the thing is, OP is not arguing that popular things shouldnt be critizedColour Scientist said:
hes arguing, how can something that apparently offends its target audience be so popular?
An observation on tropes against the Female gender
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hes arguing, how can something that apparently offends its target audience be so popular?
Because a lot of girls don't see Edward's behavior as abusive and stalkerish. And that scares the shit out of me.NuclearKangaroo said:
I'm sorry, but if a woman thinks that Edward Cullen being an abusive stalker asshole is hot, then she is ignorant to the ways of the world. The "It's their opinion" defense only goes so far. For example, (You're gonna hate me for using such an extreme example but I'm sticking by my guns) a Muslim man not feeling any guilt for murdering his daughter after she was raped. WHICH HAPPENS! A LOT!NuclearKangaroo said:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/meimei-fox/the-horror-of-honor-killi_b_5826286.html
I don't care if that's the way he thinks, the way he thinks is WRONG!
There are women in the world that think when they get raped it was THEIR fault. Is that just the way they think?
dude:erttheking said:
a) you are talking about freakin' murder
b) twilight is fiction, fantasy, a complete fabrication, why shouldnt people indulge in their fantasies?
My point still stands. There are plenty of people who consider unhealthy habits to be perfectly normal, and I'm not about to tip toe around it just because it's the way they think.NuclearKangaroo said:
Because something fiction is not an excuse to paint something bad as something good. To pull out a random example, a Cuban friend of mine had the displeasure of reading a horribly written fanficiton, that ended with a full on government take over. Without the consent or knowledge of the people. By an outside source. Presented as a GOOD thing. He went ballistic because it was romanticizing the same shit his parents had to flee their home country to get away from. It shows what people to find acceptable, and it scares the shit out of me that Stephine Meyer is saying "Being abused it ok if the person doing it to you is really hot". I'm not advocating for censorship, but if you think that Twilight isn't promoting unhealthy ideas, then you are wrong.
if it doesnt offend you why do you complain about it?TheKasp said:
be better? i dont think girls who watch twilight care at all
you kill people/mosnters/something in like 90% of video games, and movies also often involve killings and/or violenceerttheking said:
and yet you dont see people going on a killing spree over that, if virtual killings arent unhealthy, virtual sexism, must be the same
Bella is boring. She's a bad character; she's a girl next door, except that's all she is. She's like Betty Cooper, minus the nice girl-ness, cuteness and coming from one the most legacy-tastic franchises ever.
And you know what? It's completely intentional. She's an author avatar, a self-insert for the reader, and a blank slate. The whole series is gushing about how handsome, perfect, and unflawed Edward is. And how Jacob's nice too. And how they're so perfect. It's wish fulfillment; it's masturbation material, it's shallow, and it's stupid.
And that's fine. Because that's all Twilight is. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't like Twilight, but not my cup of tea =/= absolute garbage. Good for all of those 13 year old girls who worship a fictional character whose actor shames himself everyday for playing.
As for the whole "obsessive stalker" thing, it's a sexual fantasy[footnote]It's why people find bad boys, vampires, stalkers, supervillians, total badasses, and so many other things, sexy. What's wrong with a little shameless indulgence?[/footnote]. Merely a fantasy, and any sane person would never try to act it out without being prepared for it and know what they're doing, or taking beyond a fantasy instead of just roleplay. Or else stuff like this happens [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes].
You read it. You can't unread it. You now have to live your entire life knowing that happened.
You really can't use Bella as a character, because she is not a character. She is minus a character, an idea not built upon. She is not meant to speak of either women or people; the book has no ambitions or statements, because it's the epitome of wish fulfillment and female-oriented fanservice.
And you know what? It's completely intentional. She's an author avatar, a self-insert for the reader, and a blank slate. The whole series is gushing about how handsome, perfect, and unflawed Edward is. And how Jacob's nice too. And how they're so perfect. It's wish fulfillment; it's masturbation material, it's shallow, and it's stupid.
And that's fine. Because that's all Twilight is. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't like Twilight, but not my cup of tea =/= absolute garbage. Good for all of those 13 year old girls who worship a fictional character whose actor shames himself everyday for playing.
As for the whole "obsessive stalker" thing, it's a sexual fantasy[footnote]It's why people find bad boys, vampires, stalkers, supervillians, total badasses, and so many other things, sexy. What's wrong with a little shameless indulgence?[/footnote]. Merely a fantasy, and any sane person would never try to act it out without being prepared for it and know what they're doing, or taking beyond a fantasy instead of just roleplay. Or else stuff like this happens [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes].
You read it. You can't unread it. You now have to live your entire life knowing that happened.
You really can't use Bella as a character, because she is not a character. She is minus a character, an idea not built upon. She is not meant to speak of either women or people; the book has no ambitions or statements, because it's the epitome of wish fulfillment and female-oriented fanservice.
And most of the time they have the people being killed be murderous assholes (Thus their killings are justified), or they have the person doing the killing BE a murderous asshole (Thus they're not like us and we shouldn't aspire to be like them). You will never see a game where a person runs down the street, gunning people down, and have him being portrayed as an un-ironic good guy that we should aspire to be like. That's the difference between the two, the way the narrative frames it. Meanwhile, Twilight, Edward's behavior is portrayed as completely normal and healthy, so unless you already knew to keep an eye out for it, you might think it really is normal and healthy. The most effective kind of propaganda is the most effective one. (Also, does all propaganda ever not work?)NuclearKangaroo said:
Pretty sure you just pulled a logical fallacy there mate. It's called false equivalence. Different situations, different circumstances, different outcomes.
It's because sexism isn't just a man committing an act of discrimination against a woman. Sexism, as feminists have been pointing out for a while now, is very much like many other forms of discrimination, such as racism, in that it normally comes down to various stereotypes and viewpoints present within a culture. The problem here is that it doesn't simply limit sexism to being a discriminatory act that a man commits against a woman. Sure, it is easier to see when that happens, but for the most part, sexism is something that is so built into a culture that anyone is at risk of accepting and internalizing it.deadish said:
This is why things like Twilight still can come under harsh feminist critique regardless of the gender of the author and the target demographic. Just because the author happens to be a woman and the main audience happens to be female doesn't mean it can't be sexist. It means that it is a sign of how men aren't the only ones who can accept sexist viewpoints.
This is part of the reason why we need feminist critiques of art, such as what Anita Sarkeesian is doing. Just because it happens to be a woman making the work rather than a man doesn't mean it won't have problems with sexism, as can be seen by things like Twilight. By pointing out the ways in which these stereotypes work their way into works of art, though, we can actually have a discussion that can help everyone, both male and female, question their viewpoints and avoid letting these stereotypes influence their work.
Because you can complain about things for other reasons than being personally offended by them? I'm not sure why that's hard to grasp? When I say a character or story element sucks, there is usually an element of dislike, but there is no requirement for it, and there is especially no requirement to be offended by it, it can come from a dispassionate standpoint or even one where you like the element being complained about but still see why it doesn't fit with the rest of the work as a whole.NuclearKangaroo said:
As for the second line, I don't think Kasp cares what other girls think is ok or not, it's how he/she wants the book to be better, other girls not caring is irrelevant to the point. I don't care what other White Male 20-somethings think about CoD when I criticize it, I want what I see as its pervasive and negative influence on the over-abundance of shooters in the AAA industry to be pointed out.
Now, just because I say that, doesn't make my criticism sacrosanct or automatically indisputable and unassailable either, people are free to think and argue against my points, just as they are free to argue against criticisms in the Twilight series, one does not invalidate or reduce the other.
That's where difference of opinion comes in, and feminist critique of Twilight is hardly uniform, despite what the OP might think, not every feminist sees Bella and Edward as the epitome of anti-feminist characterization. People criticize popular things all the time, and it may not automatically validate their criticism, but a work being popular amongst a female target audience does not somehow invalidate or reduce feminist critique of its elements either. This is where the OP is off with his/her original observation
Which is why the Hunger Games did so poorly.NuclearKangaroo said:
Oh wait, it didn't, and the fact that a franchise aimed at women but containing action managed to be turned into some of the biggest movies in recent history flooded the internet with the delicious tears of dudebros who were somehow impacted by it.
Huh. Strange. It's almost like, if you market the same sort of thing to women, they...Actually like it.
But that can't be it, because it's distinctly against the narrative we've constructed on the internet for rationalising why we shouldn't do just that!
Oh, Transformers is totally different. And the fact that people are outraged at that is also totally different.Vault101 said:
Because ponies.
There are lots of popular things that are terrible. Art being popular doesn't make the criticism of it any less valid.
Then the problem is naivety. Resolve that issue, and there wouldn't be such gripes over stuff like Twilight.erttheking said:
By this argument, the fact that I like yandere characters and listen to yandere cd dramas somehow means that I honestly want to be in a relationship with a mentally unstable person who can likely snap at any moment and kill me or anyone else around me if they perceive something as a threat to our relationship, right? No! Because, I'm not a naive person! Seriously, does fantasy vs reality mean anything to anyone anymore?
This video covers this issue right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVGvJ6SBcs8
Uh...does the work portray the murderous person as a good person? That them being murderous is a good thing? If not, then I'm not talking about that. If so...you read some messed up stories.Rahkshi500 said:
My point is the lack of the"feminist ideal" in video games isn't what's causing its lack of popularity with the female gender.
Bella is one of the worst, nearly the complete opposite of the "feminist ideal", but Twilight is insanely popular among women.
My emphasis on "commercially viable " is because if it isn't ... It's not getting made. Welcome to Capitalism.
Bella is one of the worst, nearly the complete opposite of the "feminist ideal", but Twilight is insanely popular among women.
My emphasis on "commercially viable " is because if it isn't ... It's not getting made. Welcome to Capitalism.