For those who don't know, Birth Of A Nation was the first film to explore the power of film. It employed innovative and revolutionary new camera and story telling techniques that would forever change cinema as we know it.

It was also the most racist movie ever made in the history of North American film.

This brings us to Gurren Lagann as it is know in the west. It's a great series, and likely to be remembered as such for decades to come. It way of manging to tell an epic tail in a very short amount of time is unparallelled. As is it's ability to balance both bitter realities of war and genocide with the comedic goofiness of bugs bunny cartoon.

All that however does not excuse the glaring chauvinism throughout the series. It's marred by blatant patriarchal sexism and homophobic caricatures and threats.

The series emphasizes "manly strength" and is filled with phallic imagery. Per se, those things aren't necessarily bad, but the series keeps driving through the importance of manliness, and constantly exemplifies the apex of that being bravado and protecting women. Trust me when I say I'm not inferring too much, they drive home this point at least once an episode. If all that weren't bad enough, the women of this show blindly accept and embrace men's chauvinistic attitudes. The men of the show are constantly swearing to protect "their" women, and the women never assert that they can protect themselves. Not that they can mind you, as after the first few episodes any woman resembling an action girl ends up as serving no greater role than as a damsel in distress.

I could go on, but I've limited word count, so to homophobia. The show has one gay character, and he's effeminate sexual predator. He'll hit on anything with a penis, including children. In addition to this whenever he makes a sight pass at male they react with both fear and violence. In the episode he first appears in, Kamina threatens to kill him for it; twice. Bad enough as that is, it gets worse as Kamina is cast as the embodiment of manliness, effectively teaching young males everywhere that homosexual men are a threat to masculinity itself, and should be treated as such.

It is a shame, like BOAN, it's brilliance is defiled by the writer's own social ignorance and bigotry, causing this potentially revolutionary series becomes nothing more than regressive.