She-Ra still includes 'he'.
Shouldn't it be Xir-Ra...?
Shouldn't it be Xir-Ra...?
Meet The New She-Ra
- Thread starter BlueResolute
- Start date
Alsos
Kingfisher
questor70 said:
Was in a hurry and bungled my point there. I agree that having female characters with idealized feminine body shapes is fine - not trying to flog the SJW "muh Barbie is unrealistic!" line here. Rather, I see on the horizon a backlash against even simple idealization, as more people wake up to what goes on behind the scenes in the entertainment industry and (rightly or wrongly) perceive this idealization as sexualization.
There's a parallel in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and how normie readers have had their eyes opened by the Sad Puppies affair, the Moira Greyland book, the Clarke and Asimov revelations, the Heinlein biography, etc. The truth of that community was ignored or brushed off or minimized for years, until it couldn't be. The normie audience is now boomeranging back to the other extreme, rightly or wrongly finding nods to pedophilia and other perversions everywhere in SF/F and rejecting works and authors perceived to be suspiciously focused on weird sex and strange sexualities.
In short, I see a future of cartoon heroines with toned-down figures and more modest costumes as part of a larger, generational rejection of decadence and degeneracy.
ETA: it's only part of the issue, as questor observes above. There isn't just the growing perception of hidden sexual messages inserted into children's entertainment by pervs working behind the scenes, but the recognition that mass entertainment is increasingly (and increasingly unsubtle) about pushing ideological themes.
Donfitz007
Kingfisher
Like the comic thread most female "hero movies" are set to fail for one major reason
Realism vs fantasy
For men seeing a physically fit, charismatic, talented hero gives us something to achieve and want to emulate. We know that those are works of fiction but want to be as close as humanly possible to a batman or a superman or a sherlock holmes, Jason Bourne, James bond or wolverine etc. We also have real-life heroes who fit most of those points like Chris Kyle, or looking back in history to MANLY figures such as Marcus Aurelius, Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, Ernest Hemingway etc
Women, on the other hand, have to find the perfect balance between realism and fantasy. Lets face it there aren't many actiony female heroes of the past, Most "physically fit women" are physically fit for looks. Even with that said the most physically fit women are still outdone and beaten by the average gym rat. So that's where realism comes to play, women don't want to feel weak. If they see a strong figure EVEN IF its a female it upsets them. They have no desire to work hard to be in shape for the offchance they might have to save a life or themselves. So creators know they have to create strong women figures that don't look strong. They know having a flabby girl get the guy gives flabby women the chance. They know having a skinny girl take out a 220-pound bodybuilder gives women a feeling of being strong.
So this is the dilemma. Sacrifice realism a convincing story and the male crowd for fantasy and action, Or have a realistic movie with a great story but minimum action
In my opinion the movie that did this PERFECTLY is Alien, The first hunger games also.
Realism vs fantasy
For men seeing a physically fit, charismatic, talented hero gives us something to achieve and want to emulate. We know that those are works of fiction but want to be as close as humanly possible to a batman or a superman or a sherlock holmes, Jason Bourne, James bond or wolverine etc. We also have real-life heroes who fit most of those points like Chris Kyle, or looking back in history to MANLY figures such as Marcus Aurelius, Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, Ernest Hemingway etc
Women, on the other hand, have to find the perfect balance between realism and fantasy. Lets face it there aren't many actiony female heroes of the past, Most "physically fit women" are physically fit for looks. Even with that said the most physically fit women are still outdone and beaten by the average gym rat. So that's where realism comes to play, women don't want to feel weak. If they see a strong figure EVEN IF its a female it upsets them. They have no desire to work hard to be in shape for the offchance they might have to save a life or themselves. So creators know they have to create strong women figures that don't look strong. They know having a flabby girl get the guy gives flabby women the chance. They know having a skinny girl take out a 220-pound bodybuilder gives women a feeling of being strong.
So this is the dilemma. Sacrifice realism a convincing story and the male crowd for fantasy and action, Or have a realistic movie with a great story but minimum action
In my opinion the movie that did this PERFECTLY is Alien, The first hunger games also.
Alsos
Kingfisher
Donfitz007 said:
I think you're hitting on two good observations here.
First, that authentic art is about the ideal. No, you or I will never look like He-Man, and no, no girl will ever look like (original) She-Ra, or Barbie. That's not the point of those characters. They are idealized forms of particular elements of their respective character types, something to aspire to in regards to those particular elements (fitness, athleticism, heroism, leadership, beauty, grace) rather than replicate in minute detail. Just look at the tragic figures who do attempt to "become" Barbie or Ken or whatever. Unfortunately, too many people are too literal-minded to recognize that distinction. It's healthy and admirable to emulate the healthy and admirable aspects of a fictional or real-life hero or success story - the select ideals they represent or embody - with moderation and within the limits of one's own abilities and life context. Taking it to an extreme, in either degree or scope, rather misses the point.
Tied to this is the notion that everyone must have the same ideals and role models. I as an individual cannot be allowed to pick and choose which ideals are important to me in which priority, and who to me embodies those ideals in a form to which I can aspire, because I might choose wrongly. Barbie is a perfect example of this: because someone sees Barbie as an unrealistic ideal and cannot grasp the emulate/replicate distinction, she demands that the ideal be destroyed...instead of just eschewing it in favor of an ideal that she finds more acceptable and appropriate.
Second, that modern culture has been corrupted by marketing to the lowest common denominator and/or the easy way out. Modern culture tells us that achievement just takes being lucky, anyone can do it, everyone deserves it no matter who they are or what they've done do earn it. You don't have to be disciplined or assertive, you don't have to put in long hours developing character and skills and knowledge, you don't have to face tough choices and endure hardship, you don't have to put in any effort to making success happen or making yourself worthy of success. Strive to emulate ideals of dedication, character, form, knowledge, or function? Why bother with that? Too much work for something you're entitled to have anyway. It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy that underlies most of modern popular culture: I'm special because I exist not because I work hard at it, and if I just wait all good things will come to me on a silver platter without any effort on my part, and if they don't it's because some nefarious villain is keeping from me what I am entitled to. The Hero's Journey comes to me.
It's sad, really. We had such potential as a civilization.
Alsos said:
You can't extricate a healthy well-formed woman from guys seeing it and having sexual thoughts. This is true of cartoon characters too, let's face it. An image is an image whether it's flesh and blood, celluloid, pixels, CGI, or hand-drawn. The image creates mental associations and sensations.
Feminism wants to pathologize male arousal as a form of CONTROL.
Alsos said:
I think the only rejection going on is when the sexuality originates with male desire.
Anytime men assert that desire, flirting, catcalling, or male creators inserting sexy women or sexy situations, it's to be shamed. The flipside, though?
That explains why a story about a mute homely woman using a captured merman as a fucktoy wins an oscar. It's okay in said film for the mute lead and fat black woman to have a conversation about what kind of hardware the merman has, but would a movie with a guy kissing and telling about one of his conquests would be picketed.
And what about the scene in Wonder Woman where she sizes up Chris Pine's hardware? Flipping male gaze over into female gaze is considered OK.
Playful discussions about that scene, this fixation on sizing up men, is considered perfectly acceptable, whereas male nerdrage over She-Ra not having boobs is not.
There are no universal principles at work here because it's not about principle. It's about...CONTROL.
Alsos said:
Again, it's about control and it's very one-sided. Women want to feel entitled to go on slut-walks, free the nipple, or post pictures of themselves pissing on the side of the road ala Miley Cyrus without greater society looking down on them.
Meanwhile, they applaud Netflix's 5-second eye-contact rule.
It's all about applying double-standards in order to tamp down male sexuality into the narrowest range of acceptable behaviors, narrow enough for Henry Cavill to go MGTOW.
If we haven't hit the rock bottom of the gynocracy yet, we're damn close now.
A lot of it is also projection. A lot of the women writing and producing this stuff are angry that such cases never happen to them. It's all just another attention seeking activity for them. So remember guys, most things women do are shit tests. This is all happening cause guys giving these girls this power aren't putting them in check.
He makes a good point.
Idealizations of bodies and characters don't mean sexualization. They are ideals of the feminine and masculine. Take this out and you are left with a story-arch that appeals to no one in our dichotomous species.
Now - if we had evolved out of slugs - maybe.....
BlueResolute said:
Not to mention the creepy male "allies" they surround themselves with will never satisfy their The Rock / Hemsworth Thor / He-Man fantasies.
While they being blue-haired fatty freaks, will never illicit any interest from any men of actual worth.
Donfitz007
Kingfisher
This brings up a point that i always wanted to address (probably off topic but I didn't want to waste space and create a new thread)
the fact that self-help in every avenue is MASSIVELY dominated by men
I've befriended alot of women and every last one of them that reads either reads "woke" type books or fantasy/romance novels. rarely anything philosophical unless its marketed as a "woke" book and NEVER a self-help book. I've asked many women both online and in person why they don't get self help books and they claim it makes them feel as if something is wrong with them. If they do buy a self-help book then its a book on managing relationships or understanding human nature (psychology which women enjoy)
A large part of my day is spent at the gym and it's heavily dominated by men also.
I'm sure alot of guys on here have been to seminars and noticed the very small percentage of women. I know I have.
Women don't even know how to network without using sex as a reward.
Why is this? Do women just feel they're too good to improve unless it's their bodies or face? Why do men often have a strong brotherhood but women have such weak and fragile sisterhoods. Feminism is an example. There are so many internal clashes.
Can somebody help me understand female nature
the fact that self-help in every avenue is MASSIVELY dominated by men
I've befriended alot of women and every last one of them that reads either reads "woke" type books or fantasy/romance novels. rarely anything philosophical unless its marketed as a "woke" book and NEVER a self-help book. I've asked many women both online and in person why they don't get self help books and they claim it makes them feel as if something is wrong with them. If they do buy a self-help book then its a book on managing relationships or understanding human nature (psychology which women enjoy)
A large part of my day is spent at the gym and it's heavily dominated by men also.
I'm sure alot of guys on here have been to seminars and noticed the very small percentage of women. I know I have.
Women don't even know how to network without using sex as a reward.
Why is this? Do women just feel they're too good to improve unless it's their bodies or face? Why do men often have a strong brotherhood but women have such weak and fragile sisterhoods. Feminism is an example. There are so many internal clashes.
Can somebody help me understand female nature
Donfitz007 said:
A few thoughts.
- Innate female desire is largely related to successful child bearing. Find good mate. Produce viable offspring.
- You don't need to climb mountains or invent whole new political paradigms in order to plop out a couple of kids to a half decent guy.
- In order to spend time with young kids for years on end, it may help to be a touch juvenile in mentality.
- Once kids are acquired. Said kid is the center of their world. There may be a bit of socializing or gossiping as per old school tribal structures. Yet still no need to climb mountains nor invent much.
Then in the modern world which offers so, so much in the way of opportunity. Without a man to tell them what to do; many chicks become insecure & uncertain at all the choices on offer.
So couple a juvenile mentality with too much choice & it may well drift into realms of fantasy.
Wishing to be 'saved' or for romance to bloom out of mere happenstance. As opposed to relying on actual work & effort.
"romance to bloom out of mere happenstance"
A woman's mindset is inherently passive and fatalistic. Historically, they could only wield soft-power, which to most women amounted to little more than a bit of body-english onto the overall trajectory of their lives.
I think in a feminist regime this passivity shifts over to a sense of entitment and soft-power shifts to social network lynch mobs (ala #MeToo). This shift is powered by a resentment of men as the root of their problems and disappointments in life when in fact there was never any good guy / bad guy here, just simple amoral biology.
The commonality is an avoidance of personal responsibility at all costs.
I don't know how a lesbian showrunner plays into the above or not. My daughter was once really into Steven Universe which is run by a woman who claims to be bi but is probably really just a lesbian. And I thought it was a good show up to the point where one of the thinly veiled lesbian alien gem characters gets the hots for a biker dyke with a lip-ring and then goes chasing after her. That's when the political agenda behind the show became waaaay too overt and creeptastic.
A woman's mindset is inherently passive and fatalistic. Historically, they could only wield soft-power, which to most women amounted to little more than a bit of body-english onto the overall trajectory of their lives.
I think in a feminist regime this passivity shifts over to a sense of entitment and soft-power shifts to social network lynch mobs (ala #MeToo). This shift is powered by a resentment of men as the root of their problems and disappointments in life when in fact there was never any good guy / bad guy here, just simple amoral biology.
The commonality is an avoidance of personal responsibility at all costs.
I don't know how a lesbian showrunner plays into the above or not. My daughter was once really into Steven Universe which is run by a woman who claims to be bi but is probably really just a lesbian. And I thought it was a good show up to the point where one of the thinly veiled lesbian alien gem characters gets the hots for a biker dyke with a lip-ring and then goes chasing after her. That's when the political agenda behind the show became waaaay too overt and creeptastic.
I'm glad to hear someone finally use the word creepy. That really is what shows like Steven Universe and She Ra feels like. Creepy.
BlueResolute said:
Not to hijack the thread but the problem with Steven Universe is the profound lack of male role-models. Steven's dad looks like Homer Simpson. He's a blue-pill loser and effectively a dead-beat dad for how little he has to do with his son. There isn't a single traditionally masculine role-model in the show.
They say write what you know and Rebecca Sugar doesn't really know anything about a traditional male role model or why it might be a useful thing. So what you get instead are simple bad-ass warrior archetypes imposed on female characters (the gems).
It's likely that She-Ra will follow this Amazonian model where men are superfluous and women embody all the qualities of both men AND women. You know, "the future is female!"
This is an attractive worldview for girls to think they can have it all, but it really leaves boys out in the cold. Even though Steven is the hero, he is essentially being raised in a single mother style household and taught to be blue-pill. He doesn't go to school and really won't be able to function if he has to be an adult in the real world. His girlfriend Connie, on the other hand, does go to school and has learned to swordfight on top of it, so she's a far more well-rounded human-being than Steven is.
So much has been said about how a male-dominated Hollywood doesn't know how to write realistic women. The Bechtel test and all that. But when women build their own shows they have equal difficulty presenting convincing male characters. But this is really seen as more of a vanguard creative decision than a deficiency.
I would say it's incredibly easy to write a woman.questor70 said:BlueResolute said:
Not to hijack the thread but the problem with Steven Universe is the profound lack of male role-models. Steven's dad looks like Homer Simpson. He's a blue-pill loser and effectively a dead-beat dad for how little he has to do with his son. There isn't a single traditionally masculine role-model in the show.
They say write what you know and Rebecca Sugar doesn't really know anything about a traditional male role model or why it might be a useful thing. So what you get instead are simple bad-ass warrior archetypes imposed on female characters (the gems).
It's likely that She-Ra will follow this Amazonian model where men are superfluous and women embody all the qualities of both men AND women. You know, "the future is female!"
This is an attractive worldview for girls to think they can have it all, but it really leaves boys out in the cold. Even though Steven is the hero, he is essentially being raised in a single mother style household and taught to be blue-pill. He doesn't go to school and really won't be able to function if he has to be an adult in the real world. His girlfriend Connie, on the other hand, does go to school and has learned to swordfight on top of it, so she's a far more well-rounded human-being than Steven
So much has been said about how a male-dominated Hollywood doesn't know how to write realistic women. The Bechtel test and all that. But when women build their own shows they have equal difficulty presenting convincing male characters. But this is really seen as more of a vanguard creative decision than a deficiency.
The show is out and the professional reviews are, as you'd expect, gushing in generic praise, and the comments under are dumpster-fires like this one from Entertainment Weekly.
An implausible 100% Rotten Tomatoes score either means that the professional reviewer class has completely ceded to SJWs, but the disconnect between it and the 68% user ratings is telling.
From what I hear, this show presents a world almost completely devoid of straight men (or feminine women), which is what a large group of people (including self-loathing cucks) see as a utopia.
An implausible 100% Rotten Tomatoes score either means that the professional reviewer class has completely ceded to SJWs, but the disconnect between it and the 68% user ratings is telling.
From what I hear, this show presents a world almost completely devoid of straight men (or feminine women), which is what a large group of people (including self-loathing cucks) see as a utopia.
Thersites
Kingfisher
questor70 said:
Not surprising. From the hellsite known as tumblr, its seem the fandom from Voltron Legendary Defender has praised the new She Ra. A fandom that was willing to go after advertisers and defund a cartoon show for not putting their favorite relationship in the show. You thought it was dumpster fire now, just you wait when toxic fandom destroy the show.
Rotten said:
That's deep, great post... and the whole thing has so many parallels outside of toys.
I'm imagining billions of dollars of shareholder value being destroyed in the corporate world by letting girls play with the boys and "having the power"...
He-Man is next
Meet the new He-Man, or should I say, soy-man.
Funny how on the one hand we have beefcake like Aquaman which seems to still celebrate traditional masculine ideals and then you have this open rebellion against it. Also this may be sort of a veiled diversity hire by not finding a blonde guy (as was Aquaman in its own way). Blonde is verboten (other than Brie Larson I guess) because of Nazi-aryan connotations.
Meet the new He-Man, or should I say, soy-man.
Funny how on the one hand we have beefcake like Aquaman which seems to still celebrate traditional masculine ideals and then you have this open rebellion against it. Also this may be sort of a veiled diversity hire by not finding a blonde guy (as was Aquaman in its own way). Blonde is verboten (other than Brie Larson I guess) because of Nazi-aryan connotations.