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

I may have misused that trope. But, it's just a common trapping that a male, buffoonish Foil is the one to act out the audience's unspoken fantasies. The trade off is, as long as the creators portray them as an "idiot" or someone of dubious competency, it's "okay".

edited 9th Oct '13 11:55:21 AM by KingZeal

There are a number of video games with female mooks; any Tales game, Bioshock, Fallout, Oblivion, Pokemon.

As for works outside of video games, the only one I can think of is To Aru Majutsu no Index.

Probably just a side-effect of men being the expendable gender. Mooks -at least the ones in service of antagonists - are supposed to be overcome by the hero, and beating, maiming or killing women, even in self-defense, tends to give male and female protagonists more points on the evil axis than doing the same to male mooks.

Treating female mooks fully equal to male mooks, seems actually like a very good way to establish your Anti-Hero-creds.

TES-Games and most MMORPG are pretty equality-oriented when it comes to mobs. But there you define your hero.

edited 9th Oct '13 2:05:23 PM by blauregen

The idea that beating up women was unheroic was specifically what led to the classification of Capcom's Poison as a transsexual. Because beating up transgendered people is okay.

Anyway, there's several layers of sexism that are at fault and need addressing when it comes to female mooks. I'll list them in order from most important to least.

1. The popular conception that violence is "heroic" or even "manly".
2. The popular conception that violence against women is unheroic/unmanly, even if they are threatening your life.
3. The popular conception that women, no matter what their actions, beliefs, or affiliation, cannot truly be "evil" and thus are more willing to go the right way if pushed.
4. The popular conception that bad guys are inherently misogynistic, and thus would not trust women to fight.

The easiest one of these to defeat is the last one. As games like Mass Effect prove, if the bad guys hand women a gun and have them shoot/hit you, good guys will have less problem shooting/hitting back.

The second easiest is the third one. More female Complete Monsters would not only be refreshing, but interesting, so long as we don't start swinging too far in the other direction.

Once those two things are done, the second and even first problems become less insurmountable. But, as long as people hold on to #3 and hide behind #4, we'll see the same tired sexist bullshit.

You missed one - the perception that since women are inherently weak and feeble, they cannot serve as a compelling physical threat. There's plenty of villainous women throughout the history of fiction, but they're far more likely to be seducers, masterminds, or some combination of the two than fighters.

Also, there's another, related reason for a lack of truly evil women. You need a fair degree of power and agency to do anything seriously nasty, and there've been a number of cultural narratives in which the notion of a woman acquiring that kind of power and agency has been viewed as even more implausible than them fighting toe-to-toe with a man (medieval Chinese literature is a particularly extreme example of this).

edited 9th Oct '13 2:43:41 PM by Iaculus

I don't know if Chronicles changed this, but pre-Chronicles canon for RE 1 was that neither campaign happened; the canon story was a mesh of the two, with Chris and Jill splitting accomplishments. There was a Wesker Report bonus material for either RE 3 or Code Veronica that hashed this out.

Regarding Steve: Steve is a hormonal teenage boy. That's really all that needs to be said there. Getting upset because teenage boys behave like idiots around pretty girls is kind of unreasonable. And I'm not sure how "f*cking up royally because you were busy staring at a girl's ass" is acting out an audience fantasy. I've certainly never fantasized about being a screw-up, and I certainly don't need fiction to ogle women.

edited 9th Oct '13 2:44:23 PM by TobiasDrake

Right. Lindsay Ellis (Nostalgia Chick) has a video called "Disney Needs More Gay" that explores how LBGT characters are often typecast as villains. This is similar to the oddity with villains in general in that they tend to be more diverse in general than the hero and his/her colleagues. So yeah. Pushing female villains toward morally reprehensible actions in excess may aggravate misogynistic attitudes rather than mitigate them.

Effeminate Disney villains tend to get fairly nasty deaths. As a child, I remember being particularly disturbed by the death of Ursula, the antagonist of The Little Mermaid. Ellis notes that Ursula is based on a drag queen. Ursula also has a more distinct and frank sex appeal to her that Ariel does not possess.

Masculinity is indeed often associated with heroism, and femininity is often associated with virtuous passivity or an unscrupulous nature. Overt sexuality also tends to be associated with villainy.

We may need King Zeal to elaborate, but it could be that Steve is similar to Sam Witwicky in that he is intended to be something of a male audience surrogate. Again, I don't want to engage in confirmation bias and point a finger at sexism where none exists, but this possibility becomes more conspicuous when you account for the fact that this is one of the few Resident Evil games to primarily feature a female protagonist. Having that viewpoint character may be a subtle way of keeping male gamers from being put off by controlling (and indirectly relating to) a female character.

Neither do I, but how can you and I be so sure? Media exposure has a tremendous influence on one's perception of many things they take for granted. It's largely subconscious, but even our views on female sexuality are reinforced by commercials about Axe Body Spray, lingerie posters on the sides of buses, and female video game characters. The scary reality of media exposure is that we have a lot less indigenous control over how we view people and things than we'd like to believe. I find Claire very sexy because tomboys as an archetype and as a social construct have been communicated as sexy to me. Others may not like tomboys (as is the case with the "bull-dike lesbian" archetype), but that media-reinforced conceptualization is still there.

edited 9th Oct '13 3:01:19 PM by Aprilla

Make her a boy. Keep the prettiness, the slender build, the graceful movements, the dance-battler-style, the psychic abilities, the super-genius-intellect, the unpredictability. You can even keep the revealing outfits or similar ones in a different style. Presto, fetish gone for the vast majority of viewers, and of the rest most will find Mal, Simon or even Jayne much more interresting.

Intuitively I would predict excessive fan-hate for ( then ) him, though.

edited 9th Oct '13 5:31:24 PM by blauregen

So in other words, Heero Yuy?

edited 9th Oct '13 5:31:54 PM by Aprilla

I understood that he isn't as damaged.

River Tam as a boy could be every bit as talented,capable, graceful, dainty and pretty as the original, but the specific role of a rare broken bird, this one in a billion combination of talents broken into insanity would, in my opinion, not be accepted in a male role.

Most people would read 'him' simply as creepy.

edited 9th Oct '13 5:45:23 PM by blauregen

I was speaking in jest.

I know.

I just felt the need to elaborate.

Okay.

Typically, the Viewpoint Character of a video game is your character who you are playing as. The purpose of a Viewpoint Character is to have a character the audience can empathize with and experience the story through their eyes. If you can't experience the story through the eyes of the character you are playing as, there are far worse issues at play than just cliche characterization.

I strongly doubt Steve was ever intended to be the Viewpoint Character, especially given that he's a cocky but incompetent boob. If he's supposed to be the audience surrogate, then the writers are saying directly to the audience, "You SUCK." This is a completely baseless accusation.

People get too worked up about what this character MEANS, what that character MEANS, who am I supposed to be, who are you supposed to be, what does this scene represent on a global scale. We're so busy trying to figure out why every scene is offensive that we don't even stop and ask if it even IS offensive anymore, and we latch onto any reason to say, "This character is bad, this story is bad, everything is bad."

Steve is a dumb, hormonal teenager. He behaves like a dumb, hormonal teenager because he is a dumb, hormonal teenager. He is not a commentary on the audience. He is not a shining paragon of how men shou8ld behave, nor is he a harsh parody of men. He is not a message stating that men are all perverted bastards. He is not a symbol. Why can't a dumb, hormonal teenager just be a dumb, hormonal teenager?

I find Claire sexy because she appeals to my sense of what is attractive. Yes, the media influences our desires, but they're still our desires, and this kind of finger-pointing just reeks of unnecessary defensiveness. "The media made me do it!" There is nothing wrong with having a sex drive. Everyone has one. I feel no need to present excuses for why I'm attracted to what I'm attracted to.

edited 9th Oct '13 8:17:48 PM by TobiasDrake

Tobias, I'm just exploring possibilities and I'm very much open to the notion that Steve's characterization can be taken at face value. However, no one is holding you at gunpoint and forcing you to critically analyze the characters you view in your media. Just because you see it as baseless doesn't mean it's baseless, and quite frankly, you need to drop some of the hostility back a notch. I'm just brainstorming and tossing around possible interpretations.

This is also a legitimate concern because a number of game designers have recently stated that they avoid female protagonists because it may hurt sales due to the notion that male gamers can't relate to female characters. Anecdotal as it may be, I've played with many male gamers who assert that theory through their own play sessions. I don't think these designers are being intentionally sexist because their job is to sell a product. However, selling that product means abiding by certain social conventions, and it's the same reason why Hollywood isn't exactly flooding with gay and lesbian characters or female characters who aren't a love interest or something similar. Following the status quo is largely believed to be the way you put food on your table, and it's one of the main reasons why these discussions are prolonged.

Also:

Who said any of this was inherently bad? Media consumption influences values, but media does not determine values. No one here has proposed a sex-negative view toward media-influenced eroticism and sexuality. At least no one I've seen. If you watch a lot of shows with hot blondes, you're probably going to want a hot blonde. That's not bad in and of itself, but it has the potential to lead to unhealthy views. That was all I meant. This isn't an assault on or interrogation of your sexual sensibilities.

I also never insinuated that media "makes" us do anything, especially since it's the same hackneyed and mostly discredited argument that violent video games make you a more efficient killer. Violent media may make you more accepting of the idea of violent behavior, but it doesn't automatically make you more susceptible to violence. Likewise, seeing highly sexualized women isn't going to automatically turn you into a sexual predator, but it can subtly reinforce the idea that women are purely sexual objects.

edited 10th Oct '13 12:45:58 AM by Aprilla

Not true. A Viewpoint Character is not a fixed point. It can shift from moment-to-moment based on a given context. For example, in Mass Effect 2, you briefly play as Joker, although your avatar is definitely Shepard, to draw you into Joker's helplessness as he desperately tries to flee an opponent he is helpless against.

Similarly, in both scenes where Steve is checking out Claire, the camera makes sure to show you his Point-of-view. You don't just see Steve checking out Claire—you become Steve as he checks out Claire.

And I'll come back to Joker in the next point. He's another data point toward this whole thing that I'm talking about.

So, about characters like Joker and Steve...

I'd like to throw out a few others.

• Yosuke in Persona 4.
• Junpei in Persona 3.
• Master Roshi in Dragon Ball.
• Kon, Keigo, & Chizuru in Bleach.
• Carter in Rush Hour.
• Ninja-Ninja in Afro Samurai.
• Superboy
• Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Cedric in Think Like a Man
• Just about any best friend in a Rom Com.
• Just about any dumbass Jock in a Horror flick.

So adding Steve and Joker back into the mix, what do these characters have in commons? Well, they're all male (except the bolded character, who is female but a lesbian), they're all Comic Relief, they're all perverts, they all have varying degrees of incompetence, and (most of them) are a Butt-Monkey.

My point being, this is not just an isolated thing. This is a pattern in fiction (ie, a trope). There's a correlation between maleness, perversion, and incompetence.

I have several theories why this correlation exists (including a long historical lecture on the Hays Code, which I won't go into), but it basically boils down to a simultaneous desire for creators to have their cake and eat it too. In a nutshell, having a character act out their perversion allows the audience to, ever so briefly, step into their shoes and acknowledge how "normal" these desires are. Making this character a Butt-Monkey or Comic Relief not only allows them to make The Hero appear to be a higher moral standard and Foil, but it also gives the writers the ability to "punish" the perverted character so that the ogled gender (usually girls) can fantasize about getting payback on them, and so that Moral Guardians don't flip the fuck out. It also allows them to make excuses, "Well, Joker's just the type to say something stupid in the face of death", "Master Roshi's just a dirty old man", "Keigo's just an idiot". It's very convenient.

It also helps reinforce the idea that Sex Is Evil (especially if you're a horny teen). Fiction is typically terrible at handling the subject of sex with any depth, but since our current societal mores are that sexuality is a "craving" or "urge", it's something to be resisted or fought against. The perverted foil character is thus someone who does what others wish they could, and suffer consequences for it in their place.

Because that's not how tropes work. And I find it surprising that you, someone who's frequented this site for years, could even still believe that. Tropes don't work that way. Tropes are never just a thing is a thing is a thing. The entire reason this site exists is because tropes always mean something, completely independently of what you personally got out of it. I'm shocked by how many times I have to explain that to people who are frequent visitors to this site.

A pattern is a pattern. You're as free to ignore the pattern as we are to study it and try to figure out why it exists.

For example, you claim Steve's actions are believable (or at least normal enough to not be worthy of examination) because he's a "dumb, hormonal teenager". Okay. So, why do you believe that? Who, or what, told you that teenagers behave that way in a horror scenario? If you're opening the door to rationalization or whatnot, then that means studying the entire scenario, and all its context, is now fair game to judge rationally, correct?

So, let's look at this whole thing. First of all, Steve is not only a dumb hormonal teenager. He's a dumb, hormonal teenager who's in a Zombie Apocalypse scenario, trapped in Antarctica, and is the only survivor of his entire family after his mother was killed by corporate goons and he gunned his zombie father down himself. Hell, if he were female, he'd be perfect Final Girl material from that backstory alone. ...But I digress.

What expert analysis do you have of how a "dumb hormonal teenager" would react in that situation? Remember, in the scenario I first mentioned, Claire was standing guard while Steve was handling some very delicate equipment so that they could escape the deathtrap they were in. What experience or testimony or evidence do you have to bring to the table to tell us how a "dumb, hormonal" teenager would react here?

Even putting that aside, are we sure that every teenager is hormonal? Another character from this very series—Rebecca Chambers (whom you'll notice is a girl)—gets trapped in a similar situation not once, but twice, with a tough, hunky badass (Billy Coen) and her tough, heroic senior (Chris Redfield). She's a teenager—only a year older than Steve—did a stray sexual thought ever enter her head? Did she ever do something dumb because she was daydreaming about Billy's biceps or Chris's penis size? If she did, we'll never know, because the game sure as hell never mentioned it, and she sure as hell never fucked anything up because of it. Even if we take into account that she's a "trained" professional, being trained sure as hell didn't stop most of the STARS team from flipping the fuck out when things hit the fan, and she's the newest member of the squad, so it stands to reason that she lacks their experience and/or discipline.

You know who else was a teenager? Claire Redfield, during Resident Evil 2. Starting off, we know Leon S. Kennedy is an attractive guy—no less than three women have attempted to, or shown interest in, jumping his bones. When Claire first shows up in Raccoon City, she joins forces with Leon (and, in the Chronicles remakes, they don't split up—but I don't know how canon those are). Claire never once seems to be caught under this strange "dumb, hormonal teenager" trap that Steve was. Granted, she was two years older than Steve at that point, but still a teenager.

Ashley Graham was a twenty-year-old college student when dashing, handsome Leon S. Kennedy came to a remote island, by his damn self, and started killing anyone who fucked with her. Even if we want to say she was now out of her teens and somehow magically immune to hormones (although, working at a college, I can tell you DAMN WELL how untrue that is, even without bringing in statistics about college promiscuity or Spring Break videos), a One-Man Army straight out of Calvin Klein commercial just became her Knight in Shining Armor. And yet, the only thing that comes of it is, at the very end of the game, she asks Leon if he wants to come to her place for "overtime", to which he declines.

So basically, based on all this stuff, Steve Burnside—teenage hormones and bravado aside—not only may have had the least believable reasons to be the most lecherous character in the series, but given that he has one of the most traumatic backstories of any protagonist, the very fact that they made him a teenager in the first place smells suspiciously like a Hand Wave for his actions, and not the reason for them.

edited 10th Oct '13 7:11:34 AM by KingZeal

I apologize for the hostility. This just touched on three of my hot-button issues simultaneously.

1 - The idea that sexuality is inherently wrong; Steve is a bad character because he's hormonal.

2 - The expectation of children to behave like reasonable adults*

3 - The idea that any character you don't like is meant to be an Avatar of the author/audience; Steve is a bad character because his only purpose is to be a pair of eyes for either the audience or the author to ogle Claire through, which is so completely unprovable that it can only be true if you assume it to be.

Honestly, I think you're reaching quite a bit to draw comparisons between Master Roshi and Xander Harris. I can't speak for the others because I've never seen them, but I honestly can't peg a single similarity between Xander and Roshi. Roshi's a perverted old man who regularly tries to ogle or grope the female members of the cast because Japan finds this archetype hilarious - in fact, I'll give you another name to add to your list: Happosai of Ranma 1/2 who, unlike Roshi, runs amock among the female cast groping them and stealing their underwear, and is also considered the strongest fighter in the cast and thus never gets punished - while early-series Xander - who I assume we're discussing - actually has a lot more in common with Steve; he's a hormonal teenager with more courage than brains.

Xander's not the Comic Relief; he's a valuable member of the cast who carries his weight, contributes every season to the conflict, and is probably the bravest person on the show. He's immature and hormonal early on because - again, probably like Steve - he's still at that stage where females are elusive, rare creatures of magic and wonderment. The only females he's ever had prolonged exposure to are Willow - who he's known for so long that he doesn't even perceive her as a woman, due to his mindset - and Cordelia, who he hates with a violent passion and still winds up making out with in a closet because he's a young virgin with more hormones than sense.

Xander also doesn't really get "punished" for being a young virgin with more hormones than sense. He gets punished when he makes poor choices, but the show doesn't pick on him for having a sex drive. He gets to spend about a year dating the most popular girl at school, has sex with Faith, and winds up in a long, committed relationship with a woman whose sex drive is actually stronger than his. All things considered, Xander had a pretty good life.

As for your analysis, it only proves my point: Steve being a dumb hormonal teenager is not a commentary on all teenagers everywhere. It's a commentary on teenagers who are dumb, and also hormonal, and also Steve. One person's experiences is not the standard for all experiences everywhere. Claire, Rebecca, and Ashley were very different teenagers from Steve. For one, Claire and Rebecca are both college age. For another, Claire comes from a military background. On top of that, neither of them give any indication of being sexually-repressed; frankly, you can smell "reluctant virgin"*

Also, Ashley practically begged Leon to sleep with her after all was said and done. She's definitely the closest analogue to Steve.

As I said, Xander falls into the same archetype of being a bit of a goofball. He was certainly the character with the most opaque sense of humor for the first few seasons. He gradually became more serious as the story went along, but he consistently remained "the normal one" of the group compared to the others.

Further, as I said, there is a correlation between being the hot-headed guy with the libido, not that one directly causes the other or is because of the other. And yes, Xander actually did get punished for thinking with his dick. There was an entire episode about it, where he makes a love spell. That episode was caused by his sex drive, and the following events exist for nothing else but to punish him for that hubris.

And as for the comic relief thing, well That was one of the reasons he was freaking CREATED.

And wait, if we're now saying that Claire, Rebecca, etc, were "different" teenagers than Steve, that now removes "he's a teenager" as an excuse, because you acknowledge that being a teenager is incidental. So, again, this means that Steve's character and personality is a constructed device, and the argument of "he's just a different person" becomes irrelevant, because the writers CHOSE what type of person he was. He could have been, like every other character in the story, anything other than a lecherous Butt-Monkey, but they made him a lecherous Butt-Monkey.

Lastly, Ashley never "begged" Leon to do anything. She asked him one time, he said no, and she said, "Oh well, I tried." And, okay...if you want to consider her Steve's analog. There was never a scene where she ogled him. She never repeatedly flirted with Leon except a two-second offer at the end of the game. You know what have been analogous to Steve? During the scene where she's trying to remove the Plagas egg from Leon with the machine, if she got distracted by Leon's agonized moaning, daydreamed, and suddenly screwed up the extraction. That would have been the same as what happened with Steve. But that didn't happen.

Now, about your hot button issues:

No, just the opposite. The problem is that Steve being a "bad" character (or at least an obstacle you need to clean up after), and Steve being hormonal, are coincidental. As I listed above, there are a LOT of characters who fit this mold. If anything fosters sex-negativity, it's that correlation.

Except that every other kid in the setting does. Steve is an outlier—he's an exception, not the rule. Hell, Sherry Birkin and Ashley Graham were more capable and competent than he was. Steve would have died from his own buffoonery several times if Claire hadn't been there.

No one said he was a bad character because of that. That's your own assumption. The problem isn't that he's a bad character because of this, it's because he's an incompetent character and one of the catalysts for his incompetence is thinking through his dick.

edited 10th Oct '13 8:15:06 AM by KingZeal

I said dumb, hormonal teenager. You keep missing the qualifiers. He is a teenager who is dumb and hormonal. People are a combination of a lot of different factors; no one factor is solely responsible for 100% of a person's identity. You're comparing him to teenagers who were neither dumb nor hormonal, and all three of whom come from a completely different background.

I'm not clear on what point you are trying to make here. Are you saying that characters like Steve aren't allowed to exist? Teenagers must always behave like reasonable adults, with well-reasoned motivations, constantly thinking before they act and never acting like dumbass kids? Are we to ban dumbass kids from ever appearing in fiction?

Steve isn't an outlier; the kids we consistently have as protagonists are outliers. They're exceptionally competent, keep their cool in intensely stressful situations, and never panic or flip out. They're outliers to the vast majority of kids in their situations, who didn't get a video game starring them because they all died. There is no Resident Evil game starring some dumbass high school student who got eaten by zombies two minutes after the outbreak.

Our protagonists are exceptional. That's why they're alive when thousands of people aren't. They're all disproportionately young for their competency and proficiency levels, especially for their jobs - Jill was a member of a major special task force at, what, 19? 21? And that level of competency beyond their years, incredible maturity for their age, and ability to remain calm and truck through during impossibly hostile situations is what kept them alive in impossibly hostile situations.

Steve doesn't have any of that. He doesn't have crazy levels of competency for his age, he's not super-mature and collected, and you know what? He f*cking dies too. That, right there, is where the complaint that Steve is too dumb and immature to survive falls flat; he doesn't survive. He's mildly antagonistic, creating more problems than he solves, and then he dies. Just like all the other kids like Steve who's story we never saw because they got eaten by zombies and died.

edited 10th Oct '13 9:18:19 AM by TobiasDrake

Yes, but him being dumb and hormonal are constructions of his creator. There's nothing wrong with him being dumb and hormonal, but it cannot be removed from the context of his portrayal and creation. Steve is not a real person; he does not have agency, nor is he a complete human being which exists outside of creator intention. He is a character crafted to fit a scenario.

No. What you're arguing is a common, but fallacious counterargument to various Tropes in Aggregate or Stereotypes in general. The thing you have to understand is that "dumb (male) hormonal teenager" is a common trope, and a stereotype at that. Sure, I know dumb hormonal teenagers the same way I know a Scary Black Man or Spicy Latina or three. But, again, the incidental examples aren't the problem. The enforced aggregate is.

The thing is, you're saying Steve is a dumb teenager, therefore him being a hormonal screw-up isn't worthy of note. I'm arguing that your exact reaction is part of the reason that trope raises a problem for gender stereotypes. People just see it as "normal", or "teens will be teens" or "boys will be boys".

That's my point. He's an outlier to the setting; a setting that is designed to reinforce blatant horror cliches. "Dumb teenagers die" (which Steve does) is one of those cliches. I mean, hell, lots of people die in a Zombie Apocalypse—that's what makes it a Zombie Apocalypse. But, the cliche is that it is also some sort of Darwinian environment where the people who "deserve" to die do so while the truly, truly gifted or capable survive.

And even then, what makes you say he's not an outlier for teenagers anyway? As I said, what expertise or experienced opinion are you citing to describe how teenagers would react in an actual life-or-death horror situation? You can't throw out him being a "dumb teenager" as a justifier without taking into account the whole situation.

And to the point, NONE of this has anything to do with him being a walking stereotype. Because he is. The very fact that you find this sort of character "normal", despite the fact that the circumstances of the game are completely abnormal attests to this.

edited 10th Oct '13 10:31:54 AM by KingZeal

Steve isn't a complete stereotype though. He knows how to fly a plane at an exceptionally young age.

Steve is not the enforced aggregate in Resident Evil. As you pointed out, among the characters we meet, he's an exception. If he was the standard - if every teenager we met acted like Steve - then I could see that being a problem.

But you're right that I see no problem with Steve's behavior, from a believability standpoint. Steve's behavior is hardly the epitome of morality; he isn't winning any prizes for being an outstanding paragon of gender neutrality and, frankly, that's okay with me, because as I mentioned earlier, not everyone is a symbol. Not every character has to be crafted to advance a civil rights cause.

You're still trying to make him a representative icon of an entire group. He's not. He's just one guy. He is not the representative character of all Resident Evil figures. He is not a commentary on all teenagers and how they will act in survival situations. He doesn't "mean" that men are perverted assholes, he doesn't "mean" that all kids are stupid, he doesn't "mean" that only the deserving will live through an apocalypse. He's not a symbol, he's not a flag, he's not a metaphor, Steve is Steve and nothing but Steve. He is Steve, he has always been Steve, he will always be Steve, and he represents nothing more than Steve. He is just Steve.

Is he a dumbass? Yes. Is he a teenager? Yes. Is he hormonal? Yes. Does he mean all teenagers are hormonal dumbasses? No. Does he mean that all hormonal people are dumbass teenagers? No. Does he mean all dumbasses are hormonal teenagers? No. All of those conclusions are extrapolations in order to Strawman Steve's characterization into positions it's never represented in the first place. Why is Steve a dumbass hormonal teenager? Because he is. Because that's his character. He's not a movement, not a message, not a metaphor, not a lesson, not a symbol, he's just Steve, and Steve is who he is.

Ultimately, your problem sounds like it's that he represents something that exists. That hormonal teenagers who do stupid things exist, and you're not okay with that, and because Steve is one of those, you're not okay with him. Is your problem with Steve or is it with hormonal teenagers who do dumb things trying to get into girls' pants because they've never really met someone with boobs before? Because those actually do exist, and in large number.

edited 10th Oct '13 11:09:49 AM by TobiasDrake

You're blending two different things together.

1. He IS an aggregate when you take all contemporary fiction (particularly Japanese fiction) into account.
2. He is an outlier within the Resident Evil universe. In a World… where you can become a seasoned veteran SWAT officer at 18, Steve is one of the few people who acts like a "stereotypical" teenager is expected to.

Yes, that's fine. But they don't get a free pass for it, either.

No, he isn't. He's just another Stereotypical portrayal of a hormonal teenager. An aggregate example of a stereotype doesn't get to be "just" what it is. If that were the case, every stereotype ever, from Asian Babymama to Damsel in Distress to Black Dude Dies First to Greedy Jew would get a free pass. And that would be bullshit.

See above.

As I just said in my last post, I know dumb, male, hormonal teenagers. Yes, they exist. I also happen to know a few Black guys, somewhere, have big dicks. A stereotype is still a stereotype.

The thing I'm calling out is the stereotypical gender role. As I've been saying, the very fact that you see this as "normal" is an example of the problem. Stereotypes are problematic is because many of them become become self-fulfilling. For example, let's point out that you (without me bringing it up first or prompting you to) brought up the fact that Japan uses this trope far more egregiously than Western media does. Well, this is important to note because Japan has SEVERE problems with sexual harassment; particularly on school campuses. And the whole thing is often swept under the rug as "boys will be boys".

For the record: no I'm not blaming Steve Burnside for the problems of all sexual harassment evar. Again, he is ONE datapoint in an OCEAN of characters like him. I only mentioned—one time, I might add—that Steve is just another example in this, offhandedly. I didn't attack Steve as being the most evil characterization in the history of all fiction ever. I was just saying that he fits an established and frequent gender role while at the same time subverting others.

edited 10th Oct '13 12:56:50 PM by KingZeal

The trope you invoked does not apply to a single character; it applies to all male characters within a work. Steve is a pervert, not "all men", and it's well within his characterization to be one. By the same note, neither Chris nor Wesker is a pervert, and Alfred's more mentally disturbed than perverted. Thus, claiming that Steve is an example of All Men Are Perverts is completely overstressing Steve's character flaws.

It comes off like you think having a character like Steve be an outlier isn't good enough; they need to not exist at all.

edited 10th Oct '13 12:37:37 PM by TobiasDrake

I guess you didn't see the page topper for this very page. I would ask that you take a look. I admitted that it was probably the wrong trope.

And again, you are making the same fallacy I mentioned before. Calling out a stereotype for existing doesn't mean that no examples of the stereotype should be used. Saying Damsels in Distress is a problematic trope doesn't mean that women shouldn't ever be in trouble.

edited 10th Oct '13 12:41:26 PM by KingZeal