“Pterodactyl!” I screamed. It was “morphin’ time” during our game of Power Rangers and, just like the characters in the show, we had to shout the name of the dinosaur spirit that gave us our morphing powers. My choice of dinosaur stopped the game. My friends, all young boys, were confused. They all asked some variation of, “Why did you pick the girl one?” I am sure I tried to offer some sort of logical response about how there were more of us than there were boy rangers, but I ended up just shouting, “Tyrannosaurus,” and the game carried on as normal. But their question continued to circle my mind. Why did I choose the Pink Ranger?
The backlogs of my memory are filled with moments where the things I liked were questioned by my peers. In the late nineties and early aughts, all the kids in my suburban school watched television. Some cool kids had cable, but most of us spent our Saturday mornings glued to the front of the small screen, watching everything syndicated on network channels. I spent an exorbitant time in front of the TV, eagerly anticipating news adventures with my favorite characters. But, as I learned in many formative moments like the Power Rangers game, my favorites were not the “right” favorites. So, I learned to keep them to myself.
Even if I had to keep them secret, I had the most exciting and entertaining adventures with my characters. Like pretty much every human child born in the nineties, I developed a borderline obsession with Pokémon. I had binders overflowing with cards, boxes brimming with action figures, and bins stuffed with the video game cartridges and accessories. My absolute biggest Poké-high, though, came from watching the anime series. I, obviously, wanted to be a real-life Ash Ketchum and stroll through the world collecting every ‘mon in existence. But I had a special connection to the show’s recurring villains, Team Rocket members Jesse and James. Almost every episode, Jesse and James donned ridiculous disguises to try and sneakily capture Ash’s prized Pikachu, and their disguises never seemed to match their gender. Jesse would throw on a pantsuit and mustache while James put on a dress and make-up.
Though in hindsight it would be easy to make a case that the show pairs gender-bending with villainy, my young self was thrilled to see characters who did not worry nearly as much about what was right and wrong as I did. Even as a child I knew there was something special about seeing James choose the bride or magician’s assistant disguise rather than the groom or magician. Inspired by their lack of rigidity, I experimented with clothing and found freedom in wearing whatever I wanted. I knew I could not exercise this freedom outside the house, but at least I had a space to feel free. Team Rocket may have been “the bad guys,” but they gave me a sense of hope that maybe it was okay to be bad at gender.
Team Rocket were not the only Pokémoncharacters to offer me comfort. While other boys fought about Charizard or Mewtwo being the best Pokémon, I knew the right answer was Jigglypuff. In the series, Jigglypuff is essentially a recurring guest star. They rarely have any impact on the series’ plot, but they show up often enough to be a recognizable part of the show. In nearly every appearance, Jigglypuff shows up, sings a song that puts everyone to sleep, and then gets furious that no one is listening. And that was my story. Really, though, I loved the way Jigglypuff, in all their pink adorability, assertively performed no matter the setting. Even if their main ability was essentially super-lullabies, there was no denying that Jigglypuff was impressively powerful. In my mind, Jigglypuff was a little boy, just like me, who wanted to be heard (and was very adorable).
But all the other kids called Jigglypuff “she,” because they were pink. For them, because Jigglypuff was a “girl’s color,” Jigglypuff was also a “girl’s Pokémon.” The color pink, even if applied to fictional singing balloons, meant “for girls.” To my recollection, the show is never explicitly interested in figuring out Jiggly’s gender. But in a world where gendering everything is somehow crucial to society, it was incomprehensible for a boy to love Jigglypuff.
The issue of pink brings me back to my favorite Power Ranger. For my generation, the Mighty Morphin’ episodes of the Power Rangers series reigned supreme. Kimberly Hart (Amy Jo Johnson) was the original iteration’s Pink Ranger, and she was an icon. As Kimberly, she had big popular girl energy. Everyone on the show adored her, and she even got the original series’ big romantic arc with the team’s eventual leader, Tommy (Jason David Frank). As the Pink Ranger, she sassed the monsters that terrorized the town of Angel Grove while executing impressive gymnastics-based attacks I could only dream of performing. And she did all of this wearing a costume that celebrated my secretly favorite color, hot pink. I, too, wanted to be sassy, acrobatic, and fall in love with the strong hero. The Pink Ranger campily personified all the things I wanted to be but knew I shouldn’t be because they were not qualities for boys. I may have had to pretend to be the Red Ranger to keep up appearances, but in my heart, I always fought like Ms. Hart.
For years, I kept my love for these characters secret and close to me, even after I passed the “appropriate age” for watching children’s shows. Middle school began the reign of popularity and being cool meant acting much older than your age. Suddenly, kids’ television was “for babies,” and now it was all about whatever hot teen show aired on the WB. I kept my favorite characters secret for so long, though, it made it easy to keep going on adventures with them without anyone knowing. I went through phases where I may not have engaged with them quite as much, but I knew they were always there for me.
The fictional adventures I went on with Team Rocket, Jigglypuff, and Kimberly were not the only journey I was on, of course. I did not quite know it at the time, but my list of favorite characters was not the only secret I was keeping. As I started to understand my queer identity, I began to better understand my connection and identification with this vividly colored roster of fictional friends. Team Rocket’s gender-bending partnership demonstrated the alternatives to prescribed gender roles. Jigglypuff’s ambiguous gender comforted my feelings of social displacement. The Pink Ranger allowed me a secret source of identification in a world that did not want me to love pink and be the popular girl I so desperately wanted to be.
Years later, living openly with pride as a queer/gay man, I keep these characters close. For me, they’re not just characters from children’s shows, but significant models for helping me understand and forge my queer identity. As I approach my third decade of life, I no longer keep the things or who I love secret, but my identity still is—and always will be—a work in progress. Luckily, I have grown up with an assortment of characters to whom I can always turn to help me figure it out along the way.
