Koobichchi and confusion.

If you are a Sri Lankan kid, born after 2000 and hadn't watched the cartoon "Koobichchi", Machan!, I'm sorry to say this but your childhood sucks!

You have watched it, I have watched it, and wel all know the story which was about an ant named Koobichchi and her adventures.

Sounds like a cartoon that kids would love right?.

And yes it was, because as a small girl I adored it very much. Yet there was something about the cartoon that I just couldn't process properly. And honestly speaking, as a small girl it annoyed me!.

🐜Koobichchi is a female name.

🐜And she dresses in a manly manner.
{shoes and the scarf the ladybug gave
Koobichchi cuz she saved the ladybug.}

🐜 She is dubbed in a female voice

🐜She does adventurous stuff that are 
      often times considered manly.

🐜 Koobichchi is referred as "She" in the theme song.

🐞The ladybug is named as "Kuru Kuru" or "Nalu" which is the masculine form of
actress in Sinhala. So in that sense it  was a male?

🐞 He wore red high heels and always
carried a makeup bag with him.

🐞 He was fashionable just like a female. { I mean he
was an actor (actress?) after all}

🐞His voice sounded like a man's. {like, it was deep and coarse like a man's}

🐞 He was literally a magnet that attracted other male bugs. { you know the story!}

🐞When he got in trouble he demanded  to be rescued. { often times by the protagonist "Koobichci"  ( which is apparently a female thingy? 😑😑😑}

So to sum things up "Koobichchi" was a female ant that was behaving in a very
masculine manner and "Kuru Karu" was  a male "LADYbug" that was
behaving in a very female manner.

{?} 

               DID SRI LANKA ACCIDENTY
         MADE AN LGBTQ+ CARTOON FOR
            THE LITTLE ONES TO WATCH?

        Well sadly the answer is "Nah".

I personally think that they fricked up
the whole dubbing process!.

What do you think?. I'd like to know 😊

•°So why am I bringing this up now?°•

Well, before answering that question I'd like to share a personal experience of
mine with you.

About five to six years ago one of my distant relatives {my father's cousin to
be exact} was complaining about his daughter { he} who was elder to me. He had refused to wear a party dress and had said he would rather stay home than coming to the party wearing a gown.

He and I had never spoken a word or had even smiled with each other. But I have heard all the complaints his mom made about him not being "girly".

So almost a year ago we had a funeral to attend to and that was their grand mother { my dad's aunt} and there I met saw this guy that I did not recognise at all.

I hate to say this but he literally looked
like a washed up drug dealer!.
A super skinny guy with his sides
shaved and what was left of his hair was
coloured blonde. He was wearing all
black and had chains and tattoos and I
was like "This person looks dangerous".

_________

And guess what! It is the girl that my dad's cousin was complaining about!.
It was his daughter!.

And how we got to know was because at the time he was about to have surgery and his name was still the same as before { the girly one}. So when his  mom asked him to bring us ice cream to us, my mom sensed that something was OFF.

And she asked her "Is that %@#£&?"

And my aunt went like "Yeah that is %@#£&?" and he is having surgery to be a man and blah  blah blah  ~ the usual gossip talk~

It was honestly a pretty normal conversation. { I'd like to state that  my mom and my aunt both  are pretty conservative.... 😶}.

And after a while when my aunt left I completely forgot about the conversation and my mom out of nowhere blurted out "She has no chest anyways!"

And I was like ~ 😳🙄🤪. "Mom what!"
And kinda laughed it off.

And to my surprise there were no talking s#*t about her. No shaming what so ever. And you might be wondering what that has got to do "Koobichchi" then let me explain.

I was confused as a grade schooler on why the gender roles were mixed.

Why?

Because I have never heard of any such thing!.

Have never had an open conversation with anyone about something like this.

So why wouldn't we do so?
Clearly these things "exist" in the little "wonder of Asia" right?

Why are we not talking about homosexuality when we live in a country where head monks { male} rape the youngsters?
{ hope you remember that}

Why are we not talking about sex when sex is one of the most googled things in the region?

Why are we not talking about child abuse and domestic violence when a little girl got beaten to death?

Why are we not speaking about air pollution and deforestation when the air  quality in Colombo is so low?

Why would not we talk about all of these things?

And when somebody does, why so many people try to pull then down?

That is because making awareness is the root to everything. That is the foundation to any change that you want to make in something.

~Dini Kal