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

Asgard’s colonialism matches pretty well with real colonial powers, look at the UK, we built a pretty brutal empire but bit by bit reformed and grew ashamed of our own actions (there was a time when a huge chunk of the Royal Navy was actively trying to stop the Atlantic slave trade), our humanity did win out in a number of places (part of why peaceful decolonisation worked in India is that the British public wouldn’t support their government going full brutal dictator) but there are also places where we failed to protect people we should have even though that duty to protect them was born out of selfish colonialism (look at the areas of the empire that fell to Imperial Japan).

Infact that maps insanely well, Asgard maps to the British empire incredibly well.

Except Asgard also tried to bury that past and pretend it never happened at all. Which ultimately led to their downfall since the past refused to stay buried in more ways than one.

Sorry what’s the except for? Because past imperial issues that were never fully dealt with and have been forgotten by the mainstream coming back to ruin things, well have you heard about the issues we’re expecting over the Irish border due to Brexit?

Crushing a people under your boot, breaking their defenses and forcing them to accept a state of subservience on the grounds that they must now depend on you for national defense is bad.

Failing to carry out your end of that bargain and instead letting those people's descendants be eaten by wolves is also bad.

At least you're aware of your colonialist past.

Odin did too good a job of hiding that past and unpersoning everyone who helped him in that conquest. From his own war dead to his daughter.

It seems like no one in Asgard knew the truth. If they had, maybe they would have been prepared for Hela.

That's another message Hela gets across — you can try burying your mistakes, but the past has a way of coming back.

Edited by M84 on Sep 13th 2019 at 3:53:39 AM

By the way, I feel the talk about colonialism and Asgard should go to the Politics in Media thread.

I would be pretty interesting. Looking forward to this

So in regards to Endgame, Nando v Movies proposed a change he'd make to the movie's ending and the defeat of Thanos. He says he liked the "A-Force" gathering of the MCU female characters but he also feels like Thanos' defeat would have made more sense by a character who was hurt the most by Thanos and unfortunately Carol had the least thematic connection to him.

His proposal starts from 3:50 and has a very interesting use of the MCU female characters.

So the DC streaming t.v. show Titans did something I find interesting with the characters Hank Hall and Dawn Gregor aka Hawk and Dove.

In this show's continuity, Hawk and Dove are former superheroes who are trying to leave the life of violence and fear behind. As of season 2, episode 2 the couple are living in Wyoming and Hank has taken a job coaching kids who are recovering drug addicts. Hank himself is a former addict and is finding the job very fulfilling.

It is shown that Dawn has not has not truly left the life behind and has been superheroing for a month. When Hank learns that one of Hank's charges is being pressured to go back into cooking drugs by former associates, Dawn seeks them out and busts up their operation resulting in Hank finding out her nightly activities.

The reason I find this interesting is because of the gender role reversal. Often in the superhero stories I've watched/read, it's the guy who keeps going back to superhero life because he can't turn away while the woman wants to have a normal life.

Yeah, that's a reversal from the usual set up. Sounds interesting actually

I actually really love how Hawk and Dove are depicted in Titans. I normally dislike Hawk, but Titans does a LOT of things with him I enjoy.

In season 1 alone, you have him as a male character who was sexually abused as a child, which is never once treated as anything but a young boy being abused. He’s not mocked for it, he’s not shamed. It’s a source of pain that he tries to work through via superheroics and protecting other kids from the same abuse he faced.

There’s also a small moment in season 1 where Hawk and Dove are sleeping together, and Hawk can’t perform. Again, he isn’t mocked for it, or treated badly at all. It’s just... a thing that happens. She says it’s okay, they cuddle, and it never comes up again. It says a lot about their relationship, and how the show views masculinity.

I might give the show a try then, all of this sounds interesting.

Also there's the simple fact that Hank is not nearly as good at the superheroing thing as Dawn. He's a Dented Iron guy who has taken enough injuries that he should be able to retire while Dawn is a Fragile Speedster but so much better at it that she doesn't have the injuries that her Mighty Glacier lover has.

She's potential A-list and he is a washed up B-lister.

I think that all the masculinity issues aren't as good as you think, though, since I think we're meant to assume that Hank is inferior to Nightwing. That Dawn should be with Dick instead.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 15th 2019 at 1:16:59 AM

I'm not seeing that at all. Even if Dick is seen as better than Hank, I never saw the show even remotely suggest Dawn should be with Dick over Hank as Dick clearly only has eyes for Kory.

Edited by windleopard on Sep 15th 2019 at 1:19:24 AM

Dick fantasizes about being married to Dawn. Honestly, I kind of do ship Dawn over Kory and Dick since the former is a executioner in this timeline.

Dick wasn't fantasizing about being married to Dawn. He was trapped in an illusion by Trigon and it was obvious he still had feelings for Kory there as seen by his reaction to her "death".

Also, Kory has been a killer in the comics and that hasn't stopped Dick from going as far as trying to marry her.

Eh, just my read on it. Trigon wouldn't use Dawn as his wife if there wasn't something there.

True. Then again he also had Kory killed in the illusion and that was what made Dick snap and fall under Trigon's control.

I also want to second Smokeycut's praise of the way the show handled Hank being molested. That is especially important given the infamous issue of Dick Grayson being raped in the comics by Mirage and this being treated as him cheating on Kory (herself a rape survivor).

Edited by windleopard on Sep 16th 2019 at 9:58:50 AM

An article about how well the Mission Impossible movies handle male friendship compared to other action movies. There's an inaccuracy regarding John Wick but otherwise, I think it's a good article.

Dick notably was also raped by Tarantula with Devin Grayson treating it like a romance. It gets weirder as she admits Tarantula was her self-insert.

Grayson also was the one who retconned Dick into being of Romani descent. Coupled with the inaccurate and racist depiction of Romani people and her fetishizing of Dick, it's easy to see why her run is so infamous.

She also had Barbara and Dick become engaged knowing they planned to reboot him in New York with a fashion model girlfriend.

Which was a horrible horrible run.

There has been ALLLOT of weird stuff about Grayson's run on Nightwing, and there was also allot of executive meddling involved, I don't recall her ever saying that Tarantula was a self insert (given she had a large role in the whole War Games/Crimes arcs in the Batbooks that were NOT under her control) but the whole Barbara/Nighwing engagement was a whole other mess.

The plan was for Dick Grayson to die in the climax of Infinite Crisis NOT Conner Kent, Dan Didio stated he didn't think it would be a big deal to kill him off but evidently there was a Writers Revolt when the word came down, and they switched to Connor. But Dan had already told Bruce Jones that Jason Todd was to be the new "Nightwing" and Devin wrote a 'finale' of sorts for Dick and Jones would take over from there post Dick's Death.

When Dick didn't die the Jones Run...which was already shaping up to be a mess BEFORE all this went down, got even worse as he had to Shoehorn Dick back into the Nightwing Role AND take care of the Finale from the previous run.

Yeah the new editor crew that took over from Denny O'Neil when it retired did some 'questionable' things in the Bat Books in those day to say the least...

One tumblr (yes I know) blog I follow has expressed some criticism of the sexualization of Dick Grayson by fans due to him being a rape survivor twice over and the fact that he's actually been more of a committed relationship person.

That Dick being more sexualized started right around when Devin Grayson started writing him and retconned him as Romani doesn't help.

Mind you, if they choose not to acknowledge that continuity, it's probably for the best.

And women deserve to have Fanservice characters too.

There's a reason we don't talk about the time Superman was forced to make a porno with Big Barda.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 21st 2019 at 2:15:12 AM

Yeah, it’s a weird thing with comics, due largely in part to how they’re a medium with several changing creative teams.

In the 80s, Green Arrow was sexually assaulted. Come the 10s, you have him in pinup shots in his comic.

Starfire, a character known for her fanservice and not wearing much at all, has a backstory involving sex slavery.

I don’t think it’s intentional, but it comes from the fact that comics include both a lot of sexual assault, and a lot of fanservice. There’s going to be overlaps with characters.