r/TopCharacterTropes • u/SpinningtonThe3rd • 2h ago
Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) Demeaning male characters just to prop up female ones.
- This moment in Doctor Who
- There’s a subplot in episode 3 where Pug represents Jen’s obnoxious coworker Dennis (who is a male) who claimed he was catfished by a shapeshifter pretending to be Megan Thee Stallion. Jen testifies that Dennis is so deluded and his ego is so big and that wins the trial. This was the episode with the twerking (She-Hulk: Attorney At Law)
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u/Complex_Report7387 2h ago
This infamous scene from X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019). Mystique also claimed Charles Xavier never took any risks despite him literally being in a wheelchair!
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u/Illithid_Substances 2h ago
From the same character who had an entire movie dedicated to time travelling to stop her fucking up the future beyond repair
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u/AznOmega 1h ago
But what did he do that involved sacrificing recently? /s
Compare her comment to Magneto in Last Stand. "Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you'll ever know. My only regret is that he had to die for our dream to live."
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u/Stunning-Original802 2h ago
Same movie where Mystique gave orders on the space mission but Cyclops stabilised the thrusters and Quicksilver & Nightcrawler saved all of the crew while Storm sealed the cracks of the ship and Jean caused the mission to go badly because of the Phoenix. It was an equal effort from everyone on the team (aside from Beast but he was piloting).
Charles also took a risk in that mission by trusting in Jean to use her telekinesis to hold the ship together. He was the one making the call to leave nobody behind, Mystique wanted to leave the other NASA crew member behind.
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u/BlueSonjo 2h ago
The timing was also completely way off, previous action scene had Nightcrawler who is male saving everyone's ass.
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u/foxfire981 2h ago
Rumor is that this scene was a condition of her return. She didn't want to do the movie at all and even refused to do the prosthetics.
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u/Professional_Handler 2h ago
The “Men” in X-Men is gender-neutral already, wtf is this?
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u/Majestic_Point_5642 2h ago
it's because "men" want to try and use the antiquated version of "men", that it can ONLY mean "man". Which is such bullshit, language changes all the time. If it didn't, then half the words we use today wouldn't mean half the meanings.
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u/ThomasTheDankPigeon 2h ago
This website has become a race to post the stupidest shit as quick as possible. Men is not gender neutral.
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u/Professional_Handler 1h ago
Ah yes, so when we’re talking about mankind, women are not included in that
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u/Swiftax3 1h ago
"The race of men" or "Peace on earth, goodwill toward men" or "the imperium of man" are perfectly gender neutral uses of the term. Yes its archaic and invites some small confusion but its a short form to reference hu-man-kind
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u/ThomasTheDankPigeon 1h ago
Quite literally yes. The word mankind exists because women weren’t considered people, they were considered property. Excluding women from your definition of humanity does not make the term gender neutral.
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u/Automatic-Effect-252 2h ago edited 2h ago
I liked a lot of She-Hulk, but the idea that Jen can handle the hulk powers immediately just because she's a women was rough.
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u/Calackyo 2h ago
I honestly just read that as Jen being wrong about that.
They haven't delved into it in the MCU, but the only reason Hulk is a rage monster is because of Banner's fucked up psyche due to his childhood.
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u/OOO0OO00O 1h ago
I thought it was due to the apocalyptically violent way his entire body absorbed gamma rays, while she just had a mini blood transfusion.
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u/NwgrdrXI 1h ago
Irrc, the reason his *body* is monstrous is what you described. The reason his *mind* is fractured into a bunch of different Hulk alters, some of them very violent, is heaping amounts of trauma causing pseudo-DID
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u/CMORGLAS 1h ago
From what I remember, Gamma Radiation inverts your personality.
Banner is a repressed man.
Hulk is an emotional child.
Jennifer is an introvert.
She-Hulk is an extrovert.
Samuel Sterns was a lowly janitor.
The Leader is a genius.
Emil Blonsky was a handsome Spy.
Abomination…
You get the point.
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u/NwgrdrXI 2h ago
Tbf, from what I hear, I think she was supposed to be wrong about taht? And the trailers used the scene of the covnesation to make it a stupid gender wars thing to gain popularity?
I don't know if it's true, I haven't watched it, but so I 've heard.
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u/foxfire981 1h ago
If that was the point then they failed miserably on execution because they have Banner basically be like "yeah you have it worse than me sorry I pretended I had it bad at all."
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u/GovernorGeneralPraji 18m ago
That was just Mark Ruffalo talking while he didn’t know the cameras were rolling.
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u/NinjaOfOnion 1h ago
I mean I would just chalk it up to shitty marketing, kinda the same with Iron Heart, where they used a clip at the start of her arc which sounded bad out of context, a lot of grifters used that, but in context it was more like the pride before the fall
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u/Throw_away_1011_ 48m ago
I think my mind removed Iron Heart from my memory to preserve my mental sanity. The first episode of that show scarred me.
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u/Floofyboi123 1h ago
They thought it was a cool idea to insinuate the man with a lifetime of trauma and canonically attempted suicide has never faced anything as bad as being catcalled.
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u/NinjaOfOnion 2h ago
I mean with the Hulk, it’s typically more of a psychologically thing, don’t know how far the movies got into it, also she doesn’t have full control of them as they can come out when she is angry but there’s no other half, it’s just her
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u/EqMc02 1h ago
Unfortunately the movies have covered basically 0 of Hulk's psychology. The reconciliation forming Prof Hulk happens offscreen, then Bruce decides to go full human again off-screen, then he gets telepathy-attacked into hulking out again and losing control
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u/NinjaOfOnion 1h ago
I mean I don’t think we need a scene to point it out, it’s clear that it is two individuals given what hulk and Bruce can remember are different, some stuff can be subtle
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u/Automatic-Effect-252 1h ago
That's my thing all these reasons people are giving about the Hulk's psychology and how they affect his transformations sounds awesome. Would be cool to get any of that on screen lol.
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u/MCdemonkid1230 39m ago
I mean, that's literally what the comics did. When She-Hulk first came about, some of her comics had the joke line going "I don't know why I don't get angry like my cousin, maybe it's because women just handle their emotions better"
Obviously, that could be a joke that hasn't really aged the best, but at least it's comic accurate.
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u/Different_Ad4306 32m ago
She literally fails to control her anger in the show
Jen is an arrogant and overconfident character for most of the series and has to learn how to use her powers to their fullest potential
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u/jbeast33 2h ago edited 1h ago
She-Hulk has the infamous "I infinitely control my anger more than you" scene.
It's hinged on real-world issues of women being on the wrong side of double standards and being forced to show composure, especially at the hands of men who aren't nearly as penalized for showing WAY MORE aggression to get a reaction. It's a very valid point, and would have hit harder if she was telling it to effectively any other character.
The problem is that it's being directed at Bruce Banner, somebody who basically can't show any anger or even heightened emotion because the Hulk will come out. He even says that he can't commit suicide BECAUSE the Hulk will simply "spit out the bullet". So her accusation of trivializing her comes off as incredibly tone-deaf to the one hero who infamously is forced to keep his anger suppressed or regulated.
And while this isn't meant to be Jennifer at her best (and she's supposed to be in the wrong for this), it makes for a weird "Have your cake and eat it too" where she's still fundamentally in the right bringing this up and invoking real world experiences. It's a weird one-two where she's still being validated despite the fact that the writing is objectively saying she's wrong.
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u/iliekjokes 2h ago
Yeah, like
They could've had a line talking about her keeping her anger in check because she's a woman and a lawyer, so she's got lots of practice which is what helps her
Rather than putting down Bruce Banner, her cousin, who is going out of his way to help her
Granted he feels responsible but still
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u/Otechni 2h ago
Plus: She doesn't have to deal with all those Personalities. Hulk ain't the only one in there. Joe could come out.
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u/Parking-Stable-2970 52m ago edited 27m ago
That's not a thing in the MCU yet though, at least as far as I'm aware
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u/Pleasant-Enthusiasm 1h ago
I don’t have a hate boner for She-Hulk the way that a lot of its detractors do, but saying that you’re better at controlling your anger because you might be murdered if you don’t to your cousin who was a fugitive being hunted by the military is wild lol.
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u/NinjaOfOnion 1h ago edited 1h ago
I mean she does go hulk in the moment so it undermines her point that she can control it intentionally as it is a character arc
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u/Snotlout_G_Jorgenson 50m ago
If the writing says she's wrong and the message was "Woman are forced to manage their emotions more." then the writing is not in support of that message. Full stop.
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u/Chonch_Monkey 1h ago
Should head over to the marvel subs, it's almost that time of the month to defend this show as amazing
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u/foxfire981 2h ago
What makes the Doctor one worse is the entire solution is literally "we decided computer code is non-binary" which is the part "he supposedly can't understand because he's now male again."
What's frustrating is we have plenty of examples of "intelligent female characters" that don't require demeaning their male counterparts. A current example would be Maomao from Apothecary Diaries.
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u/NwgrdrXI 2h ago
And the doctor who example is surprisingly transphobic. You mean the male body is naturally incapabale of understanding the concept to the point someone who had a woman's body but doesn't anymore loses that understanding?
That's stupid, and offensive.
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u/foxfire981 1h ago
You mean the writers who were attempting to call out anti trans behaviors were themselves being anti trans? I'm shocked.
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u/A_Common_James 1h ago
Where it rubs me up the wrong way is how it’s often shown as a this childish game of oneupmanship between men and women about who’s cleverer, wiser, braver, etc. while I’m just going “If you want to contribute to this cultural discussion, fine, but you don’t resolve an egg war by throwing more eggs!”
That DW one was rather frivolous anyway since gender politics didn’t actually offer any component of the episode’s solution (neither did the non-binary thing really; Rose being non-binary wasn’t what saved Donna’s life, being born was - besides, I thought she identified as trans, not non-binary anyway, so it doesn’t make narrative sense however you chop it)
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u/Substantial_Dish_887 1h ago edited 1h ago
What makes the Doctor one worse is the entire solution is literally "we decided computer code is non-binary" which is the part "he supposedly can't understand because he's now male again."
wait what?
i could have sworn it was way dumber than that.
as i remeber it the "solution" was "just let it go".
as in Donna being forcefully given all the doctors experiences which is way too much for a human mind to deal with and thus risked killing her.
the solution was 2-fold
- have a kid and split the doctors knowledge between them(because you can aparently do that).
- because Donna and Rose are women they realise that they can "just let go" and have the knowledge that's killing them just go away and never return. doctor never thought of that because obviously a man would never be able to "let go".
worst part is if it was aimed at the doctor personally being bad at letting go it would be potentially intresting but no they blame his fucking gender? and out of everyone fucking Donna Noble is the one doing it? she's the queen of not letting go FFS.
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u/Collier1337 32m ago
It's crazy to me that anime, a medium pretty famous for AWFUL female characters and giving them zero agency and/or creating them purely to be sexualized, now has some of my favourite female characters in any media ever. The Apothecary Diaries as a whole feels like a story written entirely around the idea of female agency. So many of the stories told are about how each female character uses unique and clever ways to retain some agency in a society where women don't really have any.
The Apothecary Diaries is genuinely fantastic, and Maomao is such a great main character.
Frieren and Witch Hat Atelier have great female characters too, in my opinion.
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u/foxfire981 23m ago
Ironically there had always been exceptions though. Moribito's main character is female and an amazingly well written one at that. Amazing fighter and yet not the more modern "girl boss" that we see now
I think it was an issue of "Japan views women differently than the West" and yet more and more we are seeing better female characters in anime than we ever get here in the West.
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u/lorvani1 2h ago
Ron Weasley from Harry Potter films
A lot of Ron’s intelligence, bravery, and best lines from the books were either removed or given to Hermione. The movies made him the panicking comic-relief friend while turning Hermione into the person who always has the answer.
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u/foxfire981 2h ago
Probably one of the worst moments is when the remove his defense of Hermione against Snape from the book and instead make him seem like a prick supporting the demeaning comments.
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u/1KNinetyNine 1h ago edited 1h ago
Case in point:
Devil's Snare: Book Ron says, "We're wizards and witches, just make fire with magic (sic). Movie Ron panics and cries until Hermione saves the day.
Mudblood: For some reason the movies have Hermione explain the slur and not Ron, the person who grew up in wizarding culture and would know the slur so he can comedically throw up in the background instead and this can be a pet the dog moment for a crying Hermione. Iirc, the books had neither Harry or Hermione understand what was going on or why Ron got so angry.
The spiders: Movie Ron cries and complain entire time. Book Ron goes "I hate this but we have to do it (sic)."
Meeting Sirius Black: Book Ron's "You'll have to kill us too" line is given to Movie Hermione while Movie Ron cries on the ground
Movie Ron randomly being passive aggressive about Hermione being bullied by Snape and Rita, even agreeing with them to do comedic lampshades of "They're not wrong though" while Book Ron gets mad at them.
And more that I can't remember of the top of my head.
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u/raysofdavies 1h ago
There’s far too many male writers who heard the demand for strong female characters and took the strong literally. Buffy Summers is not an iconic TV character purely because she can kick ass. It’s because she’s a full woman.
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u/Major_Star 1h ago
And the men in her life were never dumbed down or weakened to make her look good.
Even the baddies who are extremely on-the-nose caricatures of misogyny like Warren or Caleb are always portrayed as dangerous and not straw villains for Buffy to easily humiliate.
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u/raysofdavies 1h ago
Warren is a bumbling fool, but in an over their head way, not cartoonishly stupid way as you say. It’s just a brilliantly written show.
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u/Major_Star 55m ago
Exactly, they have their flaws but then so does Buffy. Even when Warren is defeated and humiliated the show highlights that it just makes him more dangerous. He's never going to have some golden moment of realisation that actually women can be powerful, he's just going to want to kill you more.
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u/mcc9902 1h ago
It's been a number of years but Xander gets hammered pretty hard at points from what I recall. Not necessarily to make buffy look good in comparison but the fact that the token guy(I'm not counting Giles since he was older) was also the token screw up and comedic relief relatively often.
Overall I still agree but I remember having issues with his character design.
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u/Jake_Rolfer_Studios 1h ago
The writers of that season do realize that time lords don’t view gender like us so even a woman-presenting time lord might understand whatever they’re talking about, right?
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u/Arctic_The_Hunter 1h ago
The worst art is that this COULD be twisted to be about the Doctor’s established disconnection with ordinary humans, or even ordinary aliens and timelords, due to their sheer age, experience, and power. And instead it got turned into that
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u/KenBisky11 2h ago
This trope is not good for women either. Surely these writers can make women badass or make them worthwhile without punching down.
The last 10 years is rife with this writing.
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u/Ridley_Himself 1h ago
And also show them succeeding through hard work rather than succeeding just because.
Yeah, I'll stick with the 1997 version of Mulan thank you very much.
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u/Budget-Television793 1h ago
Remember: In this scene, The Doctor was female 24 hours ago. And has all those memories. The implication that being in a male body means he can't understand is offensive to everyone.
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u/Throw_away_1011_ 1h ago
I could mention more moments from She-Hulk or Captain Marvel or Batwoman, but that would be too easy.
So, instead, I'm gonna mention an episode from Law & Order SVU.
The show is a product of its time, it started back in 1999, so, in the early episodes of the series there is a lot of sexism towards man (like an infamous quote from Benson were she basically claims men cannot be r***d).
Now, to give the show some credit, over the years (yes, it's still ongoing after 27 years) they started going back on that mentality and had some pretty decent episodes about men victims of s***l assault or men falsely accused and how those accusations ruined their lives.
And then we had this episode, Season 19 finale: "Remember Me", which was... an abomination, to say the least.
In this episode Olivia and company are called to an apartment where a man, Miguel, got tortured and is currently being held at gun point by his assailant, a woman named Lourdes.
Around a quarter of the episode is the classic "How do we disarm this woman without kickstarting a gunfight?" plotline, which ends when Olivia enters the apartment unarmed and joins Miguel as an hostage. Now, I wish to make this clear, until this point, the assailant seems to have PTSD and has given no hints about anything concrete. She is literally just continuing to inflict injuries or threatening the guy, who is now quite heavily injured and is begging for his life.
But Olivia, despite literally no proofs, understands that the guy is a rapist who raped the girl and suddenly Olivia turns completely hostile towards the man and compassionate towards Lourdes.
The whole episode suddenly turns into a "this guy has done something horrible, even though I have no proofs of any kind that that's true, so he deserves what's happening, while this girl, who kidnapped and tortured a guy and is currently holding both of us hostages is a victim, that deserves compassion and understanding.".
Olivia literally goes along with the torture, "interrogating" the guy to get a confession while the girl is literally about to kill him.
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u/Chibirin26 1h ago
[1]
dare i say transandrophobia
dare I say "well the you you were, a woman, would have understood, but the you you are now, a man, doesnt" is perhaps. transandrophobic?
dare I say it parallels how many trans men have been treated by people who should be their allies
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u/Ridley_Himself 1h ago
Big thing I hated about that moment in Doctor Who is they basically say a woman can let go but a man can't?
But rewind a few seasons back, and it was the Ninth Doctor Telling Rose to let go after she absorbed the Time Vortex
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u/Major_Star 1h ago
One of the most brilliant scientists in the Marvel Universe gets told 'hey why didn't you just do [simple thing]?' and has to concede it's a flawless solution he just didn't think of.
It might be more tolerable if they threw in some technobabble or at least had Shuri be less smug about it. But no, you just met the guy and you're immediately condescending to him to establish your character as the better scientist in the laziest way possible.
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u/Euphoric-Ad-6584 51m ago
i really did hate that scene, if it was really that simple where are the wakandan androids? i was wishing tony were there after she said that. that aside it could have been as simple as "did you try X", "no because Y" and after a back and forth banner acknowledged she had a point. at least it would have shown off both of their intelligences and we wouldn't have needed the neon sign.
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u/SolasLunas 14m ago
Yeah the back and forth is significantly more satisfying. The one off always feels like making one into someone who isn't as smart as they want yiu to think
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u/Snotlout_G_Jorgenson 13m ago
Tbh, this world got a butt load of 'genius inventors' and Bruce is hardly at the top of that chain. Add onto that, that Wakanda is much further when it comes to the research base level. It's the whole reason they flew Vision there in the first place.
As to the whole interaction; Shuri being smug, especially about science stuff, is just part of her character. It's already been this way in her first appearance and it's also a trait she shares with the beloved character of Tony Stark. Bruce being timid is also part of his character, so him giving a bit of an embarrassing answer also makes sense for him.
Lastly, this scene feels hardly like it's doing the whole 'putting men down to uplift women' thing to me, since their respective genders weren't really highlighted in any way. This always felt much more like a 'Younger generation is further than older generation' thing, although that is just my interpretation.
Overall this scene never bothered me.
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u/MegaAssasine_ 2h ago
Funny that you mention this scene in She-Hulk and not the one with Jen saying how much worse her life is, simply because she is a woman. Saying it to Bruce, who spent years getting hunted by the military, who tried to commit suicide and failed. The Bruce that endured physical and psychological abuse from his father, the father that later killed his mother while Bruce had to watch. All of that caused him to develop a different personality.
That's right, Hulk isn't a result of the gamma accident but of his broken mind. The accident only manifested Hulk.
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u/InterestingTie7600 2h ago
Cat Noir from Miraculus. Despite being the deuteragonist he is often potray as the less competent sidekick of Lady Bug.
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u/Imaginary-West-5653 2h ago
"What if we use a sexist superhero trope unironically... but flip the genders?!"
—This show, basically
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u/gibberishparrot 1h ago
Especially crazy since (most of) the show's entire plot stems from his existence, and he's still entirely in the dark about every single facet of that.
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u/Rude_Resident8808 1h ago
While the Marinette stuff is definitely the worst of it I’d say the bigger problem is how the show just seems to hate Adrien for no reason.
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u/VariousCockroach1056 1h ago
Yeah it's never 'women have it hard' it's 'women have it hard, unlike men who could never understand hardship'.
Typical gender war bullshit. Feminists need to cull their toxic sexist shit just as bad as the MRAs.
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u/Throw_away_1011_ 1h ago
I genuinely can't watch Doctor Who anymore.
Peter Capaldi was my favorite Doctor (but not my first, that would be Jon Pertwee.)
When they announced the Thirteenth Doctor would be a woman, I was the only one in my group of friends who supported the idea. I literally had so much faith that they would pull it off that I argued with everyone else about it.
And then series 11 dropped and it was mediocre at best, with only 1, maybe 2 episodes that were watchable.
But I still had faith they would pull it off with Series 12 and it started quite well with the Spymaster.... and then they dropped the Timeless Child BS and crapped all over Doctor Who's history.
And I genuinely couldn't watch anymore.
I watched the special "The Power of the Doctor" only because my friends wanted to watch it together, and I did not bother watching anything else.
Something in me just broke and now I can't even think about watching Series 13 or 14 (or whatever number we got to).
It's a huge pity because Doctor Who has been part of my life since I was a kid. My grandpa recorded the whole show from the Pertwee Era onwards and we used to watch it together when I was little, then, when New Who started, we watched that together too.
I'm sorry, I did not mean to derail this post with my rant. I'll be sure to make an actual post about this trope in a few minutes.
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u/QueefFarmer69 20m ago
In the same boat. My dad was a huge fan of the original run so watched those on the internet along with Eccleston, Tenant, Smith, and Capaldi. Tenant is my favorite. My parents are pretty sexist so they refused to watch when Whittaker took over. I tried out of spite against them, and it’s just, bad. And I hate that I missed on Tenant 2.0. But I just can’t anymore.
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u/Expensive_Amoeba3374 1h ago
The original run of Scrubs did this a lot. Multiple episodes where male characters (all of whom are qualified doctors) suddenly become idiotic and/or feeble, rendering them totally helpless to a 'badass' woman character. Presumably meant to be empowering, but just seemed lazy and hack more often than not
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u/siantmercury 1h ago
It is the weakest way to show that the movie/show is feminist, just barely above a character saying ‘girl power!’
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u/SoupyStain 2h ago
The trend of the 2020's.
I particularly hate it when it's hi-jacking an IP that was intended for boys. Like Masters of the Universe. Why do you have to do Adam dirty like that on Revelations JUST so that Teela can look better?
Or Star Wars. Why you gotta do Luke dirty like that so that Leia and Rey look like the better ones? Heck, in Solo: A Star Wars Story, it's the female lead who defeats the bad guy, not Han. Wtf?
Or Indiana Jokes. Or countless others.
You want to add a female audience to the IP? Fine, I get it, you want ALL the money. But you gotta alienate the men watching in the process? Fuck that.
Opposite of that you have the He-Man movie. Unlike Revelations, Teela is competent, sometimes veering a bit into women = hypercompetent, men = dumb but it's not too bad, but she never, EVER steals He-Man's thunder. Teela can do just fine by herself, which she should since she is Adam's protector, but the movie is about He-Man being awesome first and foremost. And most instances of him being dumb are quickly turned around into him succeeding. So Teela isn't a damsel in distress, but the movie is still centered around our boy.
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u/Professional_Handler 2h ago
Both of the scenes OP listed were from before the 20s. This performative man hating has been going on for a while.
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u/Automatic-Effect-252 2h ago
Indian Jones wasn't bad, he's old an cynical in Dial of Destiny for a reason, I thought it handled the partnership well.
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u/Worth-Soil-1440 1h ago
Really its the same in Last Crusade with Sean Connery playing the old tired and stubborn precursor to the hero. Problem is we empathized with Harrison Fords character because we had invested in him in previous movies and he wasnt there to replace anyone.
Both Mutt and Helena were dropped into the canon as attempts to pass the torch and failed.
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u/SoupyStain 48m ago
But that's the thing, Sean Connery WASN'T the hero of the story! He was NEVER the face of the IP.
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u/Mismageius 1h ago
Did you watch the movie at all? There's a reason it's not even considered to be an Indiana Jones movie
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u/Automatic-Effect-252 1h ago
It was fine, wasn't great, wasn't awful. Better then Crystal Skull
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u/Mismageius 1h ago
It was significantly worse than Crystal skull lmao, it's been discussed to be so bad it killed the franchise
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u/Tauroctonos 2h ago
Keep your gender essentialism to yourself, this boy fucking loved Teela in the movie
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u/NwgrdrXI 1h ago
Also, He-man is not "done dirty like that" in Revelations. He is CONSISTENTLY shown as the most honourable, virtuous and competent person around. The world IMMEDIATELY goes to shit when he is not around, and everyone keeps saying how they miss him.
Yes, teela is more main character than he is on the first season - but when he comes back he is just as much a MC as her, and is again portrayed as the most awesomest person around.
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u/justarandomdude57 57m ago
Lanters is the show that currently doing this as the writes have a singular type of woman they like
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u/Plus-Emphasis-2605 52m ago
I feel like this one’s dying out but I do hate it for Ang gender heck just anything
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u/Chemical-Aioli9818 4m ago
i agree with the sentiment in regards to Doctor Who but god is it atrocious.
You can promote Trans rights and people and make a point to support feminism, but don’t do it so badly that you just end up making the reverse point by doing it so god-awfully.
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2h ago
[deleted]
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u/NinjaOfOnion 2h ago
In what way may I ask
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u/BaconRapscallion 2h ago
More on the writing, but the fact that she essentially is portrayed as a Mary Sue, especially when the previous protags all had their struggles
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u/lordtyp0 2h ago
She knows force powers with no training at all. The men however work for it. Including Kylo.
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u/TheTorch 1h ago
The entire Barbie movie. The movie tried to be empowering I guess but just came off as a “girls rule boys drool!” type message.
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u/Major_Star 1h ago
I liked the Barbie movie but the fact they gave the best original song to Ken undercut the big feminist message a bit to me.
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u/DaBiChef 1h ago edited 1h ago
That and the whole "break the explicitly called out metaphor" what do you get?
In a world where kens women are second class citizens to barbies men, where no effort whatsoever is given to their wants or needs. Where they are treated as acessories at best and no one cares what happens to them, one ken woman hitches a ride to a new place and discovers a form of toxic gender empowerment, understandably taking quite a keen interest in it. HeShe returns and rallies all the other kenswomen into taking power, getting some commupence for their years of mistreatment. But don't worry, a bunch of barbiesmen are able to pit the kenswomen against each other by preying upon their insecurities and neediness, ultimately have the films literal climax be a celebration of the barbiesmen taking power back. Wherein the idea of gender equality is literally a punchline and as things almost entirely return to the status quo, the one barbieman who actually seemed to see the kenswomen as yaknow, people and have sympathy for their plight? Eh he fucks off.
We rightfully wouldn't be celebrating or happy about the men in this script. It's not equality, it's not what feminism should be about, it's just tit-for-tat with very little evidence of growth. If it were a black comedy it would honestly be perfect but it wasn't. I think there's a lot good in it, and even in how they handled the unsubtle messaging up until the end for me. Yet they never reconciled the fact that the kens were both victims of allegorical patriarchy/perpetrators of the actual patriarchy while the barbies were only ever shown to be victims of the actual patriarchy. I wish we got like Alan calling them out or being vital to undermining the kens, instead the barbies treat him as a punching bag. The acting, music, sets... it was all really good but the script needed another pass to get beyond pop feminism 101.
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u/Snotlout_G_Jorgenson 2m ago
It felt like this movie lost itself in metaphor and analogy and most of the more concrete points were lip service.
The part that annoyed me the most is the treatment of 'Weird Barbie'. She starts as an outcasts due to not fitting into the Barbies' views on what a Barbie should be. (basically gender roles) She helps the protagonist on her journey to self recovery, after she also fails to meet those standards. In the climax she helps our protagonist again in getting back to the status quo.
And what thank does she get? She's still an outcast for not being Barbie enough.
Like... thefuck? Are you actually just advocating for flipping the power structure, but keeping sexist gender norms or what is this movie trying to say?
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u/VariousCockroach1056 1h ago
Which song did you think deserved it instead?
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u/Major_Star 49m ago
"I'm Just Ken" was definitely the best song in the movie.
I'm just saying if you're writing your entire movie around feminist themes it's a bit odd to write a banger original song for the male supporting actor and then just kinda nothing for the female lead.
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u/VariousCockroach1056 47m ago
Oh I thought you meant award for best song. Not that they wrote the best song for him. I get you now.
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u/gh0stwrit3r32767 2h ago
idk that Dr. Who moment was kinda funny in a cheeky british humor type a way? maybe just me tho
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u/PassionGlobal 2h ago
It doesn't even make sense though, yet it's played straight. - it's literally the same person. The same alien being that has no more an idea what it's like to be a human male or female.
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u/TheDoctor199806 2h ago
No it wasn't, it was just cringe, and an example of why Doctor Who's fallen so hard that it got canceled again. Seriously, I'm pretty sure a Whovian made a wish that RTD came back to write Doctor Who, but that the wish got monkey's pawed into RTD having lost whatever spark he had to make his initial run entertaining.
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u/skag_boy87 2h ago
I actually like this trope.
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u/No-Brush1587 1h ago
Reason?
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u/skag_boy87 1h ago
I like seeing women empowered and shutting up losers. It’s sexy as fuck.
Confident men don’t feel threatened by this. Only insecure men get offended by this shit.
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u/PrepotenteDeLaRosa 2h ago
Demeaning? If that's "demeaning" to you, that's awfully sad.
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u/Tebenox 2h ago
I mean the Time Lord comment was unnecessary and rude quite frankly.
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u/TheDoctor199806 1h ago
Insulting actually. The Doctor's "friend" was literally saying that it's something he'd only understand if he was a woman, which he was for at least a couple of decades, and that he somehow lost any understanding the moment he turned back into a man not even too long ago.
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u/rycerzDog 2h ago
this comment is so confusing. do you have your own personal definition of "demeaning"??
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u/PrepotenteDeLaRosa 2h ago
These are examples of women being honest in fiction, and random dudes on the internet getting angry about it. It's not demeaning at all.
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u/lordtyp0 2h ago
You don't think that the narrative shitting on a character because of membership of a demographic and not because of actually character is demeaning? What do you think that word means?
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u/PrepotenteDeLaRosa 1h ago
How is it shitting on them? Honest statements. Women go through and deal with shit that men could never. And the Megan Thee Stallion bit? Come on and just say you don't like when women are honest and hold men accountable.
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u/lordtyp0 1h ago
That is a seriously ignorant reply. Men are simply shamed for trying to discuss what is happening. Women are embraced for even the most trivial happenstance
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u/PrepotenteDeLaRosa 1h ago
You're saying things backwards. Is it opposite day?
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u/lordtyp0 1h ago
You are discussing things like a 12 year old discovering geopolitics and thinking you have value in the discussion.
What exactly is it that you think sex adds for unique perspective? I am gay, I have been sexually assaulted 6 times by women, like full hands in pants trying to take my clothes off "Because I hadn't met the right woman yet". I have been in groups that were therapeudic, shut down because it was men only and some random narcissist decided she had to punish a strawman and complain because it was exclusionary.
Right now Russia is raping Ukrainian soldiers and their own who are insubordinate.
One of my friends endured a divorce because he broke down after his mom died, but she "Got the ick".
What unique perspective does a woman have that a man will never understand?
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u/PrepotenteDeLaRosa 1h ago
Nobody is saying that men don't suffer. Nobody said that men don't have unique experiences. This is the pancakes/waffles bit. Just because someone says one thing, it doesn't mean that other things aren't true. I'm sorry that happened to you, but your whataboutosm and attempts at insults aren't doing what you think they are.
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u/lordtyp0 1h ago
Nice goal post move. You stated "Women go through and deal with shit that men could never."
Stay on point or go away.
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u/PrepotenteDeLaRosa 59m ago
I'm not moving a thing. You're taking one point and making it your whole stance. Have fun with your poor ability to empathize. I hope you're able to heal.
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u/lordtyp0 55m ago
You seem like one of those people who bemoan the boogeyman of The Patriarchy then attack men who don't take bullets for strangers because they are women, or insist the father killed Clancy's kids because he didn't force his wife into a hospital or the likes.
Very selective as long as you feel the power of being a righteous victim.
"Women go through and deal with shit that men could never."
JFC. You have no idea.
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u/PrepotenteDeLaRosa 1h ago
Lol, I love downvotes from chuddy, mysoginist incels. Keep'em coming, boys 😘
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u/iamorivela 2h ago
Fred (Velma): He’s rewritten as a spoiled, helpless idiot who can’t even cut his own food, while Velma constantly humiliates him to show how much smarter she is. It doesn’t make Velma look better, it just makes Fred barely resemble the original character.