Author Topic: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these  (Read 23577 times)

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Offline Kristine

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OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« on: June 20, 2012, 02:49:41 am »
The Manic Pixie dream girl...
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqJUxqkcnKA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqJUxqkcnKA</a>

Torture Porn - disposable women in comics
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DInYaHVSLr8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DInYaHVSLr8</a>

Disproportionate amount of male to female characters in programming
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opM3T2__lZA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opM3T2__lZA</a>

femme fatale
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VeCjm1UO4M" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VeCjm1UO4M</a>

Mystical Pregnancy
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rhH_QGXtgQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rhH_QGXtgQ</a>

Straw Feminism
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnJxqRLg9x0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnJxqRLg9x0</a>

Bechdel Test
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF6sAAMb4s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF6sAAMb4s</a>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH8JuizIXw8 - don't know why this one is not working?? :P


Whew.  So many things to say about these.



Offline TheL

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2012, 09:27:07 am »
Hey, we were talking about this woman's Kickstarter campaign on P&G! :)

Also, the last one has an https in the URL--try removing it. :)
« Last Edit: June 20, 2012, 09:44:18 am by TheL »
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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2012, 09:42:57 am »
The number of films that fail to pass the Bechdel test really is surprising, particularly when it comes to major blockbusters. Even the ones that contain multiple strong, female characters will often fail it.
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Offline TheL

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2012, 09:59:26 am »
The number of films that fail to pass the Bechdel test really is surprising, particularly when it comes to major blockbusters. Even the ones that contain multiple strong, female characters will often fail it.

There are even films that fail both the Bechdel Test AND the Reverse Bechdel Test.
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Offline Diamandahagan

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2012, 01:49:25 pm »
Well I subbed.

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2012, 02:04:26 pm »
(On Episode 3 and The Big Bang Theory) This episode of the weberies was made in April of 2011. By then, Amy and Bernadette were added to the main cast*. So, in other words...

CRITICAL RESEARCH FAILURE

*The show passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, by the way.

Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2012, 02:35:43 pm »
(On Episode 3 and The Big Bang Theory) This episode of the weberies was made in April of 2011. By then, Amy and Bernadette were added to the main cast*. So, in other words...

CRITICAL RESEARCH FAILURE

*The show passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, by the way.

The rest of the video was pretty valid, though.

That being said, this gives me an idea for a fun superhero battle.  A real feminist superhero vs. a straw feminist supervillain.  The idea being that the straw feminist actually raises valid points, but her methods are what's criticized, as well as the fact that she's making the same mistakes as the men she's righteously criticizing ...

Wait a second, she's becoming less straw and more based on real people.  Huh.

Anyways, it still might be awesome, as a symbolic method of striking down what the media portrays as feminism by what actual feminism is.
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Offline kefkaownsall

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2012, 07:53:03 pm »
I watched the straw feminist one and while her points are good I do have issue with the PPG example.  Seeing as the last act was actually real feminists vs straw one.  what happened was Ms Bellum had the girls in and they said that they were defending women then they show 3 women who the straw woman hurt.

Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2012, 09:14:30 pm »
I watched the straw feminist one and while her points are good I do have issue with the PPG example.  Seeing as the last act was actually real feminists vs straw one.  what happened was Ms Bellum had the girls in and they said that they were defending women then they show 3 women who the straw woman hurt.

The straw feminist is often shown as harming women in their "crusade for superiority", so quite frankly, her point still stands.

It still portrays feminism as "unnecessary and harmful".
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Offline kefkaownsall

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2012, 09:38:22 pm »
I watched the straw feminist one and while her points are good I do have issue with the PPG example.  Seeing as the last act was actually real feminists vs straw one.  what happened was Ms Bellum had the girls in and they said that they were defending women then they show 3 women who the straw woman hurt.

The straw feminist is often shown as harming women in their "crusade for superiority", so quite frankly, her point still stands.

It still portrays feminism as "unnecessary and harmful".
I guess the execution could have been better honestly half of the cases are just poor execution.

Offline Askold

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2012, 02:33:08 am »
I watched the straw feminist one and while her points are good I do have issue with the PPG example.  Seeing as the last act was actually real feminists vs straw one.  what happened was Ms Bellum had the girls in and they said that they were defending women then they show 3 women who the straw woman hurt.

The straw feminist is often shown as harming women in their "crusade for superiority", so quite frankly, her point still stands.

It still portrays feminism as "unnecessary and harmful".
I guess the execution could have been better honestly half of the cases are just poor execution.

The straw-feminist in PPG was supposed to be seen as a straw-feminist that wasn't an attack against women, they were merely showing that just because a person claims to have good intentions and claims to support your group (in this case a feminist since the PPG are girls) that does not justify all means and in fact they showed how her misguided feminism was harming real women who in fact had broken out of the stay-at-home-mom stereotype and were working in challenging (and dangerous) fields. (I saw the episode years ago so I don't remember how much of actual feminism that episode had but it did show that women were in the police at least and I don't think there was any anti-women theme in that episode.)

If the main characters had been black it might have been some black-power^2 group that would have had the same role and you would have had the same lesson. OK, maybe they wouldn't have shown that on TV, but my point is that just because there is a straw portrayal of an ideology it does not mean that the show is against the ideology.

In fact if we demand that there must be no straw/negative/silly portrayal of an ideology where does that lead us to? "There must be no negative portrayal of our Glorious And Most Justified Goverment." I like comedians like Mel Brooks who can laugh at themselves, and like most jewish comedians he makes jokes about jews as well as a proof that nothing is too sacred to make a joke about. And I really like that ideology, it does not mean that everything is frivolous and that nothing is sacred, it simply means that if you laugh at others then you must also be able to laugh at yourself.  I am a christian but I accept that sometimes the a character on a show/book/game is a silly/evil/etc. christian but this isn't necessarily an attack against christianity. In fact you could replace christian with nerd, Finnish, white, man, soldier, democrat (as in democracy, not the democrat party of USA), etc. and I would still stand by my claim. Sometimes someone must take a pie to the face in order to make a silly show.


I would also like to point out that that the straw-feminist isn't an unique character, there are also political-strawmen and other such straw-tropes. Besides most of those straw-characters are portrayed as straw-characters, that is to say, they aren't claiming that all feminists are as crazy as the straw-feminist character simply that one character has taken an ideology (and a straw character can have any ideology) and twisted it, OR it could be that they are just being silly.

Let me explain that last bit. When a straw character is used in an argument it is meant to weaken the opponents claims by twisting their words but in a a show (especially in comedy) the straw person isn't necessarily a part of an debate. It might be that these exaggerated characteristics are just a way of making the person "silly" and aren't meant to be seen as an example of real actual feminists. Homer Simpson being a fat stupid white man is not an example of the show trying to say that all white men are fat and stupid. Mayor Quimby being a corrupt politician isn't supposed to be an attack on all politicians. These are simply characteristics of these comedic characters.


Sorry about rambling, besides I haven't watched all her videos, I just recognised that character from a PPG episode I saw and got curious.
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Offline largeham

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #11 on: June 21, 2012, 02:47:49 am »
One small thing. 500 Days of Summer is told from the Joseph Gordon Levitt's perspective. Summer is a MPDG in his mind, but not so much in reality.

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Offline Random Gal

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #12 on: June 21, 2012, 05:18:24 am »
(On Episode 3 and The Big Bang Theory) This episode of the weberies was made in April of 2011. By then, Amy and Bernadette were added to the main cast*. So, in other words...

CRITICAL RESEARCH FAILURE

*The show passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, by the way.

The rest of the video was pretty valid, though.

That being said, this gives me an idea for a fun superhero battle.  A real feminist superhero vs. a straw feminist supervillain.  The idea being that the straw feminist actually raises valid points, but her methods are what's criticized, as well as the fact that she's making the same mistakes as the men she's righteously criticizing ...

Wait a second, she's becoming less straw and more based on real people.  Huh.

Anyways, it still might be awesome, as a symbolic method of striking down what the media portrays as feminism by what actual feminism is.

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Offline Sylvana

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #13 on: June 21, 2012, 09:14:04 am »
Some of her videos I agree with, but some need to be looked at a little deeper.
1: The Manic Pixie dream girl...
This one is pretty accurate. It goes so far as to have the dream girl not even be the primary relationship and just the stepping stone for the man to figure out why he loved the girl that he lost before running back with a brand new outlook on life. In all fairness though there are cases where there is a happy go lucky guy filling in this role, but that is pretty rare.

2: Disposable women.
I didn't think this one was entirely fair. Although the examples given do have some foundation. The death of family or love interest is an overused plot device in general. The reason why the victim is normal the wife / girlfriend is because its easier to kill off a love interest than the family. However, there are plenty of examples where the whole family is killed including grandparents and sons.
I think this mainly stems from the problem that most hero / main characters are male. Further the stereotype that men are protectors and fly into a violent rage out for revenge when their loved ones are threatened is also enforced. On the flip side female heroes tend not to have love interests or families. This is based on the stereotype that for a woman to be a hero and strong and equal she must be cold and independent. I also think that most writers have trouble inserting a male love interest for their female hero because they just cannot stand the idea of the man being weaker or less cool than the female hero. It probably fits the typical stereotype that what would such a heroic woman ever see in a guy who stays at home while she goes off to save the world.
The main problem is that there are just not enough female leads with depth. A hero is almost certainly going to suffer some emotional loss when families or loved ones are killed. As long as those leads are predominantly straight white males, the victims will be women. (On a side note, I know of one example where a guy in the group was killed which caused the normal rage / vengeance story from his gay lover despite both not being the main character. Further this was done in completely tasteful manner, unlike the ones which have the gay survivor completely crumble into an sobbing emotional mess.)

3: Disproportionate number of men to women
I agree completely this is massively observable in all media. However, in medias defense I would like to point out that in movies and stories, all the characters are generally some stereotype. Almost every character can be boxed into some kind of story based stereotype. The problem is that we have developed a massive number of straight while male stereotypes and a very small number of minority and female ones.
In short we need to come up with more types of women characters to increase their number in media. I know that sounds counter intuitive seeing as women want to destroy women stereotypes. Media and stories are essentially nothing but a collection of stereotypical characters. Unfortunately in most stories the plot calls for a limited number of primary cast members, all of which fill their respective niche, limiting opportunity to explore with female cast members.

4: Femme Fatal:
I concede, this one is entirely true. Although not only is it reinforcing the manipulative woman stereotype the main reason why characters like this exist is because they are a male sexual fantasy. Men basically want to be seduced and sexually pleased by strong hyper sexualized women. The killing them part is even seen as irrelevant because for the fantasy the hero manages to be seduced and such, but manages to survive, overpower or escape. This even takes this fantasy further with the way the man normally overpowers the woman is normally fitting the strong domineering male stereotype with the femme fatal character immediately becoming weaker and submissive as a result. It is pretty pathetic.

5:Mystical Pregnancy:
I am in two minds about this one. On one hand she is entirely right. However another important aspect that she fails to look at is that often the pregnancy of an actress needs to be written into the story of a series. Actresses are real people with normal real lives and they get pregnant. However they also still have a job to do and studios need to release episodes. Normally before the pregnancy episode the specific cast member is given a different costume to try and hide the visible signs for as long as possible, then normally the cast member disappears for a while or is in rarely seen carefully concealed shots. Then at the height of the actual pregnancy of the actress do they normally shoot a pregnancy story because at this point they can no longer hide the signs that the actress is pregnant. This solution is easier for studios and writers because they don't have to actually write about the long term effects of increasing the cast by another character or tying down a female character with maternal duties.
In the cases I explained above I can understand the decision. You can see this happen most in long running series. In Star Trek in particular it is most obviously visible. (look for when female characters start wearing a dress type uniform instead of the usual jumpsuit)
That said, in movies there is no excuse. This happens a lot, and is quite bluntly unnecessarily. It carries a heavy rape connotation but most of the time makes pregnancy and birth a terrifying and massively horrific and traumatic experience. It often really does just reduce the women in the plot to nothing other than incubators with no other depth.
One should probably wonder why this is introduced though in the stories, especially the harvesting of ovaries, a uncommon theme but I have never seen the genitals or testes of men harvested.

6: Straw Feminism:
I agree completely, although part of this is a social labeling stigma similar to the labeling stigma of being pro-choice. Everyone wants to be pro-life because who isn't for life? While pro-choice is perceived as being for baby killing. Despite the people identifying as pro-life still actually having pro-choice ideals. The term Feminism has been shifted to mean rabid anti man crazy woman, as it is just assumed that all women are for equal rights. The problem with this is that any woman who actually fights for those equal rights today is labeled feminist with all the negative perceptions it currently carries as a way to discredit them.

Offline Kristine

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Re: OMG - Tropes vs. Women - I love these
« Reply #14 on: June 22, 2012, 10:15:25 am »
Also, the last one has an https in the URL--try removing it. :)
all the others do to too

The number of films that fail to pass the Bechdel test really is surprising, particularly when it comes to major blockbusters. Even the ones that contain multiple strong, female characters will often fail it.

There are even films that fail both the Bechdel Test AND the Reverse Bechdel Test.
er - Nature films?  March of the Penguins and such?