Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

I saw The Other Woman 2014 recently. It's an apotheosis of everything wrong with Hollywood's interpretation of female empowerment.

Carly is a surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, based on how she is designed as a rom com archetype) dense and inept lawyer who realistically shouldn't have the relationship problems that her character type is known for.

Kate is neurotic and implausibly clumsy in a way that hurts the comedy instead of enhancing it. Leslie Mann is a capable comedic actress, but physical comedy of this nature is not her strong suit.

Amber is a moron, and for a movie propping itself up as a female-friendly revenge story, Amber is clearly written to be the butt of an internally sexist running gag that gets old very quickly. For example, Carly condescends to Amber by referring to her as "boobs" (an example of synecdoche), and Amber, being the ditz she is, accepts this gleefully. I wasn't expecting Kate Upton to be Oscar material, but the movie missed a great opportunity that being a big-breasted hot chick doesn't mean you are morally obligated to be an idiot.

I'm hesitant to call the story misogynistic or misandrist, but Mark is poorly written as well. He reminds me of a more benign version of the antagonist from the movie Enough with Jennifer Lopez (an absolutely horrible movie) in that he is cartoonishly lecherous and immoral to the point where the protagonists are made to be heroes by proxy. This is a sign of lazy writing, by the way. I'm not denying that people like Mark exist, but the movie lazily insists that female bonding is best achieved through juvenile revenge-based antics. As others have pointed out, it's basically John Tucker Must Die for adult women. The problem is that John Tucker is set in a high school with teenage girls, so the over-the-top, sophomoric nature of their revenge quest is somewhat sympathetic. However, The Other Woman doesn't make much sense as a feminist revenge story because all three of them are grown women who should know better. The notion that a female-friendly movie must be based on a male-female jilted lover conflict is perhaps one of the biggest problems movies and other media have with developing strong female characters, or male ones for that matter.

The Other Woman is saying what a lot of other pseudo-feminist movies are saying: if a man cheats on you, be a bitch because women are awesome and men are dogs ^note  except for that one cute guy who serves as your love interest. And your dad who is well connected enough to help you with your scheme. And various miscellaneous male supporting characters .

It's a cheap, disposable, forgettable movie masquerading as an entertaining tale about female bonding and "strong" female characters that most women probably couldn't relate to. For example, Carly is obviously a high-earning lawyer in a major city, and most women don't have the financial and professional resources to go to the lengths she went to go after Mark.

This doesn't mean that we need to only make movies about poor women and other non-fun stuff, so don't even start with the escapist fantasy schtick. It does mean that Hollywood's perception of female escapist fantasies is disingenuous and tone deaf. I actually thought Sucker Punch was better than this shit.

edited 18th Apr '15 8:26:39 AM by Aprilla

Enough... I remember that film. Nothing can compare.

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

You know... I have been wondering for a while, how many female protagonists we have out there that are openly promiscuous?

Because the only one I can think of is Zero.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Quite a few. Do you want to narrow it to just animated or live action? Even then we would have to narrow that too like by genre.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

...heh, I didn't knew there were that many.

Nevermind my post then.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Anita Blake. Arguably an example Gone Horribly Wrong.

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and Bad Judge come to mind off hand.

edited 18th Apr '15 5:12:09 AM by Memers

With Anita, it's arguably with why she's promiscuous rather than that she is sleeping around; Merry Gentry, by the same author, also sleeps with a whole bunch of people but isn't nearly as objectionable to the fanbase.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I like to pretend everything after Obsidian Butterfly never happened. (Though Narcissus in Chains can be dropped into that hole too.) It's sad because she started out as such a great character and then a great many sharks were jumped. Or really fucked. I think that's more accurate. Anita Blake fucked the shark.

edited 18th Apr '15 5:50:02 AM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I'm having that problem with Mockingjay. After two movies building up the suspense surrounding Katniss, a strong and believable female character just trying to survive in a plot where everyone and their dog wants to define her themselves, Mockingjay Part One took a surprise twist in narrative focus that I describe as "surprisingly Twilighty."

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

As someone who read the books before seeing the movies, here is what I see happened:

The first movie played up the love issue far more than what was in the books. They were trying to make it a teeny romance thing.

It is almost as if the people who made the first movie didn't actually read past the Hunger Games.

Then after the success of the first movie, they finished the series and said, "Oh, we totally messed up the tone and everything! Crap! Back up! Er, shit. Well...maybe they won't notice!"

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I didn't think the love story was that prevalent in the first two movies. Katniss indicates frequently that she's just trying to maintain the publicity stunt. It's the third movie that suddenly turns around and has every other line from her be, "But what about Peeta, my one and only true love! Nothing matters if he comes to harm!"

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Peers is her coping mechanism. She is so fucked up that she starves herself, hides in wardrobes and can't sleep without screaming.

And while I get that modern audiences don't want to see children killing other children, Katniss is supposed to be like, 15 by this point. So it isn't love but just that messed up.

So everything is a little off.

I still don't know how to feel about it and I can't just point to one thing and say, "There!". But it is getting slightly back on track by showing how broken she is.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

It's worse than that; she essentially^note well, as of the last book I read, which was either 11 or 12, I don't remember nor do I care enough to look it up has a gun to her head saying, "fuck all these people or die," only the gun is her own powers.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I disagree completely. I thought the movie cut down on the romance screen time and was better than the first book (which had pacing problems) for it. And Mockingjay was not all that great a book in the first place.

edited 18th Apr '15 10:50:43 AM by shiro_okami

Things started to go south for Anita when she, literally, took date rape as her superpower.

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

Is the series any good? Because it sounds really schlocky, and not in a good way.

It's actually pretty good for the first part as long as you only read up to Obsidian Butterfly and skip Narcissus in Chains and anything else past that point. After that is just badly justified date rape forever.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Basically it gets bad after the author and her husband divorce, or something like that from what I've heard.

Read my stories!

It starts out as a pretty standard Urban Fantasy murder/mystery; the main character, Anita Blake, is a zombie raiser as her normal job^note raising dead people for things like clarifying wills, witness statements, or just for families to get closure but also works as the licensed state executioner of anything supernatural. Vampires^note citizens thanks to a Supreme Court decision and were-people^note complete with vaccines that only occasionally backfire are out in the open, but when convicted of a felony get immediate execution^note kind of hard to imprison someone who can turn to fog, hypnotize people with a look, or rip through reinforced concrete walls. Through books 1-9, she gets into a Love Triangle with the master vampire of Saint Louis, and the head of the werewolf pack. To most of the early fans, it all goes to hell in book ten, where her bond with said vampire leads to her somehow gaining his ability to feed off sex rather than just blood, only now it's forcing her to have sex with random people^note beginning with her literally banging a complete stranger in the employee shower at the vampire strip club to feed off them, otherwise she starts dying.

From what I remember, there is a dearth of female characters, though the Biggest Bad revealed when I stopped reading was basically the mother of all monsters. Anita's best friend, while known for sleeping around, still turns around and gives Anita crap when she starts banging anything with or without a pulse.

By comparison, the Merry Gentry series by the same author focuses on a Fairy Princess^note of the darker, pre-Grimm type of fairy, though also in an Urban Fantasy setting who very quickly accumulates a harem of Bishōnen guys, sleeping with all of them. But unlike Anita, while she is kind of forced into the situation on pain of death^note assassination in her case there's a very different feeling between the two characters when it comes to their interactions with their lovers.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

That said, Obsidian Butterfly is probably the best one in the series. It's this wonderful sort of supernatural mystery with interesting and creepy characters and Anita comes off as competent but not perfect. It also has the least romantic shit for her out of all the books save the first couple. Her relationships are mentioned, but are largely out of focus.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

That sounds like a pornographic novel mixed with detective thrillers and modern fantasy.

Werewolf and vampire three way? Sounds familiar

edited 18th Apr '15 9:20:03 PM by AngelusNox

Inter arma enim silent leges

It pre-dates Twilight, but your description is otherwise spot on, at least of the later books. The early ones weren't porn.

edited 18th Apr '15 9:28:50 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Everything is porn

edited 21st Apr '15 3:22:04 PM by blkwhtrbbt

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

The PBS Game Channel covers the topic of exaggerated video game bodies and why they're being used so often: