignored by Rivett in spite of winning the race (potentially because he knows Artha’s the DB, but this isn’t stated), and also ignored by Khatah, who congratulates Artha for winning against Moordryd when she must have been beating him pre-series.
    
24. When Darkness Falls. Participates a little bit in the final fight while Lance takes the responsibility of climbing to find the lost amulet. Fairly useless.
    
25. The Return of Drakkus - Part I. Participates in the three-sidekicks-steal-the-mine sequence that one of them could have handled on their own. Almost useless.
    
26. The Return of Drakkus - Part II. See above.
    
27. Paynn Rising. Useless. Spouts Girl Power lines and then gets taken out by a guy.
    
28. The Changelings. Teams up with Artha to rip off Cain's thruster gear in a race (two against one is obviously fair when it's the good guys); Artha's idea. Doesn't participate in the battle at the end of the episode.
    
29. Framed. The winner of the first half of the relay; ignored by Chute, who didn’t know Artha was DB. Imprisoned for the rest of the episode. Fairly useless.
    
30. The Eye of the Dragon. Useless. It’s stated in this ep that she’d be fried if she even tried to fight alongside the DB. So much for all her hard work at learning to race on her own, male privilege and Destiny trump everything. (This would suck less if canon acknowledged it.)
    
31. No Paynn, No Gain. Talks about slugs, sees Fire Booster portrait, useless.
    
32. When Opposites Attract. Actually *does* help against Prophets and gets called (rather incongruously considering all the other eps) powerful by Propheci. Good for her! I think this might be the one good ep she gets. And she’s still a sidekick in it.
    
33. The Defiant. Suggests that Artha go to the Council and propose a race, upon which he takes the lead in the meeting. Fairly useless (Parm or Mortis could have done the same thing).
    
34. Slithercorp. Spouts Girl Power lines, gets taken out by a guy almost immediately afterwards. Plot: Artha is a prick, Kitt is justifiably angry, Kitt does something stupid, Artha saves her, and Kitt goes back to her subservient role, now explicitly depending on Artha’s goodwill to get into the Academy. A plot role she should not have had.
    
35. The Mouth That Roared. Saves Lance, but gets captured and rescued by Artha. Lance proves he can hack computer games and pick up conversations and shouldn’t be underestimated.
    
36. Professor Stubborn. Written as a coward when she runs from the challenge, when she could have so easily been dashing off to save Lance. Bravery is supposed to be her main attribute! Highly unfair that Parm, who’s already relevant to the plot, gets special powers above her. Useless.
    
37. Cain's Mutiny. Gets rescued by Cain. Useless.
    
38. Battle For The Ages. Cheerleads. Useless.
    
39. Damaged Goods. Cheerleads. Useless.
    

General Female Character Involvement: The List

A brief preface: some stories are set in times and places where a gender imbalance is natural. A story about a nunnery, for example, will be about women. A story about a war in medieval times will (mostly) be about male soldiers. A story about a girls’ juvenile reform facility will be about girls. If only one gender is usually permitted to do exciting things, most people doing exciting things will be of that gender. It is a natural requirement of certain settings, and does not give the appearance of ignoring one-half of the human race out of sheer spite. A little more on this in my livejournal.

Dragon Booster is not set in one of those times and places. Three thousand years ago, a woman was one of the fighting heroes. One-third of the present Crew-leaders are women. Kitt was the points leader pre-series. Speed and agility is valued at least as much as brute strength in racing. The world, as it exists, is one that should have strong female characters.

And the Zombie Cheerleader, Word’s Favourite Zombie, and Spunkeh Girl #2 aren’t quite cutting it.

Blarre. Says absolutely nothing in Cain’s Mutiny despite getting a fair bit of screentime next to Cain, while Rancydd gets a couple of lines. Distinguishable from Swayy by her lack of giggle.

Blue Booster (original). Could have been female because nothing’s known, but more likely to have been male as the Boosters generally seem to have been carbon copies of their modern counterparts. ETA: Creator Q-and-A confirmed male.

Chute. Spunkeh replacement for Kitt, gets saved by Artha from Moordryd in spite of being an Academy rising star where they just want to get in there. Appears in a single episode, though might have had a bigger role in DB:Academy.

Dragon Priestesses. So far show no sign of existing in the show. ETA: Nor in creator-given prequel. These hypotheticals seem rather desperate.

Embyrr. Background scenery, name not mentioned in the show. Loses races. Pyrrah’s younger brother is the Flare sidekick who gets screentime and dialogue.

Faiar’s Random Goons. Apparently all male, though I’m sure some women are part of DCS. Somewhere.

Fire Booster (original). Got a pretty portrait made of her. Appears as chronically slender as every single other female character, but certainly does seem powerful. The only female character we know of from the ancient times (the others are original DB and SB and Armeggaddon of whom we know much more about, and the Power Booster, who we know was a bit like Parm in his relation to the DB).

Fire Booster (Kitt). In spite of Parm’s existing plot relevance as the brains, it seems he’ll get his new powers long before Kitt.

Kitt. See exhaustive list of eps above.

Machina. Only mentioned on the official site as “stoic”. Her male sidekick appears on screen in lieu of her.

Marianis. Her male sidekick Dorsull is a racing champion. She’s set up as an information broker in Still Waters Freeze, but seems to only state the obvious and is saved by Artha. Follows Artha’s lead in The Defiant, apparently not quite as good a racer as he is in spite of her presumably greater experience. Sides with Phistus in Cain’s Mutiny. Beaten by Moordryd in Battle for the Ages.

Pyrrah. Pyrrah appears in the Council scenes generally. In her first episode, she’s controlled by Word. In Fanning the Flames, she’s working for Word again. She gets controlled again in The Defiant by Moordryd, along with most of the Council. In The Mechanist and Cain’s Mutiny, she sides with Moordryd, though she’s the first to change her mind in the latter. Next to Kitt, she’s the female character who gets the most screentime, but she’s usually either off with the bad guys because they’re more powerful than her or being zombiefied by Word. Outranked in the Council by Phistus. Her personality isn’t too clichéd IMO, but as the second female lead she sucks.

Racing Audience. I think there’s a pink-haired woman, and a blue-haired girl, and maybe another woman as well as a couple of guys…? They look like plastic zombies and they cheer like plastic zombies.

Ms. Sean. Parm's conveniently-offscreen mother. Um, it's good she actually has a career?

Sentrus. Academy scout and plot device. Seems to know her business though doesn’t get to do anything exciting. Favours Artha, and is outranked by the male Master Akarai.

Spynn. Appears to be competent but distinctly secondary to Vociferous. Contrast to male sidekicks such as Cain, Dorsull, and Rivett.

Swayy. …Has a nice evil giggle and a purplish dragon?

Vyzepshun. Despite black dragons being independent-minded, Vysox and Decepshun seem so far to be a single entity--loyal to Moordryd even when he fights Vysox' rider, without a sign that Vysox had to make a decision between Moordryd and Armeggaddon. And I think Hyve and Phorrj are girl dragons too? However, the female dragons are even less well represented than the female humans.

Woman with Baby (Artha the Drac). Stereotypical mother. I’m sure some of the creators must have children. Why couldn’t it have been a father showing concern for their child?

Zulay/Artha’s Mum (Fira)/Lance’s Mum. Trajikally and conveniently dead, as far as we know. Apparently Zulay had to “prove her loyalty” to her husband, which sure sounds like a completely egalitarian marriage to me.
ETA: In the creator-released prequel, Zulay turns out to be a Tragical Dead Saint and Artha's mum gets a name. Heavily pregnant Fira turns out to be a Dragon Flare to Connor's elite-class priestly-trained fighter; the women sure get major, prestigious roles in this show. Can't really blame Fira for being pregnant, but at least in the first two acts the female characters don't seem to have anything to do but tragic death and baby-making... Connor's random OC elite-class sidekick and Word's hired muscle Abyll (plz to read the book of Genesis again, writers) both turn out to be blokes, obviously.

--

There’s a slight glimmer in that Blarre and Swayy are Random Female Henchmen, which doesn’t happen that often, but the random Dragon Priests and DCS guys are all male, so it seems like only the eeeevil guys hire women. It’s also likely that Kitt would eventually get powers in a continuation of the series, though at this point she’s behind Parm. The series could certainly become less sexist, with a Kitt who does something and a powerful Chute and new female characters in the Academy, but that wouldn’t change the sexist treatment of women in the first thirty-nine episodes, and there’s absolutely no sign that the writers actually want that change to happen.

The powerful sekrit organization favouring the heroes is all male thus far (Dragon Priests). Most random henchmen are male (DCS, Dragon Priests, Cain and by a slight margin Rancydd more prominent than Swayy and Blarre). The main opposition of the ancient era seems to be male (SB, Armmy). The modern opposition is male (Word, Moordryd). The heroes are mostly male (Contis, Artha, sooner Parm than Kitt, original DB and PB). Kitt is the only main female character, and she’s useless. Chute is probably the most powerful female character in the series, and she’s in a single episode—and gets defeated and rescued both by males younger than her. Sentrus is outranked by Akarai, favours Artha, and doesn’t actually do anything. All female characters fit the beauty standard of being ridiculously slim. And not one of those listed above is a woman of colour. (To continue that line of thought, there can be seen racism in the devoted-to-white-heroes-slash-superiors Parm, Cain, Kawake, Shane and Khatah, the stereotyped treatment of the last three, and the world-logic that dark skin should be a sign of privilege rather than the pale Word, Sentrus and Moordryd being coded as powerful.)

All right. Sexism in Dragon Booster has now been proven completely non-existent. :P

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I’d generally have liked to have seen more Female Characters Doing Things. Girl!Phistus, Wulph, Rivett, Parm, Budge, Shane, half of Faiar’s random goons, half the random Dragon Priests and Akarai would make for a good start, and Chute-the-Academy-star shouldn’t have had to be rescued by the Dragon-Booster-who-wants-to-get-to-the-Academy, and—w00t!—the original Dragon Booster and Beau being women would have been incredibly neat. How non-sexist and cool would it have been for a young man to follow in a female hero’s footsteps for once? But for Kitt specifically, there were so many better things the writers could have done with her. What's important is that all of these would have been so damn easy to write.


Versions Kitt Could Have Been

Kitt #1: AlreadyInTheAcademy!Kitt.

Having won the Academy victory last year, Kitt made the decision to race on the street tracks a little longer to make some extra cash, because the Academy’s a long, tough and expensive haul and unlike certain others she doesn’t have a rich daddy. She meets Artha and finds out he’s DB as per the early episodes, and goes off to the Academy after the first ten or so episodes with the promise that she’ll come back and help him when she can. This enables her to play a plot role when desired, which seems to be pretty much only in When Opposites Attract (I’m pretending Slithercorp never existed). She can still help Artha when he makes it to the Academy as well, because she’s only been there for a matter of months, and with his l33t powerz and her and Parm’s assistance it won’t be too surprising that he can handle being in her class.

Kitt #2: PriestessTrainee!Kitt.

Kitt’s a dragon priest’s daughter sent to complete an apprenticeship with Mortis as well as act as companion/bodyguard to the Dragon Booster, being about his age. Because she’s only meant to be helping Artha and as a priestess has concerns other than winning races, she lets him win. She shares exposition duty with Mortis, and even though she doesn’t get to do that much at least you know that as an apprentice priestess she’s got some cool mystical knowledge and is probably hiding a few secrets. She can’t supply Down City exposition, but in canon it was mostly Parm anyway despite the fact he’s not actually from Down City.

Kitt #3: EgregiousSexismIsBadMmkay!Kitt.

Can be combined with #2, #5 and #6. Only four out of twelve female Crew-leaders, three of those actually appearing in the episodes, two of those who don’t have a racing champion as a male sidekick, one of those appearing in more than one episode, that one controlled by the bad guys, plus the enormous amount of character Swayy, Blarre and Spynn show on screen—say that women aren’t allowed to race at all and have Artha and Mortis occasionally show disapproval of this, and bravo, writers, you’ve lost very little, gained a reason for the boys’ club that shows up on screen, and can even claim to be anti-sexism.

Kitt #4: DownWithMasculineRivalry!Kitt

The alternative to #1. Kitt is still useless relative to the DB, but while Artha and Moordryd battle each other she races to victory and brings the Penn Crew into the Academy. Connor teaches her mag-moves, and Artha helps her tie with Moordryd in the final competition. A lovely moral of friendship, and a decent on-screen plot role for her.

Kitt #5: EmotionallySupportive!Kitt.

She’s just a girl hanging outside the races selling Draconee-Yum bars, but she’s seen enough races to know one or two tips, and the honourable racer Pyrrah who really needed more things to do than get controlled by the Paynns also helps out the cute stableboy who caught Kitt’s eye and vice versa. She’s a nice normal person who’s able to deal with legends and getting kidnapped by the Dragon Eyes, and even without particular skills she’s somehow still able to stand up for what’s right, which gives her fans a great excuse to talk about her immense emotional strength. Some fiddling with colour influences might be necessary, because you wouldn’t give a non-racer the fastest dragon type, but she could probably swap with Lance. Lance on a chibi!Red jumping all over the place would be adorable (it’d even match his hair!), and a nice sleek blue dragon would be fine for this version of Kitt. She gets a job as a filing clerk or something along those lines in the Academy and eventually gains the defensive powers of the Blue Booster just in time for the finale. This version still has the problem of a fairly useless main female character, but it’s less sexist than starting with a talented female character and reducing her to cheerleader.

Kitt #6: Karmon Sann

Artha’s best friend is a young woman of colour who’s a tech genius. I know, I know, cf. Hermione Granger, but it’s not like DB shies away from doing what has been done before (cf. Draco and Lucius Malfoy, cf. current!Kitt who’s hardly less of a cliché, cf. pretty much every character in the show), and it’s not the black warrior woman stereotype (not that black warrior women would be unwelcome either, most definitely a kickass step up from black basketballers!). Put Kitt and Parm in one body and upgrade Lance’s spunky quotient, and the show gets its token female character and a tightened team minus its useless surplus. The honourable racer Pyrrah can throw the stableboy the odd few tips as previously suggested (all of, like, twice, as per canon!). Even though it would be cool to have a male/female Just Friends relationship because that’s rare, Karmon can still be the love interest with tension realistically raised by Artha’s-a-shallow-git-only-into-the-popular-pretty-ones and are-we-going-to-ruin-the-friendship issues (more reasoning there than the canon A/K’s lukewarm stasis!), and there’d be interracial relationship yay!. The jokes can mostly be kept, and Lance can raise the occasional fireball and maybe be upgraded to twelve to do a little more. The only problem is the Five Colours Of Power And Balance again, but who said there needed to be five colours anyway? Green is a mix of yellow and blue, so a red Lance and blue Karmon getting with Artha, Moordryd and MagicallyBleached!Libris could sort it out as three primary colours and two shades. Or Blarre or Spynn could be changed to green, get a personality, and even the odds fighting alongside Moordryd before they finally quit the dark side.

Of course, there’s also the other option:

Artha: Not Omnipotent

He’s a rookie, and should need Kitt a whole lot more than he does. Despite the powers, Kitt’s faster and cannier than him—and, in the spirit of supporting one’s friends, recognizing that winning isn’t everything, not having the suspicious circumstances of the rookie winning everything, and poking fun at masculine rivalry, Kitt should so have been the one to get Penn Racing to the Academy while Artha and Moordryd were busy behind her. (She should also have learned mag-moves—it’s apparently still possible on dragons who aren’t pure, and Wyldfyr’s character is pretty much “fast dragon”, so s/he at least behaves like a dragon who’s all or mostly Red.) Why should the hardworking orphan fall behind for the greater glory of the lazy rich kid with special powers handed over to him?



*sigh* The team dynamics are generally problematic. One random ten-year-old kid hanging around and looking cute as a viewer placeholder is understandable, but two people sitting around while Artha hits things and Parm works out how is bad writing. What really brings out the rage is when one of them is the only main female character, who’s deprived of her career as well as never possessing the ability to fight alongside Artha in the mag-battles despite all her experience and hard work.

It could have been so much better.