Sunday, October 13, 2013

On The Air: SheZow (2012)

Oy! Here's one that the Disney Channel let get away. Maybe they knew something that The Hub didn't.

In 2007, Obie Scott Wade developed SheZow for Disney Channel's Shorty McShorts series of pilots, but the Mouse House passed. Five years passed, and SheZow debuted in Australia, arriving in the US on The Hub earlier this year. The radical concept has gotten the wrong kind of attention from the usual moral zealot groups, including One Million Moms, a division of the American Family Association.

Why? The concept of SheZow has a 12 year old boy finding a magic ring belonging to his late aunt, who was her generation's SheZow. Guy Hamdon dons the ring and while mocking the concept, transforms into SheZow right in front of his sister, who becomes part of his support team. The gender-swapping in the transformation is what got One Million Moms and other like minded groups upset, but as usual, they're just trying to nanny the target audience away. Then again, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea, considering that this is a dud.

It's not the flash animation or the concept that bugs me. American actor Sam Vincent (ex-Krypto The Superdog, Baby Looney Tunes) dubbed over the original Australian actor cast as Guy, but was that really necessary? No. No offense to Vincent, an outstanding actor, but it wouldn't have hurt to have left this show alone for the American audience and let the original Australian version be used. It's not like SheZow is a big hit anyway.

Scope out the opener, which looks like it was dubbed for broadcast in Canada before coming to the US.



I just don't see too many kids going out as SheZow for Halloween. Do you?

Rating: C-.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

Not if they want to avoid getting beat up!

I've seen the show and I'm not impressed. If it weren't for the radical premise, the show would be even more meh!

First off - if the premise were reversed - a girl finds a ring that turns her into a male superhero, would it have been done? No. IMO, this is another poke at making cross dressing "normal", and little else.

Second, there are real life She Zows in the form of 6 year old boys who's (lesbian) mothers insist they're really girls inside and should be dressed like them, wear their hair like them and use the girl's bathrooms at school. Personally, I find that to be child abuse. It's one thing for the kid to have such thoughts in adulthood, but 6 year olds typically do not.

I think the premise might have worked better had a tomboy been made She Zow. That way, she'd have to deal with all the girly girl trappings, and perhaps learn that a woman isn't what she wears so much as what she can accomplish.

As for the dubbing, it had to be done possibly due to the Australian accents and colloquialisms not heard in US English. There are still traces of it since there are koala and kangaroo based gags.

hobbyfan said...

There is a story where SheZow finds an alternate dimension where there is a reverse version (with guest star Jillian Michaels). I agree that a tomboy would've been a better choice than a skateboarding geek.