The Big Picture: Pink Is Not The Problem

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'm sorry, did you just suggest that the bad guys in the Hunger Games are coded female and then show Thread getting a good whip in? The Capitol and its citizens aren't the bad guys. They're like innocent, naive children who don't know any better. They can't empathise with the people in the districts because their society pulls them along, much like Germans probably wouldn't individually act like they did as a country in the World Wars. Ironic when your video is partially about society informing our thought patterns without our knowledge.

Spoiler: If you are not up to date with the HGs don't read this.

Although I will give you that Snow is somewhat effeminate and Crane was to a greater degree, and Plutarch and Cinna are about the least lavish and pretentious and turn out to be the actually good guys (although perhaps it says something that Plutarch was a convincing bad guy while he was), the citizens of the Capitol do not come into it.

Last thing about the Hunger Games: What they are trying to depict with the flamboyance and excess of the Capitol (which is what the societal trends embody) is not femininity, it's wealth and obliviousness, in contrast not to masculinity, but to poverty, and the circumstances of their living would go quite a ways to informing how 'hard' or 'soft' people are. The people in the districts don't get to involve themselves in fashion and partying because they have to work, and learn practical skills. Whether those are masculine or not (and they are because males traditionally filled those roles) is neither here nor there, it's a product of their environment.

But concerning the bulk of the video, from a patriarchy-sustaining rape culture participant (or so I've heard) like myself, that was pretty decent. The point is to provide choice so kids can play with whatever they want, not to label products marketed towards girls as detrimental. Although I would suggest that it's probably easier for manufacturers if they only have to do two types of things rather than cater to all possible interests.

Bob, honey, I hope you do realise that the "pink isle", the "gender roles" and all the stuff that comes with it is never going away. Man and women evolved a little bit differently and our brains perceive the world a little bit differently. We like different things for a reason. Male and females have different brain "wiring". The common stereotypes in men and women excelling at different tasks is there for a reason, the differences between gender is a natural difference and not socially constructed. Numerous of the largest scientific brain scan studies has concluded that the developmental trajectories of males and females separate at a young age, demonstrating wide differences during adolescence and adulthood.
It is possible that the reason why male and female brains are "wired differently" could be argued to be the result of environmental and/or socialization differences, and not the result of a inherent biological difference. That, however, still makes all the effort to "smash teh gender roles" fruitless, because it is literally thousands of years of social programming at work and will take at least half as long to break it.

I'm afraid that doesn't help your point at all. I happen to agree that genders like different things for a reason, I think it's biological, but if it is all society shaping our thoughts and feelings from as soon as we can perceive it, you saying "Well it's been happening for so long now it's going to be hard to undo" isn't helping anything. If that's the case we should be starting now, abolishing all the trends that impede our freedom of expression by forcing tendancies upon us at a young age. As I said, I don't think that's the case.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

My problem with that argument you've been making about the Hunger Games, Bob, is that the main villains...are not coded feminine. That President Snow, the military commander, the many white storm troopers, they all looked pretty manly to me.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

MovieBob takes on the gender stereotyping our society dabbles in.

Thank you Bob! Well said.

You not only did a great job of discussing Gender Coding - something I think would benefit most of the Escapist community to know about so that they don't look at those of us who've studied it like we're insane whenever we bring it up as an established cultural thing - but also talked about a number of positive solutions to the issue.

As some Escapists may recall, last year I had a kid. This year, my kid is a toddler. My kid has teeth now, which means my kid needs to brush those teeth.

My kid has two tooth brushes. One has Pinkie Pie on it. The other has Thomas the Tank Engine.

My personal solution to gender coding has been (and shall continue to be) to give my kid an equal measure of both.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Meh, he kind of had me until the whole thing about how the bad guys in "Hunger Games" are "coded female".

The whole point of Hunger Games it that the evil wealthy rich folk are basically supposed to represent the Roman aristocracy from Ancient Rome: they wear wigs and make-up and live a debaucherous and hedonistic lifestyle while watching the unwashed masses die for their entertainment. It has way more to do with 'rich vs. poor' than 'masculine vs. feminine'.

"My kid has two tooth brushes. One has Pinkie Pie on it. The other has Thomas the Tank Engine.

My personal solution to gender coding has been (and shall continue to be) to give my kid an equal measure of both."

Why not let your kid choose?

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

And on the playground, when my peers were running around pretending to be the Ninja Turtles, I was also the one who decided I was Donatello and climbed up the jungle gym to rescue the girl playing April. I was stunned and confused when she informed me I couldn't rescue her because I was a girl.

I just wanted to mention something.

If you like Anime, you should really watch Revolutionary Girl Utena. It is an anime that is ABOUT what you just described: a young woman who decides that she wants to be a "prince" and rescue "princesses".

There is literally a scene that mirrors what you described (ie, a girl telling the title character that she can't rescue her because the title character is a girl), except less playgrounds and more sword fighting with non-blunted blades.

 

[Abomination]

If i may.

Perhaps these "evil is feminine, good is masculine" tropes are not how you picture it.

Think of it, preening, decadent, over reliance on superficial enhancement. These are not bad because they are feminine, they are bad because they are literally bad. Destructive. It is damaging to a society if a few select members indulge to the degree at which they harm its other members.

What do our "masculine" tropes have to offer? Brave, selfless, accomplished, strong willed. Traits which help further a society by having its members aid its other members, and add to the collective pool of resources.

You have it backwards Bob (and i know I'm going to catch a lot of flack from you knee-jerk reactionists, but bite me):

Evil isn't Feminine.
Femininity, unconstrained and unbalanced and its indulgences unchecked, IS Evil.

(Flames and hatemail to toobaditsreality@gofuckyourself.com)

I think it's just another example as to how something is taken far far out of context and a parallel is drawn that doesn't exist.

But that's the usual with claims that a particular media draws females or feminine traits in poor light.

I mean, for every supposedly "negative" female attribute there's a decidedly negative male attribute. Anger, rage, pointless brutality, sexual lechery, over-protectiveness and might over mind.

But The Hunger Games just has those supposed negative traits taken into an area where they do become negative. When they're used too much and without restraint or consideration. No, Xerxes is not evil because he "tarts" himself up. He does so because that's Persian culture and how alien the Asians were to the Greeks at the time in their mannerisms.

 

[UberPubert]

As a little girl, I liked pink fluffy dresses. The pinker and fluffier, the better! And on the playground, when my peers were running around pretending to be the Ninja Turtles, I was also the one who decided I was Donatello and climbed up the jungle gym to rescue the girl playing April. I was stunned and confused when she informed me I couldn't rescue her because I was a girl.

Now, granted, she may well have simply meant I couldn't play Donatello, who is, after all, male. (Though the impact at the time was, "you can't rescue me, you're a girl." Not that I let it discourage me; I just concluded she was being silly.) But that memory always stuck with me nevertheless, because to this day I simply can't begin to see why on earth most gender roles exist. The *very* basic ones, like how you have to be female to be a mother, those make sense. But the ones that say mothers have to stay at home, or this is what women should like or do for a living, are just ridiculous.

One thing I've noticed in life is that while gender stereotypes do have a basis in fact, they have a basis in trends, not rules. Women tend to be gentler and better communicators than men, but it's a tendency, not a rule.

Nice post

I think the most important thing for people to remember (that you bring up) is that a lot of these "societal roles" still aren't actually rules. This, of course, means that people don't have to follow them when society brings them up, but when framing the discussion we should also keep in mind that no one's actually enforcing them either (no one has the authority to do so in the western world, anyway).

The best place discussions like these can go is remembering and reinforcing the idea that people who do try to assert their stereotypes as rules are the equivalent of silly girls on jungle gyms who don't want to be saved.

 

[Nurb]

I think bob misinterpreted over-indulgence in luxury and material goods as "feminine" when discussing the villians

 

[daxterx2005]

Im surprised you didnt bring up MLP:FIM

 

[Moth_Monk]

Villain character archetypes are actually based on a homosexual sub-text. Now there's a bizarre hypothesis. Considering the fact that for Christian ideas about sexuality are fairly recent in terms of human history, we can dispense with that idea.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

My film class teacher once said I should make the villain of my piece my effeminate. I staunchly refused, of course. It just feels wrong to me, honestly. In the same way that giving the Helghast in Killzone those cockney accents feels wrong. Effeminate people aren't evil! They're kind and sweet and friendly! Why vilify that element of anyone?

 

[Andre Nilsson]

do you want to know a ironic thing about pink as a feminine color? up to the 1940s ping was sin as a masculine color and blue was the feminine one. I don't know why it change. So in any other century the pink aisle is fore the bays not the girls.

 

[Seldon2639]

The problem I have is that for whatever reason, what I would call "opulence" is (to use Bob's phrasing) coded feminine. It makes sense in a sexist kind of way (men had to work hard, provide, be strong, kill things; women got to stay home and wear fancy things and not work), but the very fact that opulence "codes" feminine is the problem itself. Especially since it hamstrings any societal commentary on opulence and a life of leisure (rather than hard work and determination) with inevitable "it's problematic" accusations.

Imagine for a moment that any criticism of aristocracy or monarchy was met with "well, since girls want to be princesses, that means that royalty 'codes' female, therefore your criticism is actually sexist."

Heroism will always be about grit, determination, and other "masculine" qualities. Mostly because the very nature of the hero story is to inspire us to act in ways that don't come naturally, to teach us to be better than we are. It's easier to be cowardly than courageous, so courage is part of heroism. It's easier to be selfish than self-sacrificing, so self-sacrifice is part of heroism. It's easier to give up in the face of adversity than keep going, so determination is part of heroism.

The real victory will be when people (especially feminist and pseudo-feminists) stop considering "we made our character heroic" as "we made our character masculine." And stop considering "we made our character effete and living a life of luxury to indicate he is out of touch and villainous" as "we made our character feminine."

 

[Sejborg]

But I guess that don't fit in to Bob's analysis.

Except, it does. Completely and utterly. Swords, spears, guns, various dick extenders, has been part of traditional male power fantasies, and depictions thereof, since forever.

There is a difference between a gay and a straight fantasy.

 

[Ukomba]

Part of this seems to be in your head. In the Hunger Games villains aren't 'feminine' they are decadent. This is more of a Rorschach Test and it's interesting you saw 'girls are bad' in it.

Part of the problem is a bit of chicken and egg issue. Do you think girls like dolls because that's what's advertised to them or is that what's advertised to them because girls like dolls? Do girls like pink because they're told they should, or are girl toys pink because they like it? If you look historically, before tv, girls have always like these kinds of toys, and boys the other way. It's not like some one decided these are what girls would be interested in, that's not how marketing works. If most of it were caused by marketing, you should be able to point to some point in history before this gender split in toys occurred.

What I'm really worried about is the insanity that is going on it Sweden. It's a law in Sweden that you can't have gender specific toys. They are in the process of trying to eliminate male and female entirely from perception. They've created 170 new gender neutral words they are requiring teachers to use instead of he/she, toy companies can be sued if they show girls playing with dolls in their toy catalogs, ext. The worst part I found was "One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely "stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented.""

I consider myself a Brony so I have no problem with the distinction between girl and boy things being naturally broken down. Trying to force the change is destructive though.