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

I absolutely can blame them for “not taking risks” if they consider it “risky” to let women actually do things men can do without any issue. Because no matter which way you slice it, that’s sexism. That is keeping women from having the opportunities that men have or being portrayed as equally competent and heroic. It’s sad that allowing a woman to do a thing men could always do is “breaking ground,” because it’s 20 damn 19 and we should all be better than this.

Benevolent “must protecc the helpless wimmunz” sexism is anything but. Just like was brought up above, “protect the wimminz” has done nothing to stop the frequency of domestic violence and sexual assault. It’s a way of diminishing women and forcing them into a neat role sexists are comfortable with.

Here’s the bottom line. Misogynists gonna misogynist no matter what that woman in the screen says or does. Showing a powerful woman fighting a man does not a misogynist make, unless you also subscribe to the theory that playing GTA makes people go on murdering sprees.

If anything, women being unable to do traditionally “male” things is what those people want. Because that makes them portrayed as inferior.

I’m sorry, but “they’ll get mad at us if we make women people” is not and never has been an excuse for lazy, bigoted writing or a lack of effort in representation.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 19th 2019 at 10:56:22 AM

never said it wasn't sexism, but at the same time money talks and unfortunately we should all be made aware that unless people as a collective make it clear what they want your going have to wait for people to drag their heels on everything.

We’ve made it quite clear that we want better writing for women and other minorities multiple times, through articles and videos and other forms of criticism.

You were saying or seemed to be saying that it was justified for creators to be averse to “taking risks” when it comes to depicting women as incapable of doing things men can do with no issue because of money, when it’s not, and that such things not only are not only highly unlikely to cost them much if any profit margins, but is actually more likely to sell well since, believe it or not, diverse fiction with well-written representation sells better than typical while dude wish fulfillment.

Remember when minority heroes “couldn't lead a film” and this it was “risky” to make a film helmed by anything but a white dude? Yeah. Black Panther happened. And became number one.

Basically, creators that trot out “too risky” and “muh profit margins” are full of shit and there are people doing better.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 19th 2019 at 11:22:43 AM

Do you have number to back up all those we because otherwise it sounds like you are just using this forum as a majority when it definitely is not.

Black Panther is a good movie as a whole and I am pretty sure Disney knew it would work because every other marvel movie has managed to make profit.

Never said it is justified or not pretty sure you came to that conclusion on your own. I simply said money controls a lot of things in this day and age.

Um, if you’ve just been on the internet you’ll come across hundreds of not thousands of articles criticizing sexism, racism and other bigotry in media and telling creators the kind of representation the minority audience wants. It takes three seconds to google it and pull up one such article. Not sure why you’re acting like it’s a new, unheard of thing. I wasn’t speaking of “we” as just this forum. This conversation was never solely about that.

Black Panther has gone on record as the #1 MCU movie at the box office. They make bank, but the minority led movie made by far the most when the, cough, traditional and bigoted wisdom was that “minority movies don’t sell.” A bit different than your usual MCU film.

Okay. Money controls things. But you make more money when you let non men and non white people actually do stuff. People using “money” as an excuse are nothing but lazy bigots or hold bigoted thoughts, subconscious or otherwise.

I didn’t come to that conclusion on my own. You said in a previous post “I can see why one wouldn’t want to risk profit margins,” i.e, that it was justified.

Edit: Your exact words:

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 19th 2019 at 11:44:16 AM

Yeah I can see why you can come to that conclusion, but nothing in that says I agree or approve of anything just that I understand the logic one uses for such an idea. Understanding does not mean one approves of something nor does it say it is justified. There is a pretty vast difference.

Articles don't really translate to numbers. I mean are all of these things hitting the pockets of companies or having a effect on comic sales. Because many times many articles with a comment section look like a warzone.

But there is no “logic” behind that idea. Smash hit bestselling media featuring diverse casts of people (nonwhite and nonmale) just doing regular hero stuff that white people have been allowed to do for eons show there’s absolutely no “risk” and “profit margins” loss. I’ve dissembled the argument time and time and again in my previous posts but you seem to be ignoring it.

And the comments section of anything is a war zone, because comment sections that aren’t policed will attract all sorts of garbage spewing bigotry. That’s irrelevant to the point. Here’s the thing: There have been studies that prove diversity is more profitable in media, and just letting minorities be cool and normal is the most logical thing to do to make money.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 19th 2019 at 1:30:01 AM

You do realize not everyone runs on the same 'logic'. Some people go by old 'logic' or what will the shareholders want. Plus what is logical has not been the same through the entirety of history. A lot of strange things 'logically' made sense before people realized that no they actually don't.

Which is an entirely different problem. Assuming just because they don't like an idea it means they are a racist / bigot or any other terrible thing. That is a rather big assumption to make regarding that without proof to back it up.

...You know “protect the women, they’re too delicate to do things men can do” has been around since immaterial right? And you’re still arguing it as logical in this day and age despite saying yourself that we decide when things change? And the fact that we have advanced in our knowledge and handling of minority and social issues?

“Women shouldn’t be allowed to do things men can do in media” is a bigoted position, no matter how you slice it. I don’t see “women can’t be equal to men” as any sort of defensible logic that I respect. It’s sexism, pure and simple.

It’s ridiculous to think you need “proof” that someone is a bigot when they’re standing against equal opportunity of representation for minorities. The proof is staring you right in the face.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 19th 2019 at 1:43:47 AM

Pretty sure the issue isn't woman not being allowed to do anything considering we have a boatload of female protagonist. The problem is we have very little in regards to female villians that fight male heroes.

People have different definitions of proof and you don't need to prove anything to me I have no control over any comic book or animation studios.

Edited by Darthwyn on Jun 19th 2019 at 4:46:41 AM

This whole discussion was about not barring women from fighting male antagonists out of some benevolent sexism BS or some “risk” non-logic. It has nothing to do with female villains fighting male heroes, which is a whole different problem that leads to said woman, not allowed to be evil of her own accord, having some tragic backstory that warped her because Females Are More Innocent and falling in love with the hero and being redeemed.

Edit: If you need “proof” of sexism outside of “women not allowed to do thing man can do,” I’m not sure if there’s much else I can say.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 19th 2019 at 1:49:51 AM

Which as people pointed out a solution in a few posts would be to create more female villians / antagonist for male heroes.

Like previous post stated proving that to me isn't really going to change anything since I have no authority to actually implement any sort of changes at this time. The only thing I questioned was your use of the word we which seemed to imply you had a coalition of people that you knew the feelings of or statics on hand to work with.

There is plenty of people that have criticized this to hell and high water. It isn't just regulated to this forum.

x2 That's not a solution though? Not only does that not have anything to do with the original discussion about female heroes not allowed to throw fisticuffs, but more of x does not automatically equal better written x. We need better written x, not just a spam of the same x.

And “we” does not imply a coalition of anything. For some reason you assumed I was taking about this forum was only, when the conversation was in a much larger scope from the beginning.

I don’t know what this statistics stuff is; if you take a casual glance at the internet you’ll see plenty of opinion and criticism pieces plainly stating what the issues people have are and what they want to be done about it. I even linked an article full of statistics proving diversity is more profitable (and thus “must protect profits” is nonsense logic) and you ignored it.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 19th 2019 at 3:38:25 AM

I already get enough things from my Google feed to where I feel less inclined to fill it with more controversial topics by doing a search.

Then you either don't have enough people pushing or executives and people that can do anything about it are not convinced. Which goes right back to my point.

While I can overall agree with your point, I also have to agree with Darthwyn that this isn't actually a compelling argument at all. For every article you post about people criticizing those things, you could probably find another that (blatantly or otherwise) does not support those things.

And that's not even getting into the point about online comment sections which, as already mentioned, are a cesspool. Point being, support for these things are not anywhere nears as unanimous as you seem to be claiming, and going "people on the internet agree with me!" is not a great argument.

Actual surveys and polls would serve your point much better.

Edited by LSBK on Jun 19th 2019 at 6:31:50 AM

“Trolls exist” is not a refutation of anything. Every single online forum that isn’t policed will attract bigoted garbage. That has nothing to do with opinion pieces and criticism pieces themselves or regular critical comments.

And “I can find people who disagree with you” isn't a refutation, nor is “I just don’t feel like doing the research.” Fact is, plenty of criticism pieces exist whether that fact is acknowledged or not, meaning there are plenty of people who have voiced their concerns and how they’d like them addressed.

The fact that things are only slowly improving doesn’t mean there aren’t enough people criticizing or that bigotry makes more money than diversity (it doesn't), but that there are too many bigots still in power.

That’s like saying the reason systemic racism isn’t gone yet is because “not enough people want it gone.” It’s because racist asshats are wielding the power.

Refusing to acknowledge the obvious is plugging your ears and closing your eyes.

Here’s an entire site full of tons of articles about feminist critique of media and other facets of life. Yeah, it exists and it’s not just “a few people.” This site is one of many.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 19th 2019 at 4:44:00 AM

Do you not understand why "everyone who disagrees with me is a troll that doesn't count, and everyone who does is part of the 'real' majority" isn't a very convincing argument? Because that's what you're doing.

I'm not saying you have to like said opinions, just an acknowledgement that they are a real and significant part of the population. Hence your position of "we all want X" is untenable.

What part of this is hard to understand? If you have actual data supporting your position, post. Just linking to a feminist website is not that. I wouldn't even really be surprised if the general public opinion was in favor of better representation, I'm just pointing out you're doing a terrible job supporting your claims.

Edited by LSBK on Jun 19th 2019 at 7:14:15 AM

Tifa’s Breasts Were an Important Design Discussion at Square Enix for Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Yes, you read that right. "Breast size" falls under a video game developer's ethics department.

Edited by windleopard on Jun 20th 2019 at 12:18:01 PM

I'm bit confused by the incredulous reaction because that makes completely sense and matches on what I remember being discussed in high school philosophy class(I don't remember if this exact topic was discussed, but I'm pretty sure gender roles or objectification was discussed in one of the debates) ._.

Some large-boobed feminist youtubers have pointed out her boob size is pretty much the same, they're just held in a more realistic bra.