Discussion History Webcomic / Sinfest

Regarding the \\\"No Mansplaining\\\" thing, I get the impression that you\\\'ve never been mansplained at (correct me if I\\\'m wrong, by all means!). Cutting someone off before they do it is the \\\'\\\'only way to stop it\\\'\\\'. Think about it, what else would Slick have done? Because he certainly isn\\\'t going to stop and say, \\\'You know, you\\\'re right, I \\\'\\\'don\\\'t\\\'\\\' have the right to openly pass judgment on a woman according to how sexually attractive I think she is!\\\'. The only thing he could have responded with would be things like \\\"It\\\'s a compliment, what\\\'s your problem?\\\" Yes, it\\\'s rude, but it\\\'s \\\'\\\'necessary\\\'\\\' if you want to stop that kind of behavior... and that is, for good or evil, what Glossy wants to do. I don\\\'t know why people look at Glossy and can\\\'t see where her fundamental character is, because that IS her fundamental character: she\\\'s made her brand of feminism her work, and she is a \\\'\\\'workaholic\\\'\\\', with little or no social graces because she\\\'s so dedicated to protecting and uplifting women and girls that she won\\\'t compromise her presentation in order to get her message across to men: in other words, she is a strongly-motivated, but densely flawed, third-wave feminist. Glossy has \\\'\\\'tons\\\'\\\' of personality, but she\\\'s a one-trick pony, and she rarely has serious dialogue.

Same goes for Squig at the porn booth. Squig brings up the First Amendment and the right of the individual to decide for themselves what is and isn\\\'t obscene, but none of those things addresses Curly\\\'s point: \\\'\\\'porn harms\\\'\\\'. Nothing about the First Amendment will change the fact that pornography causes harm, but Squig can make those excuses because he\\\'s only concerned with \\\'\\\'his own enjoyment of porn\\\'\\\', not the effect that porn has on society.

That\\\'s all I got.

EDIT:

No, nevermind, I got one more.

I think the Trike Girl hate comes from the fact that other characters don\\\'t get to argue against her in any significant way. And there\\\'s a reason for that: there \\\'\\\'is\\\'\\\' no argument against her, except the kind of bullshit that feminism often comes up against in real life. That\\\'s why the arguments that people WOULD be having with her appear in the form of the Patriarchy Matrix.

People don\\\'t like Trike Girl because she\\\'s the vehicle for Tatsuya\\\'s changes; the idea that Sinfest used to be much, much more sexist never crosses people\\\'s minds, and it certainly never crosses their minds that sexism, in the author\\\'s mind, \\\'\\\'is bad\\\'\\\'. Trike Girl is a champion of women for women, but that\\\'s a character \\\'\\\'flaw\\\'\\\' for her; we don\\\'t see her doing anything but her job (and she\\\'s very unique in the cast because she HAS one).

But look a little closer at the changes that are taking place in Trike Girl\\\'s wake without her actually being involved: the dichotomy of Slick versus Sleaze, for instance, and Slick\\\'s nightmarish journey into the mirror world. That has nothing to do with Trike Girl, but Tats\\\' gradual migration away from the early days of the comic (where Monique and Slick are both equally egregious sexist caricatures) to evolve the world of Sinfest into something more mature (where Monique is learning to value things about herself other than her ass, Slick is learning that his behavior has warped his inner self, and they\\\'re \\\'\\\'both\\\'\\\' learning that the way they treat the opposite sex is \\\'\\\'wrong\\\'\\\'). Trike Girl\\\'s cold-fury feminism is never treated as the right approach, it\\\'s treated as the only approach that \\\'\\\'works\\\'\\\'. Glossy got through to Monique, who\\\'s gotten through to Fuchsia and her little fangirl, but Curly hasn\\\'t reached anyone yet (that I can recall, anyway).