When you need to rant...

[D'Snowth]

Oh Drtoo-ooth? You're gonna wanna see this:

 

[Drtooth]

Thanks for reminding me about that. Yeah, I'm usually not up for snarkysnarky snark snark stuff (maybe because everyone thinks they can do it well, and they don't), but they really nailed something that deserved it.

So to add to the rantiness of this thread, how the heck come there's even remotely a controversy about Avengers 2 (didn't see it yet) and Black Widow not being written feminist enough, when that and Twilight exist? Bella Swan and Bella Swan expy are the worst female role models ever written. Personality devoid, sex starved morons in abusive relationships of which the abusive guys aren't even painted in a negative light. I'm sure there are small mumblings about that, but not on the all out offensive attacks on Joss Whedon. Now given the internet it's hard to tell if those are actually overly sensitive killjoys that expect too much out of everything (and couldn't so much write a poor quality fan fic to save their lives) or immature trolls trying to get reactions out of people for the lulz. And this is a splinter hard extreme group complaining (or trolls). But how the heck come Twilight and 50 Shades get off with horrible characters that send women back to the stone age? It's not N word privileges here. It's poor writing that the very same women who'd complain if a man wrote it embraced the heck out of. Why can't these people bug Stephanie Meyer or the untalented twat that made a worse version of Twilight (yeah. Fifty Shades is worse than something already bad).

And really... are lonely housewives that starved for titillation but that prudish not to go for real porn? I mean, it's the internet. Porn's the selling point. There's actually less to be ashamed of to look at real bondage done by professionals than there is reading an admitted fan fiction ripoff that somehow isn't close enough to qualify to get a lawsuit. Yeah. Want to know the number one reason I hate Fifty Shades? Not because it promotes abusive relationships. Not because it's embraced by old women who would normally go out of their way to start a crusade against anything but this they find crude and distasteful... no...

It's because that this horrible fan fic actually has me rooting for the author of Twilight! GAH! That's a horrible thing to say.

 

[Harleena]

Why can't any fandom make original OCs? It bugs me. Like, literally, in the Gumball fandom, it seems like a good portion of the OCs are just Pink Gumball with hair and renamed to "(girl's name) Watterson". I think it would be hilarious if the Gumball creators actually made an episode parodying recolors and Mary Sues, if that's possible. And don't even get me started on the MLP, Sonic, and FNAF fandoms. The only fandoms I've seen with original characters that don't stink are the Muppets and DHMIS fandoms.

 

[CensoredAlso]

how the heck come there's even remotely a controversy about Avengers 2 (didn't see it yet) and Black Widow not being written feminist enough

I know! I sincerely hope that nonsense is just an Internet phenomenon.

 

[D'Snowth]

Why can't any fandom make original OCs? It bugs me. Like, literally, in the Gumball fandom, it seems like a good portion of the OCs are just Pink Gumball with hair and renamed to "(girl's name) Watterson". I think it would be hilarious if the Gumball creators actually made an episode parodying recolors and Mary Sues, if that's possible. And don't even get me started on the MLP, Sonic, and FNAF fandoms. The only fandoms I've seen with original characters that don't stink are the Muppets and DHMIS fandoms.

That's why OCs are not original characters, and they shouldn't be called as such. They're fan-created characters, and therefore should be called fan-characters, or FCs. There's hardly any originality in such characters.

 

[Harleena]

That's why OCs are not original characters, and they shouldn't be called as such. They're fan-created characters, and therefore should be called fan-characters, or FCs. There's hardly any originality in such characters.

I agree.

 

[Drtooth]

I know! I sincerely hope that nonsense is just an Internet phenomenon.

Probably is. My point is still this: How the heck come when a guy writes to the best of his ability a strong, layered female character and manages to get some minutia wrong especially if it's incredibly subjective there's a call to arms, yet if a woman writes a horrible female character straight out of the "only good for sex and babies" misogynist playbook, there aren't any complaints and some women even eat it up? There was backlash over 50 shades, just not a large vocal one. Being in an abusive relationship and sticking to it because sex is pretty much the worst thing you can write about women. Had a man wrote that, no one would shut up about how much of a moron/crackpot/bigot he was. But a woman writes it, and it's a best seller and teenagers (or in 50 Shades' case, 40-50 year old women) idolize them.

It doesn't matter which gender writes a terrible representational character, they should both be accountable.

 

[D'Snowth]

Probably is. My point is still this: How the heck come when a guy writes to the best of his ability a strong, layered female character and manages to get some minutia wrong especially if it's incredibly subjective there's a call to arms, yet if a woman writes a horrible female character straight out of the "only good for sex and babies" misogynist playbook, there aren't any complaints and some women even eat it up? There was backlash over 50 shades, just not a large vocal one. Being in an abusive relationship and sticking to it because sex is pretty much the worst thing you can write about women. Had a man wrote that, no one would shut up about how much of a moron/crackpot/bigot he was. But a woman writes it, and it's a best seller and teenagers (or in 50 Shades' case, 40-50 year old women) idolize them.

It doesn't matter which gender writes a terrible representational character, they should both be accountable.

Two words: double standard. Nuff said.

 

[Drtooth]

I think it goes beyond that. It's not like the double standard of "Stop treating women as sex objects, but ooooh! Sequel to Magic Mike coming out!" it's more like "let's find fault in things that are relatively harmless yet ignore something serious." We have a culture of young people who are overly offended about the wrong things and choose to ignore something more serious. It's like... like the whole thing about the deflated balls and the Patriots. Yeah, cheating is wrong, especially when it was totally unnecessary, but there's more scrutiny by the NFL there than there is about crazy players that abuse their spouses and children and especially a heck of a lot more than player health and the outbreak of concussions. There's something seriously wrong, but hey... forget about that! Something mildly obnoxious happened and that deserves all attention.

I'd also like to throw in this rant as well...

Anyone else pay attention to the news story that a completely inappropriate "Draw Mohammad Offensively" contest in Texas that got shot up? Now, first off, shooting people for something you don't agree with is wronger than wrong, no matter what total d-bags they were. The minus minded, bigoted actions of far right kooks does not justify trying to kill them. With that out of the way, what kind of friggin moron throws a "let's troll a group of violent idiots to make a nonpoint about how much they hate said violent morons Fest?" Oh. A crazy as heck bigoted moron, duh. So, basically they throw a "let's hate a group of people indiscriminately because some were linked to violent actions" party. Pretty mature and reasonable, right? Errr... isn't that kinda of Stormfront territory? And I bet these would be the same kind of people who would cry their eyes out if Family Guy made fun of Christianity again. The perfect kind of bigot bully, the kind that loves to play victim when they get a taste of their own medicine.

So, quite rightly, this contest got them put on a list of hate groups (which is what they were), and even though it means next to freaking nothing, I bet you can guess what happened. If you guessed "A bunch of horrible far right not at all bigots came to the defense because only the far right can have freedom of speech and any non-violent retaliation is somehow endangering that" than you're right. Now, I'm all for free speech. Problem is, there are unintended consequences of letting downright dangerous modes of thought getting out. Anti-Vaxxers, the KKK, "Freedom Fighters" who are more akin to hardcore fascism... these talentless cartoonists who's only vehicle is hate and inciting violence through their stupid actions... we can't filter that out. YET when there's any retaliation, in other words "those with cooler heads with differing opinions" it's somehow an assault on free speech for others to have free speech? How come only the worst people have the right to ruin things, and anyone calling them out on their narrow mindedness is somehow an eeeevil librul free speech hater? Drawing hateful cartoons to spread hate does kinda qualify you as a hate group. In the end, it means nothing because most rational people know they're a bunch of total buttpipes who are the same as the ones they're so mad about (they just don't kill, rather act like school yard bullies which is also not okay), and those who defend them are just as close minded and probably heard half the story somewhere.

 

[AlittleMayhem]

@Drtooth

I haven't seen the new Avengers movie yet so I can't exactly make a fair judgement on Black Widow just yet. However, from the many essays and tumblr posts I've seen, I can see both sides of the argument (I can link you to a few if you'd like as they are way better at explaining it than I am).

Joss Whedon has being seriously problematic in his other work when it comes to female and WOC characters. Feminists have been criticizing Wheadon's work for years, so really this is nothing new. While yes, his female characters are three dimensional, interesting and pass the bachelor test, they suddenly take a lot of backwards steps in their character development by having being violated and shown as weak to benefit the male lead's story and character development. Heck, one of the showrunner's praised male leads development despite being a rapist.

Wheadon has also created a world where a large majority of it is Chinese and has a lot of the culture, people and language in it, but none of the main leads are Chinese, instead mostly white. Again, these are just a few examples. I could link you to more to get a better understanding.

Remember criticizing a director doesn't translate as hate. People are rightly upset about his choices, even though he doesn't deserve any death threats (which, btw he didn't leave Twitter for, he genuenly wanted to leave).

Oh, and as for women who write horried romances like Twilight and 50 Shades, trust me when I say there are more than plenty women who don't like them more than there are those who do. Don't even get me started on the woman who writes the Outlander series. *shudders*