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

There is also the fact that Tyler becoming the very thing he was fighting

and well those sound like very refreshing brakes from the movie.

edited 22nd Feb '13 8:33:56 AM by Jetyl

Fight Club The movie is an interesting inkblot against which people project what they want to see. When I saw it for the first time, the people I was with thought it was some kind of statement about "masculinity". To me, it was practically a slick communist propaganda film... YMMV taken to 11.

It also has a lot Nietzschean and Nihilistic themes in the novels.

Jezebel did an article today about the sad state of hollywood romcoms and how to fix them. I think it is on topic to the role gender plays in fiction.

its not too late to save the rom com from itself

Why I think Silver Linings Playbook is worth a mention is that while it plays a lot of gender and romcom tropes straight it depicts them in a unusually serious manner for the genre.

Bradley Cooper's character desperately wants to fill the role he believes his Philadelphian suburban society expects from him but he is too internally broken to achieve it. The films backstory has Bradley Cooper catching his wife cheating with a other man and horrifically beating the man to a bloody pulp. There's no attempt to make this a palatable revenge fantasy, he loses his job, his house most of his friends and force into the care of his parents to escape time. Yet he's delusionally optimistic about being able to piece his life back together and rebuilt his marriage purely through the power of positive thinking.

Eventually he Meet Cute with Jennifer Lawrence who has the ridiculously OTT tragic backstory that her husband died basically because she was't a loving wife and slept with practically everybody in town in grief.

While he's clearly attracted to her and see her as a kindred soul he's also disgusted by her sexual promiscuity and constantly putting her down out of his own insecurities.

edited 24th Feb '13 6:28:07 PM by joeyjojo

500 Days of Summer is a pretty good romantic comedy. It's one of my favorite romances because it deconstructs both the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype while also critiquing the whole notion of what it means to be the Dogged Nice Guy.

edited 24th Feb '13 7:00:18 PM by Aprilla

My only beef with that movie is that, while it definitely does those things to its benefit, it also reinforces the stereotype of the fickle female love and the unlucky courter. As the New York Post put it: "That's the whole guy-centric point of (500) Days of Summer, though. Sometimes you never, ever truly figure out why these mysterious creatures break your heart."

What I mean by that is, we need is more movies that demonstrate how to initiate and sustain long-term and complex relationships—not just reminders of how badly everyone fails at them.

edited 24th Feb '13 10:10:08 PM by KingZeal

I thought 500 Days of Summer was great just because it was taken from the man's point of view, much like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind.

Guys don't get their side spoken a lot in Romantic Comedies. So it was refreshing to see his side, including her flaws. Yes, I was yelling at the screen at Summer for showing up at his apartment door after their fight. But people really do that in relationships. People really do make those mistakes. I think it was fair to see yes, guys may make mistakes but their pain is valid too.

I don't think anyone was presented as the winner or the good guy in that movie, just human.

I do love the best friend's monologue about his perfect woman vs. his girlfriend. I made my best friend watch it for just that part.

I wouldn't mind seeing women get rejected in the movies a little more often personally. I've always thought of the concept of women getting to be a little more intimate and knowledgeable with romantic rejection as sort of... cathartic, from a male perspective.

It's like whenever I hear women talk about why they never pursue men, "ooh I'm afraid of rejection!"

Well if that stopped men, the race would have quit pro-creating ages ago.

I don't know, I never pursue men because most of them don't seem that interesting :P

We're simple creatures, to be honest. I think that's one of the things a lot of women never really understand, they think we're more complex than we actually are.

Men think women are overly complex as well. I do not think that is gender exclusive.

My problem is that I don't do nuance, I'm really blunt about things, and I like women who are as well. I pretty much refuse to play the whole "I'm angry at you because you didn't do something I ever told you to do." thing.

I guess those sorts of things are simple for women, but I just don't do them. It's why I've always been into strong female leads like that in fiction as well. My roomate characterizes this as saying that I've always been attracted to "bitchy" women, and I just told him I'm attracted to women who know what they want and don't beat around the bush about shit all the time, expecting me to just figure it out.

Barkey, I do have to wonder if you've ever been Ina situation where subtle communication was required, and you couldn't just muscle out of it by "direct communication is so obviously superior."

That's one reason I adore Megan from Bridesmaids. She's as blunt as I am. We need more examples of positive communication like that, especially for women.

If anything, that movie was so entertaining because it was pretty honest in showing how women can talk just as explicit as men and how we're not that different really. Of course, some things were taken to comedic extremes.

If anything, that is something I don't like about females in comedy, the one girl who does speak clearly and doesn't play head games or is afraid to just speak is often used for comedic effect instead of that just being a quality trait.

There's different types of subtle. There's obviously subtle, like how if someone just had something bad happen to them like a family member dying, you should maybe not antagonize that person in a playful way if that's normal for you, but I'm more talking about the "female is mad at you because you didn't say I love you when you got off the phone with her, but when you ask her what's wrong she keeps saying 'nothing' while giving you the cold shoulder" kind of subtle.

I'm blunt about problems. In a relationship, if I do or don't do something, and that pisses my partner off, I expect her to bring up the issue if it's important enough for her to stew about it for hours.

I'm not telepathic, therefor I don't do mind games because I'm at an inherent disadvantage as it is. I don't put up with that crap for the same reason I choose not to be friends with passive aggressive people. I only play those games when it's made relatively clear that now is the time for witty banter and verbal fencing.

^

Yeah, I liked Megan too, she was hilarious. Hell, I liked the movie in general because it showed a way more human side to women than most movies portray. Though I was sort of expecting The Hangover: Female Edition, and instead of that the first half was funny, and most of the second half was kind of boring.

edited 25th Feb '13 5:57:51 AM by Barkey

I have never heard of someone do sinetjing so stupid in real life. I'm pretty sure that behavior is made up for the purpose of romantic comedies.

Yeah, I agree the second part was lamer.

Another thing I am getting sick of is the apparent need for the protagonist to hook up in a relationship, especially in fiction geared more towards teens and kids.

Yes, I get most kids have crushes or whatnot, but for just once it would be nice to see more options in not having a relationship and not having a crush while also not having anyone be crushing on them. It'd be nice just to have more examples of how it's okay not to be crushing on someone or have people trying to get with you.

EDIT: Cats, you'd be surprised. I had a lot of problems of varying degrees with some of my past girlfriends because of that mind-reading shit Barkey described. They apparently got even more upset because I am also a girl and in one's words, "Should know better". Fuck that.

If I ask if you have a problem with me playing Halo all night with my buddies and you say no, I'm going to take that no for face value and not think twice about it. If you say you're not mad about something, I'll believe you. I'm not interested in a partner who can't be honest. It's okay to not be articulate or tactful, but to be too scared to tell me basic emotions? Why be with someone if you can't just talk?

edited 25th Feb '13 6:10:44 AM by Gabrael

^^

I've dealt with it in real life plenty of times, it's not a myth.

Life is so much easier when you just keep shit simple and to the point.

edited 25th Feb '13 6:17:42 AM by Barkey

Perhaps I just don't know any women!

Sometimes you are forced to be with someone and you can't talk. Or you know that you shouldn't be upset about something and are just shit at covering it up.

edited 25th Feb '13 6:32:46 AM by ohsointocats

Certain things click, I mean my last girlfriend and I had the most subtle chemistry of any girl I've consistently dated, but it was usually for shit about other people. We could look at each other and just know what the other was thinking when someone else made a screw up, and we were both sarcastic and snarky, so the look communicated the jibe we would have otherwise said.

But when it came to relationship stuff, she was really blunt and up front about things, it's what I had liked about that relationship. There wasn't really any pretense, and it was great.

I've had it happen to me numerous times, too.

The girl I dated back in '09 treated me with borderline apathy/disdain for months, and despite me asking what was wrong refused to tell me. When she finally started telling me what was wrong, it was basically a "if we were meant to be together, X wouldn't have happened" thing. So yeah, it's happened to me, too.

It's not okay to crush on someone? Since when?

I don't think that message is going to get across very well, because you can't stop people from developing crushes. The Middle Ages tried that aesop (in that time period, marriage had nothing to do with romance; actual romance was reserved strictly for illegitimate liaisons and extramarital trysts—and plenty of fiction of the time revolved around how it totally feels awesome, but leads to ruin and failure. See Lancelot/Guinevere or Romeo and Juliet for examples).

In short, a "crushing is bad" aesop would likely fail.

It might be more pragmatic to have a "crushing is ineffective, but here's how to deal with the side-effects (including break-up), if it happens".

I feel retarded for never having met these people. Honestly all the people who I have ever met and have been forced to mask my feelings with have been men.

I think what Gabarael means is that so much media is just so romance focused, if it's not in the forefront it's in the background, and all of this makes people feel like if they don't have some kind of romance thing going on in their lives there's something wrong with them.

I agree.

I guess it is because of the infamous "You Need A Boyfriend/Girlfriend" trope in real life. My teacher told me once that for some twenty something people, your family members will ask if you gotten kids yet.

Not that crushing or relationships are bad, no.

But that it's okay if you don't have a crush or if romance isn't a priority for you. It's okay to be single. You don't need a token love intrest to have an adventure; there is nothing wrong with you to not be interested in that.

When I worked in the media outlet, I worked in books. It bothered me how new media was pushing a crush based hetersexual pairing to younger and younger ages. While I undersood this store would only carry the mainstream sellers, I was concerned that there wasn't a mainstream series or singular book that didn't push a romantic relationship.

Harry Potter did it better than most in my opinion. And considering they are aging and also have other priorities it was paced well. But romance for a under 15 audience is rarely done with such maturity.

But I would like to see more options for kids in showing that it's okay to not have a romance. Just at least a couple of solid, quality options, because the market is just oversaturrated with couples.