Only Men Are Allowed To Be Perfect

[mysticalchild_isis]

Further Thoughts On Fandom Misogyny

You know, I'm disturbed by how often the male characters who treat people (especially women) like crap are the fandom darlings. They become the woobie who can do no wrong, because he's deep, he has layers, he's had bad things happen to him, he's misunderstood (especially by all those evil female characters). They often have huge communities devoted to them and metric tons of fic describing how wonderful and perfect they are. I'm not trying to criticize people for loving the characters they love. We all have our preferences, and deeply complex characters are interesting, and often feel more real.

What's really bothering me here are the gender politics that go on in fandom, and the double standard between the way female characters are treated versus male characters.

Let's take Tony DiNozzo from NCIS. Yes, I like him too. He is a complex character, he's had some wonderful moments of heroism, and he has struggled with some tough times in his life. But let's be honest: he's rude, he's dismissive, he bullies people, he objectifies women constantly, and he also tends to blame women ("it's always the wife "). Before anyone jumps in to accuse me of misunderstanding poor Tony, let's take a step back and deconstruct things a bit.

Take some time and really, truly, and honestly think about this: if Tony was instead a woman, let's say Tonia, what would you think about her? When she constantly objectified men while simultaneously dismissing and blaming them, how would you feel? When she bullied, belittled, and tormented Tim, would it seem just as funny (because, after all, she really does love Tim like a brother, right)?

There are some people who can truthfully say they'd love Tonia just as much as Tony, because it really is just about what they like about the characterization, regardless of gender. Tonia has probably also gained some brand new fans, who like her because she turns the dominant paradigm on its head- they'd enjoy watching a woman constantly objectifying men, and running roughshod over everyone.

But be honest: how many people would call Tonia a slut, a bitch, a whore, or a harpy? How dare that uppity woman torment poor little Timmy! Who does she think she is?

Let's try an opposite sort of example, and take Rose Tyler from Doctor Who. Rose consistently gets accused of being a Mary Sue, a selfish brat, a chav, and all sorts of other similarly offensive things. Imagine, however (honestly and deeply), if Rose was instead Ryan, played by someone like Bradley James. Let's say we now have a young man who doesn't have much in the way of education, but who pick things up pretty quickly, someone who's compassionate and friendly, and who loves the Doctor deeply. Ryan is suddenly reminding me a lot of a modern version of Jamie McCrimmon. How many people hate on Jamie, or call him a Gary Stu, or accuse him of being selfish for loving the Doctor? Just how many of the people who despise Rose would hate Ryan just as much?

Try taking any female character you dislike, and transforming them into a man... how does this change how you look at them? There are still going to be plenty of characters you dislike, regardless of gender, because they're still a cat hater, or a Yankees fan, or they look just like that math teacher who used to call you stupid. But how much time would you spend bashing them? Do you think there would be whole communities devoted to hating them? Would they be constantly vilified in fanfic?

But what does it matter if we bash female characters? They're only fictional, after all. I'll just say this- I don't think it's a good idea to spend a lot of time disparaging and despising women, even if they aren't real, as that's the sort of thing that can become a habit.

Yes, I'm oversimplifying things, being judgmental, and the people who see this are almost certainly the last people on earth who need to read it, but I had to throw it out there.

Thoughts, critiques, attacks, opinions?

You're very welcome to share this/link to it.

Comments

[mysticalchild_isis]

I think simply ceasing to watch a show (or avoiding episodes with characters you don't like) is an excellent solution, and I wish more people would do that and move on, instead of spending hours spewing hate across the internet.

[mysticalchild_isis]

Indeed- there's been some commentary about just that up-thread. But why spend hours spewing hatred at one's rivals? Being hateful isn't a good way to display oneself at one's best.

[lemonsherry.livejournal.com]

or 'lovably gruff'.

[blktauna.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

LOL you ask for Earth Logic!
:)

But seriously I have no wish to waste my energy on characters like that, so I don't. TPTB aren't going to change them and not supporting the places where they occur is really the best way to get the point across.

[meredith44]

I have just so totally been in discussions with people over this, but it was from the other side, as in why people hate Ziva so much while liking Tony. I completely agree with your post and have so much love for it I cannot fully express it. I really do think there is a double standard in how fen treat the female characters and the male characters.

I know you said that it is fine to share/link to this, but I thought I'd still ask if it is okay to link this in ncis_newsletter. You might get a bunch of highly defensive enthusiastic Tony fen over here, and I didn't know if you would want that.

[alexiscartwheel.livejournal.com]

XD Now that just makes me wonder what BSG character would remind my friends of me... I am not badass enough to be Starbuck!

[mysticalchild_isis]

That's fine... I don't mind some lively debate. Thank you for asking, though. :D

[blktauna.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

I'd like to step in a sec and disagree with the notion of fandom being a female space. It surely isn't as I deal with it. Maybe the slash side is, but I don't find any of the other areas of fandom I participate in to be highly female.

just my .02

[mysticalchild_isis]

It depends on where one's niche is. I mostly hang around LJ, and most of the people on my flist and in the comms I'm in are female. Yes, in other venues this isn't true (in fact in many of them it's mostly men), but in my neck of the woods, it's heavily female-dominated.

[tablesaw]

Hell yeah!

The Rose example wasn't quite working for me, but I couldn't think of a better one. Star Trek is filled with this kind of thing, but Pulaski may be clearest example.

[madelynnm.livejournal.com]

I haven't read through your OP yet, butttttt I gotta ask, were you the F!S person from yesterday that posted about the misogyny?! :D

[mysticalchild_isis]

Nope- as a rule, I mostly avoid Fandom Secrets. What was the post about?

[madelynnm.livejournal.com]

[kelly-holden.livejournal.com]

Rose can't be a Mary Sue and simultaneously, a horrible, flawed human being
Actually, by some definitions, a MS isn't necessarily perfect, so much that the established rules of the universe bend or break for them, and arguably they did. Honestly, I do think people are overly vitriolic about her, but I did find the whole best-companion-ever-even-though-he-had-dozens-of-companions-in-old-Who-including-other-Time-Lords-and-his-own-granddaughter/Doctor's-True-Wuv thing very wearing. And if I were het-or-bi and jealous of the Doctor I might have outright hated her myself. As it stands, I find Martha and Donna awesome personified, and Rose somewhat irritating.

[madelynnm.livejournal.com]

Okay and now that I've read it in depth (the Tony part, especially!)

I gotta say I'm with you 100%, though I don't think Tony's quite the womanizer he was before. But I find the double standard with him versus Ziva in fandom (and only here) utterly ridiculous.

It's no secret that she is my favorite character, but I can see the flaws in her personality as well. But my point is that I've read countless posts about people attacking her because she is exactly what you said about Tony: rude, dismissive and a bully. And Michael Weatherly's "she's a sociopath" comment really makes me wonder if he sees who his own character actually is, which ftr, really seems to come off a lot more serious on paper than how he actually said it.

Since there are so few women in this fandom, it's hard to pinpoint another double standard. We don't see enough of Abby's character to really make any conclusions about that but I've found that the harshest critics of the females in the show and the ones who idolize Tony DiNozzo (and Michael Weatherly) and worship the ground he walks on also tend to be the Gibbs/DiNozzo slashers. Not to say that their preference of character shipping necessarly correlates to the topic but at the same time, I've met only a few folks who ship Gibbs/DiNozzo that don't show complete and utter hatred to the female characters (other than Abby.) I'm not looking to start a war here, as it's not just them, but the blind following of DiNozzo love makes me wonder just what a lot of NCIS fans are smoking and where I can get it.

And the saddest part about this all? I've come to dislike his character a lot because of the fans. Much like I'm sure that the rabid TIVA-fans/Ziva fans are to blame for some folks dislike of her.

[mysticalchild_isis]

I certainly can see where they are coming from, but I think that's a little harsh (and ageist). For one thing, some of the people in their 40s and 50s grew up with a lot more sexism than many of the twentysomethings.

It's also a little hypocritical, because it's mostly women in those groups... and this secret seems rather vitriolic towards them. I don't approve of hate groups, but it's not my place to dictate what comms people can join.

[mysticalchild_isis]

I almost added the scenario of Tony being a woman in world with a male Ziva, but my post was beginning to get too long and too complicated.

It's unfortunate that so much hate comes from 'shipping. The women who threaten or break up ships are the ones who get he most hate.

[madelynnm.livejournal.com]

Well that's what I don't get when it comes to that specific pairing (which I feel like I need to preface this with a disclaimer that says: does not apply to all)

They're not canon, which so often gets thrown in TIVA fans faces, but nearly any ship in NCIS fandom isn't canon. So there's really no issue of her getting in between, since as it's been shown, the men are completely straight, nor are they together. So there's really nothing to get in between or break up.

Though, people who ship Gibbs/Ducky, McGee/Tony seem to be a lot less concerned and worried about any female character coming in between. But I'm not trying to turn this into a ship-war so I should shut up haha

[missdeanna.livejournal.com]

Here via verasteine

To be fair, I think that when people like characters who are jerks, there's often a lot of justification to make them seem better (which you kind of touch on). In the Harry Potter fandom, it's not that uncommon for Draco and Snape fans to write those characters as being much nicer than they are in canon, or even make arguments for why they're misrepresented in canon. I think there's some uneasiness with liking a character who really isn't a nice person.

I've never felt like I had to defend a character in order to like them. All of the jerky characters I've liked have some sympathetic or tragic qualities that make me like them, but I don't see any point in pretending that they're nice people or that I'd want to know them in real life.

There is a huge double-standard when it comes to female characters, and it bothers me. Female characters seem to be disliked for a lot of things that get taken for granted in male characters. A while back on fandomsecrets, people were talking about how they didn't like Olivia on Fringe because she was boring and it wasn't realistic that she was so special. I pointed out that Walter and Peter, who get a lot of love, are both very special when it comes to their intelligence and abilities.

To be honest, I have no idea how much I buy into it. I'd like to say very little, especially since I tend to like female characters who have the same qualities I like in male characters (is that an issue in itself? Does it mean that I prefer "masculine" females?), but it's hard to tell sometimes. Our feelings don't exist in a vacuum.

Basically a tl;dr that translates as YES, THAT, WORD

[eyra.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom!

I'm actually pretty baffled by Tony. I really love the version in my head (have you read Rictus? That's the closest fandom version to the one in my brain), but then the one on the show keeps making me feel vaguely disappointed. But then, not all of that is because I keep forgetting that Tony can be a dick in small-minded ways -- I also think NCIS characterization just tends to be really uneven on everyone except Gibbs.

Then also, NCIS's icky gender issues are sort of confused by their tendency to conceive really, truly awesome women who are actually pretty badass, but then the writers seem to just sort of...flail around, not knowing what to do with them or how to keep them that way in an actual plot line.

Like many people who quite like Tony and occasionally ship Gibbs/Dinozzo, I'm really ambivalent about the possibility of canon Tony/Ziva. But not because she's in the way of an OTP OMG, and not because I think he's "too good" for her. Ziva deserves better than a relationship with him. He's a fascinating character and sometimes I love him, but he's a dick, and he's a dick to her, and it kind of makes me queasy.

To answer your question, though: holy shit but I would adore Tonia. Or Toni, as I've also seen her called. But then, I love always-a-girl stories and Tony Dinozzo is precisely the kind of hyper-masculine character that is so interesting to me to see transformed like that. It's one of my favorite ways to explore characterization, to see what's different and what isn't different at all. I actively sought out Toni stories, and have loved a couple. And I would love to see that character on TV.

And while I don't have as much to say on Doctor Who, I loved Rose. I actually think she was a bit of a brat in the first series, actually, but that didn't detract from her bravery or compassion and was one of the reasons I loved her. She was real.

[mysticalchild_isis]

It seems that for some shippers, the simple fact that other fans ship half of their OTP with someone else seems threatening.

[mysticalchild_isis]

Female characters seem to be disliked for a lot of things that get taken for granted in male characters.

Very much this.

Our feelings don't exist in a vacuum.

Indeed. It's extremely difficult to sort it all out.

Re: Basically a tl;dr that translates as YES, THAT, WORD

[mysticalchild_isis]

Then also, NCIS's icky gender issues are sort of confused by their tendency to conceive really, truly awesome women who are actually pretty badass, but then the writers seem to just sort of...flail around, not knowing what to do with them or how to keep them that way in an actual plot line.

Oh hell yeah.

Yeah, when I was discussing this bit:
Tonia has probably also gained some brand new fans, who like her because she turns the dominant paradigm on its head

I was thinking a lot about Xena, and the way she was very much the barbarian hero, but a woman, and how that trope turned upside gained her so many fans.

[eyra.livejournal.com]

I've met only a few folks who ship Gibbs/DiNozzo that don't show complete and utter hatred to the female characters (other than Abby.)

This really depresses me. I just...thought I'd stand up and be counted, since there are apparently so few of us. I am someone who ships Gibbs/Dinozzo (though not exclusively, and not particularly rabidly), but who also really really loves Ziva, and I really liked Kate (I might have loved her, except that I watched the first two seasons after having watched Kill Ari, so I tried really hard not to get too attached. Not that it worked out all that well; I still cried when I got to Kill Ari again). I also think I'm one of the few people who really liked Jen. I found her interesting and likable, and the ambivalence that entered her characterization when it became obvious that she was basically using a federal agency for a personal vendetta didn't make me hate her, it made me like her more.

But Ziva's my favorite. The reason I don't want Tiva is because I think she deserves better. But I would be all over Tony/Ziva if it were, you know...written differently. If I didn't feel like Ziva became somehow lessened when the show were trying to throw them together*, because yeah, Tony can be a dick, but she doesn't have to put up with it. She doesn't put up with his crap when the subtext isn't romantic.

*I winced when I wrote that. I mean, women should be allowed to be vulnerable without becoming "less," you know? But that's how it feels to me, though I can't tell if that's the show's problem (actually lessening her) or mine (interpreting romantic subplots as lessening, which is something I hate when other people do). But I kept it in there because I felt like, even if it is my problem it has to be the show's, too, to some degree. I mean, extra-textually, look at the way Ziva reacted to Jeanne (with pining for Tony) versus the way Tony reacted to Michael (with suspicions, and he turned out to be right).

[madelynnm.livejournal.com]

All I can say is, I think I love you.


I like the idea of Tony/Ziva *in theory* as I've pointed out. But logically, I can't make sense of it. I wouldn't mind seeing it on the show but I'd also rather not because I like my Tony better as well.