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

Which is in part why I don't really consider Aurora or Philip to be strong characters in Sleeping Beauty. Heck, I don't even consider either of them to be actual characters.

Yeah, I think people caught onto the film actually being about the struggle between the fairies vs Maleficent a long while ago. It's pretty interesting when you realize that Aurora actually has a fairly small amount of lines and screen time all things considered.

It's a conflict between The Fair Folk, with the humans only serving incidental roles at best.

I found one video which is perfectly describes this problem, it's one of several vieos one analytic maked about portrayal of women in media (which he compares with female portrayal in "Mad Max: Fury Road"):

Also, couple of most important related problems he described in his other videos of this category:

One of the interesting things that is coming up is the division now between superhero fandoms regarding feminism. For a long time, the general assumption was, "Dudes read comics. Girls don't." It was never true but they were a kind of silent demographic that was not particularly well regarded by marketing. It's why during the 80s, Batgirl and Supergirl were written out of comics because the editors at DC comics honestly didn't believe anyone had any interest in these characters.

(To be fair, they hated the existence of Robin and Superboy too)

The current Captain Marvel hubabaloo is coming along with the fact Supergirl was an unexpected success. The creators of it believed that they'd have to REALLY sell the idea of Supergirl to audiences and no one would be naturally interested in Kara Zor-El. In fact, they got some backlash over it in Season 1 as their overselling came off as patronizing. Because everyone who tuned in to watch the show already liked Supergirl.

Gone a decade from comics or not, people knew who Supergirl was and remembered her fondly.

A similar backlash happened for the reintroduction in comics where they really tried to hype her up as Darker and Edgier and Hotter and Sexier. Peter David even wrote a letter saying, "People like Supergirl. You don't have to change the formula. Why is this so hard?"

They kept trying to appeal to a demographic that hated female superheroes or were skeptical and nasty about it. Forgetting, again, they didn't NEED to and that one that liked it had always been there and was huge.

"Dudes X and girls don't" is pretty much the rhetoric around the entire nerd-o-sphere, really.

Ever since 80's movies invented "The Nerd" as we know it, people have spent decades building their social identity around the idea that we're this super-special subgroup. Non-nerdy men hate and fear us and try to keep us down at every turn! And women think we're weird and don't want anything to do us! WE ARE THE VICTIMS OF SOCIETY. Also no girls allowed, didn't you see that bit about what women think?

But.

Like.

It's not really a thing. Like, I'm not saying that kids don't get picked on for liking Pokemon. But kids also get picked on for liking different sports. Or having goofy hair.

And, like, maybe building an identity around being hated by everyone wasn't exactly a healthy worldview to go through life with after all. There's a lot of "common sense" nerd logic that's really just there to keep the Victim Complex going.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 11th 2019 at 11:57:14 AM

I am still back and forthing whether to insert Gary making a "joke" about the fact Revenge of the Nerds is actually one of the misogynist movies he ever saw in my latest Supervillainy novel.

Revenge of The Nerds involves one of the main characters raping a girl and it being treated as cool, if I remember correctly. I may be wrong, since I haven’t seen it in years, but... I also don’t want to watch it again.

It was textbook rape by deception.

But the girl enjoyed it, so it was okay. /sarc

They also broke into a sorority to steal underwear and put cameras to watch them in the showers.

I always personally found the victim complex that nerds have in general super annoying.

Tons of people of all kinds of subcultures got shit on back in school and still get shit on even out of it. I can't tell you how much general ignorance and bullying I see in regards to goths for example. Or people taking punches at emos just because god forbid they try to be more in tune with their emotions. People also tend to conflate the two despite them being different subcultures.

There is a rather loud group of people that claim to be nerds that go around constantly taking punches at other groups that also have been treated as outcasts and never quite escaped that. The nerds despite being a former group of outcasts bully the shit out of other outcast groups which is nothing short of being hypocritical and humongous assholes.

Of course their is goth nerds but they sadly seem to be the minority.

Edited by Wispy on Mar 11th 2019 at 12:00:23 PM

I've heard sometimes that Conservative Nerds are a American exclusive paradox.

From what I have seen their is a lot of American Conservative nerds but they aren't the only country that has them. Austrailia and Canada seems to have some.

Not sure about Britian. I also have seen quite a few Indonesian and Filipino nerds but I am not sure if a lot of them were quite conservative.

Japan nerd culture has its own misogyny issues.

Australia and Canada? Maybe is their Former White British Colony background?

That's seem more due to the fact that the entire culture is pretty much filled with issues regardless of where you stand.

And yet I consume it a lot

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 11th 2019 at 2:06:11 PM

This is something a friend of mine and I were talking about yesterday, and I thought it was really interesting. She grew up as an athlete. She was big into baseball until she got into high school and they told her she has to play softball. And we were discussing that and it segued into how athletes are raised versus how nerds are raised.

In youth sports, after every game finished, the two teams would line up and shake hands with each other and say, "Good game." This was a standard routine. The point is to teach the kids playing these games good sportsmanship. Whether you win or lose, you're expected to treat the other player with respect and dignity.

For years there's been a pushback against efforts to remove the toxicity of online video games rooted in the idea that this toxicity has always been here. The most common argument is that this is just how gamers are. Since the early days of playing Street Fighter II competitively, the standard expected behavior is to go, "HA, you got motherf*cking PWNED! LICK MY SALTY BALLS AND DROP DEAD, f*ck-for-brains!"

...

So, why are the athletes the bad guys in this equation?

Because atlethes aren't a Hive Mind and neither nerds.

Nerd culture issue is that is trying to overcompensate. Athletes always got respect. E sports and the likes are very new and despite the prizes and the likes, they aren't see at the same level.

Is stupid, but eh, that's how it works.

I find this talk funny because my personal issue come off because I'm actually a Academical nerd.

...on stuff as Literature or social sciences rather than Math.

Let's say that Peruvian Academical Circles made for Young Kids were a bit too fond of Maths...

...dear God, I really shouldn't be a stereotypical math-hating person but they made me like this.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 11th 2019 at 2:41:15 PM

This video by Lily orchard argues that the Big Bang Theory is actually a criticism of toxic nerd culture.

• The guys frequently suffer consequences for her their awful behavior.

• It's made clear the reason Sheldon is hated is because of his attitude not because he's a nerd.

• The characters actually do develop and grow.

Alas, I'd argue that the guys at their worst are rewarded rather than punished as all of them end up with beautiful nerd girls (And Penny) who tolerate their antics. Including the Asexual Sheldon.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 11th 2019 at 1:16:42 AM

I would argue that most of the characters are terrible people to each other generally.

I'd also argue that most sitcoms are lately people you'd never want to be anywhere near thanks to Seinfeld its Flanderizing its characters' flaws.

For a random flashback of sexism from pop culture:

I love this issue of Action Comics, just for how absolutely crazy sixties comics could be. The Lannisters would be proud of Superman and Kara's relationship.

http://comicboxcommentary.blogspot.com/2008/09/it-came-from-back-issue-box-action.html

What's worse is that a lot of white nerds have the habit of co-opting language and framing from actual minority groups, with zero self-awareness and acknowledgment of why that's a fucked thing to do.

Film Critic Hulk put it rather aptly:

The exclusion is notable because of the fact that it assumes that black people and minorities DON'T enjoy the things they like.

And that women don't.

It's only now that I have since figured out that a lot of the Fake Geek Girl TM and the treatment of women that liked gaming as well as comics wasn't just actual ignorance. It was the fact that they considered their interest in such thing an INVASION.

That they did not WANT women in gaming or comics or such areas. So they tried to drive them out.

There's definitely a kind of paranoia about Fake Geek Girls TM being only into a thing for shipping or as a Mad Bride to one of the male characters to the exclusion of anything else about the work. As someone who is not a fan of shipping or canon romance as a whole, or the absolutely insane self-appointed Moral Guardians it tends to attract, I have definitely had that frustration when talking with other female fans in the past, especially when their interpretation of the work comes off as antithetical to its actual core. But the amount of women who are truly like that, and don't still enjoy the work for its own merits or treat shipping as a mere side hobby, tends to be blown way out of proportion as a cheap boogeyman.