I get the impression that Disney's Robin Hood back in the '70s influenced furries, as well.

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Those would have to be some pretty old furries... most I'm aware of are under the age of 30.

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I don't know what to tell you.

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I don't think age would have made a difference, thanks to the video revolution and cable. I know in my case I was just as familiar with Disney's output from the '50s, '60s, and '70s as I was with the material they released while I was growing up, just because of movie rentals and the Disney Channel.

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Yup. I saw Robin Hood on video in 1985 or so at a friend's house.

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Yeah, I watched the hell out of a VHS copy of Sword in the Stone (1963) that my parents taped in the 80s during one of those Disney Channel free previews.

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Exactly what I was going to say. I saw that flicks tons of time as a kid...I'm not a furry though; I think Charlie's Angels got to me first.

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That makes sense. From my own glimpses at furry-based webcomics, there seems to be two major trends: the rather "sentimental" portrayal of anthropomorphic animals who really do greatly resemble, both in conceptualization and art style, something out of pre-1980 Disney or "Winnie the Pooh"; and anthros with hyper-feminine or -masculine physical traits who seem to have been inspired by the sort of cartoons I mentioned.

...Christ, I really do pay too much critical attention to certain things, don't I?

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I think the hypermasculinity dates from slightly earlier than that. I'd date it to Big '80s comics like Doom Patrol and Judge Dredd - and of course Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which did nothing if not touch off the furry!butch phenomenon in afternoon kids' shows.

Which of course didn't stop the explosion from continuing into the 1990s, and even today, really.

Edited at 2008-05-01 12:45 am (UTC)

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"Doom Patrol"? Do you mean before the Grant Morrison run?

I guess "TMNT" did touch it off, although it is still weird how the shows eventually made the jump to showing more "realistic" and even more masculine bodies. Looking at some of the images I'm kind of surprised there wasn't a "Tellytubby"-esque burst of manufactured outrage, but of course I suppose among the Moral Majority homoeroticism only comes in overt or effeminate flavors and masculine characters using fists and guns against bad guys can never be bad.

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It's true.

And as I've said before, my sexual awakening pretty much coincided with those cartoons, the Terminator movies being on TV nonstop, and a bunch of video games and RPGs with buff mythical creatures like Warcraft and Demon's Crest and Magic: The Gathering.

So I'm pretty much all fucked up. Dork sex, anyone?

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Star Trek and Star Wars, here.

So my kink is ideologues from space who wear stupid clothes.

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Now that I think about it, I am attracted to men who exhibit certain stereotyped masculine traits, which has "Outsiders" written all over it. Dear God, maybe we're onto something...

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All I know is, I'm not forgiving George Lucas anytime soon for making me think jackboots are pretty hot. (I had a massive kiddie-crush on RotJ Luke when I was in the single digits.)

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I was always more of a Vader fan, which I guess ultimately plays back into the ASFR bit.

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Which stereotyped traits? The monosyllabism? The lack of eye contact and squinting into the middle distance? The foot shifting restlessness as if, the more you talk, the more bored he gets (because he's about ACTION)??? Am I close, am I close?

Kai in NYC

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HAHA! Well, actually, masculine assholery does turn me on a little. I'm sort of the gay male answer to the legendary straight woman who is attracted to the men who treat her with disdain.

Weirdly enough, though, I'm not attracted to "masculine" professions like firemen or cops, but to "soft" authority figures like teachers and therapists. Go figure.

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lol what

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I guess I missed the train. My main exposure to fantasy was through Tolkein and Lewis, and they're about as sexually charged as an episode of "Touched by an Angel", and my cartoons all came just before the trend I talked about (although I do remember watching Biker Mice From Mars). Possibly, though, He-Man got to me even earlier than "The Outsiders." I mean, now there's a queer-friendly children's cartoon.

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Oh my God, He-Man. Tho I always went more for Skeletor - and the new-skool Rattlor and Webstor, whose toys are still in hideous primary colors but not portrayed as such in the new cartoons.

That, and Gargoyles is still a guilty pleasure.

Edited at 2008-04-30 10:47 pm (UTC)

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Ah, Gargoyles...it was kind of like the avant garde of Saturday morning cartoons. I never watched it regularly, but I was impressed by the episode where they fought Macbeth.

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This bit reminds me strongly of a favorite of my teenage years, Dragonball Z.

Not only was just about every main character a muscle-bound male with well-coiffed hair that changed colors as he got stronger, but if a shirt was worn at the beginning of a battle that lasted six or seven episodes, you can pretty much bet that it would be blown off by some sort of blast within two.

There goes another one.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go see my stylist and hit the gym.

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I could never sit through DBZ. It was so glacial, and the characters were all so hydrocephalic.

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I had friends who watched that in college and I could never understand the appeal-it annoyed the hell out of me with all the posturing and yelling and it taking 4 episodes for one fight to happen, plus all the yelling about power scores and so forth.

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And I think the fans moved from that to Naruto and then on to Bleach. I feel incredibly betrayed by Bleach, because I'm fond of Death Note and was excited by the prospect of another TV show about shinigami. But these "soul reapers" never actually, I don't know, reap souls - they just beat the shit out of each other endlessly, and to what purpose I really don't know. But again with the posturing and the yelling.

The only fight anime I've ever really enjoyed was Kenshin/Samurai X - because it was self-contained. It didn't resort to supernatural bullshit and generally seemed to have a plausible excuse for why all this was happening.

Edited at 2008-05-01 08:39 pm (UTC)

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Hunh. I've never seen either show as I'm something of an old fart when it comes to anime-I like the 70s/80s sci-fi war operas, I like some of the older kiddie stuff (Gatchaman, for example), and the occasional retro-y thing like The Big O or Giant Robo, but that's basically it. I really dug FLCL when I finally gave it a shot, but for the most part unless you hand me a DVD or a hardcore recommendation I don't seek out new stuff.

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I vaguely remember watching a few episodes of "Dragonball." I do remember the rampant shirtlessness. Plus there was one of the episodes where one of the heroes was gathering firewood by punching the trees down, which I thought was pretty damn hot.

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Cowboys of Moo Mesa disturbed the fuck out of me.

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That was the show I forgot to post about. If I remember correctly, there was even a character who basically a big leather daddy. I'm getting seriously tempted to endorse my own gay conspiracy theory.

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They were cows that rode horses. But some of the people in Moo Mesa were horses. That rode horses.

SOME HORSES ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS. FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAAAD!

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I had two sexual awakenings, I guess. One of them was when I was maybe 5 or 6 (yeah, go figure), and I'm pretty positive I owe that one to Lynda Carter. And what do you know: tough curvy women with long dark hair are still my favorite flavor.

Then there was another one when I was probably 12 or so. I can't remember what touched that one off for the life of me. One minute I didn't notice boys at all and the next minute, bam. Maybe it was just gym class. However, maybe it's telling that my favorite superheroes as a kid were the Hulk and Spiderman, and today I tend to like either burly/stocky dudes or little twinky boys and not much in between. Maybe kind of a stretch, but it sounds good, doesn't it?

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Oh yeah, the one and only thing I liked about gym class was seeing the well-built men in sleeveless t-shirts and tight shorts. Of course, given how bad I am at checking men out, I guess it's a miracle I was never gay-bashed.

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For me it was all about the locker room, which explains why I still kinda have a lingering white cotton briefs fetish. And then there were the showers, which, in a miraculous reversal of Murphy's Law, it seemed like all the cutest guys took. I never had the inappropriate-boner problem in that or any other situation, but there was plenty of inspiration there.

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good god i love those se hinton books - now i know why
mind you - i took a long dive into sweet dreams and judy blume books too

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I seriously went back and skimmed "The Outsiders" not too long ago and I was rather shocked.

I only ever read "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret." I knew it was a great book, but sadly I only remember a little of it and my amusement when I heard "I must, I must, I must increase my bust" in the classic Lords of Acid song.

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I have no opinion on your actual topic, I just wanted to say I thought it was awesome that you paraphrased John Waters to explain the limits of your sexuality.

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Thanks! I try to quote John Waters on any number of topics.

I don't know how you feel about his filmography, but have you ever watched This Filthy World or any of his movie commentaries? He really is a great speaker.

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