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

*De-lurks*

This is the exact same problem I've had with RWBY and its fanbase. It's a decent show with some positive points in its favour regarding gender equality, but it also has a few glaring issues too. Try and point out the latter, though, and people get super defensive.

As for KLK, despite being very dubious about it at first, I ended up watching it through to its finale because I was invested in the characters and enjoyed their interactions. The fanservice was so full-on and ever-present I'm pretty sure I got desensitised to it and stopped noticing it... which isn't really a good thing

That's the thing: being constantly knocked over the head with "hahaha — innuendo (or outright declarations) and uncomfortable power-play while nekkid (or near as dammit) is funny!" kind of made me not care.

If the main character is supposed to be a strong, female character... I'd much rather her turn around and say "screw it: finding out who killed my dad is not worth putting up with this shit — I and he are worth more than this and I will find another way". How am I supposed to engage if I just want to strangle her clichéd, sticking-to-what-society-tells-me-I-should-do-when-my-dad-gets-murdered-even-though-I-want-to-take-regular-baths-as-a-result self?

Seriously: how in the world is walking into all that with eyes wide open "strong"? I'd try for "stupid", rather. -_- Not to mention the whole "beat everybody up for answers, even though I'm at the bottom of the heap and I'll have to work my way up to the top" thing. Seriously? She's basically Ichigo in a sailor suit, but whacked with the boobs-and-legs stick. Token female. And, if she's bi, that kind of just makes it worse. "We wanted to give you something to perv at, so we turned a boy main character in a typical shonen scenario into a girl: and, she's into guys and girls, too! — hurr hurr".

edited 16th Sep '14 3:31:40 PM by Euodiachloris

I do think also that people who get used to a certain genre start not noticing its issues so much; they become background noise and you ignore them if they don't bother you so much you cannot. Which gets to be a problem when you recommend them, or talk to others about them; you gloss over its problems.

A brighter future for a darker age.

What are people's opinions on Skullgirls?

It is definitely fanservicy, but it is a lot more developed both artistically and storywise than a lot of games of their genre.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

I enjoy Skullgirls for much of the same reason I enjoy the Dead or Alive series. I'm a huge fan of the latter, but like DOA, I think Skullgirls is a genuinely fun panty fighter with not much to say in the story department and character development department. And like DOA, its treatment of the female characters is both commendable and problematic. I'd play Skullgirls more often, but between the sharp learning curve (never was that good at 2D fighters) and time constraints of daily life, I haven't really harnessed the gameplay mechanics as much as I'd like.

I'm not too wild about some of the male characters in DOA either. To me, Zack represents damn near everything wrong with the way black men are portrayed in video games, but that rant's for another day.

edited 16th Sep '14 4:15:20 PM by Aprilla

Go on.

Aprilla: I'm only familiar with DOA from DOA 2. I can tell that Zack is badly done by someone who knows no black people, and it shows, but is there specific stuff beyond that? Or is it just "stereotypical black guy created by nobody who actually knows any black people"?

A brighter future for a darker age.

Bear in mind that many works are designed for people with varying levels of life experience and maturity. Not everyone is ready for full-on literary treatment of complex real-life characters. Some works might best be regarded as steps on a journey. It would just be nice if the initial steps wernt so squicky.

edited 16th Sep '14 5:20:45 PM by demarquis

It's mainly the costume designs, I think. Girls fighting monsters in skirts and heels or hot pants, that sort of thing. Not a deal-breaker and nowhere near as bad as something like KLK, but still a bit of a niggling annoyance.

The last few times I've seen this pointed out, though, I've seen a lot of "They don't have to be practical they're meant to look AWESOME. Why are you complaining about it instead of ENJOYING THE AWESOME?" which irritates me a bit

The show's other issues are more elated to production and writing than what would be on-topic for this thread.

edited 16th Sep '14 5:24:01 PM by gaunt88

Well, in general, he's got Uncle Tomfoolery, and is a hypersexual Casanova Wannabe. That's Michael Bay level stereotyping.

I'm a DOA player and am trying to learn it semi-professionally. The irony with DOA is that at one point (don't know if it's still true), it had the largest community of professional Girl Gamers. From what I understand, this was partially a calculated move. Tecmo and the Championship Gaming Series put together two "divisions" divided by gender, to give the impression that there were more Pro DOA ladies than there actually were. They tried bringing in low level players to fill out it's ranks for the show, but...well...the lack of polish compared to the male community showed.

The thing was, though, many of those girls actually liked having a place to play outside of the misogynistic environment of the DOA FGC, so they tried to make a few all-girl tournaments. From what I can tell, that didn't go over very well. There was even a team of female players that were basically part time models or something like that.

I can live with the outfits since the combat skirts avoid panty shots. The cleavage windows and bare midriffs seem more problematic than the skirts to me though, because the skirts aren't sexualized. The outfits aren't ideal though and the heels are grating. At least the boys are also showing some skin. Egalitarian treatment doesn't specify in what direction after all.

The arc with Jaune trying to woo Weiss and not accepting her answers was more more problematic than the outfits imho.

My issue is more Yang's body shape, it causes me physical pain to look at. >.<

The thing with Fanservice is that most people are not bisexual, so a scene built around showing off a character's body and making them lust-worthy is only going to appeal to about half your potential audience. The other half will, at best, be uninterested in watching that character act sexy; at worst, it will actively repulse them.

There are a couple ways around that. One way is to make the fanservice mild and out-of-focus; you can put the characters in sexy outfits, but have them involved in important plot or character developments at the same time. The sexiness is there, but it's never what any of the scenes are about, so people who don't find the characters sexy still have something to keep them engaged. Another way is to simply have all fanservice scenes include both male and female characters; if someone's not attracted to one sex, there's still someone from the other sex on camera for them to lust after. That way it'll only be the asexuals who are left untitillated.

However, while those approaches can be used to good effect, it's also completely valid to say, "I'm not gonna try appealing to everyone. I'm gonna put in lots of really blatant fanservice, all focused on the (blank) sex, and people who don't find that arousing can just not watch." The only problem with that is that, thanks to Most Writers Are Male and the belief that All Women Are Prudes, the vast majority of these fanservice-centric stories are about fetishizing women and not fetishizing men. The solution to that isn't to get rid of stories overloaded with sex-specific fanservice, though; it's to get more women into prominent positions in media and to increase awareness of the largely untapped market for male cheesecake.

Zeal: oh yeah I remember about the whole esports gender segregation thing.

I personally would prefer competitions to remain mixed myself but I don't think single sex sport divisions is as anathema as the detractors makes out.

hashtagsarestupid

@ Joeyjojo : I was heavily against that, but not because of the divided by sex thing, even though I did not agree with that.

I was against it because some of the games were EXCLUSIVE to only men, or only women.

Bingo.

Some sports are not made to be mixed. It would be unfair such as competition weight lifting.

But the sports that can be mixed without giving any unfair advantage or at least there can be a better balance of power, then I'm all for that.

But yea, it just makes sense that you should be allowed to have all male synchronized swimming just as you can have an all woman rowing team.

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

Yeah that wasn't right.

I'm surprised they would have different games for the female competitions. What was the set up?

hashtagsarestupid

Starcraft 2 and Hearthstone were exclusive to men

The first one really pissed me off, since I am an avid RTS player, and have even had one of my matches in the past watched by EA... :/

I cant remember what was exclusive to the womens bracket, I actually think there may have been nothing, rather just the remaining games divided up.

Granted I've only watched the trailers and bits and pieces of RWBY, but from what I've seen the fanservice is nowhere near equal in gender. I think there's one or two guys who go shirtless, but they never really get the 'bare thighs, bare shoulders, and high heels' style of impractical armour. Cause that would look silly I guess?

I admit, I have trouble picturing a male character who's intended to be taken seriously wearing booty shorts and heels myself. It's not something you see often.

Plus the fact that all 4 leads are the same identical skinny pale girl, just with different hair.

edited 17th Sep '14 12:34:29 AM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

Are men in high heels considered sexy, though? I'll admit, I'm not great at figuring out what's considered attractive in men, but male beauty standards do seem less geared towards the impractical than female beauty standards.

At the moment, not really. But that strikes me as something really... dependent on society.

Be not afraid...

They used to be, heels were designed for knights, and first adopted into fashion by men, soooo.

@Imac:oh cool, what army did you use?

Personally you can't beat a Zerg Rush

edited 17th Sep '14 5:17:44 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

That's more a corollary of there not being many dudes to begin with.

True. And this is a wider problem. As far as I'm aware, there isn't really much of a consensus on presenting male attractiveness because it's so underused.

And bust sizes. But yeah, all female characters have been conventionally attractive whereas not all males are.

My problem with Jaune is that, with the exception of the Jaunedice and Forever Fall arc, they generally don't treat his awkwardness and loneliness as actual problems, instead they treat it simply as the equivalent of a sitcom prop. This promotes the idea that "real men" must be strong, or they are automatically losers.

The fact he keep pursuing girls who could not give a shit to him in order to improve his self-esteem does not helps.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!