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

[lydia-petze.livejournal.com]

My thoughts, you just illustrated them perefectly. I actually started out really liking DiNozzo but as he became more and more unpleasant, it actually began to put me right off the show altogether. I don't tolerate that behaviour from people in my workplace, why would I enjoy watching it.

I think the gold star example of this trope would have to be Snape, however. I loathe the character to the point of insanity, because I can't stand people in positions of power who treat those under them so badly. One or two teachers like him are the reason I went from a happy, successful student who loved going to school to someone who used to spend Sunday afternoons in tears because she didn't want to go in. It took me years to claw my self esteem back after high school chased it out of me. Why he's the fandom darling, I truly haven't a bloody clue.

[madelynnm.livejournal.com]

and I hope I didn't come off rude, even though I made a relatively large assumption about a faction of shippers, but I think you got my point?

[mysticalchild_isis]

I'll admit that Snape was definitely kicking around in my head when I was composing this post, but I didn't feel qualified to discuss him, as I've never been involved in the HP fandom.

[lydia-petze.livejournal.com]

And the saddest part about this all? I've come to dislike his character a lot because of the fans

That's happened to me a lot. It's gotten to where I start to see the signs now and rather than grow to hate a character I used to love, I withdraw from the fandom (sometimes temporarily, sometimes not).

I do what I can, no more...

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

And what I can do is write new women characters in new worlds-- AKA "original fiction."

The benefit of this is that I do not need to warp the canon in order to make the women more proactive,and I do not need to let my stories be men-driven, and I do not need to weep as yet another tv series fails the bechdel test....

(hi from metafandom)

[lydia-petze.livejournal.com]

ARRRGH! I LOVED Pulaski! She was so much more interesting than that oftentimes-simpering Crusher. No wonder Pulaski was so unpopular ;-(

[eyra.livejournal.com]

Oh, not rude at all! It was depressing, and I hadn't ever thought of it that way before, but it wasn't actually surprising, either. I mean, there's a lot of Gibbs/Dinozzo love and a lot of Ziva hate, and I'd never really thought before about the fact that this means there's probably crossover there.

I think I actually would mind seeing Tony/Ziva on the show, just because I think they'd butcher my love for the idea of it. With you, I'm a lot more fond of the Tony in my head than the one I see on the show.

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

[eyra.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about the female characters on NCIS a couple weeks ago, when I was looking for icons, and I realized that in the initial scheme of the show, with Gibbs as leader/Gut Instinct, Tony as suave talker/ladies' man (both of them interrogators), and Abby and then Tim as internal rather than external characters, geeky, the evidence people, and that pretty much made Kate, former Secret Service agent...the "muscle." And I loved that, women never get to be the muscle. I mean, there's crossover among all of the roles for everyone, to some degree, but still, it was kind of cool. But then, yeah, there was flailing. I just wish they'd done something with it.

I never actually watched Xena, other than catching an episode or two at some point. I'll have to look it up; it's one of those things I've been meaning to watch for years. But yeah, always-a-girl is one of my favorite fandom trends.

[madelynnm.livejournal.com]

Sadly, Snape has alwys been my favorite but I've never been heavily involved in any form with that fandom. I read the books when I was much younger and I've only seen 2 of the movies.

But I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that SnapeAlan Rickman is the archangel and is asexual. xD Yeahhh dogma!

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

How could anyone hate Ziva? THAT IS LIKE HATING SUNLIGHT.

From metafandom

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm disturbed by how often the male characters who treat people (especially women) like crap are the fandom darlings.

This happens in the Persona 4 fandom and is honestly the reason why I stopped watching the main comm of that fandom. They had an entire week dedicated to celebrating the fandom darling, who is an unreserved misogynist and implied to be a rapist.

Yeah, no. Say sorry, fandom. I got better things to look at.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I actually am, at this point, far less frustrated with Tony than Dean because more people call him on his bullshit, and Tony seems to suffer more in show consequences for his bullshit.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Peter came from an alternate dimension, you don't get specialer than that!

I tend to like female characters who have the same qualities I like in male characters

I've found myself doing that sometimes too.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom, and this is an AWESOME post.

[mawaridi.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking about this topic myself today, inspired by a post higher up on my flist (I'm here via metafandom, by the way *waves*). In the post - written by a person I like very much and who actually went on to discuss this very fallacy later in her post - the OP was frustrated by comparisons between Twilight and Beautiful Creatures because someone had suggested Beautiful Creatures was like Twilight with the genders reversed. She gave many reasons why the comparison was inaccurate, but also said Ethan (the "male Bella" of Beautiful Creatures) "is kind of a dopey idiot in a way that made me stop and go "Oh, Ethan, lol," in a few places". And I can totally relate to saying "Oh , lol" when male characters behave like dopey idiots, but I think this is a good indicator of how many of us are often so much more critical of female characters than male ones. I have a lot of problems with Twilight, other than Bela being a dopey idiot, but I wonder if I would have rejected her so strongly if she had been a male character?

Another example I can think of (that I don't think has been mentioned here) is Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory; I find Sheldon endlessly endearing, personally, but I wonder if he would have nearly so many fans if he were a socially inept, asexual, hugely self-important woman who was constantly insulting her friends and prioritizing her own neurotic requirements over the needs of the people around her? Temperance Brennan of Bones is the only female character I can think of who comes remotely close to this characterisation, and she is significantly softened by being a very sexual being and having (sometimes weridly OOC!) emotional moments in most episodes. She fumbles over social cues at times, but she's far less awkward than Sheldon, and yet I rarely hear fangirls squeeing over Bones to the extend that they squee over Sheldon.

Dean Winchester has been mentioned already but Supernatural fandom in general is a major indicator of this phenomenon for me. Countless female characters have been introduced throughout that show's run and most of them have been despised by female fans. Part of that is bad writing and unexamined misogyny on the part of the writers, but I can't help thinking that part of it is female characters being held to an impossibly high standard of behaviour by female fans. Castiel is adored by fangirls and yet he has done, in my opinion, far more ethically questionable things than some of the hated female characters have done, and without much questioning from fans at all.

Comment too long, whoops!

[mawaridi.livejournal.com]

Continued from previous comment!

I wonder if perhaps the problem has good intentions at it's heart; that we are more critical of female characters (who are, let's remember, not real women) because we are wary of being sold inferior, stereotypical characterisations of women by misogynist writers, and we feel the need to fight the slightest hint of that at every turn. I think it's important to be aware of and reject shoddy and sexist characterisation (of both female and male characters), but I do think fans reject female characters on the slightest provocation and accept deeply flawed male characters with a lot of handwaving and excuses about why it is okay to like them.

I have found myself becoming attached to some female characters, like you said, precisely because they turn stereotypes on their heads, taking characteristics we are used to seeing (and accepting) in male characters and applying them to women. I loved Erica Hahn on Grey's Anatomy (although I believe I'm unusual in this) because she was so caustic and aggressive and sure of herself, it was refreshing. I like Cristina for similar reasons; I enjoy having a female character to watch who is ambitious, self-interested and who rejects "feminine" interests like motherhood and displaying her emotions because they just don't interest her. I mean, her character is kind of a horrible person in a lot of ways, but she would be if she were male as well, and I like her anyway. It's also nice that, unlike Hahn, Cristina can be caustic and aggressive and not secretly a lesbian! It shows, to me, that the writers of the show understand lesbianism and particular gendered behaviours aren't necessarily linked; Cristina is a lot like Hahn in her "unfeminine" attitudes and behaviour, but she's straight, because sexuality isn't the defining factor of behaviour for either of them. But that was kind of a tangent, sorry :)

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

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

Yep. There are glaring examples of this in the Lost fandom. Juliet and Sun get reamed for being manipulative and duplicitous by some of the same people who will turn around and praise Benjamin Linus for having the exact same qualities.

Then there's the hot mess over Ana Lucia, who had the audacity to be a tough and sometimes violent leader, because it's not like Jack Shepherd tortured a guy in the previous season just to find an inhaler for someone's asthma. And it's not like Ana Lucia was dealing anything like, I don't know, other people on the island kidnapping and killing members of her camp?

[anivad.livejournal.com]

Male!Bones meets female!Bones = NEEDS TO BE FIC.

[epiphany-gun.livejournal.com]

Kirk would be on that so fast...

Re: I do what I can, no more...

[mysticalchild_isis]

It is indeed an excellent way to go about things. My roommate and I half-jokingly discuss writing our own feminist YA novels. Maybe someday we will.

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

[mysticalchild_isis]

I highly recommend it. It has its own problems, but the majority of the time, Xena is delightful, especially in its female characters.

Re: From metafandom

[mysticalchild_isis]

Indeed. I've had to leave fandom comms before myself because I just couldn't take the level of constant and unrepentant misogyny.

[mysticalchild_isis]

Thank you :D

Re: I do what I can, no more...

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

An awful lot of YA is feminist-- it's a serious trend. Writing being one of the mediums that is available for women, that makes sense. I wish TV and film were equally available.

[mysticalchild_isis]

I think it's important to be aware of and reject shoddy and sexist characterisation (of both female and male characters), but I do think fans reject female characters on the slightest provocation and accept deeply flawed male characters with a lot of handwaving and excuses about why it is okay to like them.

::nods:: It's a difficult line to walk- I have to wonder if I'm rejecting a female character because of shoddy characterization, or because I'm policing my own sex.