Why do people scream "Feminist Agenda" when there is a female lead?

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Redryhno

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JimB said:
I actually don't know what "classic internet joke" or what "the Prison School dub" is, but so far as I can tell, not one word of that answers the question of why her vagina is a point worth bringing up. If I am missing some critical information here, please let me know what this rant has to do with my question.
Rant? Not really. I thought the answer was pretty obvious with the Falcon comparison I brought up. THE WRITING WAS SHIT. That's the easy answer you want.

But if you really don't know what I"m talking about with the other stuff, here you are:

The subbed version has no reference to either Fonzie or GG. The translator that did it justified it by saying that it was for localization and that it would "hold up better" and "it's needed", despite the fact that even in-universe, very few people know Fonzie's real name, and GG is not all that well known outside of the gaming sphere. Someone on their high horse decided to shoehorn politics into a comedy show with a silly cast with the most philosophical conversation that's had is about whether boobs or butts are better.

As you can see, it's an old joke.
 

Zontar

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JimB said:
Gonna stop you right there, because you are making more things up. There is only one person in Thor who treats her as having stolen anyone's identity: Odin, who is clearly the antagonist of this story, with whom the rest of Asgard and half the Marvel Universe disagrees on the topic. Even his enforcer Cul is only humoring Odin for the sake of maintaining a position of power in Odin's court.
Alright, so only Odin was the only one acting in-character in the comics and the fanfiction's writer made everyone else act OC, functionally their treating not-Thor as though she was Thor only reinforces the point though, since they're acting as though someone who is unambiguously not Thor is in fact Thor despite the fact that she was not.
No, it's okay because nothing was stolen. Thor Odinson gave up his name of his own free will. Disagree with it all you want, but the words are printed on the page all the same. You are denying reality, and I can't comprehend why. You are mad because a crime that took place, and your proof that a crime took place is because you're mad about it.
So what you're saying is stating what bad writers functionally did is a faux pas because, despite being terribly written and having only 1 character in the entirety of the comics act in character with the entire rest of the universe being out of character in a story so bad all who read it are less intelligent as a result, because the bad writing had Thor willingly give up his identity and the other characters willingly accepting it, the bad writing which functionally had the identity of one character stolen and slapped onto another should be called something else because... I'm actually at a lose to finish that with.

In any event writing so bad that it was clearly not in any way related to how the writers got their position is beside the point. Not-Thor is a Mary Sue who functionally stole Thor's identity to the point where most of the comic's universe somehow are under the delusion that she is Thor with only one character not being spellbound by the magic of bad writing. You may as well say that in Star Trek if Wesley was given Picard's name and everyone started calling Wesley Picard then Wesley wouldn't have stolen Picard's identity even if that is a 100% accurate representation of what has happened out-of-universe.

The argument not-Thor didn't steal Thor's identity hold no water. Didn't when it was announced, didn't when it was happening, didn't when it was over, still doesn't.
 

JimB

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Redryhno said:
I thought the answer was pretty obvious with the Falcon comparison I brought up. The writing is shit. That's the easy answer you want.
No, it's not the answer I want, Redrhyno. I mean, you're welcome to your opinion about the quality of the writing--different strokes, and all that--but you do not seem to comprehend the question I am asking, so I am going to ask it again:

Politrukk complained about Thor being female. When pressed, he said it's because he dislikes the character being usurped. I asked him why he even brought up her gender at all if the underlying issue isn't about her chromosomes. None of your responses have addressed the question, and I feel they are deflecting attention from it.

Redryhno said:
But if you really don't know what I'm talking about with the other stuff, here you are:
I really did not, so thank you for providing me with them. I still don't quite get them, but there's probably some context I had to be there for. I'm willing to let it go if you are, though, since they don't answer the question of why her gender matters.

Zontar said:
So only Odin was the only one acting in-character in the comics and the fanfiction's writer made everyone else act OC, functionally their treating not-Thor as though she was Thor only reinforces the point though, since they're acting as though someone who is unambiguously not Thor is in fact Thor despite the fact that she was not.
...The opposite of what you said happened proves your point about what happened? Yeah, okay, I think I'm done here. Objective reality does not require me to defend it from whatever weird grudge you're chasing. You are misreading the text so vigorously at this point I have to assume it's willful on your part, and anyone who has actually read the book can tell it, so there's nothing to be gained from me continuing to argue...

Zontar said:
So what you're saying is stating what bad writers functionally did is a faux pas because, despite being terribly written and having only one character in the entirety of the comics act in character with the entire rest of the universe being out of character in a story so bad all who read it are less intelligent as a result, because the bad writing had Thor willingly give up his identity and the other characters willingly accepting it, the bad writing which functionally had the identity of one character stolen and slapped onto another should be called something else because... I'm actually at a loss to finish that with.
...But I will point out that you are at a loss to finish it because none of that is what I said. You are once again deliberately misrepresenting me, disrespecting my intelligence by acting like I'm too stupid to notice you're putting words in my mouth, disrespecting the audience's intelligence by acting like they're too stupid to remember what I wrote in the very paragraph you quoted, and frankly disrespecting yourself by stooping to such low tactics. Shame on you, Zontar.
 

KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime

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Zontar said:
In any event writing so bad that it was clearly not in any way related to how the writers got their position is beside the point. Not-Thor is a Mary Sue who functionally stole Thor's identity to the point where most of the comic's universe somehow are under the delusion that she is Thor with only one character not being spellbound by the magic of bad writing. You may as well say that in Star Trek if Wesley was given Picard's name and everyone started calling Wesley Picard then Wesley wouldn't have stolen Picard's identity even if that is a 100% accurate representation of what has happened out-of-universe.
I'm just no.... Marvel characters have a long history of giving their monikers to other, if not having their monikers out right stolen. Iron Man isn't always Tony Stark, Steve Rogers often dies and some one takes up the mantel of Captain America, Captain Marvel has been a number of different people too. Hell this applies to DC comics too, like how Green Lantern isn't always Hal Jordan. Thor Odinson giving up the moniker of Thor to the person with the hammer currently isn't a real stretch.

Also if say Jean-Luc Picard married Beverly Crusher, and both she and Wesley took his last name, that wouldn't be Wesley stealing Picard's identity. Even if Wesley graduated Starfleet Academy, climbed the ranks, and ended up in command of the NCC-1701-D Enterprise and was called "Captain Picard". The same goes if Wesley ended up in command of any starship in Starfleet if he'd been adopted by Jean-Luc and Wesley took the last name Picard, this applies if his mother marries Jean-Luc, or if Wesley is orphaned and adopted because of being orphaned, or abandoned. It's not the canon of the Prime Universe, that doesn't remove it as a possibility in other time lines though. It still wouldn't be Wesley stealing Jean-Luc's identity either, even if Wesley is "Captain Picard".
 

Zontar

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JimB said:
...The opposite of what you said happened proves your point about what happened? Yeah, okay, I think I'm done here. I am done defending objective reality from whatever weird grudge you're chasing, Zontar. You are misreading the text so vigorously at this point I have to assume it's willful on your part, and anyone who has actually read the book can tell it, so there's nothing to be gained from me continuing to argue...
Hey now, if the writers didn't want people to act as though not-Thor didn't steal Thor's identity, they shouldn't have had the whole ad campaign be literally stating that Thor was now a woman, and not have the flimsy in-universe justification be that, through the power of bad writing, Thor gives up his name (not title, name) to someone who has not proven themselves any more worthy then he is, and that everyone save his father accept it uncritically where if everyone was being written in character NO ONE would be treating her as such because shit like that has happened before and, until now, it has ALWAYS been part of a villain's plot, and in recent years general characterization has included characters no longer being genre blind and instead acting more like regular people. Would your brother stating that some random woman you've never met was now him have you act as though said random woman where him? The answer is no, yet for some reason everyone save Odin acts like they would.

The writers functionally stole Thor's identity, and openly used that as the basis for the comic's ad campaign. If they didn't want me to act like that is what happened they should have not used it as their attempts to GET me to buy it, and they shouldn't have had the comic have shit writing from start to finish in a comic book which insults the intellect of its readers.
 

Zontar

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KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
I'm just no.... Marvel characters have a long history of giving their monikers to other,
I'm going to stop you right there. Thor is not a moniker, it's his name, it's his identity. Thor Odinson is his full name, giving away his name Thor is like Luke Cage giving away the name "Luke", it doesn't make sense, it's literally a part of who he is that is inseparable.
 

KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime

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Zontar said:
KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
I'm just no.... Marvel characters have a long history of giving their monikers to other,
I'm going to stop you right there. Thor is not a moniker, it's his name, it's his identity. Thor Odinson is his full name, giving away his name Thor is like Luke Cage giving away the name "Luke", it doesn't make sense, it's literally a part of who he is that is inseparable.
It makes perfect sense for Thor as he's not just Thor Odinson in Asgard, but also Thor the Superhero on Earth. His name is a symbol of his power most places, that means someone with his power can easily be given his name, because that person has "the power of Thor". So while it's his actual name, it's also a moniker of Thor as a symbol of heroism.
 

Redryhno

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JimB said:
Redryhno said:
I thought the answer was pretty obvious with the Falcon comparison I brought up. The writing is shit. That's the easy answer you want.
No, it's not the answer I want, Redrhyno. I mean, you're welcome to your opinion about the quality of the writing--different strokes, and all that--but you do not seem to comprehend the question I am asking, so I am going to ask it again:

Politrukk complained about Thor being female. When pressed, he said it's because he dislikes the character being usurped. I asked him why he even brought up her gender at all if the underlying issue isn't about her chromosomes. None of your responses have addressed the question, and I feel they are deflecting attention from it.
Considering I also said that she took his identity which hasn't happened before with other people taking up the hammer and she has been hailed as a feminist icon because she usurped a male character's identity, I think the answer's pretty obvious. It's honestly got nothing to do with her being female, and all to do with the hub-bub surrounding her...retcon-creation.

There's a hundred and one ways they could've done it better by having another Loki-inspired moment, some kind of Doom meddle machine, Mysterio mind swap shenanigans, Sif being involved, Thor not being relegated to his name "actually" just being Odinson, etc. But they decided to go with none of them. Instead it's just Jane "somehow" being considered worthy of title, powers, and the complete identity of Mjolnir and Thor because Thor isn't actually Thor. He's just the schmuck the weapon decides isn't Thor anymore because the name of the weapon isn't Mjolnir, it's "actually" Mjolnir Thor or some variation.

It would honestly be largely the same outcry if Beta Ray Bill and Frogthor had been renamed to Thor instead of just Mjolnir's current permitted wielders. Only difference would probably be that people wouldn't get so much pushback from people demanding female heroes(when honestly there's been alot throughout comics, most just don't get to go to Hollywood and that's what most of the people plopping awards in the writer's lap have as a background with comics). Their hearts are in the right-ish place, but their lack of knowledge(again, not fully their fault) shows through. Though I can't say I'm up to date on much of anything comic related these days either.
 

Zontar

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KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
Zontar said:
KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
I'm just no.... Marvel characters have a long history of giving their monikers to other,
I'm going to stop you right there. Thor is not a moniker, it's his name, it's his identity. Thor Odinson is his full name, giving away his name Thor is like Luke Cage giving away the name "Luke", it doesn't make sense, it's literally a part of who he is that is inseparable.
It makes perfect sense for Thor as he's not just Thor Odinson in Asgard, but also Thor the Superhero on Earth. His name is a symbol of his power most places, that means someone with his power can easily be given his name, because that person has "the power of Thor". So while it's his actual name, it's also a moniker of Thor as a symbol of heroism.
But Thor isn't a secret identity, it's his actual identity. It's literally his name, and it's not like it's only characters from Earth treating her as though she is Thor, Asgardians did the same when they should not have even considered doing so for a second.

Plus, Mjolnir's power is not given to someone who has the title of "Thor" that power, it's granting to anyone who is worthy the power of Thor. The few characters who have lifted Mjolnir never took his name, because they didn't have to, that's not what lifting and wielding Mjolnir is about. Every time a new Thor was created they where always made distinctly their own character who was very much open about the fact they where not Thor, only that they possess the power of Thor. Not-Thor is different because no such distinction was ever made. Maybe it was so that marketing could claim that Thor was now a woman without being sued, but no matter what the reason was behind it it was handled terribly and the comic had horrible writing which only reinforced how forced, unnatural and out of nowhere the change was.

It takes skill to handle a new character taking up another's title, and Thor's case made an already hard job all the harder to accomplish. The writing staff wasn't up for it, they didn't even try.
 

JimB

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Redryhno said:
Considering I also said that she took his identity which hasn't happened before with other people taking up the hammer and she has been hailed as a feminist icon because she usurped a male character's identity, I think the answer's pretty obvious.
A name is not an identity. It's a name. As for who's hailing her for what, I can't say anything about that because I haven't seen anyone hailing her for taking anything from the Odinson. The closest I've seen is people praising her for being a hero who's a hitter instead of a sorcerer, as female heroes tend to be.

Redryhno said:
It's honestly got nothing to do with her being female
Then we're back to the question I've asked four or five times now: Why bring it up if it's nothing to do with that? I feel I am being forced to choose between what you profess and what you say when you're not professing, and they contradict one another.

Redryhno said:
It's just [REDACTED] "somehow" being considered worthy of title, powers, and the complete identity of Mjolnir and Thor because Thor isn't actually Thor.
She is worthy of Mjolnir. Thor considers himself unworthy of his name, because he's apparently a codependent little twerp who defines himself by the relationships he's in, so he changed his name and started hanging out with the Goth kids behind the school because Wendy broke up with him.* Thor Odinson is the only person who has decided he's not Thor anymore.


*I may be confusing which property I'm talking about, here.
 

KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime

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Zontar said:
But Thor isn't a secret identity, it's his actual identity. It's literally his name, and it's not like it's only characters from Earth treating her as though she is Thor, Asgardians did the same when they should not have even considered doing so for a second.

Plus, Mjolnir's power is not given to someone who has the title of "Thor" that power, it's granting to anyone who is worthy the power of Thor. The few characters who have lifted Mjolnir never took his name, because they didn't have to, that's not what lifting and wielding Mjolnir is about. Every time a new Thor was created they where always made distinctly their own character who was very much open about the fact they where not Thor, only that they possess the power of Thor. Not-Thor is different because no such distinction was ever made. Maybe it was so that marketing could claim that Thor was now a woman without being sued, but no matter what the reason was behind it it was handled terribly and the comic had horrible writing which only reinforced how forced, unnatural and out of nowhere the change was.

It takes skill to handle a new character taking up another's title, and Thor's case made an already hard job all the harder to accomplish. The writing staff wasn't up for it, they didn't even try.
Okay so it's an unprecedented change... That automatically makes it badly done? No I don't think so. First, they've established that in Asgard, Earth logic need not apply. Second, it's a comic book series, so real world logic need not apply.

More importantly, all of the complaint's I've seen about "not-Thor" is that the character is a female and that some how ruins Thor, because bad writing... I don't know I can't penetrate the comic book fan bias on this one. Still saying it's bad writing... I read a lot of fiction books, in comparison comic book, graphic novel, and manga writing is laughably bad at best. It's a charming badness and there are quite a lot of comic books, graphic novels, and manga that buck the trend, but the general quality of the writing is rarely amazing. I'm not saying this to be a snob, but complaining about bad writing in comic books is like complaining about bad food at McDonald's, some people adore it, but we're lying to ourselves if we say it's the best.

So really it's all reaching for points and grasping at straws, because they decided to make a female Thor. No matter how it was done, Thor fans were going to be pissed, because they decided to do a female Thor, people are going to shout "Feminist Agenda!", because people, especially comic book fans, are uncomfortable with change. Really if they'd written an entire alternate universe for there to be a Thor that was born female, we'd still have all of the exact same complaints.
 

Areloch

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JimB said:
The closest I've seen is people praising her for being a hero who's a hitter instead of a sorcerer, as female heroes tend to be.
Tend to be? I'm not that privy to the greater comics universe, but MOST female supers I can think of are hitters.

Supergirl, Ms Marvel/Captain Marvel, Powergirl, Wonder Woman, Spiderwoman, Hawkgirl, Catwoman, Batgirl, Psylocke, X13, all of the top of my head examples there fisticuffs their opponents.

Most of the mainstream female supers that I can rattle off the top of my head are hitters. It may be different once you get out of the mainstream, but I'd imagine the 'not-punching' supers also get more prolific on the men's side as well.

Also, all things aside, the fact that the name is the superhero identity and the person identity and are intricately tied together until they're not feels like lazy writing. Thor Odinson is known to everyone by his name, Thor, until he's suddenly not Thor, and Thor is the new Thor, even though her name isn't Thor, but people call her Thor anyways while Thor piddles about not being Thor.

I don't know of any other superheroes that have their name be their regular identity AND superhero identity, except maybe the earlier mentioned Luke Cage.

So the equivalent would be Luke Cage decides to stop being Luke Cage, so he passes on the name Luke Cage to....Tiffany Willows, who is now known to the world as Luke Cage, while Luke Cage goes on being regular old Luke Cage, rather than the super hero Luke Cage.

It's weird, and smacks of bad writing to treat the name as a title while also not being a title.
 

runic knight

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WinterWyvern said:
I haven't followed the marketing of the new Ghostbuster, but I think they never went and promoted the movie as "hey it has FEMALE LEADS!! So progressive!!".
I haven't seen anything in the marketing from the studio yet myself, but I have seen some pointing to the announcement of the female cast in that light. Was trying to make a general point about when something becomes an issue on the topic, so my fault for being less than clear I suppose.

Because yeah, usually when someone does that, it means the movie in reality is the exact opposite of progressive.
I agree, if someone is jumping up and down about the fact something has female leads like it is some great social victory instead of it merely being a choice in character traits, it is pretty opposite of actual progress. Sadly I've seen the mindset used to promote half-baked ideas or even attack people for disagreeing far too often. Gaming gets it a lot, though usually it is more through the attacking the alternative.

I think it was more about some fans claiming they put female protagonists only for propaganda.
Time will tell, either it'll be a great movie that has female characters in comedy roles (finally!), or it'll be an awful reboot that uses female characters as their only selling point, as if having a female lead without anything else was how you'd sell a movie.
So far I am having a hunch it'll be the first scenario, so I'm curious.
Well, with Aykroyd at the head, I do have hopes, even without his late colleague. Anyone getting too into the "feminist agenda" thing at this point I will say is premature concerning the ghostbusters film, though I do understand why they would be worried in general, even without the beloved franchise being rebooted (sorta), a process that is hard to pull off well, and is more likely to result in gutting and childhood rape than not. The world needs not another Gem and the Holograms. I suppose that makes me hesitantly optimistic for the time being, going off just the concept and knowing some of the people involved. Once they start promoting it and get closer to finishing, that's when I will start to worry more or not.
 

Redryhno

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JimB said:
Redryhno said:
Considering I also said that she took his identity which hasn't happened before with other people taking up the hammer and she has been hailed as a feminist icon because she usurped a male character's identity, I think the answer's pretty obvious.
A name is not an identity. It's a name. As for who's hailing her for what, I can't say anything about that because I haven't seen anyone hailing her for taking anything from the Odinson. The closest I've seen is people praising her for being a hero who's a hitter instead of a sorcerer, as female heroes tend to be.

Redryhno said:
It's honestly got nothing to do with her being female
Then we're back to the question I've asked four or five times now: Why bring it up if it's nothing to do with that? I feel I am being forced to choose between what you profess and what you say when you're not professing, and they contradict one another.

Redryhno said:
It's just [REDACTED] "somehow" being considered worthy of title, powers, and the complete identity of Mjolnir and Thor because Thor isn't actually Thor.
She is worthy of Mjolnir. Thor considers himself unworthy of his name, because he's apparently a codependent little twerp who defines himself by the relationships he's in, so he changed his name and started hanging out with the Goth kids behind the school because Wendy broke up with him.* Thor Odinson is the only person who has decided he's not Thor anymore.


*I may be confusing which property I'm talking about, here.
And we come around once again to the same junk. "Power of Thor" either now means that Mjolnir is not the full name of the weapon, or it's not the name of the guy that always gets back around to using it. It's never discussed, it's just "this is Thor now, deal with it". Which is not a good way to bring in a new character with a title(going back to the Falcon becoming Cap example I was talking about) out of the blue.

Now, Thor has done this before with not thinking he's worthy. It's partly why there's SO many hammer-wielders out there in the Marvel universe. There's something like two dozen in total, some of them major, some of them minor, I think Doom was able to trick it at one point by force of will even. That's not a good explanation of why "this is Thor now" is hailed as anything close to good writing.

And hitter instead of sorceress not being the norm? You are aware Rogue, Jubilee, Psylocke, Captain Marvel, Gamora, She-Hulk(even if she is largely just another variation of the Deadpool/Lobo formula), Tigra, Domino, Diamondback, and Thundra(this is literally just off the top of my head, there's many more) all exist as well right? And they've been kicking ass with their bare hands long before Thorina popped up right?
 

runic knight

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Areloch said:
JimB said:
The closest I've seen is people praising her for being a hero who's a hitter instead of a sorcerer, as female heroes tend to be.
Tend to be? I'm not that privy to the greater comics universe, but MOST female supers I can think of are hitters.

Supergirl, Ms Marvel/Captain Marvel, Powergirl, Wonder Woman, Spiderwoman, Hawkgirl, Catwoman, Batgirl, Psylocke, X13, all of the top of my head examples there fisticuffs their opponents.

Most of the mainstream female supers that I can rattle off the top of my head are hitters. It may be different once you get out of the mainstream, but I'd imagine the 'not-punching' supers also get more prolific on the men's side as well.

Also, all things aside, the fact that the name is the superhero identity and the person identity and are intricately tied together until they're not feels like lazy writing. Thor Odinson is known to everyone by his name, Thor, until he's suddenly not Thor, and Thor is the new Thor, even though her name isn't Thor, but people call her Thor anyways while Thor piddles about not being Thor.

I don't know of any other superheroes that have their name be their regular identity AND superhero identity, except maybe the earlier mentioned Luke Cage.

So the equivalent would be Luke Cage decides to stop being Luke Cage, so he passes on the name Luke Cage to....Tiffany Willows, who is now known to the world as Luke Cage, while Luke Cage goes on being regular old Luke Cage, rather than the super hero Luke Cage.

It's weird, and smacks of bad writing to treat the name as a title while also not being a title.
Don't forget they have passed the mantle of the lightninger to others in comics previously in various ways, even including to a woman before without needing to call the new person Thor. The name is a name, not a title, and the weird justifications for it always felt both very forced, and very counter both common sense and established lore. Title would be Lightninger, or Wielder of Mjornir, or Norse God of Thunder. Honestly, they'd have been better to just force Thor to wear a girdle of opposite gender if they wanted to go with Thor being a woman. Hell, could have even offered character development to the Norse god of lightning in dealing with that and even given the writers who so badly wanted to turn Thor into an ideological mouthpiece at least a better excuse. It'd still be pretty poor writing, but it would at least tie in better to why it felt like the authors were talking down at the readers with some of that, and it would give excuse to mix up Greek artifacts with Norse mytho-based gods, and that sort of dueling pantheons I always like to see.

Sorry, getting off key there. But yeah, Thor is person, not title, trying to pass the name off to another is pretty silly, not only on its own, but even according to the previous times the mantle has been passed temporarily. The only occurrence I can think of where the name itself was transferred was when Thor was Donald Blake part of the time, then he wasn't, then they were two entities... Man, it has been a long time since I went through the Thor books, but I think at one point the individual named Thor Odinson mere with Blake and thus transferred the name to the new person (person formed of two individuals) as Thor. Still, that seems to be more a continuation of Thor as a person than random new person taking his name.
 

Cicada 5

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Zontar said:
Agent_Z said:
People are much more critical of female characters because there are few of them compared to male characters and even fewer that are written well.
It's honestly a catch 22 at this point. There are people who want more female characters in fiction, but every time one who isn't 100% perfect (and thus boring and uninterested) causes a large number of people who claim they want more female characters to complain that women aren't being portrayed in a fail light.

Just look at the new Star Wars (not going to spoil anything). The character who is an obvious Han Solo clone in terms of his role in these new movies is, despite being a copy of an already established character who is IN these movies already, is more interesting then the female co-lead despite the fact she has 10 times as much screen time. Poe and Fin should have been the co-stars of the movie, and it's honestly sad that one of the two leads played a character who would have made the movie better by being absent, but had she been written in a way that was actually interesting and allowed for emotional investment people would have been complaining.

At this point the only way to make good female characters is to ignore the criticism (and inevitable harassment) good female characters cause from people who claim to want them but in practice do not.
Jessica Jones isn't perfect. Neither was Buffy. Or Cookie from Empire. Or Olivia from Scandal. These women are flawed and have been well received.

It could well be that people have differing ideas on what makes an interesting character.
 

Cicada 5

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Redryhno said:
Agent_Z said:
Redryhno said:
Because for all the belly-aching about another bland male toughguy lead, there's a helluva lot of bland female leads the last few years that have all the same problems in that they're indistinguishable from one another. Jessica Jones is not all that interesting character in the series, which was a big let down because pretty much every other character and person in the show I looked forward to seeing MORE than the titular character for how fucking bland she was(sorta the same problem as Daredevil had, it didn't want to commit to being a part of a comic book universe unless it was convenient, though at least Murdock wasn't boring when he was on-screen and not relying on everyone else to carry his ass and the fighting didn't look like he would rather be doing literally anything else).

Think of most female leads that have been popping up the last few years that have been raved about, they're largely just the same basic character, they have trauma in their background that happened relatively recently, they work past it, the end. And for some people, they see it because they saw the male leads and how similar they could be, but there's people giving points for swapping a character's genitals about and turning a pretty minor, but somewhat interesting character into just another antagonist in a rape-revenge story. Because that's what so much of it all boils down to. Many female leads are just rape-revenge fantasies(whether they be literal or metaphor). Jessica Jones, Maleficient, even Frozen to a point was raved about because Anna was going to be used for her title to get a guy in power and it was averted.

And people don't really like that when they're told that male leads are boring and they can't be told apart because they're all "Steve" when the thing that replaces it is just the same thing with a set of tits and bodily betrayal baggage.
Not seeing how Olivia from Scandal, Cookie from Empire, Alex from Quantico, Rey from the recent Star Wars flick are rape/revenge stories. I'm not even sure how you got that from Frozen.
Those are also shows I never even heard of, much less watched...And Star Wars I don't really have much interest in seeing(used to like it, now I just can't be bothered for whatever reason). And it's not me that got it from Frozen, it's what someone that also insists Elsa is some kind of asexual space Lesbian came up with that was then agreed with by a few hundred people unironically.

To go further, I'm well aware there's other female characters that are very well liked and aren't what I'm talking about here, but they're also not lauded as great female leads either and called unique and wonderful for how "different" and "unique" they are.

Person of Interest basically has the women being the most important characters in the show, they've got a woman in position of "authority" that she's finally realizing is more just a figurehead/pawn position that will kill alot of people on the basis of "terrorism", your standard Mary Sue-lite that's actually turned into a good character you care about, and just a 63'd version of Cavizel's character honestly.

The side [s/]chicks[/s] female characters in Jessica Jones are all great for the most part, just not the person hogging 80% of the screentime(I can't stress enough how dull she is, whether it's the actor or the writing I'm not sure I just know she's not interesting unless someone else has the scene devoted to them).

Blacklist is full of strong women that don't get nearly enough attention compared to this archetype that is lauded as being the most feminist-friendly.

And that's just talking about western media, which I'm not all that knowledgable about anymore(anime's largely replaced it, and I don't think you can spit and not hit at least four series that have strong female characters in them that are more human than these each season)

Dizchu said:
I wish the people that claimed that Jessica Jones or Mad Max: Fury Road or even the new Star Wars film are "feminist propaganda" had some self-awareness.

Aren't you the same people that get upset about Anita Sarkeesian claiming games are misogynistic because, if their "damsel-in-distress" themes are taken to the extreme, they become abuse and male entitlement?

How is "this protagonist is a white hetero male purely to pander to audiences" any different from "this protagonist is black/female/gay purely to pander to SJWs"? I mean some good arguments can be made against tokenism but all I see is hypocritical whining.
To be fair, it probably wasn't the best idea to talk about pandering while talking about Jessica Jones not being feminist propaganda...As much as I liked Moss as Hogarth, one of my roommates was really annoyed by the lesbian triangle junk that was just sorta there(didn't know this, but Hogarth isn't female, gay, or married in the comics apparently, and also not an irredeemable asshole lawyer trope). And as a result, it's sorta soured the performance to a point. And with people getting annoyed about shoehorning in romantic partners for the main dude in other genres, you'd think there'd be slightly more uproar from the groups that normally complain about it here with the same shit happening.
I'm really not seeing how Jessica Jones is Mary Sue. She's an alcoholic, has lousy social skills, etc. I really can't agree on her being dull. Same with Cookie from Empire, Olivia from Scandal, Annalise from How To Get Away With Murder. All of these women are flawed and have been well received and are extremely popular.
 

Silvanus

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Zontar said:
Yes but there is a difference in that this one select group of people complaining in this case are the only ones who are hypocritical about it, since they're complaining about getting what they literally asked for while the others at least didn't ask for the things they where complaining about.
I'm not seeing how its hypocritical. Feminists in general would want to see more (or better) female representation in media; there's nothing contradictory with also seeing some kinds of representation as a step backwards.

It's not what they literally asked for, unless what they asked for was "more female characters, regardless of type and quality", which is something I've not seen anybody ask for.


Zontar said:
There's also the fact that the Christians who criticisms him are not people who are from a group he is a part of (they where from more radical sects after all) so him being chased off of Twitter by feminists, a group he is a part of (and was unfortunately the one they turned of in their at the time latest instance of turning on their own) is noteworthy.
It's not a single, coherent "group". There's nothing contradictory whatsoever in feminists disagreeing with one another; it's clearly to be expected. There's nothing binding them together except a single, highly up-to-interpretation stance. This is like expecting all Christians to agree, or all atheists, and seeing it as hypocrisy when one criticises another, although there's no reason on earth that should not happen.
 

Amaror

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Agent_Z said:
I'm really not seeing how Jessica Jones is Mary Sue. She's an alcoholic, has lousy social skills, etc. I really can't agree on her being dull. Same with Cookie from Empire, Olivia from Scandal, Annalise from How To Get Away With Murder. All of these women are flawed and have been well received and are extremely popular.
I don't think that Jessica Jones is feminist propaganda or anything of the sort, but i do agree with the quoted poster that Jessica as the main character is sort of dull. The earlier episodes showed her competence at investigation, which I liked. It showed her competence and made her a more believable character. But in the middle-episodes, i haven't finished the series yet, she shows less and less of that competence. A lot of the work seems to be done by her partners or on accident and she continues to dismiss some valid sources that have previously given her vital information.
The Killgrave support group for example
It just makes her seem really incompetent and dull.