Love, Peace and Big Guns

Geeky ones, I don’t usually say this, but I’m so bored right now! It’s that post-Pride time of year when it feels like the only things going on are backyard barbecues, outdoor concerts and the occasional movie premiere (Hello, WALL-E!). Days are long, nights are short and sometimes it’s a little hard to fill either of them – especially when I, like a lot of people, can’t get out to those barbecues, concerts and fun summer flicks very often thanks to the astronomical cost of fuel. And now that restlessness is no longer a winter-only phenomenon, I’ve had to get creative: I’ve had to go digging through my closet … to find my anime tapes from high school and college.

Yes, I said “tapes.” I didn’t have a DVD player until I was well out of university. What can I say? Turn of the century life was tough like that.

This month my girlfriend and I have watched two wonderful new anime series: the adorable high school girl comedy Azumanga Daioh and the action, intrigue and lesbian-packed magical high school girl school drama My Otome. (Yes, I have seen shows released after the digital Bronze Age of the 1990s. Really.) But in my search for something to watch next, I decided to return to what I knew best. Hence, the closet raiding, which lead to my rediscovery of a favorite series I hadn’t watched in years.

“It’s called Trigun,” I told Kim. “It’s about one man’s quest to find love, peace and redemption in a violent and troubled world. Also there are really big guns and things explode. A lot.”

If you didn’t already know it from my three part column about a movie featuring giant robots and nuclear war, guns and explosions are about all it takes to sell me on, well, just about anything. But for people who read this column for a little more depth than just “durr hurr things go boom,” I’ll elaborate about the awesome that is Trigun in the most spoiler-free way I can.

Our man Vash just can’t seem to catch a break. Wherever he goes on the desert planet of Gunsmoke disaster seems to follow – cities blow up, people get injured, and the undertakers make a hefty profit. In fact, such is Vash’s reputation for destroying pretty much every town he visits that he’s been given the nickname “the humanoid typhoon” and a bounty of $$ 60,000,000,000 (yep, that’s double dollars, because he’s just that dangerous). Tired of regularly shelling out the big bucks to clean up after him, an insurance company dispatches two employees, crabby Meryl Stryfe and spacey but savvy Milly Thompson, to find Vash and keep him out of trouble. When the two women meet up with their quarry, however, they have a little trouble at first believing he’s the world’s most dangerous man. Mainly because he’s a goofball with an obnoxious laugh, a weakness for glazed doughnuts and pretty girls, and a willingness to cry openly and frequently. Oh yeah, and an unwillingness to actually kill anyone, despite his reputation. But as Meryl and Milly soon discover, there’s more to Vash than his warm and somewhat silly exterior indicates, including a past fraught with pain and number of dangerous people who want to make his life even more miserable. Basically, Trigun is an ingenious blend of surreal comedy, spaghetti Western, science fiction and fable. And while the guns and explosions are fantastic, this series is, at its heart, a beautiful extended parable about compassion, forgiveness, friendship and the struggle to hold onto all of these when you’re misunderstood, hated and persecuted. And while you’d be hard pressed to find any gay characters in the series (the manga on which it is based does have a transgender character, however), I find that exceptionally relevant to being queer in the U.S. today.

You see, Vash may not be gay, but he reminds me of several gay people I know: gentle, caring, concerned with justice and willing to defend the dignity of all people, even those who hate him. Plus, he’s got a good sense of humor, a snappy dress sense, and no hang ups whatsoever about doing “sissy” stuff like sobbing in public or hugging male friends. And the whole pacifism thing? Let’s just say that if you stuck Troy Williams in a red coat and got him hyped up on a sugar rush, you’d have a pretty good idea of what Vash is like. And then there’s the whole persecution thing.  You see, Vash isn’t just misunderstood – he’s feared and downright loathed because he supposedly spreads violence and destruction. You know, kind of like ho some people hate gays because we supposedly spread disease and moral disorder? Add this to the fact that Vash isn’t your typical straight guy to begin with and the similarities to gay people go from “eh, I can kinda see that” to “oh my God.”

Vash also reminds me of a lot of gay people I know in that he doesn’t let the lies and myriad cruelties that come his way devastate him, even when they are calamities that would devastate most people.   Time after time, he brushes the dust from his shiny red coat and continues on, helping people, loving them and doing his best to keep them from hurting each other. He knows who he is and what he wants out of life and he rarely lets himself forget it. And in the rare cases when he does, he, like many gay people, can count on friends like Milly and Meryl to remind him.  And I mean, come on.  A guy with two girl friends? How gay is that?

I’m sorry to say that my girlfriend doesn’t like Trigun as much as I do. It has a few too many explosions, she says, and Vash doesn’t appeal to her like he does to me. “It’s hard for me to watch someone who knows the right thing to do and does it all the time,” she told me somewhere in the middle of the series. But that’s what I adore about Vash. His pacifism and his strength don’t make him sympathetic as a more flawed character would be. They make him inspiring. And God knows we queer folk need all the inspiration we can get in this world.

So, Vash. Congratulations. You’re cool enough to be an honorary gay person, and cool enough that this gay person wants to be you when she grows up.