Needs Help: Analysis.Men Are The Expendable Gender

I was reading through the Analysis page for Men Are the Expendable Gender today, and I noticed that there are a lot of very..."iffy" things on it. In general, the trope is meant to demonstrate the way in fiction that men are killed far more frequently, and in more gruesome ways than women, but then it starts trying to explain WHY this is, or making assumptions about audience reactions, and there are some very questionable things said.

For example, I edited out the following line:

I don't know if that's true, and I don't know how we could measure that if it were. I can think of quite a few movies that defy what this is saying (Ransom, Face/Off, The Golden Child, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, etc.) but the problem remains that I could be thinking of exceptions and not a rule.

Then there's this part:

There are two separate points being made here. One being that female-on-female violence is sexualized, and the other that female-on-female violence is inherently shrugged off. This passage seems to be making the overall point that female violence is "not worth fretting over", but can't make up its mind if this is inherently so, of if this is because of fetishization.

Another example:

Maybe it's just me, but I don't feel comfortable saying that a woman being pregnant is "an excuse" for her lack of expendability. Further, women that act cowardly or uselessly, intentionally putting male characters in danger to save themselves aren't characters I would say get a free pass, as the passage suggests. I do agree that if the scene from Titanic were reversed that it would be negatively-received, though.

Anyway, thanks in advance.

This one never got opened.

Clock is set.

So if this doesn't pick up any traction, do I leave it alone, or should I start making edits with more neutral language?

I'm not really sure what your concern here is. You seem to be saying that the analysis page presents its observations as universal, when in reality they're not — but this is the analysis page for a specific trope, so in instances when that trope is averted, obviously the analysis page doesn't apply to it. Are the things in the analysis page true when the trope is in effect? If they are, then it's fine, no action needed.

The analysis page is precisely where the "why and how" of the trope's existence should be. I fail to see a problem here.

I am looking over the page and I am not seeing any problem here that needs TRS addressing. Honestly, the feel I get is that this topic is a simple disagreement over the analysis. Analyses are subjective, of course disagreement is going to happen.

The page itself also has some issues, but I brought the Analysis page here first because it's so long-winded that I wanted to know what to do about that. The actual page contains stuff like this:

Which largely seems like unsourced opinions presented as fact. For one, as I said before, it can't make up its mind whether or not a woman's sympathy is a result of her gender, or a result of other qualifiers (morality, innocence, or beauty as stated above). A woman being inherently more sympathetic is not the same thing as a woman being sympathetic because she fits one of those three traits, because other women that don't fit those traits (for example, the unchaste girl who always gets killed in horror movies, or the ugly, nagging girlfriend/wife that gets offed in other films) are not typically sympathized with.

As I said, though, I'm approaching this from my own feminist bias. Which is why I figured I'd defer to others.

edited 5th Nov '14 12:09:13 PM by KingZeal

Analysis is not going to be completely factual. That's the nature of analysis — it's some fact, some supposition, and some hypothesizing. It's also the nature of the beast that for a trope like Men Are the Expendable Gender, there' isn't going to be only one provable reason for it.

Yeeeeeeah, about that...

Part of the issue is that the trope in general is becoming a dumping ground for "men die a lot in fiction", partially as a result of assumptions being made about the meaning and reasons for the trope. For example:

• This is very subtle, but present still in The Host. Almost all of those who die are male, and they get killed off before we really get a chance to know them much.
  • What does this have to do with the expendability of men in specific? A lot more men than women die, yes, but what makes it because of this trope?

Then you have this one which is followed by a Conversation In The Main Page that claims this is Not An Example.

• The book Starship Troopers plays this straight. There are female pilots, but all of the infantry are male. The movie and its first direct-to-video sequel, however, subvert this and include female infantry, many of whom are killed in battle. However, the second direct-to-video sequel surprisingly played this straight. Seven people are stranded on a planet — five men and two women — and only the women survive. Also, pretty much everyone else killed in the movie was male.
  • Not sure if this applies. The CAP troops may not have women in them, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're not willing to put the women in the naval service in harms way. How many thousands of female crew members do you think died when the first Klendathu attack went south? The absence of women in the Mobile Infantry probably has to do with the fact that a special forces style training regime with a 99% drop off rate for men wouldn't be graduating that many women even if you let them in.

And there are several others as well.

If this trope is simply describing a trend, then I find the way it explains the trend to be troubling due to the reasons I stated previously. The description makes a number of assumptions (about both real life and fiction) that presume factors that sometimes aren't even there. If it's a specific instance (ex:"Man dies because his life is more valuable than a woman's"), then the ones that are just the trend are Square Peg Round Trope.

So does that mean that anyone who disagrees (such as myself, should just edit it)? I didn't want to do anything that would go against administrative protocol.

edited 5th Nov '14 2:27:57 PM by KingZeal

The issues you're describing seem to be less "this is a problem with the trope" and more "this trope is sexist and I don't like that". But the trope is sexist — the heart of the trope is treating people differently based purely on their gender, which is sexist by definition. But that doesn't mean that the description, analysis, or examples are incorrect.

"Men die a lot in fiction" is, from what I can tell, sheer People Sit On Chairs, because that can be stretched to mean anything from "all the casualties in this movie are male" to "this random character didn't care about this man that died", which seems to be what you're implying. Based on that, what makes the Starship Troopers example "bad"? If "more guys are dying than girls" is all it takes to qualify for this trope, wouldn't it be valid? The main objection stated above was that men were killed off more because more male characters were permitted to fight, not because men were considered less expendable. They aren't the same thing.

That the trope is sexist is not in doubt. That it's meant to reflect a sexist practice in fiction is not in doubt.

What I'm questioning is where the trope ends and begins. As it's written, the definition can't make up its mind between two arguments (1) that women are inherently more sympathetic to audiences than men and (2) this sympathy only applies when gender stereotypes also apply.

For example, if it's the former, then does that mean when an unattractive, bitchy, vulgar woman dies that people still feel worse about it than when the cool, brave hero dies? As far as I can tell, people don't really care that much when Vasquez Always Dies and were pretty happy when Dolores Umbridge was dragged off to an implied gang-rape. So if the former isn't true, then the latter is the more accurate definition, which the current trope doesn't address at all.

Again, the trope is that men are "expendable", not "men die".

edited 6th Nov '14 7:52:23 AM by KingZeal

It does not need to be consistent. The same thing frequently happens from opposite reasons. Also, this is a thread about the analysis page, not the trope itself.

I think we need to also point out that this shouldn't count unless the men and women have close to equal roles in the story. I'm seeing a lot of cases where a female main character dies, and it's a big deal, but faceless mooks dying isn't getting fanfare. In a lot of the later cases, the faceless mooks are all male, or asumed to because everyone is male apparently unless pointed out otherwise with lots of cleavage. It doesn't matter what gender a mook is. They always get less fanfare to their deaths than main characters.

@ Septimus: So then I just need to know what I'm supposed to do here. If I disagree with the Analysis do I just edit it, since no one expects to be accurate anyway? Do I go to the Discussion page? I have no idea how to proceed.

Except it's a stereotype that, as written, the trope automatically assume is true.

This isn't just "women's deaths are portrayed as more sympathetic than men's", the description itself believes the "women are more sympathetic" stereotype.^{To quote} Female characters start with automatic audience sympathy because women are seen as moral, innocent, beautiful or simply because they have sexual value. Male characters are less likely to be seen that way and must earn audience sympathy by acting appropriately manly and heroic, which, more often than not, involves saving the Damsel in Distress. Making a trope about stereotypes is one thing; making a description which assumes stereotypes is another.

Sure, but you just added a bunch of extra information to that example to push it into the trope.

If you agree that the original example, without all that stuff added, is not the trope, then you would agree with my assessment.

Also: What Shima said.

edited 6th Nov '14 11:34:07 AM by KingZeal

I'm still not seeing what you disagree with. The trope analysis assumes that the stereotype is in use because if it's not, then it's not an example of the trope. When it says female characters have audience sympathy by default because of X, Y, and Z, it's talking about works where Men Are the Expendable Gender is true. Obviously there are works where female characters don't automatically have audience sympathy, but in those cases, Men Are the Expendable Gender is being averted and thus the analysis isn't talking about them anyway. You don't need to change the analysis to cover works where the trope isn't being used.

Regarding the example, I added more information to it because "masculine woman dies" is not enough information to judge whether or not Men Are the Expendable Gender is being used. "Masculine woman dies, is given more focus than equally-important male characters dying" is an example. "Masculine woman dies, is treated the same as equally-important male characters dying" is an aversion. "Masculine woman dies, is given less focus than equally-important than feminine woman dying" is an edge case that would probably depend on the specifics of the work.

edited 6th Nov '14 12:39:48 PM by NativeJovian

That isn't what it says at all. It says, and I quote, "female characters start with automatic audience sympathy", which forms the basis for this trope. There is absolutely no indication in the definition, as written, that it is only for the specific circumstances you say it is. Instead, it states an assumption "women are more sympathetic" and the builds the rest of the definition from that assumption. It doesn't say anywhere "if this trope is invoked, X Y and Z are assumed".

Are we assuming that an unattractive, bitchy and vulgar woman is "masculine"? Why are we assuming this?

And even if we are, this doesn't address the point. Is the base assumption above (all women start out with automatic sympathy) only apply to feminine women die or does it apply to all women, including "masculine" ones (as you described it)?

edited 6th Nov '14 1:02:31 PM by KingZeal

I cannot parse your reply at all. I literally have no how what you're saying is a response to what I said. I've been looking at it for the last five minutes and tried typing up three or four replies, but I cannot for the life of me make heads or tails of it.

Suffice to say, you appear to be the only one who has a problem with the article, and you can't even articulate what exactly that problem is. In the absence of a compelling argument to do otherwise, I say leave the page alone.

That seems a bit disingenuous. "I don't get it, so I'm right."

At the very least, shima seems to get some of what I'm talking about. If no one else does, fine. I just want to know what I'm supposed to do because so far "of course the page is inaccurate" doesn't explain how or if I should deal with the inaccuracies.

More like "I don't understand what you are trying to say, so I am not convinced by it." And frankly, it sounds to me like your real objection is that it written in a way that assumes the reader is capable of understanding "In works where this trope is in play..." applies.

That isn't supported by anything at all on either page.

The Analysis page has this to say:

• "Killing a man does not work as well precisely because the audience does not view the death of anonymous men as tragic or horrifying. Which leads into." (Folder 1, Paragraph 3)
• "Because the victimization of female characters has more emotional impact with audiences, their deaths are often used to drive plots, motivate protagonists and present touching denouements. Male characters may also serve this purpose—after they've earned audience sympathy—but expect a far higher proportion of anonymous and meaningless male death for every one inspirational male death." (Folder 2, Paragraph 1)
• "A male character can elevate himself to the status of a female extra through sympathetic characterization—thus earning himself a noteworthy death—but female characters always start with audience sympathy." (Folder 2, Paragraph 3)
• "Namely, a female character only crosses the line if she targets children for death, especially if she does the killing herself, or if she openly admits to have had an abortion and isn't constantly angsting about it..." (Folder 2, Paragraph 3)
• "Female characters are also expected to treat themselves as less expendable than male characters. Female characters do not lose sympathy for preserving their own lives or safety at the cost of adult male characters' lives and safety. (They are sometimes expected to do so to protect children, however, if there are no male characters available to take care of it.) Male characters lose considerable sympathy if they don't at least try to bend over backwards and help save female characters' lives, even if the cost is their own." (Folder 3, Paragraph 4)
• "Being viewed as less sympathetic than women by default has obvious Unfortunate Implications for men: in general, it is more socially/feministically acceptable for women to seek help or support from others, and they're more likely to actually get it. More than that, though, this trope contributes to systematic social problems that disproportionately affect men. Men are more likely than women to be homeless, to be victims of violent crime, and to be injured or killed in workplace accidents." (Folder 4, Paragraph 1)
• "And since male characters must get the chance to earn audience sympathy by proving how capable they are, female characters are rarely given the same narrative opportunities to be heroic. " (Folder 4, Paragraph 2)

Practically everything about both pages treats "women start with automatic sympathy" as a universal truth outside of the trope, not limited to instances where the trope is invoked.

Similarly, the examples on the main main page are all over the place. As Shima said, "men die a lot" is used as a defacto example of the trope and sometimes just flat out Zero Context Examples.

• Saint Seiya: Despite the high death count, all the female Saints, Marin, Shaina and June, manage to survive while all but the five main bronze boys die.
• One Piece tends to follow its Shonen brethren in this issue, in that women are often seen in combat roles, but only in positions of authority (the show has been accused of The Smurfette Principle, but women are numerous enough generally to dodge that) and never in the faceless pirate/marine hordes that serve as cannon fodder. The closest comes in with Amazon Lily, where, by the island's nature, women had to serve as mooks. Civilians, meanwhile, tend to be a realistically even mix.
• Frozen (not to be confused) features 2 men and a woman trapped on a ski-lift. Guess which one lives? The woman does nothing but cry the entire movie and survives based on luck. The men, who try to make useful contributions, are both killed.
• Planet Terror kills off nearly every male character of consequence while having all the female characters but one survive.
• Although inverted (once) near the end of book three, most of The Black Jewels Trilogy lives and dies (pun intended) by this trope.
• In the Mayday episode 'Behind Closed Doors' Mc Donnald Douglas's DC-10s have a faulty door latch that causes Turkish Airlines Flight 981 to crash. Everyone aboard is killed, including men. You'd never know that from the show's final montage however because it only includes shots of female passengers.
• Most of the zombies you encounter in half the games in the Resident Evil series are male. This is averted in the second and third games, as well as the Outbreak spin-offs, since the T-Virus escaped in a midwestern city. In the original game and Code: Veronica, the virus infected an isolated laboratory without any listed female personnel and an isolated South American prison complex that either had no female prisoners at all, or stored them on a part of the island that you never visit during gameplay.

The examples where women are specifically held to a higher standard (for example, "You even killed women and children!" or examples where a character was spared in-universe ) do exist. But, there is ample evidence that the trope is treating "women have automatic sympathy" as a universal truth.

edited 7th Nov '14 6:07:27 AM by KingZeal

The clock is up, and it seems that most of the discussion now is either going back-and-forth or talking about the main page. Does someone want to discuss the main page issue either here or in its own thread, or shall I close?

If you want to go through and add a bunch of "When this trope is being used," and "The assumption behind this trope is" and the like, then I don't see a problem with that, I guess. I just don't think it's necessary; the fact that the analysis only applies to examples of the trope is implicit.

Removing or improving bad examples is always welcome, but I don't think the examples you list are actually bad. The only one of those that's actually a ZCE is the Black Jewels Trilogy one — the rest look like good examples to me, so I don't see the problem with them.

edit — whoops, ninja'd by mod.

edited 7th Nov '14 9:12:26 AM by NativeJovian