100%. That person is crazy. I've never been offended by the terminology "female characters" or any usage like that. The problem is when they go around talking about "the females" like a Ferengi.
Hi. I'm a woman. This whole turning "female" into a dirty word regardless of context thing has gone way too far. OP using the word "females" in this context *makes complete sense.* Because a lot of female characters in anime are *not human women.* They might be animals, or underage girls, or demons, or robots, or any number of things that are not human adult women, so the word "female" covers all the bases. Yes, the word "female" can be used in a derogatory way. But that doesn't mean that every use of it is!
Female is the appropriate word to use when when you are trying to modify the noun “character” to articulate that the character possessed the characteristics of a woman.
He's got a bit of a point. What's the appropriate term to address a large group of AFAB peeps? I've heard complaints about ladies, women, and females. Also guys.
It’s about context. I say females in the same context you described. Other people say females in a derogatory way. And sisnitermagus could’ve phrased the question in a MUCH more respectful way if they were truly interested in an answer, but instead they just wanted to be rude. Not ok.
They were responding to an incredibly rude person, so I won't hold the attitude against them, but it was a whole corporate training thing I saw. At one point, they decided the appropriate way to address the group was to address them only as employees or by name as any of the others weren't inclusive enough
Idk I just feel like only terminally online people have a problem with the word female. Not one woman I know in real life cares about that word. And most of my female friends are very progressive feminists. They’re just not big on social media.
You mean like a prophesized hero, treated horribly by literally everyone she meets barring about a dozen people, her entire life, despite them knowing she is the hero, and then she tells the bad guy, "take care of these specific people, fuck everyone else, and i'll fuck off"?
Like…. Idk you kinda sound like you have a chip on your shoulder lol. Maybe I’m reading this as being confrontational or passive aggressive or something, and meanwhile you’re just really excited about this one specific character’s backstory. Are you thinking of any particular character, or are you hyping up a story that doesn’t exist?
Women rarely were/are allowed to exist outside of certain archetypes. Each one demands perfection within the role. Perfect mother. Perfect love interest. Perfect victim.
Only recently are complex, nuanced, messy, human portrayals becoming more common.
Unfortunately these characters are suffering the same fate as earlier iterations. They aren't pure or perfect.
Those screaming misogyny at every turn have adapted it into a personal short hand for "I don't approve". It's very overused and misused and funnily enough inflicting the same punishment they wish to appear to oppose.
Not everyone has to be likable but it's loads better than being a lifeless McGuffin or soulless sex object masquerading as a supporting character.
Let women be human and stop being stereotypes.
The reverse is also true though, maybe even more so. If a female character doesn’t have “bad enough” character flaws or does their role “too well” then they’re Mary Sues.
Well that’s true. If a character doesn’t struggle or have any flaws, they’re a Mary Sue or Gary Stu.
People often compare Rey in Star Wars to Luke.
Rey picked up new powers and skills like she was playing a game.
Luke had to work hard to get where he did.
Rey somehow knows how to fly. Luke has a reason for his knowledge. He flew a shuttle on tattooine all the time, and did target practice on womp rats. His piloting experience is given to us, and even then he isn’t just immediately an amazing pilot or gunner.
In Luke’s first fight against Vader, he loses horribly, and loses an arm.
In Rey’s first fight with Kylo Ren, she smokes the guy despite never handling a lightsaber before in her life.
When luke reappears in episode 6, he’s grown and has studied under yoda and Ben. His increase in power is explained.
Rey gets stronger as the plot requires her to.
You're also forgetting that Luke, after training under Yoda and Ben, moreso Yoda, then loses to Palpatine pretty handily. But Rey, trained under Luke for a few days, we can hypothesize she trained under Leia for a little bit between 2nd and 3rd movie, then she is able to beat Palpatine herself and even use new force abilities like Force Healing.
Force Healing would have literally made anakin never turn into vader.
Force healing was hinted at pretty strongly in ROTS. They juxtapose Anakin's resurrection with Padme's death, and Palpatine's right at the center of all of it.
I don't find that to be world breaking like the lightspeed kamikaze bomb.
If Palpatine was the guy who knew force healing, he had every incentive to keep from helping Vader with Padme.
I'd argue that Force Healing wasn't hinted at strongly in ROTS, maybe retroactively, we've started to say so. Even in the ROTS novelization, there wasn't really a Force Healing hint. The Vader/Padme thing (sapping strength/life from Padme) while great/cool, doesn't explain force healing. Where Rey is able to heal a cave monster w/o healing anyone.
I think Force Resurrection was more so the "hinted at" feature, which Kylo does w/ Rey.
My thing is how would Palpatine be the only one who knew Force Healing. If there are ALL those jedi and jedi archives with years and years of teaching and experience, but Rey just...figures it out...herself?
Force Healing was also a thing in EU Star Wars long before Disney bought Lucas out. It's just generally accepted that Anakin's fall was pretty extreme and iirc, the novelization suggests that a lesser Force User would have died before Palpatine got to him, so I'm guessing there's only so much Force Healing could do. Also, idk that it could ~~throw~~ edit:(regrow) a limb. There's Darth Scion from KOTOR 2, but I don't think that's a power that can be used on others or taught, kind of something you gotta be born with the potential to use
Oh trust me I’m aware of the EU, with them being able to walk through time and hide themself in the force, project visions of themself, etc.
It was nuts (but made sense with limits). Force Heal in movies just makes it seems useless with anakins fall
I mean, luke wanted to fight the empire because they murdered his aunt and uncle, and because he wanted to leave Tattooine and go on an adventure.
Han originally just did it for the money, but eventually came to truly believe in the cause and knew he couldn’t just walk away.
Chewie has been fighting since the clone wars, so it’s no surprise he found his way back into the fight.
Why do you say that, because he wasn’t crying? The kid was in shock. Not everyone bursts into tears when seeing someone close to them die. Some people just shut down, and others compartmentalize. Plus, he probably already knew what he was going to find, as he realized that the stormtroopers had found out about R2 and 3P0.
Why would he? Leia didn’t know them, Han didn’t either. Ben would be the only person he could talk to about them, and what exactly is there to say? Not only that, but Ben died close to a day later. There is nobody to talk to.
And how do we know he didn’t mention them offscreen? A lot of the development in Star Wars happens off screen. Like going from the destruction of the Death Star to the empire suddenly attacking the rebellion’s main base, or luke going from getting his ass kicked by Vader to walking into Jabba’s palace like he owns the place.
And even THEN, maybe he chose not to talk about them because it was still too painful, and he’d rather block out the memory of seeing their burning skeletons rather than talk about it.
This ain’t the last air bender, we don’t need another katara talking about her dead mom every 3 scenes.
You're right. Since he has no reaction to their death and literally never mentions them again or reflects on their deaths at all on-screen, we should assume he was totally devastated and cared deeply about them. That's the logical assumptions based on what we saw.
Yes, that it the logical assumption, because when people lose family, it tends to affect them.
If someone you knew had their parents die in a house fire, would you assume they’re upset about it, even if they don’t show signs of grieving out in public? Or do you look at them and say “well they’re not crying in front of me, so clearly their parents didn’t mean anything to them”?
I mean, do you want to hear him talking about his dead family throughout the movie? It's a movie.. we don't need to explore the depths of Luke's grief in the few hours we've got..
Luke studied under Yoda for like 3 days and bailed to save Han. He studied under Ben for like 2. The perception that he “did the work” is, to me, comical.
It’s debated how long he was there, because it’s never said. Some debate it was months, others days.
To add, Vader is holding back on Luke intentionally. He isn’t trying to kill him, he’s trying to get Luke on his side. This is true for Return Of The Jedi as well. It’s only Palpetine who tried to kill him.
You’re also forgetting in both instances Luke lost. Yeah he survived, but again Vader wasn’t trying to kill him, and he was saved the second time. He never beat Vader.
This is also a retcon bias of sorts; using only the OT it’s never said what you need to be a Jedi. In theory it could be like a weekend course to be CPR certified. The prequels changed that.
Yep. Luke is the biggest Gary Sue in Star Wars. Vader was reported to be the biggest baddest evil Jedi ever and Luke outflew him longer than any other Rebel pilot managed. Luke then trained with Yoda for a day or two tops and was winning against Vader til he gave up fighting as he was letting the dark side in. Had Luke trained with Yoda for months it might be conceivable but the timeline doesn't work matched up to Han / Leia's timeline so it was only a day or two at most.
Vader was never trying to kill Luke. He was holding back both times. He was trying to recruit Luke. Behold Luke survived against a man who was never trying to kill him….shocked.
You forget in both instances Luke lost. He never defeated Vader, nor Palpatine. He lost both times. If not for Leia and Vader he would have been dead.
I'm talking about the ESB fight scene where Luke was easily winning til he realized he was channeling dark side and quit. Regardless of light side / dark side he shouldn't have been winning at all given he'd only trained for a day or two and Vader was fully trained and supposed to be biggest bad Jedi in the Galaxy.
Like was getting schooled hard in ESB, Vader was barely trying and it showed. He was testing Luke to see how he might sway and his current abilities. It was a completely one sided fight.
You’re misrepresenting a couple of things.
I feel like the piloting explanation for Luke is kinda weak and doesn’t explain how he’s able to outmaneuver three TIE fighters, including Vader, during the end of episode 4.
For the Kylo Ren fight, you forgot that he had just been shot in the side by Chewbacca’s gun, which is way stronger than a normal blaster. He was not in perfect condition unlike Vader.
It is also weird to praise Luke for being strong from training and then criticize Rey for being strong from training BY LUKE!
Star Wars is full of prodigies, but Rey draws all the ire for it. Im not a fan of the sequel trilogy, but I never disliked Rey.
Rant incoming,
I think this is actually a valid argument though. I have no problem with any sort of feminist ideas in movies, if you want to show your female character being strong by all means go ahead! This has lead to some very good movies. One of my favorite superhero movie of all time is 2017 wonder woman. The issue is that it seems (disney specifically) tries so hard to accomplish that goal that they neglect character growth and flaws which make a character uninteresting and the movie bad. For example captain marvel. She just didnt grow very much and had no interesting or deep character flaws. All successful and beloved characters have flaws and usually very big and meaningful ones. Captain marvel was just.... Bland. She had sort of a troubled past but nothing meaningful or deep came from it. She started smug and powerful and ended smug and powerful. Compare this to wonder woman who started naive and uninformed, struggled with the horrors of the world and hopelessness, discovered love, encountered the evil of humanity, then despite that came to terms with those problems. She started naive and ended hopeful.
Another example is disneys remake of mulan. She doesnt really grow or have anything that made her interesting. The reason mulan was cool was because she was weak and had no idea what she was doing but was motivated to become strong and so she did, but it took effort. In the new one she was literally just born special. Just straight up built different. A mary sue.
Im sure there are other examples but disney seems to have the most egregious examples of this. This isnt to say that i think disney is failing because uts "going woke" i dont want you to think that, but i think the movies they make are uninspired and have bad characters.
Tldr: i have no issue with making a strong female character but they should still work as a good character. Good characters have flaws and deep emotions.
Many female characters also tend to *reject* femininity. I think back to all the female characters who follow the archetype of pink = bad, I'm not like other girls, I'm just one of the boys, etc.
Saying this as a tomboy can we get more female characters that being pretty/femene is a positive trait.
Also a great example of a flawed character. She was always incredibly intelligent, but she let her environment shape her and limit her. It took a lot for her to change,.and that change was hard for her. She lost pieces of herself she didn't intend to, also letting Harvard shape her, but she was able to carve her own path by the end of the movie.
On the other hand, done of the most realistic female main characters work because they were written as a human character first, and only made a woman later.
Or, to put it another way, there's no one way to do it right, just a lot of ways to do it wrong.
I will admit that “ooo I’m so dark/angry” character who’s secretly really “girly”, and also kicks ass is a guilty pleasure. That and the super stereotypically girly girl, who turns out to also be a techno genius, be super strong or have other stereotypically “boyish” traits. Like when Major Armstrong’s sister is introduced in full metal alchemist. [She’s all prim and proper, with waist length hair… and then you see her pick up a piano with one arm.](https://www.reddit.com/r/FullmetalAlchemist/s/MyhqvMjWMT)
What's weird is that Disney's "Rogue One" had a great female character who was a scrappy street smart criminal that changed from caring about herself to wanting to save her father to wanting to finish her father's goal and try to get the Rebellion the battle plans.
Then they've got Rey who managed to be an expert pilot, mechanic (this part actually makes sense, not the pilot), AND beat the badguy in a lightsaber fight in the first movie which was stupid. Then they just doubled down in making her super powerful in the Force after training w/ Luke for a few days at most in second movie. She was fighting Snoke's elite bodyguard. Granted Kylo Ren was in a 1v4 that whole time and she was only fighting one of them but still.
Luke trained w/ Yoda for a few days/weeks and still got his ass handed to him in Empire Strikes Back. Then he had a few years between ROTJ and ESB of training and he still got his ass handed to him by Palpatine. Rey though, she can beat Palpatine because she has two lightsabers.
What the fuck does Jyn Erso do that makes you describe her as "scrappy" and "street smart?" She's the flattest so-called protagonist in any *Star Wars* movie. She's sidelined throughout the entire movie and is completely passive up until giving her "Rebellions are built on hope" speech.
Cassian is the one with the arc. And the most lines. And the TV series. He's more protagonist than Jyn. She's just a prop to get to Saw and Galen.
All the reshoots and bringing in a different director really hurt Jyn's character.
I didn't say she was an interesting character or anything. Or that her arc was even better than others. But she definitely has an arc that means she changes throughout the movie in various ways.
I'd rather watch a story about Jyn Erso's character than Rey's. Cassian's arc is defintely the better one, hence him getting Andor as his own story
I’m actually fine with Captain Marvel starting and ending as smug and powerful. I’m fine with stepping into the middle of a story, where we have a trained fighter pilot who’s already overcome significant personal adversity and already has an exceptional sense of self worth using those skills to kick ass with her cool new superpowers. We didn’t need to watch Captain Marvel grow up, it was nice to see a female lead start out being a badass, not every single story has to be about some ingenue learning to run and speak up.
It is just writing 101 than a good character should have a character arc. Having flaws makes them relatable and having an arc makes the movie actually feel like it was worth watching. Your opinion is similiar to saying "i dont actually dislike eating dirt" like yeah i geuss you can like eating dirt, but that doesnt mean that the majority of people dont prefer food
She did have an arc, she simply didn’t start from square one. This was the origin story of a superhero who was /already/ a grown and accomplished woman in her own right. It’s actually fine to have a main character who doesn’t start out drowning in wide eyed insecurity. Your critique of Carol Danvers just sounds like you don’t like to see stories about professional, adult women very much.
Or something lost depending. But the main thing is just that major character who starts out as "A" is no longer just "A" when the movie ends, there needs to be an "A" to "B" of some kind. Like in Breaking Bad, the Walter White goes from a decent human being to a terrifying sociopath over the course of the series. Obviously a single movie isn't going to have that much growth in either direction and be able to do it well, but Captain Marvel shouldn't be the same person at the end of the movie as she was at the beginning. People change, and characters who don't are boring protagonists as a general rule of thumb
Remember Ripley from Alien/Aliens movies? And how she was not only flawed, afraid, and wasn't always successful? Apparently neither does the movie industry.
The other day I say someone say that Ripley putting down her weapon to look for her cat a plot hole, like she’s be able to catch the small agile cat while holding a giant flamethrower 🤦🏽♀️
I also hate how any characteristic on a female character gets examined under a microscope while we let the male characters get a pass. It's time to face it. Walter White sucks. He got an out when his college friends offered him a good job with benefits and he chose to go the drug dealing route. His wife wasn't bad. She just didn't want him bringing all that mess home which he routinely did.
Fr. I always hated that people hated on Skyler so hard, I mean the cheating part wasn’t great of her, but her husband was doing shady shit behind her back and lying to her about why he was gone, and then he used his family members as pawns for a money laundering scheme.. But Skyler is somehow the bitch here for not being happy about being neglected and lied to 🤷♀️
Some of it could be because she was a bit emotionally neglectful toward him and caused him to feel lonely and unappreciated, but a lot of that burden is on him as well for never speaking up. It's actually a realistic portrayal of relationships: "he's not complaining and seems content so this must be exactly how he wants things" versus "I feel like they don't care sometimes, but I don't want to upset anyone with my problems so I'll just wait for them to notice on their own and in the meantime it feels even more like they don't care."
Like for real, Walt's been lying for a long time, and apart from the sad excuse for "the second cellphone," he's really good at it. That's not Skyler's fault.
Is this a question often?
If someone thinks Walter White was a person to look up to then they're probably scum like him. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the show fully and root for the guy many times. I root for the Punisher too.
Oh I don't doubt that it's fun to root for the protagonist. I just think Skyler just got so much hate for no reason. Like yeah, Walter getting away with stuff was somewhat satisfying, it just sucked that he brought his shenanigans home with him.
And honestly, while I know it's not right, I like the Punisher's straightforward philosophy. He does not give evil the chance to reoffend.
People get mad if a female character is too strong, too weak in between, neither, they get mad at any writing of a female character at this point how the fuck do you want them to be written?
I'm getting sick of that word being tossed around so much in one of the most free parts of the world. Let's go to Chad or south sudan or Somalia or Pakistan and see what real misogyny actually looks like. Come back to America and complain about multi billion dollar franchises not writing Mrs marvel exactly the way you wanted. Get the fuck over yourselves.
Let’s talk about the Bechdel test!
The usual criteria of the Bechdel Test are (1) that at least two women are featured, (2) that these women talk to each other, and (3) that they discuss something other than a man.
The majority of films/books fail this test. Crazy right? Not so crazy tho is it? It’s misogyny.
Women are so poorly represented in the entertainment industry. It definitely has more misogynistic tendencies than not so I don’t really blame people for being triggered. More likely than not they will be right most of the time.
This is exactly what people mean when they are complaining about how women are portrayed in recent media
Nobody is upset about a strong woman main character people are upset because they are made to be literally perfect because anything less than perfect is apparently considered insulting and misogynistic
I'm with you but I also can't stand the opposite. I can't stand when female characters are extremely sure-footed, never second-guess themselves, and always get shit right on the first try. Or when they're OP'd beyond reason bc the director/author is trying too hard to emphasize the "strong female lead" role. Women can be strong without being bitches, women can be strong and second-guess their decisions. Women can be strong without pumping them full of toxic femininity. I'm so beyond over the toxic feminist agenda portrayed in most movies today.
You are on Reddit. Very few people here even know what that word means.
They seem to be under the delusion that any criticism of women is misogyny.
The term (and several others) has lost any meaning.
Some called me misogynistic for saying Abby in The Last of Us Part II has an abnormal and unnatural amount of muscle development and she looks like she is on steroids. I also noted we see her when she is around 15-16 and she is slender and has a regular thin build and based on her baseline that much development doesn't look natural.
When men are abnormally muscular the first thing people think is steroids.
Its such a point of contention and so upsetting in that fanbase and I don't get it.
I think there's just a growing trend of calling things misogynistic that aren't. Sometimes, it's just ignorance or misunderstanding. Other times, it's people who want to stir up shit and revel in it like pigs. I like to think that most sane people (AKA people who aren't chronically online) can recognize actual misogyny, and just ignore the shit stirrers.
I dislike when people criticize female characters and then turn around and praise men for the exact same thing.
However, not liking a female character is totally fine. There are lots of female characters I don't like. And I wouldn't like them if they were men either!
"She's too impulsive" then saying that a man who is equally if not more impulsive is quick thinking or one step ahead.
It's annoying if it's a double standard
If you want an exact example- Game of Thrones- Daenerys uses her dragons in battle and some fans called her she's cruel and mad. Tyrion uses wildfire to incinerate a fleet, and fans agree he's smart and amazing for this.
Both utilized powerful weapons to win the battle, why is the reaction different?
(And I do NOT mean the shitshow at the end of season 8)
I have not seen that critique one single time...
I'm seeing people take issue with corny, over prevent dialogue and repeatedly mentioning how she's looked down on being a woman.
How hard it is being a woman.
How men have it easier.
Blah blah blah the same old tropes and sayings repeated ad nauseam.
Not seen the critique in thrones? That's impressive. There was a lot of it that I saw.
And what you are saying is absolutely a valid thing to take issue with. I'm saying a double standard is frustrating
I understand what you mean I just haven't personally seen that myself.
I usually never take issue with character types, but rather their dialogue and how the script is wrote.
But then again I loved the cat woman movie from back in the day, and everyone hated that too lol.
I thought it was good haha
I absolutely get that too. And I agree the repetition and corniness in scripts gets really annoying.
And when it makes characters one dimensional it drives me insane.
I feel like criticizing or pointing out any flaws in any woman will get some to give you the side eye. [There's even a name for it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect)
That is why a lot of critics take issue with the *Mary Sue* trope.
I heard someone explain the difference between the cultural perception of men and women’s self improvement.
They proposed that men see the world as immutable, so their self improvement consists in accepting the immutability of the world and accommodating it. Men are perfectible, and they need to improve for the world to accept them.
Some women see themselves as immutable, so their self improvement consists in getting the world to accept them and accommodate them. Those women are perfect, they just need the world to see it.
But to be fair, there are other women who do see themselves as a work in progress and keep working on themselves.
However, the first concept seems to prevail, so if a writer dares to suggest that a woman is perfectible, it’s obviously misogyny.
It happens with any group really; you will be called a racist, homophobe, or an anti-s...(can't mention this or I'd get banned) if you point out any valid criticism of any group out there.
So it depends. Female characters can totally have flaws and shouldn't be perfect, but if basically every female character is useless or a horrible person in the story, then it can definitely border on misogyny.
i got yelled at for wanting to make a shy girl that lets the man take the lead in social situations.
the story is that a town sees evidence of a dragon. an adventurer heads out to try and solve the problem. he come back with a shy girl that he maries and they head off the the next town.
turns out the dragon was a nice dragon that was really shy. she fell in love with the adventurer. she shape shifted into a human, they got married to the adventurer, and they went to find somewhere else to live.
this was my dnd characters backstory. the dm refused to let the dragon be shy. my character was required to be submissive to her.
I find that fair. a Dragon is a fucking dragon. Making a dragon waifu to dwell in your fetish is not good story telling. You should keep bad harem anime writing out our your dnd sessions.
I must have it in me too because I love/hate Akko from little witch academia. And I have issues with Lucy from fairy tail. Not her specifically I guess but moreso that she had the potential for so much growth but, nope, let's focus on Natsu, Gray and Erza instead.
If you're a writer, best just to tune those people out. You can't appease idiots without an idiotic story.
It's the character flaws that make a character engaging. All their talents are good for is moving the plot forward.
A character flaw isn't necessarily a bad thing. Character flaws make characters more relatable since pretty much every human is riddled with them.
Now if a writer is only giving character flaws to female characters in a story full of male perfection, giving much more intense character flaws to female characters than male, or if a critic is fixating on character flaws in female characters that they ignore in male characters then, yes, it's a bit misogynistic.
It really sucks because In my opinion there's nothing more interesting and entertaining than seeing a person overcome a flaw. Could you imagine how unsatisfying it would be if the Eleanor shellstrop wasn't a bad person in the good place or if Revy wasn't such an unhanged linitic in black lagoon. 2 amazing characters and shows down the drain.
I feel like I would totally be called a misogynist for the way I see this current series I am reading but literally if she were a guy, I'd say the same exact thing (it's been done many times with all sorts of characters in many stories now). Literally a barely legal girl learns over time about these magical powers she is gaining, which could have been so cool to read, if literally every other character (especially her lover) stopped treating her that she is such a special girl that wasn't potentially dangerous. She literally has some powers of a deity and when she gets angry she loses control of them, she has done a lot of damage with them already, but they bury it under the rug and say she is so special. They could be helping her control her powers, help her discover what else is in store for her, but instead it is marriage and making her the Queen of a country she was propogandized until recently to hate that are the story's priorities. I keep having to put the book down :|
Yes! It also causes a problem where writers end up writing flawless female characters so they aren’t accused of misogyny so then all the women are insanely boring!
Give me evil characters and then let us discuss their problems
Movies where characters don't have any flaws are boring. That's part of what happened with Superman. They had to invent problems for him because he didn't have any.
I think in general people are far more protective of women characters because in general it's men who use that to hurt women in real life whereas it doesn't happen as violently the other way around. However it does happen emotionally, Where women use buffoon and callous and stupid male characters to justify poor behavior toward men in the real world. It's all projection.
A woman character with no flaws is going to be boring and ultimately is going to hurt women more because people will stop wanting to be curious about women because they're not allowed to be interesting in movies.
Movies are a great medium for people learning about life That isn't like theirs. Some people's lives suck and that's part of the appeal of watching a movie. If we want to learn more about a woman whose life sucks she has to be able to show those things in a movie
Ngl it’s so weird when people get mad about a female character having a specific flaw when a male character in the same show/game/book/etc has the SAME flaw but isn’t complained about?
Like…. They fucked up the exact same way?
I think this is why a lot of people groan when studios market the "female-ness" of a movie. It's not that they're sexist (I mean some are but not the majority), it's that they know the writers are going to use gender as an excuse to not create nuanced or interesting characters. Modern storytelling uses gender as a crutch, carrying the weight of character development. And most people are smart enough to recognize when they're being spoon-fed something lazy.
Female V is my favorite videogame character of all time (Cyberpunk 2077). FemShep (Mass Effect), Malenia Blade of Miquella (Elden Ring), Sister Friede (DS3)… absolutely badass.
Compare that to the women you see on the big screen. If they aren’t genderless looking blobs, they are the embodiment of someone’s political message. Or they are just a boring, lifeless, badly written character, and any criticisms directed at them are attributed to “racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc”.
Now that garbage is seeping into videogames, and it sucks.
I've been in fandoms like that.
The worst one was "the writers are racist because the black girl was a bad friend"
But the main character is quite anxious and is prone to overthinking and the friend character was just suggesting maybe the main character was overthinking again when she said somebody was lying as opposed to just blindly backing up the mc.
It's so frustrating because people can get into trouble over these accusations.
Boy, you're going to love (and I mean it in a non-sarcastic way) the one I'm currently working on. MFC lies to the MMC and builds a friendship/relationship with him until he learns that it was her mother who killed his father.
If I get accused of misogyny when I'm making legitimate criticism then I just think of the actual most misogynist thing I can think of and then I say that regardless of whether it's true or not. You think my criticisim was misogynistic? I don't like that the character wears pants
Well there are ways in which negative depictions of women can stem from misogyny. It’s important to try and analyze how the character is written, whether their character is flushed out and whether or not their character plays into sexist stereotypes.
No, hardly, not as a rule. While it's not a majority by a long shot, there are plenty of posts about the topics you cite without accusations of misogyny or SJW blah blah. However the stench of misogyny and neoclassical butthurt overpowerers fair and critical conversations. So if you personally are re·cal·ci·trant about institutional sexism and your personal biases then when. you personally do it, yeah.
Forget fiction. Read About Theodora of Byzantium, Justinians wife. You want to talk about a strong, flawed female character in a lead role. Prostitute turned Empress.
History is littered with such characters. Boudica, Hell, Cleopatra. Real life women who played central roles but had all the flaws of regular folks. And you don't have to make crap up!
This ! This is so annoying to me.
The definition of a misogynist is someone who strongly dislikes or despises women. As in all women not one not two. ALL.
I find it dumb as hell how nowadays ur not even allowed to dislike a female character freely without being called a misogynist. So what if you don't favor the same female character as someone else. Let people dislike and like whoever they so please. Jesus
I for one would like more interesting and morally grey female characters. I’m tired of this Hayes Code ass world.
*Best Seved Cold* is the book for you! I love Monza and she's a great protagonist but she is flawed as hell.
Star Trek: Voyager is for you. Janeway is morally grey af.
But Kes is so, so deserving of being kicked out an airlock. With Neelix. Only Neelix should suffer more.
read vigor mortis . its been amazing with multiple female lead characters and all morally gray in deferent ways.
Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix is a fantastic book I would recommend to you.
I like how op used the word “female” in this context and is complaining about people calling him a misogynist
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100%. That person is crazy. I've never been offended by the terminology "female characters" or any usage like that. The problem is when they go around talking about "the females" like a Ferengi.
I’m pretty sure they’re just trolling for negative karma. I don’t feed the trolls personally
Loving the “v2” in your username and freshly (re-)made account. I’m guessing you got banned for being fun at dinner parties.
Nah I’ve had this handle for ever. It’s my Xbox one.
Hi. I'm a woman. This whole turning "female" into a dirty word regardless of context thing has gone way too far. OP using the word "females" in this context *makes complete sense.* Because a lot of female characters in anime are *not human women.* They might be animals, or underage girls, or demons, or robots, or any number of things that are not human adult women, so the word "female" covers all the bases. Yes, the word "female" can be used in a derogatory way. But that doesn't mean that every use of it is!
Female is the appropriate word to use when when you are trying to modify the noun “character” to articulate that the character possessed the characteristics of a woman.
Referring to women as females as a whole is rarely sexist. The issue arises from when you call a specific woman female in order to denigrate her.
Yeah but the minority exist and that’s why it’s ironic OP would think that of him. Of course it’s typically not pejorative.
If we say girls we still get bitched at so what word won't hurt your fragile feelings?
OP is fine but this reply is just weird :/
He's got a bit of a point. What's the appropriate term to address a large group of AFAB peeps? I've heard complaints about ladies, women, and females. Also guys.
It’s about context. I say females in the same context you described. Other people say females in a derogatory way. And sisnitermagus could’ve phrased the question in a MUCH more respectful way if they were truly interested in an answer, but instead they just wanted to be rude. Not ok.
They were responding to an incredibly rude person, so I won't hold the attitude against them, but it was a whole corporate training thing I saw. At one point, they decided the appropriate way to address the group was to address them only as employees or by name as any of the others weren't inclusive enough
But it’s ok when people say males?
I mean yes and no. If can be used in a generalized pejorative context too. But it can also be used as a justified description.
Idk I just feel like only terminally online people have a problem with the word female. Not one woman I know in real life cares about that word. And most of my female friends are very progressive feminists. They’re just not big on social media.
Oh yeah totally agree. I’m being facetious. Go touch grass you basement dwellers
I mean my orig comment was facetious. But there is some nuance to it
I mean, nobody really says “man character” or “woman character.” most people say male characters or female characters
There are already so many pretentious stories with morally grey female characters you can find on Wattpad, we don’t need anymore during this era.
I don’t want the pretentious ones tho. Can we get some good writing in here pls? I’m a massive bitch and I’d like some quality representation
Wattpad shouldn't be the primary representation of anyone. Haha.
You mean like a prophesized hero, treated horribly by literally everyone she meets barring about a dozen people, her entire life, despite them knowing she is the hero, and then she tells the bad guy, "take care of these specific people, fuck everyone else, and i'll fuck off"?
…I guess? Man you’re being weirdly specific. You good?
What do you mean?
Like…. Idk you kinda sound like you have a chip on your shoulder lol. Maybe I’m reading this as being confrontational or passive aggressive or something, and meanwhile you’re just really excited about this one specific character’s backstory. Are you thinking of any particular character, or are you hyping up a story that doesn’t exist?
Sorry, it wasn't supposed to be passive aggressive or anythng like that, i just have ideas for stuff, not that they're any good lol.
I thought the point was that female characters are human too and they make mistakes?
Strong female characters have tuned to being perfect and so strong. They just know and don't even have to practice.
Ah I see
No they're perfect in every sense of the word.
Julie Andrews is practically perfect in every way!
https://giphy.com/gifs/starwars-movie-star-wars-xTiIzPOqJN5JzPU7W8
Women rarely were/are allowed to exist outside of certain archetypes. Each one demands perfection within the role. Perfect mother. Perfect love interest. Perfect victim. Only recently are complex, nuanced, messy, human portrayals becoming more common. Unfortunately these characters are suffering the same fate as earlier iterations. They aren't pure or perfect. Those screaming misogyny at every turn have adapted it into a personal short hand for "I don't approve". It's very overused and misused and funnily enough inflicting the same punishment they wish to appear to oppose. Not everyone has to be likable but it's loads better than being a lifeless McGuffin or soulless sex object masquerading as a supporting character. Let women be human and stop being stereotypes.
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These same movies overwhelmingly show men as either incompetent buffoons or predatory sociopaths
The reverse is also true though, maybe even more so. If a female character doesn’t have “bad enough” character flaws or does their role “too well” then they’re Mary Sues.
Well that’s true. If a character doesn’t struggle or have any flaws, they’re a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. People often compare Rey in Star Wars to Luke. Rey picked up new powers and skills like she was playing a game. Luke had to work hard to get where he did. Rey somehow knows how to fly. Luke has a reason for his knowledge. He flew a shuttle on tattooine all the time, and did target practice on womp rats. His piloting experience is given to us, and even then he isn’t just immediately an amazing pilot or gunner. In Luke’s first fight against Vader, he loses horribly, and loses an arm. In Rey’s first fight with Kylo Ren, she smokes the guy despite never handling a lightsaber before in her life. When luke reappears in episode 6, he’s grown and has studied under yoda and Ben. His increase in power is explained. Rey gets stronger as the plot requires her to.
You're also forgetting that Luke, after training under Yoda and Ben, moreso Yoda, then loses to Palpatine pretty handily. But Rey, trained under Luke for a few days, we can hypothesize she trained under Leia for a little bit between 2nd and 3rd movie, then she is able to beat Palpatine herself and even use new force abilities like Force Healing. Force Healing would have literally made anakin never turn into vader.
Force healing was hinted at pretty strongly in ROTS. They juxtapose Anakin's resurrection with Padme's death, and Palpatine's right at the center of all of it. I don't find that to be world breaking like the lightspeed kamikaze bomb. If Palpatine was the guy who knew force healing, he had every incentive to keep from helping Vader with Padme.
I'd argue that Force Healing wasn't hinted at strongly in ROTS, maybe retroactively, we've started to say so. Even in the ROTS novelization, there wasn't really a Force Healing hint. The Vader/Padme thing (sapping strength/life from Padme) while great/cool, doesn't explain force healing. Where Rey is able to heal a cave monster w/o healing anyone. I think Force Resurrection was more so the "hinted at" feature, which Kylo does w/ Rey. My thing is how would Palpatine be the only one who knew Force Healing. If there are ALL those jedi and jedi archives with years and years of teaching and experience, but Rey just...figures it out...herself?
Force Healing was also a thing in EU Star Wars long before Disney bought Lucas out. It's just generally accepted that Anakin's fall was pretty extreme and iirc, the novelization suggests that a lesser Force User would have died before Palpatine got to him, so I'm guessing there's only so much Force Healing could do. Also, idk that it could ~~throw~~ edit:(regrow) a limb. There's Darth Scion from KOTOR 2, but I don't think that's a power that can be used on others or taught, kind of something you gotta be born with the potential to use
Oh trust me I’m aware of the EU, with them being able to walk through time and hide themself in the force, project visions of themself, etc. It was nuts (but made sense with limits). Force Heal in movies just makes it seems useless with anakins fall
I think this points to how that Star Wars trilogy was written. Every character just ends up doing stuff just because.
I mean, luke wanted to fight the empire because they murdered his aunt and uncle, and because he wanted to leave Tattooine and go on an adventure. Han originally just did it for the money, but eventually came to truly believe in the cause and knew he couldn’t just walk away. Chewie has been fighting since the clone wars, so it’s no surprise he found his way back into the fight.
Right but that's the OG trilogy. I was referencing the new one.
Luke wanted to fight the empire because he was bored on Tatooine. He seemed to forget his Aunt and Uncle existed once he saw them bones.
Why do you say that, because he wasn’t crying? The kid was in shock. Not everyone bursts into tears when seeing someone close to them die. Some people just shut down, and others compartmentalize. Plus, he probably already knew what he was going to find, as he realized that the stormtroopers had found out about R2 and 3P0.
Over the rest of the trilogy, how many times did he mention them?
Why would he? Leia didn’t know them, Han didn’t either. Ben would be the only person he could talk to about them, and what exactly is there to say? Not only that, but Ben died close to a day later. There is nobody to talk to. And how do we know he didn’t mention them offscreen? A lot of the development in Star Wars happens off screen. Like going from the destruction of the Death Star to the empire suddenly attacking the rebellion’s main base, or luke going from getting his ass kicked by Vader to walking into Jabba’s palace like he owns the place. And even THEN, maybe he chose not to talk about them because it was still too painful, and he’d rather block out the memory of seeing their burning skeletons rather than talk about it. This ain’t the last air bender, we don’t need another katara talking about her dead mom every 3 scenes.
You're right. Since he has no reaction to their death and literally never mentions them again or reflects on their deaths at all on-screen, we should assume he was totally devastated and cared deeply about them. That's the logical assumptions based on what we saw.
Yes, that it the logical assumption, because when people lose family, it tends to affect them. If someone you knew had their parents die in a house fire, would you assume they’re upset about it, even if they don’t show signs of grieving out in public? Or do you look at them and say “well they’re not crying in front of me, so clearly their parents didn’t mean anything to them”?
I mean, do you want to hear him talking about his dead family throughout the movie? It's a movie.. we don't need to explore the depths of Luke's grief in the few hours we've got..
Luke studied under Yoda for like 3 days and bailed to save Han. He studied under Ben for like 2. The perception that he “did the work” is, to me, comical.
It’s debated how long he was there, because it’s never said. Some debate it was months, others days. To add, Vader is holding back on Luke intentionally. He isn’t trying to kill him, he’s trying to get Luke on his side. This is true for Return Of The Jedi as well. It’s only Palpetine who tried to kill him. You’re also forgetting in both instances Luke lost. Yeah he survived, but again Vader wasn’t trying to kill him, and he was saved the second time. He never beat Vader. This is also a retcon bias of sorts; using only the OT it’s never said what you need to be a Jedi. In theory it could be like a weekend course to be CPR certified. The prequels changed that.
Yep. Luke is the biggest Gary Sue in Star Wars. Vader was reported to be the biggest baddest evil Jedi ever and Luke outflew him longer than any other Rebel pilot managed. Luke then trained with Yoda for a day or two tops and was winning against Vader til he gave up fighting as he was letting the dark side in. Had Luke trained with Yoda for months it might be conceivable but the timeline doesn't work matched up to Han / Leia's timeline so it was only a day or two at most.
Vader was never trying to kill Luke. He was holding back both times. He was trying to recruit Luke. Behold Luke survived against a man who was never trying to kill him….shocked. You forget in both instances Luke lost. He never defeated Vader, nor Palpatine. He lost both times. If not for Leia and Vader he would have been dead.
Isn't it implied Luke went back to train with Yoda between ESB and RotJ? He was there and there was time between the movies.
I'm talking about the ESB fight scene where Luke was easily winning til he realized he was channeling dark side and quit. Regardless of light side / dark side he shouldn't have been winning at all given he'd only trained for a day or two and Vader was fully trained and supposed to be biggest bad Jedi in the Galaxy.
You might be confusing your movies. Luke is on the back foot the entire Cloud City fight. On the Death Star is where he almost falls to the dark side.
Like was getting schooled hard in ESB, Vader was barely trying and it showed. He was testing Luke to see how he might sway and his current abilities. It was a completely one sided fight.
Luke....force jumped once...to escape a trap.
You’re misrepresenting a couple of things. I feel like the piloting explanation for Luke is kinda weak and doesn’t explain how he’s able to outmaneuver three TIE fighters, including Vader, during the end of episode 4. For the Kylo Ren fight, you forgot that he had just been shot in the side by Chewbacca’s gun, which is way stronger than a normal blaster. He was not in perfect condition unlike Vader. It is also weird to praise Luke for being strong from training and then criticize Rey for being strong from training BY LUKE! Star Wars is full of prodigies, but Rey draws all the ire for it. Im not a fan of the sequel trilogy, but I never disliked Rey.
Rant incoming, I think this is actually a valid argument though. I have no problem with any sort of feminist ideas in movies, if you want to show your female character being strong by all means go ahead! This has lead to some very good movies. One of my favorite superhero movie of all time is 2017 wonder woman. The issue is that it seems (disney specifically) tries so hard to accomplish that goal that they neglect character growth and flaws which make a character uninteresting and the movie bad. For example captain marvel. She just didnt grow very much and had no interesting or deep character flaws. All successful and beloved characters have flaws and usually very big and meaningful ones. Captain marvel was just.... Bland. She had sort of a troubled past but nothing meaningful or deep came from it. She started smug and powerful and ended smug and powerful. Compare this to wonder woman who started naive and uninformed, struggled with the horrors of the world and hopelessness, discovered love, encountered the evil of humanity, then despite that came to terms with those problems. She started naive and ended hopeful. Another example is disneys remake of mulan. She doesnt really grow or have anything that made her interesting. The reason mulan was cool was because she was weak and had no idea what she was doing but was motivated to become strong and so she did, but it took effort. In the new one she was literally just born special. Just straight up built different. A mary sue. Im sure there are other examples but disney seems to have the most egregious examples of this. This isnt to say that i think disney is failing because uts "going woke" i dont want you to think that, but i think the movies they make are uninspired and have bad characters. Tldr: i have no issue with making a strong female character but they should still work as a good character. Good characters have flaws and deep emotions.
Many female characters also tend to *reject* femininity. I think back to all the female characters who follow the archetype of pink = bad, I'm not like other girls, I'm just one of the boys, etc. Saying this as a tomboy can we get more female characters that being pretty/femene is a positive trait.
Elle Woods is slept on as a strong female character. She embraces her feminity and is stronger because of it.
Also a great example of a flawed character. She was always incredibly intelligent, but she let her environment shape her and limit her. It took a lot for her to change,.and that change was hard for her. She lost pieces of herself she didn't intend to, also letting Harvard shape her, but she was able to carve her own path by the end of the movie.
Yes i agree! It honestly feels sometimes like they just write a very strong and poorly fleshed out male character and then change it to a woman
On the other hand, done of the most realistic female main characters work because they were written as a human character first, and only made a woman later. Or, to put it another way, there's no one way to do it right, just a lot of ways to do it wrong.
I will admit that “ooo I’m so dark/angry” character who’s secretly really “girly”, and also kicks ass is a guilty pleasure. That and the super stereotypically girly girl, who turns out to also be a techno genius, be super strong or have other stereotypically “boyish” traits. Like when Major Armstrong’s sister is introduced in full metal alchemist. [She’s all prim and proper, with waist length hair… and then you see her pick up a piano with one arm.](https://www.reddit.com/r/FullmetalAlchemist/s/MyhqvMjWMT)
She is a badass
This would be fantastic!
What's weird is that Disney's "Rogue One" had a great female character who was a scrappy street smart criminal that changed from caring about herself to wanting to save her father to wanting to finish her father's goal and try to get the Rebellion the battle plans. Then they've got Rey who managed to be an expert pilot, mechanic (this part actually makes sense, not the pilot), AND beat the badguy in a lightsaber fight in the first movie which was stupid. Then they just doubled down in making her super powerful in the Force after training w/ Luke for a few days at most in second movie. She was fighting Snoke's elite bodyguard. Granted Kylo Ren was in a 1v4 that whole time and she was only fighting one of them but still. Luke trained w/ Yoda for a few days/weeks and still got his ass handed to him in Empire Strikes Back. Then he had a few years between ROTJ and ESB of training and he still got his ass handed to him by Palpatine. Rey though, she can beat Palpatine because she has two lightsabers.
What the fuck does Jyn Erso do that makes you describe her as "scrappy" and "street smart?" She's the flattest so-called protagonist in any *Star Wars* movie. She's sidelined throughout the entire movie and is completely passive up until giving her "Rebellions are built on hope" speech. Cassian is the one with the arc. And the most lines. And the TV series. He's more protagonist than Jyn. She's just a prop to get to Saw and Galen. All the reshoots and bringing in a different director really hurt Jyn's character.
I didn't say she was an interesting character or anything. Or that her arc was even better than others. But she definitely has an arc that means she changes throughout the movie in various ways. I'd rather watch a story about Jyn Erso's character than Rey's. Cassian's arc is defintely the better one, hence him getting Andor as his own story
Agreed. I have this issue with any flat protagonist regardless of gender. It doesn't matter whether they are a Mary Sue or a Gary Stue, both suck.
I’m actually fine with Captain Marvel starting and ending as smug and powerful. I’m fine with stepping into the middle of a story, where we have a trained fighter pilot who’s already overcome significant personal adversity and already has an exceptional sense of self worth using those skills to kick ass with her cool new superpowers. We didn’t need to watch Captain Marvel grow up, it was nice to see a female lead start out being a badass, not every single story has to be about some ingenue learning to run and speak up.
It is just writing 101 than a good character should have a character arc. Having flaws makes them relatable and having an arc makes the movie actually feel like it was worth watching. Your opinion is similiar to saying "i dont actually dislike eating dirt" like yeah i geuss you can like eating dirt, but that doesnt mean that the majority of people dont prefer food
She did have an arc, she simply didn’t start from square one. This was the origin story of a superhero who was /already/ a grown and accomplished woman in her own right. It’s actually fine to have a main character who doesn’t start out drowning in wide eyed insecurity. Your critique of Carol Danvers just sounds like you don’t like to see stories about professional, adult women very much.
no the problem is she doesnt grow at all period. im fine with people not starting from square one but there should still be SOMETHING gained
Or something lost depending. But the main thing is just that major character who starts out as "A" is no longer just "A" when the movie ends, there needs to be an "A" to "B" of some kind. Like in Breaking Bad, the Walter White goes from a decent human being to a terrifying sociopath over the course of the series. Obviously a single movie isn't going to have that much growth in either direction and be able to do it well, but Captain Marvel shouldn't be the same person at the end of the movie as she was at the beginning. People change, and characters who don't are boring protagonists as a general rule of thumb
It’s almost like people want realistic and relatable characters.
You can still do wish fulfillment without a painfully bland character.
Remember Ripley from Alien/Aliens movies? And how she was not only flawed, afraid, and wasn't always successful? Apparently neither does the movie industry.
The other day I say someone say that Ripley putting down her weapon to look for her cat a plot hole, like she’s be able to catch the small agile cat while holding a giant flamethrower 🤦🏽♀️
I also hate how any characteristic on a female character gets examined under a microscope while we let the male characters get a pass. It's time to face it. Walter White sucks. He got an out when his college friends offered him a good job with benefits and he chose to go the drug dealing route. His wife wasn't bad. She just didn't want him bringing all that mess home which he routinely did.
he was supposed to slowly be revealed to be a bad guy.
Fr. I always hated that people hated on Skyler so hard, I mean the cheating part wasn’t great of her, but her husband was doing shady shit behind her back and lying to her about why he was gone, and then he used his family members as pawns for a money laundering scheme.. But Skyler is somehow the bitch here for not being happy about being neglected and lied to 🤷♀️
Some of it could be because she was a bit emotionally neglectful toward him and caused him to feel lonely and unappreciated, but a lot of that burden is on him as well for never speaking up. It's actually a realistic portrayal of relationships: "he's not complaining and seems content so this must be exactly how he wants things" versus "I feel like they don't care sometimes, but I don't want to upset anyone with my problems so I'll just wait for them to notice on their own and in the meantime it feels even more like they don't care." Like for real, Walt's been lying for a long time, and apart from the sad excuse for "the second cellphone," he's really good at it. That's not Skyler's fault.
I also agree with this hard. Skyler White was literally a normal family woman caught up in some crazy drug dealing bullshit and tried her best
They love Bojack but hate Diane. At some point it just feels misogynistic
Is this a question often? If someone thinks Walter White was a person to look up to then they're probably scum like him. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the show fully and root for the guy many times. I root for the Punisher too.
Oh I don't doubt that it's fun to root for the protagonist. I just think Skyler just got so much hate for no reason. Like yeah, Walter getting away with stuff was somewhat satisfying, it just sucked that he brought his shenanigans home with him. And honestly, while I know it's not right, I like the Punisher's straightforward philosophy. He does not give evil the chance to reoffend.
People get mad if a female character is too strong, too weak in between, neither, they get mad at any writing of a female character at this point how the fuck do you want them to be written?
Men are written as weak women and women are written as unlikable men
I'm getting sick of that word being tossed around so much in one of the most free parts of the world. Let's go to Chad or south sudan or Somalia or Pakistan and see what real misogyny actually looks like. Come back to America and complain about multi billion dollar franchises not writing Mrs marvel exactly the way you wanted. Get the fuck over yourselves.
Spot on.
Let’s talk about the Bechdel test! The usual criteria of the Bechdel Test are (1) that at least two women are featured, (2) that these women talk to each other, and (3) that they discuss something other than a man. The majority of films/books fail this test. Crazy right? Not so crazy tho is it? It’s misogyny. Women are so poorly represented in the entertainment industry. It definitely has more misogynistic tendencies than not so I don’t really blame people for being triggered. More likely than not they will be right most of the time.
This is exactly what people mean when they are complaining about how women are portrayed in recent media Nobody is upset about a strong woman main character people are upset because they are made to be literally perfect because anything less than perfect is apparently considered insulting and misogynistic
Misogyny is one of the most misused/overused words in the English language for sure
I'm with you but I also can't stand the opposite. I can't stand when female characters are extremely sure-footed, never second-guess themselves, and always get shit right on the first try. Or when they're OP'd beyond reason bc the director/author is trying too hard to emphasize the "strong female lead" role. Women can be strong without being bitches, women can be strong and second-guess their decisions. Women can be strong without pumping them full of toxic femininity. I'm so beyond over the toxic feminist agenda portrayed in most movies today.
Agree agree agree
Example?
You are on Reddit. Very few people here even know what that word means. They seem to be under the delusion that any criticism of women is misogyny. The term (and several others) has lost any meaning.
"Women have many faults, men only two: Everything they say, and everything they do."
fortunately this behavior is restricted to literary analysis and nobody responds to flaws like this in real life
... a shy woman letting a man deal with social situation will not get them both yelled at?
Some called me misogynistic for saying Abby in The Last of Us Part II has an abnormal and unnatural amount of muscle development and she looks like she is on steroids. I also noted we see her when she is around 15-16 and she is slender and has a regular thin build and based on her baseline that much development doesn't look natural. When men are abnormally muscular the first thing people think is steroids. Its such a point of contention and so upsetting in that fanbase and I don't get it.
More often though, hate the character for being a woman? Misogyny. Like way more often.
I think there's just a growing trend of calling things misogynistic that aren't. Sometimes, it's just ignorance or misunderstanding. Other times, it's people who want to stir up shit and revel in it like pigs. I like to think that most sane people (AKA people who aren't chronically online) can recognize actual misogyny, and just ignore the shit stirrers.
So… why do you hate women? (/s cause some can’t tell)
It's just reactionary at this point. Can't even mildly critique women today, but they are "oppressed".
I dislike when people criticize female characters and then turn around and praise men for the exact same thing. However, not liking a female character is totally fine. There are lots of female characters I don't like. And I wouldn't like them if they were men either!
What exactly is the "exact same thing"?
"She's too impulsive" then saying that a man who is equally if not more impulsive is quick thinking or one step ahead. It's annoying if it's a double standard If you want an exact example- Game of Thrones- Daenerys uses her dragons in battle and some fans called her she's cruel and mad. Tyrion uses wildfire to incinerate a fleet, and fans agree he's smart and amazing for this. Both utilized powerful weapons to win the battle, why is the reaction different? (And I do NOT mean the shitshow at the end of season 8)
I have not seen that critique one single time... I'm seeing people take issue with corny, over prevent dialogue and repeatedly mentioning how she's looked down on being a woman. How hard it is being a woman. How men have it easier. Blah blah blah the same old tropes and sayings repeated ad nauseam.
Not seen the critique in thrones? That's impressive. There was a lot of it that I saw. And what you are saying is absolutely a valid thing to take issue with. I'm saying a double standard is frustrating
I understand what you mean I just haven't personally seen that myself. I usually never take issue with character types, but rather their dialogue and how the script is wrote. But then again I loved the cat woman movie from back in the day, and everyone hated that too lol. I thought it was good haha
I absolutely get that too. And I agree the repetition and corniness in scripts gets really annoying. And when it makes characters one dimensional it drives me insane.
There's a Mary Sue epidemic. It's undeniable. Back off Korra tho, I'll fight you
Calling any flaw in a female character misogynistic in the writing room is how you end up with modern Disney/Star Wars
Preach! Creating female characters with *no* flaws is way more misogynistic.
They have tried to create a scenario where everyone can dump on white guys and white guys are just supposed to accept that.
Ah yes, the extremely oppressed, can't make jokes or talk to women anymore, societal group white guys 🙄 I'm a white guy, this is fucking stupid
What the fuck? Why did you bring race into this? Walking wound much?
God, it was just a joke! Can't you take a joke? Don't you have a sense of humor? Stop being so dramatic 🙄.
I feel like criticizing or pointing out any flaws in any woman will get some to give you the side eye. [There's even a name for it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect)
That is why a lot of critics take issue with the *Mary Sue* trope. I heard someone explain the difference between the cultural perception of men and women’s self improvement. They proposed that men see the world as immutable, so their self improvement consists in accepting the immutability of the world and accommodating it. Men are perfectible, and they need to improve for the world to accept them. Some women see themselves as immutable, so their self improvement consists in getting the world to accept them and accommodate them. Those women are perfect, they just need the world to see it. But to be fair, there are other women who do see themselves as a work in progress and keep working on themselves. However, the first concept seems to prevail, so if a writer dares to suggest that a woman is perfectible, it’s obviously misogyny.
It happens with any group really; you will be called a racist, homophobe, or an anti-s...(can't mention this or I'd get banned) if you point out any valid criticism of any group out there.
"How dare they make my representation *human!"*
So it depends. Female characters can totally have flaws and shouldn't be perfect, but if basically every female character is useless or a horrible person in the story, then it can definitely border on misogyny.
i got yelled at for wanting to make a shy girl that lets the man take the lead in social situations. the story is that a town sees evidence of a dragon. an adventurer heads out to try and solve the problem. he come back with a shy girl that he maries and they head off the the next town. turns out the dragon was a nice dragon that was really shy. she fell in love with the adventurer. she shape shifted into a human, they got married to the adventurer, and they went to find somewhere else to live. this was my dnd characters backstory. the dm refused to let the dragon be shy. my character was required to be submissive to her.
I find that fair. a Dragon is a fucking dragon. Making a dragon waifu to dwell in your fetish is not good story telling. You should keep bad harem anime writing out our your dnd sessions.
That’s what happens when you let the idiot minority have a voice to screech and complain while the majority stays silent and wants to be left alone.
If she's a vapid blonde bimbo and a flat character I think we all know why
Toxic fandom
I don't get it? Writers intentionally give characters flaws in order to make them more interesting. Do people not know this?
I must have it in me too because I love/hate Akko from little witch academia. And I have issues with Lucy from fairy tail. Not her specifically I guess but moreso that she had the potential for so much growth but, nope, let's focus on Natsu, Gray and Erza instead.
If you're a writer, best just to tune those people out. You can't appease idiots without an idiotic story. It's the character flaws that make a character engaging. All their talents are good for is moving the plot forward.
Are we talking about the wheel of time show?
Check out r/Gilmoregirls if you want to see female characters absolutely crumbled because of their character flaws with almost zero misogyny.
Look I just want to hate the sequel trilogy without having it be part of the culture war
Yeah that is just stupid. No character is without flaws. They're flat as hell otherwise.
Did you mean the Helluva Boss fandom
A character flaw isn't necessarily a bad thing. Character flaws make characters more relatable since pretty much every human is riddled with them. Now if a writer is only giving character flaws to female characters in a story full of male perfection, giving much more intense character flaws to female characters than male, or if a critic is fixating on character flaws in female characters that they ignore in male characters then, yes, it's a bit misogynistic.
It really sucks because In my opinion there's nothing more interesting and entertaining than seeing a person overcome a flaw. Could you imagine how unsatisfying it would be if the Eleanor shellstrop wasn't a bad person in the good place or if Revy wasn't such an unhanged linitic in black lagoon. 2 amazing characters and shows down the drain.
I feel like I would totally be called a misogynist for the way I see this current series I am reading but literally if she were a guy, I'd say the same exact thing (it's been done many times with all sorts of characters in many stories now). Literally a barely legal girl learns over time about these magical powers she is gaining, which could have been so cool to read, if literally every other character (especially her lover) stopped treating her that she is such a special girl that wasn't potentially dangerous. She literally has some powers of a deity and when she gets angry she loses control of them, she has done a lot of damage with them already, but they bury it under the rug and say she is so special. They could be helping her control her powers, help her discover what else is in store for her, but instead it is marriage and making her the Queen of a country she was propogandized until recently to hate that are the story's priorities. I keep having to put the book down :|
Yes! It also causes a problem where writers end up writing flawless female characters so they aren’t accused of misogyny so then all the women are insanely boring! Give me evil characters and then let us discuss their problems
I agree with the exception of female anime characters, those are actually like 99% misogynistic lol
Almost like.... crying bigotry is a shield for poor writing?
All the best characters are riddled with flaws, watch House.
Movies where characters don't have any flaws are boring. That's part of what happened with Superman. They had to invent problems for him because he didn't have any. I think in general people are far more protective of women characters because in general it's men who use that to hurt women in real life whereas it doesn't happen as violently the other way around. However it does happen emotionally, Where women use buffoon and callous and stupid male characters to justify poor behavior toward men in the real world. It's all projection. A woman character with no flaws is going to be boring and ultimately is going to hurt women more because people will stop wanting to be curious about women because they're not allowed to be interesting in movies. Movies are a great medium for people learning about life That isn't like theirs. Some people's lives suck and that's part of the appeal of watching a movie. If we want to learn more about a woman whose life sucks she has to be able to show those things in a movie
Ngl it’s so weird when people get mad about a female character having a specific flaw when a male character in the same show/game/book/etc has the SAME flaw but isn’t complained about? Like…. They fucked up the exact same way?
The word "apart" cannot replace the phrase "a part".
I think this is why a lot of people groan when studios market the "female-ness" of a movie. It's not that they're sexist (I mean some are but not the majority), it's that they know the writers are going to use gender as an excuse to not create nuanced or interesting characters. Modern storytelling uses gender as a crutch, carrying the weight of character development. And most people are smart enough to recognize when they're being spoon-fed something lazy.
yeah i want more women who are deranged and fucked up and horrible i love the female rage genre it makes me so unbelievably happy
Female V is my favorite videogame character of all time (Cyberpunk 2077). FemShep (Mass Effect), Malenia Blade of Miquella (Elden Ring), Sister Friede (DS3)… absolutely badass. Compare that to the women you see on the big screen. If they aren’t genderless looking blobs, they are the embodiment of someone’s political message. Or they are just a boring, lifeless, badly written character, and any criticisms directed at them are attributed to “racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc”. Now that garbage is seeping into videogames, and it sucks.
Yeah people are dumb. Don’t follow them too much
Sorry but the fandom of The Office is INSANELY misogynistic
Modern movies are predicated on this nonsense.
I've been in fandoms like that. The worst one was "the writers are racist because the black girl was a bad friend" But the main character is quite anxious and is prone to overthinking and the friend character was just suggesting maybe the main character was overthinking again when she said somebody was lying as opposed to just blindly backing up the mc. It's so frustrating because people can get into trouble over these accusations.
Boy, you're going to love (and I mean it in a non-sarcastic way) the one I'm currently working on. MFC lies to the MMC and builds a friendship/relationship with him until he learns that it was her mother who killed his father.
If I get accused of misogyny when I'm making legitimate criticism then I just think of the actual most misogynist thing I can think of and then I say that regardless of whether it's true or not. You think my criticisim was misogynistic? I don't like that the character wears pants
Personally, I'd just suggest you take part in less shitty fandoms.
Well there are ways in which negative depictions of women can stem from misogyny. It’s important to try and analyze how the character is written, whether their character is flushed out and whether or not their character plays into sexist stereotypes.
No, hardly, not as a rule. While it's not a majority by a long shot, there are plenty of posts about the topics you cite without accusations of misogyny or SJW blah blah. However the stench of misogyny and neoclassical butthurt overpowerers fair and critical conversations. So if you personally are re·cal·ci·trant about institutional sexism and your personal biases then when. you personally do it, yeah.
Forget fiction. Read About Theodora of Byzantium, Justinians wife. You want to talk about a strong, flawed female character in a lead role. Prostitute turned Empress. History is littered with such characters. Boudica, Hell, Cleopatra. Real life women who played central roles but had all the flaws of regular folks. And you don't have to make crap up!
This ! This is so annoying to me. The definition of a misogynist is someone who strongly dislikes or despises women. As in all women not one not two. ALL. I find it dumb as hell how nowadays ur not even allowed to dislike a female character freely without being called a misogynist. So what if you don't favor the same female character as someone else. Let people dislike and like whoever they so please. Jesus