Marvels Jessica Jones is just extreme feminism and blaxploitation (Spoilers)

[Erttheking]

I'm sorry, having black people being trustworthy and good is blaxploitation? Why is it considered a bad thing then?

 

[Telefonegun]

Wow, your tenure here is going to be short, enjoy it while you're allowed.

What do you want from me? I did say I'm sorry you read it all. I truly am. The basics of criticizing things like TV series is that first you have to watch them. I can't stop you from doing things can I?

I'm also confused how JJ is full of blaxploitation? Because the black characters are not shallow easily identifiable charictures of what you think black people should be?

By saying Jessica Jones is blaxploitation is that the series has no good or even normal white male main characters. All the black male ones are the best possible ones, a superhero, a good cop, a good friend. That doesn't really mirror the reality. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully the future brings somewhat normal white male characters to the series. Sadly I have already stopped watching at this point.

 

[Politrukk]

New member, one post, suspicious baity thread.. My alarm bells are ringing..

Anyway no idea how you could think that Kilgrave is the "epithome of white male" seeing as though he's a murderous rapist and isn't remotely shown to be anything like that.

The rest of your post is just complaining about the bad guy being bad, and Marvel characters being in a Marvel show.

Yeah you forgot the CIS part in Cis White Male Rapist, that's why he's not the epitome of the white man as viewed by modern feminists/feminazi's/tumblrites, you're right.

 

[Zontar]

New member, one post, suspicious baity thread.. My alarm bells are ringing..

I don't know, I and a lot of others did similar things for our first posts, and the content and writing style doesn't seem in line with the discordian banjumper we've been dealing with for the past few months.

OT: I have to agree with the general consensus of the thread, the story is in keeping with the characters from the comics. Look new guy I hate modern feminism as much as the next rational person (and oh boy does modern feminism go out of its way to get people to hate it) but the series didn't really make me think of any of that for an instant while watching, and it seems that everyone in that series fell into two categories: "evil" and "asshole", with the stand out exception being Luke Cage, the Hero for Hire.

 

[Queen Michael]

The series has 3 white male main charaters that are all somewhat flawed or bad.

Yes, they are flawed. Like every other main character is to some extent. That's how you write characters that are human beings--you give them flaws.

EDIT: Also, the way you're focusing too much on gender and race makes you resemble modern social justice advocates and modern feminists in a bad way. And I say that as a guy who genuinely supports social justice and feminism. So to be clear: I mean the kind of social justice and feminism that complains about messages that didn't even exist until activists looking for reasons to be angry read it into the story.

Also, a female character hero-killing herself is actually the kind of thing feminists tend to hate. A female character who kills herself is a good character? A million angry voices shall be raised on Tumblr, mate.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

So what you're saying is that all of the black men should be criminals and rapists? I'm sorry, WHAT!?

 

[Kae]

I'm sorry, having black people being trustworthy and good is blaxploitation? Why is it considered a bad thing then?

The only valid point to Blaxplotation is that Luke Cage in the comics was originally created as a blaxplotation character, but I didn't get any of that from the show, I quite liked it, in any case the OP is crazy, none of the things he pointed out are actual issues with the show, and I don't know I thought Luke Cage, Malcolm[footnote]I really liked Malcolm's arc, he was easily my favourite character by the end and I think most of the main characters were pretty good.[/footnote] and Ruben were pretty good male characters, admittedly I wasn't a huge fan of Officer Simpson[footnote]I liked him when he was just a cop, but the whole Nuke thing felt pretty forced and out of place for me.[/footnote] but Killgrave was a fantastic villain, sure he was just evil but who cares he was entertaining and interesting to watch, plus despite being just evil he didn't feel shallow at all.

As for the feminism thing, I don't see it at all, unless that just having good female characters in a show where the leads are female is now considered "pushing the feminist agenda" which of course would be silly since it's simply called having good lead characters, that's just how it was in the original comic, and if it's empowering to women, why the hell does it matter? Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and most of the MCU are empowering to men and that's not a bad thing either.

 

[the December King]

Just don't watch it.

I saw from miles away, as did we all, that the property was going to be about a female protagonist with super powers. The idea that it might play with some concepts including flipping or breaking stereotypes seemed to follow suit- I believe I caught an article that mentioned that the show often tosses the Benchdel test on it's ear and has female characters dealing with problems while male characters just talk about the women (failing the 'Bendell' test? Just messing ). Must be refreshing for some.

Personally it's not for me for several reasons, but I assessed that from the preview material long ago.

 

[Silence]

Okay ...

so there should at least one white male who is flawless in a series, but the flaws of the females are not flaws, because they are "realistic"?

Now I wouldn't say it does not get overboard with some things, but ... fucking hell, white males are flawed, every human is flawed, so why is this a bad thing?

Not to mention that every character in this series is flawed, so it is not just hacking on the white males.

 

[JimB]

Marvel's Jessica Jones protagonist isn't done right.

I am immediately suspicious when this is your first complaint and your apparent way of backing up how bad the female protagonist is is...to talk about male supporting characters. It reeks of what I call "Angry Jack syndrome;" an inability to handle someone talking about something that isn't you.

The main antagonist, Kilgrave, is the "epitome of [the] white male:" an English man; a colonist; a person with no morality whose victims are mostly women, homosexuals, and colored.

Uh...dude, if you think white men are epitomized by having no morality and by victimizing women, gay people, and people who aren't Caucasian, then I think you have some serious white guilt issues to work through. God damn.

The blaxploitation is just so obvious that it made watching Marvel's Jessica Jones grinch whorty, a bad flashback to the heydays of 60-70's films with black protagonists. Every black character is either a victim of Kilgrave or hero or both. Malcolm is black, a heroic ex-victim [who] helps [the] female protagonist and other victims of Kilgrave after Jessica helps him. Malcolm is trustworthy and [a] good person. Luke Cage is the main black hero, a trustworthy, good person who has superpowers and his black wife, Reva, was also [a] victim of Kilgrave. Clemons is a trustworthy and good black police officer that falls victim to first to Kilgrave and then to the white male "hero," Simpson.

Telefonegun, "blaxploitation" is a specific genre with a specific meaning, and you are misapplying it here. Please describe exactly what is so bad about a television show having three black supporting characters who are, in your words, trustworthy, good people.

The female characters are all somewhat positive [and] don't have [many] negative traits. Jessica Jones is the superstrong protagonist, a "ex-hero" whose main "flaw" is that she can't bring herself to kill Kilgrave and that creates more and more victims.

She's an abrasive, emotionally shut off person whose method of coping with trauma is to become about half an alcoholic and who enjoys employing physical violence against people a little too much. If you think she has no serious character flaws, then you either have extremely warped values regarding healthy expression of inner turmoil or else you are deliberately warping the character in your own mind in order to suit this narrative you're crafting.

Jessica is [an] extremely white female, with black hair, black leather jacket, black boots, and with black sense of humor.

Of the list you just provided, only the sense of humor is a character trait. The rest is just a physical description. None of it is either good or bad.

...God, I am rapidly losing interest in this. Okay, let's wrap this up.

It didn't surpise me that the series creator, most writers and the directors are female.

I get the feeling from the grammatical errors you make that you do not speak English as your first language, so perhaps you don't understand what the word "most" means. It means "more than half." The actual number is in the neighborhood of twenty-five percent.

Even when the creators have gone for more realistic New York look and feel, curse words like "fuck" don't show up even once.

It didn't in Daredevil either. That's a choice the producers made in both shows in order to avoid ratings classifications they don't want.

Even when the antagonist rapes women, none of these scenes are shown, only talked about.

Rape is not entertainment. It's rape. A lot of people watching the show, statistically speaking, are likely to have been raped, so showing the audience graphic depictions of arguably the most upsetting trauma a human being can experience just to satisfy your personal tastes, which I can't help noticing you never explain or justify why it's important to depict the act of rape, is bad marketing at best and actively callous at worst.

The sexual intercourse scenes in the series that are shown the female are always in total control.

Yes, because there are no women in the real world who like being dominant in their sexuality, particularly as a defense mechanism after having been violated; nor are there men who enjoy submitting to a woman.

Christ, dude.

 

[Shingeki no Gingerbeard]

Somehow when checking the IMDB page for Marvels Jessica Jones it didn't surpise me that the series creator, most writers and the director are all female. I can't believe that I'm the only one seeing this?

I can "forgive" some of your previously mentioned crap because of typical biases and not understanding the genre (it's noir, by the way,) but now you're just making shit up. The series had nine directors, seven of whom were male, and four of those nine directed two episodes each. The writing credits are considerably more diverse, but even then there are only three people given credits for all thirteen episodes: character creator Brian Michael Bendis, series creator Melissa Rosenberg, and Michael Gaydos. There are still eight more contributing writers, which are evenly split between male and female.

There's nothing extreme about this series.

 

[Kingjackl]

So you don't consider yourself a male chauvinist, but you think shows created by and about women should be regarded with suspicion? Your example of a good female character is a gender-swapped male character. Your example of a good modern drama is a show based around the middle ages where most women are treated like shit.

Just out of interest, do you think characters like Brienne, Arya and Daenerys are feminist propoganda as well? Or is it okay because they were created by a man.

Maybe some self-reflection is in order.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

By saying Jessica Jones is blaxploitation is that the series has no good or even normal white male main characters. All the black male ones are the best possible ones, a superhero, a good cop, a good friend. That doesn't really mirror the reality. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully the future brings somewhat normal white male characters to the series. Sadly I have already stopped watching at this point.

You know, the knee jerk reaction is to dismiss you as racist, be all offended you share my internets, and hope you get flamed out of existence.

But who does that help?

So I'll simply ask this: You realized you said that not knowing who is on these forums, right? You basically just made a blanket statement to people you don't know who could possibly fly against your beliefs.

 

[aba1]

why does this matter at all? I mean Marvel or Netflix or whoever is in charge of hiring for these projects can hire who they like

Flip the thing around. A series of which all creators are male and all the female characters are bad. Now think of the public outrage. I don't think that the creators of Jessica Jones even noticed what they were doing, it's just their fantasies coming from their ID's. I wonder were there even some people in the TV production line who were like "WTF!?".

Your right it would be public outrage if they did the opposite but you and I both know that would be dumb. If we both agree the outrage would be dumb one way then it would be hypocritical to get upset about it the opposite way. People should be able to make the project they want anyways. So what if all the bad guys and flawed people were white men that was their creative decision to make. I didn't get the impression they did it to make a point about them being white or male, though if they did I might be bothered a little more.

I could see feminists going on about how this is a super feminist show though but I mean they are kinda famous as a group for being massive hypocrites to begin with so no surprise there.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Jessica Jones does use Kilgrave as an analogy for rape(not a subtle one mind), and there are connotations with him being the stereotypical "nice guy" who believes that women will like him if he just does nice things regardless of his other horrible deeds, but I wouldn't call it "extreme feminism" any more than say, The Scarlet Letter.

I'd say that the writers do come across as capitalising on recent commotions, but the story is solid by itself. The biggest problem being that Jessica isn't too relatable and that the story is sometimes 7edgy9me without earning it(in my opinion).

In regards to OP:

I think you're reading way too far into things. New York, especially Brooklyn(?) is a culturally diverse neighbourhood, and I severely doubt that the characters were used as a jab at white people.

The show's biggest problem is that it uses minor characters for shock value with about as much regard as your regular shonen anime. There's also the fact that all characters feel underdeveloped and that their justification for their actions is "just because". Why does Hogarth just nonchalantly divorce her spouse? Just because(or rather so that it can be used later on as "poetic justice" when her callousness comes back to bite her in the ass).

Honestly, I'd say that OP comes across as projecting ever so slightly.

 

[K12]

I'd be very surprised to see an extremist feminist show with a selfish heartless lesbian mega-***** as a central character.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Really everyone? Come on.

Will comment on one thing...GoT is not "GRRM approved". He's openly snarked at it a few times. He rubber stamped the existence of the show, but don't think for a moment that means he "approves" of their adaptations. Martin is quite famously dismissive of fan fiction or any outside interpretations of his work.

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2013/11/14/george-rr-martin-fuck-your-fan-fiction

 

[Zontar]

Will comment on one thing...GoT is not "GRRM approved". He's openly snarked at it a few times. He rubber stamped the existence of the show, but don't think for a moment that means he "approves" of their adaptations. Martin is quite famously dismissive of fan fiction or any outside interpretations of his work.

Not sure how that's relevant, especially given how the thing that people got their panties in a bunch about was not only in the books, it was WORST in the books by virtue of having pedophilia on top of everything else people hated about that scene.

Not that most viewers or anyone involved in the production of the show give a damn about what the impossible to please group who have complained about the incidents in the show have to say. They don't turn anyone who was watching away and act as free advertisement after all.

 

[Beliyal]

Even when the antagonist rapes women, none of these scenes are shown, only talked about.

Rape is not entertainment. It's rape. A lot of people watching the show, statistically speaking, are likely to have been raped, so showing the audience graphic depictions of arguably the most upsetting trauma a human being can experience just to satisfy your personal tastes, which I can't help noticing you never explain or justify why it's important to depict the act of rape, is bad marketing at best and actively callous at worst.

Seeing as Game of Thrones is the epitome of TV shows according to him, no surprise in what he said there.

In his rant, the thing I like the most is how he complains about female characters not having any flaws. I can't tell if he's just tragically deficient in understanding the watched material or is deliberately being dishonest.

Jeri Hogarth isn't just a successful lawyer who falls victim to Kilgrave. She's a despicable person and is shown to be, repeatedly. She cheats on her wife, disrespects her and other people, continuously tries to set her up only because she just wants to marry a new person as quickly as possible and literally plots bringing Kilgrave to her wife so he can manipulate her into signing divorce papers. After all Jessica has told her and after all that's happened, Jeri believes Kilgrave is the right way to go and was clearly thinking in how his dangerous powers could be used, by her, to achieve anything she wants. She literally not only justifies Kilgrave, but also pretty much proves that she'd do the same things he did if only she had those powers as well. Jeri is absolutely a disgusting human being and the show isn't shy on showing it.

Let's mention Trish's mother. A woman who abused her daughter, used her for money and fame gain, was the cause of severe issues in young Trish such as drug abuse, harassed her verbally and physically so much that Trish had to cease all contact with her mother and turn her apartment into a fortress in order to evade her.

Wendy might be a nice good doctor, but she becomes entirely consumed by the need to get revenge on Hogarth and makes everyone's lives ten times more difficult, simply because she just wants to get most of Jeri's money. And despite all the problems, Wendy keeps her vindictive stubbornness going for longer than a sane person would.

Robin is pretty bad as a person as well. She is abrasive, yells at everyone for no reason and insults everyone she sees. She is shown as a difficult to socialize with and as an overall unpleasant person.

And of course, Jessica. She's a bad person. She despises everyone, cannot be polite, enacts (excessive) violence and destruction without much need or reason, lies, hurts and insults other people, even those that are trying to help her and are on her side. In the end, we see her delete messages of people who called her for help. Not exactly a knight in shining armor right there. I won't even go into her alcoholism and inability to communicate without being dismissive and passive-aggressive.

As a matter of fact, I'm now more convinced that the OP is being deliberately dishonest. No one who watched this should could objectively say that female characters have no flaws. It's just factually incorrect. Same as the statement that the show had a majority of female directors, writers and producers. Same as pretty much everything from the OP.

My favorite part is how, according to the OP, having more than zero female directors, writers and producers is now "extreme feminism" and "most were women." And how, also according to the OP, having a variety of male and female characters portrayed as actual people with both good and bad traits is "extreme feminism."