Men's representation in movies and comics is almost as bad.

[Zormingash]

In this post, the word "Media" will refer to a piece of fiction in a "serious" atmosphere, from Star Wars to Superman to Jurassic Park, excluding Reality TV, News, Sitcoms, etc. Only a limited part of the overall media is concerned by this thread but it also contains a rather large list of mediums : TV shows, comics, movies...so i don't want to always list them all.

First off, ill preface this by saying that how women are represented in the Media is usually pretty darn bad. The "housewive/damsel in distress" was mostly replaced with the "strong femme fatale", trading one male fantasy for another, so it's not much of an evolution. But at least there is an evolution. There are shows like "Avatar : The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra" or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" with a large plethora of great female characters, but still a small trip inside the pages of a comic book quickly turns into male teenager fantasy (example : Starfire in "Red Hood and the Outlaws").

ANYWAYS, the reason for this thread is that i have noticed something that is almost exclusive to male characters and that is pretty bad too, and has bad repercussions as well. Men in the Media are completely insane, every last one of them.

The most basic human, nay, animal instinct is "fight or flight". When something is dangerous, our minds analyze the danger and decide whether to face it or not. That's Fear. There is a difference between afraid and being a coward : Fear cannot be controlled, but our reaction to it can be. That's the whole point of a hero : to bypass his/her fear to overcome challenges.

However, any man in the Media who is not either a bad guy or a comic relief character (and even then...) does not feel Fear. At all. No matter if it's in a video game, a movie, a TV show, these men never feel fear. After all so many heroes have the tagline "fearless", that is for a reason : they do not feel that basic, primal, visceral feeling that exists in every single animal alive. And that makes them completely insane, unnatural, just plain wrong.

Here is an illustration of what i mean from the webcomic "Order of the Stick". What the Goblin character says to the female Paladin applies to essentially every male character in the Media.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0372.html

This, however, does not extend to nearly as many female characters : take the recent movie "The Avengers", for example. At some point a giant, flying, building-destroying monster appears heading for the movie's heroes. This thing can kill almost anyone amongst the group of heroes about a thousand times over. Yet none of the male characters seem the least bit phased by it. The only character sane enough to actually realize this thing might be a problem is also the only female character of the group, Black Widow. But this does not, in any way, mean women are less brave. At another point in the movie, Black Widow asks Captain America for a boost so she can jump and hijack a fast-moving flying vehicle. She acknowledges the danger, but proceeds without hesitation.

THAT is reasonable : assessing a risk, then taking action based on the risk. That is what WE, as humans, do. That is sane. What is not sane is to face any danger without a single worry. "Giant robot ? Sure ! Army of deadly Terminators ? Why not ! Galactic God of Ultimate Doom ? Why thank you !" Why are women the only ones allowed to display basic common sense ?

Now why is that an issue ? Well if the problem is the way genders are represented in the media compared to how people are in real life, giving flawed role models that cannot possibly be attained by anyone, well then both genders have the same issue. Except that instead of being told to be pretty and only talk and think about men (which, as i said, is awful), we are instead told to remove from our brains one of our most essential, basic instincts, on threat of being weak and a coward. After all, every male character in the Media that feels fear is either ridiculous or evil.

[Butterfly North]

So I skim read this, but my understanding of what you're saying is that the media expects different characters to have different character traits according to their gender and that this is bad for both genders.

Are there any discussion points you'd like to raise related to that? Feminists are pretty on board with that sentiment (but as I say, I may have misunderstood) and yet I guess your post is phrased in a way that suggests you're expecting us to find this surprising.

[edit the sad parts]

Let's not forget that male superheroes also usually have tons of cool powers which make them basically indestructible. Female characters, not so much.

Anyway, as BN said, mainstream media of all kinds(music included) is a Patriarchal circlejerk, dude, and it sucks for us all, regardless of gender.

[androkguz]

I think that has to do with Men being the Expendable Gender

"To put it simply: men are neither supposed nor allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of the culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it."
— Peter Marin, Jill Gets Welfare--Jack Becomes Homeless

Even when they have no superpowers, few superpowers, or are terribly wounded, men are expected to act nearly suicidally to save others. I think that is what you are saying.
However, I'm not quite sure I agree with that. First of all, I think you are talking about stories of heroes, where of course they are supposed to be heroic and risk their lives. Second of all, there are lots of female heroes that appear fearless and tons of male heroes that act the "realistic" way Black Widow does.
Charlie's Angels are fearless. So are most women from Kill Bill.
On the other hand, spiderman feels fear in his last movie and engages Dr. Connors with care. And Hermione is very much more brave than Ron.

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm contradicting myself, I just don't think there is a unique thing as "Media" that is sending us a unique message, even if you kind of narrow it down with your definition

[Zormingash]

@androkguz

Well what i had an issue with wasn't about heroes acting heroic, because as you said they are supposed to do so. My issue was mainly with these heroes being devoid of fear and being overall quite shallow and unrelatable : when faced with danger of death, even heroes should feel at least a little bit of fear. Of acknowledging the mortal danger. Even once. But that almost never happens.

A good example is the recent "Legend of Korra". In this, the title character, Korra, faces an opponent who can take away her powers permanently, powers which are at the very essence of her being. And when she is called to fight against him, she refuses, because "holy crap, he can completely destroy me". She soon changes her mind, but this moment of doubt, this fear, makes the character so much more real !

It is true that many women heroes fit that description, but there actually is a choice. You can find women who both fit that description or not and yet are perfectly viable characters. While for male characters this idea is essentially mandatory.

I have not seen the new Spiderman movie, i agree there are probably some exceptions, but for Harry Potter, Ron is arguably the comic relief of the group, which is why, i think, he is allowed to have fear.

And i agree i might have made an over-generalization, it is true there is no "one Media". I would say instead that i should have replaced my "all"s with "most"s.

[Sonic#]

^ I think that your interpretation misses the fear that many of the superheroes struggle with. In Iron Man's case, it's a fear of relating to anyone but himself, as well as a fear of being left powerless, or a fear of dying suddenly thanks to the metal shard in his chest. Batman has fears that he won't live up to his potential, that his willpower won't be enough. Spiderman has occasions of fear a lot when he loses the ability to web, or when he ends up facing a strong foe. I see fear of some form or another in most superheroes, so it seems like you're missing something.

I also fail to see how these forms of fear are substantially different from Wonder Woman or the much smaller number of female superheroes (especially in movies).

And androkguz, I wonder how the trope you linked relates to Stuffed in Fridge, a trope that disposes of female characters in order to advance the storyline.

[androkguz]

@Sonic
Oh yeah, that's not that complicated. It is, in fact, the same notion. When a woman is Stuffed into the fridge, it is way more dramatic than when a man is. Therefore, in the name of drama, more women are stuffed in fridges.
Think of it like this: When the Joker killed a bunch of mooks and random police men, we as the audience kind of loved him because he was awesome and yeah those men died but whatever. When we (SPOILERS from the Dark Knight) thought he killed Gordon that was kind of bad but we figured "well, I liked him but I guess they needed to get rid of him" (although this would be another case of Dead Men Coming back). Yet, when Rachel died? That's dramatic, and sad, and makes the Joker a monster to hate, and it is of course all about Batman's character progress, but he wouldn't have got it from a man's dead, unless it was an extremely likeable character.

@Zormingash
I very much like your references. Specially Legend of Korra and the Order of the Stick. But the first one is kind of a weak example because Aang is pretty much running for his life all the time in the prequels, and he is the male heroe (althought, every character there is a comic relief, so you have that too). If anything, the Avatar series invert the trope.

[Selay47]

@Sonic
Oh yeah, that's not that complicated. It is, in fact, the same notion. When a woman is Stuffed into the fridge, it is way more dramatic than when a man is. Therefore, in the name of drama, more women are stuffed in fridges.
Think of it like this: When the Joker killed a bunch of mooks and random police men, we as the audience kind of loved him because he was awesome and yeah those men died but whatever. When we (SPOILERS from the Dark Knight) thought he killed Gordon that was kind of bad but we figured "well, I liked him but I guess they needed to get rid of him" (although this would be another case of Dead Men Coming back). Yet, when Rachel died? That's dramatic, and sad, and makes the Joker a monster to hate, and it is of course all about Batman's character progress, but he wouldn't have got it from a man's dead, unless it was an extremely likeable character.

I don't disagree with the point, but I disagree with the example.

For two reasons;

First, we weren't supposed to think that the Joker was awesome nor were we supposed to love him. The only time that the audience was supposed to see the Joker as awesome is when he killed his fellow criminals, revealing his cunning and his ability to manipulate people and because they were violent criminals this wasn't overshadowed by how villainous he was.

Second, the drama doesn't come from Rachel's being a woman; it comes form her being the Batman's love interest. If you'll notice we are given just as much reason to hate the Joker for killing Rachel as we are for his, effectively, killing Harvey.

[phantasmalkitty]

What's the point of this thread? How is it a feminist issue?

[Zormingash]

The point to this thread, i guess, is stating that "feminism" probably should be renamed since gender issues affect both genders almost equally. I do not know a single man who does not suffer in some way or another from what society expects of him. Either they conform to what society expects of them and live in perpetual fear of a single slip-up that would ruin it all, or they don't and are considered as lesser people.

I was using media as an example.

[Mathmo]

The point to this thread, i guess, is stating that "feminism" probably should be renamed since gender issues affect both genders almost equally.

This is not true (or if you want to claim it is true in some kind of limited circumstance, you need to say what your limited circumstance is within which men and women are equally hurt by the patriarchy). The system hurts men and women, absolutely (as well as people who don't identify as either) but that does not mean that it hurts them equally.

For example, of people living in poverty worldwide, a very significant majority are women (I have seen the figure 70% in several places, e.g. here http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/infobank/women). Women are more at risk of rape and sexual assault. In some places female babies are still left to die due to being female. There's the huge issue of female genital mutilation. Women work 2/3 of the world's working hours and receive 10% of the world's income (same page as before). These facts and figures are quick ones, I am sure other posters here will have more comprehensive references, but there are many undeniable ways in which gender issues hurt women to a much greater extent than they hurt men.

Again, this isn't saying that men don't suffer because of gender issues. Absolutely, they do. But men and women do not suffer equally.

[Zormingash]

I know all those figures. They have been repeated over, and over, and while that doesnt make them any less important...it gets a bit tiring after a while.

I would correct my statement by saying that this is only true in developped countries, where women's rights have grown incredibly (though there is still alot of progress to be made), but the way men are supposed to behave, while it has improved slightly, is still very...primitive.

Men make more, but a man that makes less than his wife/girlfriend is seen as inferior : that's a problem. A stay-at-home dad is still seen as inferior : that's a problem. Gay men have a much harder time than Lesbian women because of ideas of what "masculinity" should be : that's a problem. And i'm not even getting into the insane pressure First-born sons, even in developped countries, go through !

A man in any kind of "servant" position is seen as inferior : secretary, nurse... Suicide and depression are more common in men because we're not supposed to talk about our feelings...

And every advantage we have, makes any kind of failure unacceptable in the eyes of society : "you've always had everything, how do you not already have a (insert any of the following: wive/career/car/house/child/education...)".

We are held at a higher standard which makes our advantages very relative all in all: someone from a poor family in a third world country who gets into College is a Hero, while someone from a rich family in a rich country who gets into College is the bare minumum, not any kind of accomplishment. And that makes sense, of course, the first person has had more obstacles. However this means that to obtain the same level of "social recognition", men need to accomplish much more.

Now i'm not going to say "oh it sucks to be male". There is no doubt it is harder for a woman, and that obviously needs to change. However men have it much harder than what people seem to think because of much higher expectations.

[androkguz]

@Zormingash
I for one like the topic but I would recomend that
a- You make a new topic, because that is very off topic (possibly not in the feminism area, I don't know)
b- Provide some references
c- Realize that that's an argument that everyone in this forum has already discussed. For instance, where do you get the suicide rates?

[lillerina]

I think that most people who identify as feminists acknowledge that the patriarchy screws everyone over but believe that women are still particularly screwed over by the patriarchy. It sounds like what you're saying, Zormingash, is that you don't like the downsides of male privilege. Great. But there being downsides to privilege doesn't mean that there aren't massive advantages that men are given just for being men in the western world. So, if what you're saying is that the patriarchy sucks for everyone, I'm with you there, but if you're trying to say (as you seem to be) that the patriarchy hurts men and women equally, I'm not with you. There are aspects of intersectionality where experiences are really not comparable. There are also aspects of your posts which are frankly offensive; when you say

Gay men have a much harder time than Lesbian women because of ideas of what "masculinity" should be

you're operating on assumptions about gay men and women which are by no means universal, and the experiences of queer men are very different a lot of the time to the experiences of queer women. Things like corrective rape are experienced by queer women much more than any other group. For queer women the experience of being queer and the experience of being a woman intersect; for queer men they have the male privilege with queer oppression. In some places, in some ways it's harder to be a gay man than a gay woman. In some ways, in some places it's harder to be a gay woman than a gay man. In many ways it's harder to be genderqueer or non-binary gender than either.

So yeah, the patriarchy sucks for everyone, but women are the ones getting raped and beaten over it.

[Zormingash]

@lillerina : i agree with you on pretty much everything you said :

First off, ill preface this by saying that how women are represented in the Media is usually pretty darn bad.

Now i'm not going to say "oh it sucks to be male". There is no doubt it is harder for a woman, and that obviously needs to change. However men have it much harder than what people seem to think because of much higher expectations.

Also, as horrible, disgusting, unforgivable rape is, in developped countries, even though i fully agree it is MUCH, MUCH common than what we are told, i honestly do not think that the average woman lives in fear of being raped, just like the average person driving a car doesn't live in fear of dying horribly in a car crash : it happens, and it happens WAY, WAY too often, which is absolutely unacceptable, but it's not "common". But i'm not a woman, so i could be wrong.

[edit the sad parts]

^ What? Do you want to scroll up about 3 posts and see your quote? Are you retracting this now?

Also, the fact that you try to compare fear of being raped to fear of being in a car crash shows that you really have no clue. People who do happen to live in fear of being in a car crash can take steps to avoid most situations that would put them in one. Being raped? Not the same.

It's estimated that 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetime. You most likely know a woman who has been sexually assaulted or raped.

[Valentina Soccio]

^ What? Do you want to scroll up about 3 posts and see your quote? Are you retracting this now?

Also, the fact that you try to compare fear of being raped to fear of being in a car crash shows that you really have no clue. People who do happen to live in fear of being in a car crash can take steps to avoid most situations that would put them in one. Being raped? Not the same.

It's estimated that 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetime. You most likely know a woman who has been sexually assaulted or raped.

I don't understand why, if people can prevent a misfortune such as their own car crash, why people can't help prevent their own rape. Of course both situations aren't the same, but I think, if we are to believe in causality whatsoever, that people can prevent their own rape. Look at men for example. If we assume that most men are raped in prison and if a man want to avoid being raped, then an effective action the man could take to avoid being raped would be to avoid going to prison.

[lillerina]

Uh, hi, being raped was never my fault and there were no reasonable things I could have done to avoid being raped. Unless you want everyone to avoid knowing any men whatsoever, avoid having male friends, avoid leaving their houses, avoid all situations in which they are not completely alone, there are no precautions which would prevent most rapes.

[Neko]

^ Don't forget to avoid having rapists as family members. Because that's also, like, totally preventable.

[/obvious sarcasm]

[Zormingash]

How about cancer ? Anyone can get it, even the most healthy of us. Absolutely anyone, no matter how old, can get cancer. There is very little we can do to prevent it. So do we all live in fear of cancer ? I don't think so.

Uh, hi, being raped was never my fault and there were no reasonable things I could have done to avoid being raped. Unless you want everyone to avoid knowing any men whatsoever, avoid having male friends, avoid leaving their houses, avoid all situations in which they are not completely alone, there are no precautions which would prevent most rapes.

Thinking that every man is a potential rapist is quite offensive.

[lillerina]

1 in 6 women will be raped, many women are raped more than once, the majority of rapes experienced by women are perpetrated by men, so it's not that every man is a potential rapist but that men are more likely than women to be rapists so if we're talking minimizing risk then cutting men from your life is a good place to start. Plus as many people on this forum know from experience it's hard to tell which men are rapists and which aren't because so many of them just fit in with every day society. Also, frankly, I don't give a shit if you're offended by my response to your victim blaming bullshit.

[Valentina Soccio]

1 in 6 women will be raped, many women are raped more than once, the majority of rapes experienced by women are perpetrated by men, so it's not that every man is a potential rapist but that men are more likely than women to be rapists so if we're talking minimizing risk then cutting men from your life is a good place to start. Plus as many people on this forum know from experience it's hard to tell which men are rapists and which aren't because so many of them just fit in with every day society. Also, frankly, I don't give a shit if you're offended by my response to your victim blaming bullshit.

Why would I be offended by your response?

[edit the sad parts]

1 in 6 women will be raped, many women are raped more than once, the majority of rapes experienced by women are perpetrated by men, so it's not that every man is a potential rapist but that men are more likely than women to be rapists so if we're talking minimizing risk then cutting men from your life is a good place to start. Plus as many people on this forum know from experience it's hard to tell which men are rapists and which aren't because so many of them just fit in with every day society. Also, frankly, I don't give a shit if you're offended by my response to your victim blaming bullshit.

Why would I be offended by your response?

Pretty sure lillerina was responding to Zormingash, not you.



The only way to prevent rape is to not rape people.

[Zormingash]

Ahhh yes, i'm disagreeing with you, so i'm "victim-blaming"...never mind the fact that i'm, you know, NOT. Like, at ALL, in any way shape or form. But i guess it's an easy catchword to use to stick me with a label. You do know i wasn't the one who posted a response about preventing one's own rape, right ? I actually never said a word about that anywhere.

"1 in 6 women will be raped" : that is not the figure i read a few posts below : what i read was "sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetime". which one is it ?

I humbly have to say that i simply cannot understand how this figure could be right. It probably is, i just don't understand how that's possible : i know myself, and i know the men close to me, and i KNOW that none of them would ever even fathom raping someone. Yes of course "rapists look like normal people" but still i have seen how the men i know treat women, and from that, nowhere can i imagine them ever laying a hand on any woman. I don't deny the number, i just don't understand it.

[androkguz]

^ Perhaps this would help. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/172837.pdf