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

[happyninja42]

I don't know. Why do some women scream "patriarchy" when a guy says "hello" to them on the street?

I cannot answer that question, since I have never in life seen that situation.

Closest I've come to personally was when I held the door open for a woman at work to be polite. She stopped before crossing the threshold, gave me a disgusted look and said in a very disdainful voice "I could've gotten that myself!" After I got over the initial shock of being insulted for simply being polite, doing something I would do for a man or woman, I wanted to slam it in her face it was so infuriating. She'd already walked through the door that I held open for her at that point though, so opportunity missed. Ah well.

 

[Politrukk]

[

Why did Thor have to become a woman? Why did we need an all female Ghostbusters reboot? Why exactly from all of Marvel's characters did they pick the damaged lady, the black guy, and the white guy who they're considering turning into an Asian guy(even though it's a logical change)?

These are extremely arbitrary complaints that only make sense if you assume "white male" is a default which requires no justification, but anyone not being white and male better have a damn good reason for it.

Oh the last two were just an addition, the first two examples were more in line but I figured I'd throw them in there regardless.

Then your complaint is still arbitrary and nonsensical. What about Erik Masterson's and Beta Ray Bill's penises made it okay for them to be Thor, but not [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]'s vagina?

Beta Ray Bill never fully replaced Thor.

Female Thor is supposed to be the new canon, unless they've updated and retconned that already?

Edit: and this already existed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Girl

You see I have no problem with them making a new female character that is like Thor.

I have a problem with them changing Thor who is based on a male god and always has been a male character... a sign of the epitome of manliness... into a female.

We have the Hulk and She-Hulk, we didn't have to turn the original Hulk into a female for that now did we?

I can't believe you can't see the difference between those two situations.

 

[JimB]

Closest I've come to personally was when I held the door open for a woman at work to be polite. She stopped before crossing the threshold, gave me a disgusted look and said in a very disdainful voice, "I could've gotten that myself!"

That does sound pretty rude. No doubt she had her reasons for not wanting a door held open for her, but that doesn't seem like a useful way to communicate it.

What about Erik Masterson's and Beta Ray Bill's penises made it okay for them to be Thor, but not [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]'s vagina?

Beta Ray Bill never fully replaced Thor.

Okay, so what about Erik Masterson's penis made it okay for him to replace Thor?

Female Thor is supposed to be the new canon, unless they've updated and retconned that already?

I don't know what you mean by "new canon." She's still Thor, and Thor Odinson still exists, though he's in exile beyond the ken of even the gods of Asgard for some vague reason, presumably so he can pop out and have a Big Damn Hero moment when the time is right.

 

[Politrukk]

[

Why did Thor have to become a woman? Why did we need an all female Ghostbusters reboot? Why exactly from all of Marvel's characters did they pick the damaged lady, the black guy, and the white guy who they're considering turning into an Asian guy(even though it's a logical change)?

These are extremely arbitrary complaints that only make sense if you assume "white male" is a default which requires no justification, but anyone not being white and male better have a damn good reason for it.

Oh the last two were just an addition, the first two examples were more in line but I figured I'd throw them in there regardless.

Then your complaint is still arbitrary and nonsensical. What about Erik Masterson's and Beta Ray Bill's penises made it okay for them to be Thor, but not [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]'s vagina?

Beta Ray Bill never fully replaced Thor.

Female Thor is supposed to be the new canon, unless they've updated and retconned that already?

.......what? 'Female Thor' is a temporary replacement, being

Spoiler

Jane Foster, dying from cancer. Who took over as 'Thor', after the actual Thor became unworthy to wield Mjolnir. How do I know it's temporary? Because using Mjolnir's power to become Thor is killing her faster than the cancer.

It's a running story. I know comic book readers are used to having everything static and non-changing but sometimes running stories shake things up.

I know who she is but she was advertised as such.

Masterson and Beta Ray Bill were never considered the actual "Thor" character whereas this lady is acknowledged as being "the" Thor.

 

[Politrukk]

What about Erik Masterson's and Beta Ray Bill's penises made it okay for them to be Thor, but not [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]'s vagina?

Beta Ray Bill never fully replaced Thor.

Okay, so what about Erik Masterson's penis made it okay for him to replace Thor?

Female Thor is supposed to be the new canon, unless they've updated and retconned that already?

I don't know what you mean by "new canon." She's still Thor, and Thor Odinson still exists, though he's in exile beyond the ken of even the gods of Asgard for some vague reason, presumably so he can pop out and have a Big Damn Hero moment when the time is right.[/quote]

She is officially "Thor" as stated before at least she is advertised and described as such, that's a big difference from Beta Ray Bill and Masterson.

How do you not see that making her a new entity could have been so much better.

Why did she need to become "Thor" she could have been like Beta Ray Bill and Masterson or that Thor Clone they cooked up (the one that died in Civil War if I remember correctly?).

There's a reason why they were and are so god damn specific about it.

 

[happyninja42]

Closest I've come to personally was when I held the door open for a woman at work to be polite. She stopped before crossing the threshold, gave me a disgusted look and said in a very disdainful voice, "I could've gotten that myself!"

That does sound pretty rude. No doubt she had her reasons for not wanting a door held open for her, but that doesn't seem like a useful way to communicate it.

I guess, though personally I can't think of any reason to be so casually rude to anyone for doing something that isn't a direct insult to you. I'm sure she had reasons too, doesn't mean they were actually good ones. I mean hell I wasn't even looking at her, I was just holding the door open while messing with my pack of cigarettes, getting ready to light one up. I only glanced back because of her tone and hostility. It was most puzzling.

What about Erik Masterson's and Beta Ray Bill's penises made it okay for them to be Thor, but not [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]'s vagina?

Beta Ray Bill never fully replaced Thor.

Okay, so what about Erik Masterson's penis made it okay for him to replace Thor?

Female Thor is supposed to be the new canon, unless they've updated and retconned that already?

I don't know what you mean by "new canon." She's still Thor, and Thor Odinson still exists, though he's in exile beyond the ken of even the gods of Asgard for some vague reason, presumably so he can pop out and have a Big Damn Hero moment when the time is right.

*sighs* Female Thor, I so wanted to enjoy that comic, but, I just couldn't. The writing was terrible, and the FemThor's justification for

Spoiler: Gives away major plot point about FemThor's plot, spoiler.

Not using Asgardian tech to heal her cancer was totally stupid, considering she was perfectly happy to use Asgardian technology to be a Big Damn Hero. She even talked about how badass it felt to be Thor. But nooo, "Your technology always comes with a price! And I'm not willing to risk it. I'll just die naturally, like a regular human. Oh, well, you know, except when I'm moonlighting as the fucking God of Thunder, and kicking ass around the galaxy, THEN I'll happily use your technology to do what I want, who cares about THAT price. But no, I'm nobly sacrificing myself to stay human or some junk, yeah I think that makes sense or some such junk." *headdesk*

 

[Something Amyss]

That's certainly a problem in America. For instance, I think a big reason Donald Trump has so many supporters is that people feel the attempt to distinguish between Muslims and terrorists (which we absolutely should) is disingenuous because it attempts to separate radical Islam from Islam. I think the Democrats might have done better to admit the connection and from them proceed to educate the public than to continually deny it.

The problem is that people don't want to separate radical Islam from Islam. Same reason as here: they lose their bogeyman.

What about Erik Masterson's and Beta Ray Bill's penises made it okay for them to be Thor, but not [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]'s vagina?

Beta-Ray Bill was never actually Thor, though, was he?

 

[Something Amyss]

Masterson and Beta Ray Bill were never considered the actual "Thor" character whereas this lady is acknowledged as being "the" Thor.

Masterson was, going so far as to be declared the true Thor in the 90s comic books.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Because politely disagreeing with someone is a dying art. You either totally agree with someone or hate everything they stand for. The middle ground of reasonableness is getting smaller every day.

This, and I suspect it's become tolerable to fail to grow up on some levels. I was taught that the world didn't have to pander to me or adhere to my tastes or my worldviews, because there's seven other billion people on this dustball. When the Internet creates echo chambers where everyone is a special snowflake, you have some people who forget that fact and who assume they need to be pandered to. For these people, seeing a game's protagonist not adhere to their own gender supposedly breaks immersion and that, for some reason, strikes them as being indefensible.

 

[happyninja42]

What about Erik Masterson's and Beta Ray Bill's penises made it okay for them to be Thor, but not [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]'s vagina?

Beta-Ray Bill was never actually Thor, though, was he?

I think some of this might be from the fact that the comic actually titled THOR had them as the signature character? And thus "they were Thor"? I honestly don't know, as I don't read Thor at all, only picked it up when they introduced female Thor. Canonically I guess you could say Beta Ray Bill was never actually Thor, but on the other hand ( I think anyway), he was the dude on the cover of the Thor comic, and thus "was Thor" as far as publications go. Maybe that's the rationale for this? *shrugs*

I personally never saw an issue with it, since from the start, the Marvel Mjolnir has specifically said "Whosoever is worthy, shall wield the power of Thor". It doesn't actually say "shall become the male offspring that I sired with my Asgardian hot wife" Just "Shall wield the power of Thor". That's a pretty damn open ended statement to let an entire host of people fill the role.

 

[JimB]

She is officially "Thor" as stated before at least she is advertised and described as such, that's a big difference from Beta Ray Bill and Masterson.

What does "officially Thor" mean? That she has the name? Yes, but there's still an Asgardian son of Odin and Freyja walking around in the cosmos somewhere who has all the memories and experiences of the person who used to be called Thor, so...what's the big deal?

How do you not see that making her a new entity could have been so much better?

Because I was around in the nineties, when Marvel had to declare bankruptcy for its shitty business decisions, one of which was inventing new characters who had no fan base in place to support them so that the characters were unpopular and their books tanked. Like it or not, in an era where print is dying, this is how new characters get introduced: They ride the coattails of an existing, popular character, then branch out on their own after a market for them has been established.

I'm sure she had reasons too, doesn't mean they were actually good ones.

I think we can agree on that. Speaking as someone who can be a little OCD when it comes to not getting a question answered, I can certainly understand how you'd be frustrated at being unable to imagine why she'd do such a thing.

[spoilers]

Yeah, that is weird, and I don't get it, but I won't say more for the sake of leaving spoilers out of a public thread.

Beta-Ray Bill was never actually Thor, though, was he?

Depends on how you measure these things. He was the one with Mjolnir for a period while the blond dude did not have Mjolnir, so...maybe?

 

[Politrukk]

Masterson and Beta Ray Bill were never considered the actual "Thor" character whereas this lady is acknowledged as being "the" Thor.

Masterson was, going so far as to be declared the true Thor in the 90s comic books.

But he wasn't generally accepted, right?

he was merged with Thor, seperated, merged again, seperated again, and then he became "Thor"on paper but in practice he wasn't truly recognized as such which eventually lead to him becoming Thunderstrike.

This discussion is kind of offtopic, it just didn't feel the same to me and that's what I wanted to point out, especially about beta ray bill.

 

[Zontar]

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.

 

[EternallyBored]

snip [\quote] blah, it's the "reed Richards is useless" trope, totally unsurprising at this point, not as bad as aunt may with the gunshot wound that caused her to slowly die and nobody in the marvel universe could stop it, although still pretty stupid that cancer is even still a dramatic point in a universe where the Black Panther's country has the technology to cure cancer, but status quo means nobody but his tiny country of background characters gets access to it.

The marvel universe is weird when it comes to cancer, out of some effort not to trivialize it in real life, the marvel setting treats cancer like some kind of super disease that defies even the strongest magic and science in the setting. I think marvel was the one that actually tried to explain why this was at one point, cancer in the comic universe is actually partially extra-dimensional and comes from another universe that's basically just made up of evil cancer cells.

It's almost as dumb as the canon explanation for why marvel humans hate mutants so much but not other superheroes. It being caused by a sentient fungus that subtly mind controls humans To hate mutants because it can't infect mutants.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I only ever get uppity about "the agenda" when it's the attempt to remake a film to be more kid-friendly <_<, damn hollywood agenda, stay away from my Verhoeven Films!

Come on man, the kid-friendly version of Basic Instinct is awesome.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think some of this might be from the fact that the comic actually titled THOR had them as the signature character?

I've only read Thor sporradically over the years. Was BRB actually the headline at any point? I thought the big contention was that he had his own hammer. There was also his initial appearance, but even that's not so much having been declared Thor.

I personally never saw an issue with it, since from the start, the Marvel Mjolnir has specifically said "Whosoever is worthy, shall wield the power of Thor".

And then it was retconned that Odin cast Thor to Earth as Donald Blake to teach him humility or something.

Depends on how you measure these things. He was the one with Mjolnir for a period while the blond dude did not have Mjolnir, so...maybe?

The closest I know of was his fight with Thor when he debuted. Did he actually use Mjolnir for any serious period of time while Thor wasn't around?

Also, regarding the bankruptcy, I think it has more to do with the fact that people scream bloody murder anyway. New black character? Bad. Black character with old name? Bad. Replace "black" with woman and see the same. Hell, people got upset that a guy who was already Captain America became Captain America. Like, I don't even.

But he wasn't generally accepted, right?

I think we're confusing things here. He wasn't accepted by people like The Avengers, but had actually been declared Thor. The stories I remember deal more with his own sense of worth as essentially a replacement Thor, which is part of what made those comics somewhat interesting.

The relevant point is that this wasn't an issue, to the point people feel the need to pretend it never happened or try and make up a reason it's different when complaining about the new Thor. The funny thing is, the new Thor comic apparently wasn't that good. I haven't read it myself, can't speak to the quality of the Goddess of Thunder, but that well was poisoned the minute people started throwing a fit based on the fact that Thor was going to have tits now and how horrible that was.

They have manufactured a reality where this sort of thing never happens, and therefore it must be because of feminists and "SJWs."

I don't know, it just sounds awful "feelz before realz" to me.

 

[happyninja42]

I only ever get uppity about "the agenda" when it's the attempt to remake a film to be more kid-friendly <_<, damn hollywood agenda, stay away from my Verhoeven Films!

Come on man, the kid-friendly version of Basic Instinct is awesome.

I'm suddenly imagining the Leg Crossing Scene, but with the 2 characters from Adventure Time. The boy opening his legs, and suddenly the dog comes extending out, laughing madly in some William S. Burroughs-esque scene of mind fuckery. I find this oddly compelling. Not sure it would be kid friendly, but it would include kid characters. That's good enough right?

I think some of this might be from the fact that the comic actually titled THOR had them as the signature character?

I've only read Thor sporradically over the years. Was BRB actually the headline at any point? I thought the big contention was that he had his own hammer. There was also his initial appearance, but even that's not so much having been declared Thor.

I dunno, like I said, I've never really read it. I was just theorizing about the way people claim someone as "being Thor", and possibly rationalizing it as "they were the title carrying person for the comic for a while" and were thus, Thor. I have no clue if BRB ever was the title character or not.

I personally never saw an issue with it, since from the start, the Marvel Mjolnir has specifically said "Whosoever is worthy, shall wield the power of Thor".

And then it was retconned that Odin cast Thor to Earth as Donald Blake to teach him humility or something.

Yeah, but the wording is still "Shall wield the power of Thor", which to me implies that even if you are actually carrying Mjolnir, you aren't technically Thor, you are just currently the person holding the mantle of Thor's power. And since that mantle has switched ownership multiple times, it's not that big of a thing to me, to let a woman have it for a while.