To be fair if that corset really is reinforced that would help a lot
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
anyway to bring it back to that link I posted, WW's motivation in the new books has a lot to do with family members, and doing the right thing, and saving other people. there is a developing romantic thing going on but it's not the main focus nor is her motivation avenging a hurt lover or something like that. and there's the overarching structure of greek gods and greek mythology which is cool and another reason I like them. I am wondering how her character will work out in the new movie, I wish they would have just gone with these books for her own solo plot.
I have to wonder if the increased female readership is due to less sexualization or more empowerment of the female heroes. Perhaps both.
I wonder if more women are reading comics because their representation is improving, of if their representation is improving because more women are reading comics? I tempted to think it's the latter, and it's just that, like with games, the medium is moving out of the 'white, nerd manchild' demographic and becoming a lot more mainstream.
I think it starts with the former and then that sorts of starts a chain reaction. That's kind of how it happened with science fiction. Representation improving in sci-fi drew in more people. Then those people started writing their own stuff. A lot of it was fanfic, but there were others who got into the business.
I have to wonder if the increased female readership is due to less sexualization or more empowerment of the female heroes. Perhaps both.
I wonder if more women are reading comics because their representation is improving, of if their representation is improving because more women are reading comics? I tempted to think it's the latter, and it's just that, like with games, the medium is moving out of the 'white, nerd manchild' demographic and becoming a lot more mainstream.
I think it starts with the former and then that sorts of starts a chain reaction. That's kind of how it happened with science fiction. Representation improving in sci-fi drew in more people. Then those people started writing their own stuff. A lot of it was fanfic, but there were others who got into the business.
I think it starts with the latter, just extrapolating from the entry of women into sports. Even laws and regulations encouraging female participation in professional sports started with a few unique people looking to expand their niche without a bunch of help.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'd like to deconstruct this a bit. I'm a little conflicted on whether or not this is a harmful trope in and of itself.
....
I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is that we as a culture are addicted to these cheesecake tropes in our media. I think too many of us get our social interaction cues from watching TV and get frustrated when it doesn't translate into real life, in particular when we have expectations for the people whom we have a romantic attraction to which are completely unrealistic or demeaning. It'd be nice if more writers fleshed out characters instead of putting cardboard cutouts of personalities on the screen or page just to appeal to our love of cheesecake.
Of course a trope, motif, or cliché is not harmful "in and of itself". The harm occurs when an individual attempts to supplant reality with an incongruous fantasy articulated by a fictional literary rhetorical device. That act of privileging fantasy over reality is not limited to tropes, character types, etc. Even a non-typical character (maybe Pam from Archer?) can serve as an ideal for an individual, and that individual can cause harm by trying to make reality conform to her ideal. But even that is a more specific version of the general problem that occurs when individuals confuse their imagined ideal for reality.
Fantasy > Trope > Sexist Trope
Everything on that hierarchy can be harmful if used improperly.
What strikes me as odd, in these conversations, is the degree to which people think we could do without those fictional ideals. To put it simply, not every character can be Rust Cohle, who strikes me as one of the most *unique* characters in recent memory, even though he's a mix of Neo, Nietzsche, and some alcoholic character whose name also starts with an N, for alliterative effect. Human beings have been telling stories for quite some time, and we all draw from the same* reality pool. Being unique, constructing unique characters, is difficult.
Could we do a better job of telling stories that involve realistic characters who do not serve as some form of wish fulfillment? Sure. But who the fuck would watch that? Fantasy is where we go to escape reality, to have some interaction with our imagined ideals.
The problem is not the story or the trope or the character. The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object. We want skinny magical pixy girls. We want strong, super-human amazonians who get tied up and captured. The desire that motivates us to construct these characters is the real problem.
And it seems to me that the desire for big-tittied idealized women is not going anywhere soon.
*assuming that 'reality' is not what occurs in an individual's mind as some mixing of external noumenon and interpretative phenomena.
The problem is not the story or the trope or the character. The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object. The desire that motivates us to construct these characters is the real problem.
And it seems to me that the desire for big-tittied, weak-willed women is not going anywhere soon.
i think the concern is that people will want what media sources depict as desirable. that media depictions of "attractive women" are not purely reactive to consumer tastes, but increasingly prescriptive of consumer tastes.
The problem is not the story or the trope or the character. The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object. The desire that motivates us to construct these characters is the real problem.
And it seems to me that the desire for big-tittied, weak-willed women is not going anywhere soon.
i think the concern is that people will want what media sources depict as desirable. that media depictions of "attractive women" are not purely reactive to consumer tastes, but increasingly prescriptive of consumer tastes.
and it's probably true!
Well they have to be if they want to stay ahead of the game. The best way to secure a place in the market is not to give the people what they want, but to make them want something that you have and they can't get anywhere else.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
Well, pick the chicken or the egg.
Persons create a big-tittied weak-willed woman character because a big-tittied weak-willed woman is their desire.
Persons desire a big-tittied weak-willed woman because that is the character presented to them as an ideal.
Seems to me that the desire happened before the representation of the desire in media.
Unless you think that when the first half-monkey half-fish/frog climbed out of the water on primordial Earth there was a Tank Girl comic laying on the shore.
The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
Yeah, that seems like a huge generalization to me. I think people want lots of different things in a partner, and there are tons of different wish fulfillment media fantasies to accommodate your particular daydreams.
_J_, you're saying the problem here is that we willingly supplant reality with fantasy, correct? I'm on board to some extent, but as somebody else has already said, it's a lot easier to do this subconsciously when the fantasy closely resembles reality. Mass Effect didn't really change my worldview or make me posture as a badass, but ask someone what their type is and many times the answer will be phrased as a character from a particular movie, maybe with a few modifications.
Attraction is almost as malleable as taste in food or music. It's highly dependent on what you're exposed to during development. Biology does factor in but studies have shown that you can get people, and animals, to like or dislike just about anything using the principles of classical and operant conditioning.
Heck, go all the way back to Pavlov. In one of his later experiments, he presented an electric shock before giving the dog food and he was able to turn the electric shock into a conditioned stimulus for salivation. After that, the dog became excited by the electric shock and "looked forward" to it. Those basic principles of conditioning work for attraction and sexual arousal as well.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
Well, pick the chicken or the egg.
Persons create a big-tittied weak-willed woman character because a big-tittied weak-willed woman is their desire.
Persons desire a big-tittied weak-willed woman because that is the character presented to them as an ideal.
Seems to me that the desire happened before the representation of the desire in media.
Unless you think that when the first half-monkey half-fish/frog climbed out of the water on primordial Earth there was a Tank Girl comic laying on the shore.
on the other hand, if you look at the female form in historical art contexts, what was considered maximally desirable was extremely variable over different cultures and different time periods.
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SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
edited September 2014
_J_, if you take a look at art throughout the ages, you'll notice that many, many characteristics of "attractive" people have changed over time. What is considered attractive can be influenced, and today the media has far more influence over our lives than in the past because it is so much more accessible.
It may help to think of this not as chicken or egg, but the very gradual feedback loop that resulted in us having both. Media is not merely an input or an output, as mentioned above; if we don't actively pay attention, it's probably an op-amp.
Just looking at any one culture at any one time and you get a huge range. Our media trends towards very little variety, but individual tastes vary wildly.
The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
Yeah, that seems like a huge generalization to me. I think people want lots of different things in a partner, and there are tons of different wish fulfillment media fantasies to accommodate your particular daydreams.
_J_, you're saying the problem here is that we willingly supplant reality with fantasy, correct? I'm on board to some extent, but as somebody else has already said, it's a lot easier to do this subconsciously when the fantasy closely resembles reality. Mass Effect didn't really change my worldview or make me posture as a badass, but ask someone what their type is and many times the answer will be phrased as a character from a particular movie, maybe with a few modifications.
Well, yeah. Because referencing a known fictional character is easier than offering an exact description.
This conversation always has the weird undertone of an Original Sin argument. That Tom was born a pure, loving, feminist who desired naught but equality for all persons. But then he stumbled upon a Playboy, and it all went to shit.
I'm pretty sure we're all born as sexist, self-interested jerks. If only because our initial reaction to our mother is to reduce her to a pair of breasts. Humans are not noble creatures born pure and tainted by a harsh reality. We're silly geese. Sure, the things we encounter in reality push us along and modify our desires, but we start as beings with self-interested desire.
To think the human condition would change if FOX just modified its prime time lineup is a bit silly.
The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
Well, pick the chicken or the egg.
Persons create a big-tittied weak-willed woman character because a big-tittied weak-willed woman is their desire.
Persons desire a big-tittied weak-willed woman because that is the character presented to them as an ideal.
Seems to me that the desire happened before the representation of the desire in media.
Unless you think that when the first half-monkey half-fish/frog climbed out of the water on primordial Earth there was a Tank Girl comic laying on the shore.
You seem intent on providing a false dichotomy rather than answering the question. The ideal woman varies across culture and time. A person's culture and media they're exposed to clearly has an influence on what they later desire. Claiming otherwise would be incredibly mistaken.
The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
Yeah, that seems like a huge generalization to me. I think people want lots of different things in a partner, and there are tons of different wish fulfillment media fantasies to accommodate your particular daydreams.
_J_, you're saying the problem here is that we willingly supplant reality with fantasy, correct? I'm on board to some extent, but as somebody else has already said, it's a lot easier to do this subconsciously when the fantasy closely resembles reality. Mass Effect didn't really change my worldview or make me posture as a badass, but ask someone what their type is and many times the answer will be phrased as a character from a particular movie, maybe with a few modifications.
Well, yeah. Because referencing a known fictional character is easier than offering an exact description.
This conversation always has the weird undertone of an Original Sin argument. That Tom was born a pure, loving, feminist who desired naught but equality for all persons. But then he stumbled upon a Playboy, and it all went to shit.
I'm pretty sure we're all born as sexist, self-interested jerks. If only because our initial reaction to our mother is to reduce her to a pair of breasts. Humans are not noble creatures born pure and tainted by a harsh reality. We're silly geese. Sure, the things we encounter in reality push us along and modify our desires, but we start as beings with self-interested desire.
To think the human condition would change if FOX just modified its prime time lineup is a bit silly.
This conversation always has the weird undertone of an Original Sin argument. That Tom was born a pure, loving, feminist who desired naught but equality for all persons. But then he stumbled upon a Playboy, and it all went to shit.
In 1946, female comic book readers outnumbered males. But by the mid-‘50s, comic book sales had declined greatly. Comics came under attack by psychologist Frederick Wertham in his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, in which he claimed that comics led to juvenile delinquency. He based his conclusions on interviews with teenagers in reform school that showed all of them read comics, so his findings were far from accurate.
However flawed the logic, many parents stopped buying comics for their kids, and the medium rapidly become non-profitable for publishers. Teen and romance comics died out by the early ‘60s, and superhero stories were the only genre to survive the rocky period. Today, the mainstream comic book industry is almost entirely made up of superhero stories, mostly written by men. "Superheroes really tend to attract boys," Robbins said. "The number of girls who read superheroes is extremely minimal."
The male oriented superhero genre of comics was the only one to survive the comics book crash in the mid 20th century. That turns into the male dominated comic books industry of today as the male comic book fans of the 50-60s become the new members of the industry.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
Yeah, that seems like a huge generalization to me. I think people want lots of different things in a partner, and there are tons of different wish fulfillment media fantasies to accommodate your particular daydreams.
_J_, you're saying the problem here is that we willingly supplant reality with fantasy, correct? I'm on board to some extent, but as somebody else has already said, it's a lot easier to do this subconsciously when the fantasy closely resembles reality. Mass Effect didn't really change my worldview or make me posture as a badass, but ask someone what their type is and many times the answer will be phrased as a character from a particular movie, maybe with a few modifications.
Well, yeah. Because referencing a known fictional character is easier than offering an exact description.
This conversation always has the weird undertone of an Original Sin argument. That Tom was born a pure, loving, feminist who desired naught but equality for all persons. But then he stumbled upon a Playboy, and it all went to shit.
I'm pretty sure we're all born as sexist, self-interested jerks. If only because our initial reaction to our mother is to reduce her to a pair of breasts. Humans are not noble creatures born pure and tainted by a harsh reality. We're silly geese. Sure, the things we encounter in reality push us along and modify our desires, but we start as beings with self-interested desire.
To think the human condition would change if FOX just modified its prime time lineup is a bit silly.
the core of your critique - that sexual desire isn't necessarily inclusive or aligned with progressive social goals or whatever - maybe has some merit, but you're willfully ignoring the fact that what we desire and what we expect is hugely culturally dependent and malleable.
i don't think it's controversial to say that porn or romcoms or mpdg characters make particularly poor models for healthy relationships
the core of your critique - that sexual desire isn't necessarily inclusive or aligned with progressive social goals or whatever - maybe has some merit, but you're willfully ignoring the fact that what we desire and what we expect is hugely culturally dependent and malleable.
i don't think it's controversial to say that porn or romcoms or mpdg characters make particularly poor models for healthy relationships
Yes. Different people at different times think different things desireable. The ideal of female beauty in one part of the world may not be the same in another part of the world. And, yes, the presentation of relationships one finds in a romcom, or porn, or MPDG may not be the sort of relationship particular people think ideal. Different groups of people represent the ideal of beauty differently. Sure.
on the other hand, if you look at the female form in historical art contexts, what was considered maximally desirable was extremely variable over different cultures and different time periods.
Right. The ideal family in the 1950s is not what some people, today, would consider the ideal family. The ideal woman of Ancient Greece is likely not what people today would consider the ideal. One's notion of the beautiful, or the ideal, can change.
I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is that we as a culture are addicted to these cheesecake tropes in our media. I think too many of us get our social interaction cues from watching TV and get frustrated when it doesn't translate into real life, in particular when we have expectations for the people whom we have a romantic attraction to which are completely unrealistic or demeaning. It'd be nice if more writers fleshed out characters instead of putting cardboard cutouts of personalities on the screen or page just to appeal to our love of cheesecake.
What counts as "cheesecake", as "glamour photography" will differ within particular areas, to different people. What counts as "unrealistic" or "demeaning" changes, too.
Of course a trope, motif, or cliché is not harmful "in and of itself". The harm occurs when an individual attempts to supplant reality with an incongruous fantasy articulated by a fictional literary rhetorical device. That act of privileging fantasy over reality is not limited to tropes, character types, etc. Even a non-typical character (maybe Pam from Archer?) can serve as an ideal for an individual, and that individual can cause harm by trying to make reality conform to her ideal. But even that is a more specific version of the general problem that occurs when individuals confuse their imagined ideal for reality.
Fantasy > Trope > Sexist Trope
Everything on that hierarchy can be harmful if used improperly.
When I said, at the end of that post, "the desire for big-tittied idealized women", I did not mean that particular ideal was the one true ideal of women. I meant "Our culture thinks X is beautiful, and X is not what we have" is not going to change. The desire to supplant reality with an ideal is not going to change.
Our ideal may change from Pamela Anderson in Baywatch* to
But it will always be that incongruous ideal.
Is it the case that "we as a culture are addicted to these cheesecake tropes in our media"? Sure. But that's what the majority of human beings do. The definition of cheesecake may change, the particular aesthetic qualities of our idealized male or female may change, but we're always going to pursue an ideal that differs from what we have.
Different folks think different aesthetic qualities beautiful.
Different folks think different social roles demeaning.
Different folks think different societal goals as desirable.
If we rid the world of Manic Pixie Dream Girls, then we'll just find a new unrealistic ideal to replace it.
And then we'll find fault with that.
And then we'll find fault with the one we replace the one we replaced that one with.
There will always be sexist tropes. Because that's what we do.
The half-monkey half-frog/fish did not find sexism on the shore of the beach of primordial earth.
It brought sexism with it.
*Posting an image would have been more rhetorically powerful, but I thought that might skirt a bit too close to NSFW. So, imagine a picture of Pamela Anderson in her Baywatch outfit there, instead of the words.
Or maybe we'll figure out better ideals. If you look at what we find attractive these days, they're a lot better than what we had in the past. They may not be perfect, but we're progressing.
Your viewpoint is incredibly cynical, and I don't see how it actually works with human nature or societal improvement.
The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
I think that is the lowest common denominator, sadly. The prevalence of magazines like Maxim and shows like TMZ prove that there is a voracious appetite among certain segments of the population for sexual objectification, and those to seek that kind of entertainment don't appreciate nuance and complexity breaking up their preconceived expectations of gender/sexual norms.
A big-tittied weak-willed love interest checks a lot of boxes on the list for those types:
- sexual objectification of the feminine
- Reinforce expected gender power dynamic
- Assuage the male ego by reinforcing notions of its superiority
- Assert women's role as rewards for displays of masculinity
It's a mindset that says, "I'm a man, I'm awesome, and I shouldn't have do anything to prove it, because I'm a man, and being awesome is my natural state, so bring me some titties, I've earned it."
And it's easy to see why that kind of mindset would click with someone.
J, your essay seems to boil down to "Eh, this shit is hard and I really can't be bothered to try". Our so called 'frog/fish' selves brought rape,murder,cannibalism and a whole lot more stuff along with it too but that doesn't mean we don't try jolly hard to cut that crap out. Of course these things can and do change.
Or maybe we'll figure out better ideals. If you look at what we find attractive these days, they're a lot better than what we had in the past. They may not be perfect, but we're progressing.
Your viewpoint is incredibly cynical, and I don't see how it actually works with human nature or societal improvement.
I don't know by what rubric you'd call our current fashion trends better rather than different. Sophistication, health, individual expression, variety, form, function - by all objective metrics, we're about at the same place as we ever were for the majority of civilization.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
So a question on the MPDG trope, namely from "Yes Man". (Since it was mentioned in the OP, and I've actually seen it)
Last page mentioned that the character only exists to enable the man to change, and that the character isn't fleshed out.
I see that as to do with the the fact that the story is told from Jim's perspective, so we only see him interact with the world/change. But everything they do is based on the girl's interest though? She seemed to have a life outside of the guy, which we can infer from her actions, and his changes were brought upon by him trying to be part of it.
So a question on the MPDG trope, namely from "Yes Man". (Since it was mentioned in the OP, and I've actually seen it)
Last page mentioned that the character only exists to enable the man to change, and that the character isn't fleshed out.
I see that as to do with the the fact that the story is told from Jim's perspective, so we only see him interact with the world/change. But everything they do is based on the girl's interest though? She seemed to have a life outside of the guy, which we can infer from her actions, and his changes were brought upon by him trying to be part of it.
Or am I missing something more subtle?
If I remember right, he changed his life not just to impress her but because his reluctant vow to say Yes to everything was having positive impact on his life. She was one of his many rewards for becoming more outgoing. I mean, Jim Carrey's character's job was a loan manager at a bank. If MPDG had a life outside of her encounters with Jim Carrey, does anyone remember what she did for a living? A better example of a fleshed out Manic Pixie whatever whose purpose is to get the main character off the couch and out of their funk is Brad Pitt's character in Fight Club. Tyler Durden's unseen life is slowly revealed but we know by the end he sells soap, he arranges fights, he bombs buildings, he steals driver's licenses as trophies, etc. He does things on his own time that Edward Norton doesn't know about.
Well, Allison from Yes Man is a MPDG, but Zooey Deschanel seems to consistently do the trope differently than other actresses.
A straight-ahead MPDG pulls the protagonist along for the ride kicking and screaming. Jim Carrey's manic behavior is mostly self-inflicted as he's convinced himself that he's under a magic curse of some kind that improves his life. Allison is a part of that, though, in a twisted way. She's not the instigator of the manic pixie behavior and getting Carrey out of his shell, but she is the means by which he improves his life.
Much as I hate to admit it, Leeloo from The Fifth Element is another classic MPDG. Bruce Willis's life is going down the shitter until she falls almost literally in his lap.
When I said, at the end of that post, "the desire for big-tittied idealized women", I did not mean that particular ideal was the one true ideal of women. I meant "Our culture thinks X is beautiful, and X is not what we have" is not going to change. The desire to supplant reality with an ideal is not going to change.
Actually you said "big titted weak willed women", and I want to draw attention to that because it's what I take issue with, putting aside the big tits thing for a minute as just a physically attractive secondary sexual characteristic, why would a culture have an ideal of "weak willed" women in particular?
The half-monkey half-frog/fish did not find sexism on the shore of the beach of primordial earth.
It brought sexism with it.
It's debatable that sexism doesent really enter into our history until the development of private property.
The prevalence of magazines like Maxim and shows like TMZ prove that there is a voracious appetite among certain segments of the population for sexual objectification, and those to seek that kind of entertainment don't appreciate nuance and complexity breaking up their preconceived expectations of gender/sexual norms.
We always talk about sexual objectification as if only men ever perpetrate it, but I've been on enough Tumblr blogs run by women to know that they aren't all above posting photos of scantily-clad and nude dudes. If more women were prominent media creators we'd probably see more sexual objectification of men, and (speaking as a straight man) I'm not convinced that would be a bad thing.
People sometimes sexually objectify people, yeah. It's only an issue in sexism because of the numbers and the degree, which leads to it having a heavy effect on peoples' lives.
Part of the absurdity of sexism is that there is no inherent reason for one sex/gender to be treated differently than another, but in our current situation men and women get very different doses of behavior aimed toward them throughout their lives.
If any given human being had like a 1/100 chance of getting cat-called in their life, there's a good chance people just wouldn't care. But my Facebook pings women posting "got hooted at by some guy again" like a Geiger counter near Chernobyl.*
*Slight exaggeration.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
How do you think the name "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" makes bipolar fairies feel about their identity being used to name a narrative convention?
I think that one thing which often gets lost here is that the media we watch doesn't exist in a vacuum. Any given show is part of a larger strategy, and you don't necessarily have to watch the show to be part of the strategy.
For example, let's say that TV Incorporated produces a show about a woman in tight clothing who goes around fighting monsters and looking sexy. Quality really isn't important in this case, so the show could be Buffy or it could be Stripperella. The show builds an audience of mostly teenage men, plus some teenage women depending on how many tortured werewolves appear in the title sequence. This is Act 1.
Next comes Act 2, and this is where the show starts to please other demos, not by appealing, but by creating other programming that they're interested in. The Daily View is a news/opinion magazine owned by TV incorporated's parent company, with a demographic of 40 year old soccer moms. It starts to run articles talking about how the sexy monster represents a threat to children across the nation. TV Incorporated's blog sites aimed at female college-aged professionals posts a series of popular stories about how the show represents just one more set of impossible standards for women, with a new article on each episode. A controversy flares up among talk shows when the show features a Muslim guest star who saves the world with his giant bomb hat. Each time it comes up, TV Incorporated gets paid twice, once for the political stories discussing the 'controversy', and again for the talk shows making fun of the real news for talking about a silly monster show.
Then you get to the final act. The 'controversy' is hitting a boiling point and TV Inc has now has created a problem (insensitivity and sexism/racism) that only it can solve. That's why next year's lineup features an entirely new show, with a 'realistic' cast, including practically clothed female supporting cast who are tough and in charge and don't need no man. TV Inc is celebrated on some of its shows for having learned its lesson, and hated on others for not making the show have a female protagonist. They make money from both the love and the hate, and all the viewers get to choose whether they'll use the show as a way to define what they are, or who they're better than. The network gets paid either way.
Bad publicity isn't good for your show - unless all of the media in the world is owned by a few companies. Then bad publicity is fine, because the people who own the show also own the bad publicity, and they don't actually suffer any negative impacts. A show might be hated, it might lose money, but if it's hated enough or hated by the right people to give other shows enough quality content and keep people watching, it's worth it.
All media works like this, even when it doesn't mean too. Only one game developer has to make Dragon's Crown for every other developer to score free press by talking about how they're not making Dragon's Crown, and about how their women have real armor and their artists would never be caught dead depicting women that way. Then eventually the game industry will 'learn its lesson' and EA or whoever will Estrogen's Creed as a big series, to grand applause/bile. Meanwhile, the hatred forms its own subcultures and builds its own set of reductionistic tropes, which is why "Nice Guy In A Fedora"™ is now in vogue while MPDG is on its way out. Eventually people start to realize that the new tropes are similarly shallow and narcissistic, and the cycle will begin anew.
Where I'm going with this is that to understand media, you have to make a distinction between what people 'want' and what they like. Someone might 'want' a piece of media to exist because it fulfills a part of their identity ("See? The men/women/muslims/conservatives/rabbits really ARE taking over"), without actually liking or watching the media. You have to look at the whole picture to see what a show is really doing, and what place it holds in society.
I have no idea if men in general want weak-willed big-titted women. I know that a whole lot of people want to feel proud that they're better than some hypothetical sexist frat jerk who likes weak-willed big-titted women. I suspect that's just as much of a driving force behind why we see so much of this stuff, and why we'll likely continue to see a fair amount of it.
It's not so much a matter of personal preferences being a problem. There's nothing wrong with finding certain traits attractive or unattractive. If you're attracted to people with a certain body type and not attracted to people with another body type, that's fine. The problem is when people expect others to meet their personal preferences and demonize qualities that are different from their personal preferences.
That tends to be what most media does. They're not just saying, "these qualities in women are awesome." They often go a step further and create a contrast against the quality that they promote. A common marketing strategy is to make fun of women who behave or look "masculine" in order to promote products that help women be more "feminine," and vice versa with making fun of men who behave or look "feminine" in order to promote products that help men be more "masculine." So the message they end up sending is, "these are the qualities that you should find attractive and people who do not possess these qualities are unattractive."
Posts
Sigh.
I feel bad for the Wonder Woman on the right. Her back must be killing her.
It's not as bad as Tifa from FFVII but it's getting there.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
anyway to bring it back to that link I posted, WW's motivation in the new books has a lot to do with family members, and doing the right thing, and saving other people. there is a developing romantic thing going on but it's not the main focus nor is her motivation avenging a hurt lover or something like that. and there's the overarching structure of greek gods and greek mythology which is cool and another reason I like them. I am wondering how her character will work out in the new movie, I wish they would have just gone with these books for her own solo plot.
I think it starts with the former and then that sorts of starts a chain reaction. That's kind of how it happened with science fiction. Representation improving in sci-fi drew in more people. Then those people started writing their own stuff. A lot of it was fanfic, but there were others who got into the business.
I think it starts with the latter, just extrapolating from the entry of women into sports. Even laws and regulations encouraging female participation in professional sports started with a few unique people looking to expand their niche without a bunch of help.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Of course a trope, motif, or cliché is not harmful "in and of itself". The harm occurs when an individual attempts to supplant reality with an incongruous fantasy articulated by a fictional literary rhetorical device. That act of privileging fantasy over reality is not limited to tropes, character types, etc. Even a non-typical character (maybe Pam from Archer?) can serve as an ideal for an individual, and that individual can cause harm by trying to make reality conform to her ideal. But even that is a more specific version of the general problem that occurs when individuals confuse their imagined ideal for reality.
Fantasy > Trope > Sexist Trope
Everything on that hierarchy can be harmful if used improperly.
What strikes me as odd, in these conversations, is the degree to which people think we could do without those fictional ideals. To put it simply, not every character can be Rust Cohle, who strikes me as one of the most *unique* characters in recent memory, even though he's a mix of Neo, Nietzsche, and some alcoholic character whose name also starts with an N, for alliterative effect. Human beings have been telling stories for quite some time, and we all draw from the same* reality pool. Being unique, constructing unique characters, is difficult.
Could we do a better job of telling stories that involve realistic characters who do not serve as some form of wish fulfillment? Sure. But who the fuck would watch that? Fantasy is where we go to escape reality, to have some interaction with our imagined ideals.
The problem is not the story or the trope or the character. The problem is that most men want a big-tittied weak-willed woman as their love object. We want skinny magical pixy girls. We want strong, super-human amazonians who get tied up and captured. The desire that motivates us to construct these characters is the real problem.
And it seems to me that the desire for big-tittied idealized women is not going anywhere soon.
*assuming that 'reality' is not what occurs in an individual's mind as some mixing of external noumenon and interpretative phenomena.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you know this is true, or is this what you assume is true?
i think the concern is that people will want what media sources depict as desirable. that media depictions of "attractive women" are not purely reactive to consumer tastes, but increasingly prescriptive of consumer tastes.
and it's probably true!
Well they have to be if they want to stay ahead of the game. The best way to secure a place in the market is not to give the people what they want, but to make them want something that you have and they can't get anywhere else.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Well, pick the chicken or the egg.
Seems to me that the desire happened before the representation of the desire in media.
Unless you think that when the first half-monkey half-fish/frog climbed out of the water on primordial Earth there was a Tank Girl comic laying on the shore.
Yeah, that seems like a huge generalization to me. I think people want lots of different things in a partner, and there are tons of different wish fulfillment media fantasies to accommodate your particular daydreams.
_J_, you're saying the problem here is that we willingly supplant reality with fantasy, correct? I'm on board to some extent, but as somebody else has already said, it's a lot easier to do this subconsciously when the fantasy closely resembles reality. Mass Effect didn't really change my worldview or make me posture as a badass, but ask someone what their type is and many times the answer will be phrased as a character from a particular movie, maybe with a few modifications.
Heck, go all the way back to Pavlov. In one of his later experiments, he presented an electric shock before giving the dog food and he was able to turn the electric shock into a conditioned stimulus for salivation. After that, the dog became excited by the electric shock and "looked forward" to it. Those basic principles of conditioning work for attraction and sexual arousal as well.
Yeah that's an insulting over-generalization.
I prefer small breasts.
on the other hand, if you look at the female form in historical art contexts, what was considered maximally desirable was extremely variable over different cultures and different time periods.
I mean, something tells me that Americans aren't inherently more beautiful than Koreans but I think Hollywood may have presented a... limited variety of star to the rest of the world.
It may help to think of this not as chicken or egg, but the very gradual feedback loop that resulted in us having both. Media is not merely an input or an output, as mentioned above; if we don't actively pay attention, it's probably an op-amp.
Well, yeah. Because referencing a known fictional character is easier than offering an exact description.
This conversation always has the weird undertone of an Original Sin argument. That Tom was born a pure, loving, feminist who desired naught but equality for all persons. But then he stumbled upon a Playboy, and it all went to shit.
I'm pretty sure we're all born as sexist, self-interested jerks. If only because our initial reaction to our mother is to reduce her to a pair of breasts. Humans are not noble creatures born pure and tainted by a harsh reality. We're silly geese. Sure, the things we encounter in reality push us along and modify our desires, but we start as beings with self-interested desire.
To think the human condition would change if FOX just modified its prime time lineup is a bit silly.
You seem intent on providing a false dichotomy rather than answering the question. The ideal woman varies across culture and time. A person's culture and media they're exposed to clearly has an influence on what they later desire. Claiming otherwise would be incredibly mistaken.
This is kind of reductive.
Who said anything like this at all?
http://www.gadflyonline.com/8-13-01/ftr-girls-allowed.html
The male oriented superhero genre of comics was the only one to survive the comics book crash in the mid 20th century. That turns into the male dominated comic books industry of today as the male comic book fans of the 50-60s become the new members of the industry.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
the core of your critique - that sexual desire isn't necessarily inclusive or aligned with progressive social goals or whatever - maybe has some merit, but you're willfully ignoring the fact that what we desire and what we expect is hugely culturally dependent and malleable.
i don't think it's controversial to say that porn or romcoms or mpdg characters make particularly poor models for healthy relationships
Yes. Different people at different times think different things desireable. The ideal of female beauty in one part of the world may not be the same in another part of the world. And, yes, the presentation of relationships one finds in a romcom, or porn, or MPDG may not be the sort of relationship particular people think ideal. Different groups of people represent the ideal of beauty differently. Sure.
On the other hand
Right. The ideal family in the 1950s is not what some people, today, would consider the ideal family. The ideal woman of Ancient Greece is likely not what people today would consider the ideal. One's notion of the beautiful, or the ideal, can change.
Now apply that to the criticism in the OP.
What counts as "cheesecake", as "glamour photography" will differ within particular areas, to different people. What counts as "unrealistic" or "demeaning" changes, too.
Which is why I said
When I said, at the end of that post, "the desire for big-tittied idealized women", I did not mean that particular ideal was the one true ideal of women. I meant "Our culture thinks X is beautiful, and X is not what we have" is not going to change. The desire to supplant reality with an ideal is not going to change.
Our ideal may change from Pamela Anderson in Baywatch* to
But it will always be that incongruous ideal.
Is it the case that "we as a culture are addicted to these cheesecake tropes in our media"? Sure. But that's what the majority of human beings do. The definition of cheesecake may change, the particular aesthetic qualities of our idealized male or female may change, but we're always going to pursue an ideal that differs from what we have.
Different folks think different aesthetic qualities beautiful.
Different folks think different social roles demeaning.
Different folks think different societal goals as desirable.
If we rid the world of Manic Pixie Dream Girls, then we'll just find a new unrealistic ideal to replace it.
And then we'll find fault with that.
And then we'll find fault with the one we replace the one we replaced that one with.
There will always be sexist tropes. Because that's what we do.
The half-monkey half-frog/fish did not find sexism on the shore of the beach of primordial earth.
It brought sexism with it.
*Posting an image would have been more rhetorically powerful, but I thought that might skirt a bit too close to NSFW. So, imagine a picture of Pamela Anderson in her Baywatch outfit there, instead of the words.
Your viewpoint is incredibly cynical, and I don't see how it actually works with human nature or societal improvement.
I think that is the lowest common denominator, sadly. The prevalence of magazines like Maxim and shows like TMZ prove that there is a voracious appetite among certain segments of the population for sexual objectification, and those to seek that kind of entertainment don't appreciate nuance and complexity breaking up their preconceived expectations of gender/sexual norms.
A big-tittied weak-willed love interest checks a lot of boxes on the list for those types:
- sexual objectification of the feminine
- Reinforce expected gender power dynamic
- Assuage the male ego by reinforcing notions of its superiority
- Assert women's role as rewards for displays of masculinity
It's a mindset that says, "I'm a man, I'm awesome, and I shouldn't have do anything to prove it, because I'm a man, and being awesome is my natural state, so bring me some titties, I've earned it."
And it's easy to see why that kind of mindset would click with someone.
And terrifying, too.
I don't know by what rubric you'd call our current fashion trends better rather than different. Sophistication, health, individual expression, variety, form, function - by all objective metrics, we're about at the same place as we ever were for the majority of civilization.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Last page mentioned that the character only exists to enable the man to change, and that the character isn't fleshed out.
I see that as to do with the the fact that the story is told from Jim's perspective, so we only see him interact with the world/change. But everything they do is based on the girl's interest though? She seemed to have a life outside of the guy, which we can infer from her actions, and his changes were brought upon by him trying to be part of it.
Or am I missing something more subtle?
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
If I remember right, he changed his life not just to impress her but because his reluctant vow to say Yes to everything was having positive impact on his life. She was one of his many rewards for becoming more outgoing. I mean, Jim Carrey's character's job was a loan manager at a bank. If MPDG had a life outside of her encounters with Jim Carrey, does anyone remember what she did for a living? A better example of a fleshed out Manic Pixie whatever whose purpose is to get the main character off the couch and out of their funk is Brad Pitt's character in Fight Club. Tyler Durden's unseen life is slowly revealed but we know by the end he sells soap, he arranges fights, he bombs buildings, he steals driver's licenses as trophies, etc. He does things on his own time that Edward Norton doesn't know about.
A straight-ahead MPDG pulls the protagonist along for the ride kicking and screaming. Jim Carrey's manic behavior is mostly self-inflicted as he's convinced himself that he's under a magic curse of some kind that improves his life. Allison is a part of that, though, in a twisted way. She's not the instigator of the manic pixie behavior and getting Carrey out of his shell, but she is the means by which he improves his life.
I've posted this artist's work a lot but only because I think it's great
like dis wonder woman
Actually you said "big titted weak willed women", and I want to draw attention to that because it's what I take issue with, putting aside the big tits thing for a minute as just a physically attractive secondary sexual characteristic, why would a culture have an ideal of "weak willed" women in particular?
It's debatable that sexism doesent really enter into our history until the development of private property.
Source?
We always talk about sexual objectification as if only men ever perpetrate it, but I've been on enough Tumblr blogs run by women to know that they aren't all above posting photos of scantily-clad and nude dudes. If more women were prominent media creators we'd probably see more sexual objectification of men, and (speaking as a straight man) I'm not convinced that would be a bad thing.
Part of the absurdity of sexism is that there is no inherent reason for one sex/gender to be treated differently than another, but in our current situation men and women get very different doses of behavior aimed toward them throughout their lives.
If any given human being had like a 1/100 chance of getting cat-called in their life, there's a good chance people just wouldn't care. But my Facebook pings women posting "got hooted at by some guy again" like a Geiger counter near Chernobyl.*
*Slight exaggeration.
For example, let's say that TV Incorporated produces a show about a woman in tight clothing who goes around fighting monsters and looking sexy. Quality really isn't important in this case, so the show could be Buffy or it could be Stripperella. The show builds an audience of mostly teenage men, plus some teenage women depending on how many tortured werewolves appear in the title sequence. This is Act 1.
Next comes Act 2, and this is where the show starts to please other demos, not by appealing, but by creating other programming that they're interested in. The Daily View is a news/opinion magazine owned by TV incorporated's parent company, with a demographic of 40 year old soccer moms. It starts to run articles talking about how the sexy monster represents a threat to children across the nation. TV Incorporated's blog sites aimed at female college-aged professionals posts a series of popular stories about how the show represents just one more set of impossible standards for women, with a new article on each episode. A controversy flares up among talk shows when the show features a Muslim guest star who saves the world with his giant bomb hat. Each time it comes up, TV Incorporated gets paid twice, once for the political stories discussing the 'controversy', and again for the talk shows making fun of the real news for talking about a silly monster show.
Then you get to the final act. The 'controversy' is hitting a boiling point and TV Inc has now has created a problem (insensitivity and sexism/racism) that only it can solve. That's why next year's lineup features an entirely new show, with a 'realistic' cast, including practically clothed female supporting cast who are tough and in charge and don't need no man. TV Inc is celebrated on some of its shows for having learned its lesson, and hated on others for not making the show have a female protagonist. They make money from both the love and the hate, and all the viewers get to choose whether they'll use the show as a way to define what they are, or who they're better than. The network gets paid either way.
Bad publicity isn't good for your show - unless all of the media in the world is owned by a few companies. Then bad publicity is fine, because the people who own the show also own the bad publicity, and they don't actually suffer any negative impacts. A show might be hated, it might lose money, but if it's hated enough or hated by the right people to give other shows enough quality content and keep people watching, it's worth it.
All media works like this, even when it doesn't mean too. Only one game developer has to make Dragon's Crown for every other developer to score free press by talking about how they're not making Dragon's Crown, and about how their women have real armor and their artists would never be caught dead depicting women that way. Then eventually the game industry will 'learn its lesson' and EA or whoever will Estrogen's Creed as a big series, to grand applause/bile. Meanwhile, the hatred forms its own subcultures and builds its own set of reductionistic tropes, which is why "Nice Guy In A Fedora"™ is now in vogue while MPDG is on its way out. Eventually people start to realize that the new tropes are similarly shallow and narcissistic, and the cycle will begin anew.
Where I'm going with this is that to understand media, you have to make a distinction between what people 'want' and what they like. Someone might 'want' a piece of media to exist because it fulfills a part of their identity ("See? The men/women/muslims/conservatives/rabbits really ARE taking over"), without actually liking or watching the media. You have to look at the whole picture to see what a show is really doing, and what place it holds in society.
I have no idea if men in general want weak-willed big-titted women. I know that a whole lot of people want to feel proud that they're better than some hypothetical sexist frat jerk who likes weak-willed big-titted women. I suspect that's just as much of a driving force behind why we see so much of this stuff, and why we'll likely continue to see a fair amount of it.
That tends to be what most media does. They're not just saying, "these qualities in women are awesome." They often go a step further and create a contrast against the quality that they promote. A common marketing strategy is to make fun of women who behave or look "masculine" in order to promote products that help women be more "feminine," and vice versa with making fun of men who behave or look "feminine" in order to promote products that help men be more "masculine." So the message they end up sending is, "these are the qualities that you should find attractive and people who do not possess these qualities are unattractive."