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

[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.

 

[Silvanus]

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.

However the character was portrayed would have attracted criticism from some quarters, but the same is true of every character, every facet of the film, every everything. The sheer number of voices means that there will be a "large number" who dislike anything-- male characters; female characters; wardrobe choices; the fact the film is being made at all; every damn thing under the sun.

To take one particular type of criticism (among the thousands) and point to it as some indication that you can't please everybody is rather misleading. You'll never please everybody on anything. Female characters are no worse, no more of a catch-22.

It's rather similar to the incident in which Joss Whedon quit Twitter, and people leapt on the fact he had received criticism from feminists shortly beforehand. That was true, but he'd also received criticism from Christian, among others. People just focused on the one because it affirmed what they already thought. Anything in the public eye attracts criticism from a dozen sources at the same time.

 

[Zontar]

However the character was portrayed would have attracted criticism from some quarters, but the same is true of every character, every facet of the film, every everything. The sheer number of voices means that there will be a "large number" who dislike anything-- male characters; female characters; wardrobe choices; the fact the film is being made at all; every damn thing under the sun.

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.

It's rather similar to the incident in which Joss Whedon quit Twitter, and people leapt on the fact he had received criticism from feminists shortly beforehand. That was true, but he'd also received criticism from Christian, among others. People just focused on the one because it affirmed what they already thought. Anything in the public eye attracts criticism from a dozen sources at the same time.

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.

 

[Redryhno]

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)

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.

 

[ShakerSilver]

The same reason people scream "misogyny" or "sexist agenda" when there isn't a female lead: there are many reactionary folks looking for reasons to validate their own agendas. Both sides will make knee-jerk reactions to the most minor issues just so they can make sure they're still being heard. Ironically this sort of works against them as no one will actually care for what they say and just paint them as a bunch of whingers, and if a valid complaint seemingly comes from any "side" of the debate it's grouped with that "side" and ignored.

An example: Prior to release of DmC, there were quite a few knee-jerk responses by hardcore DMC fans to Dante's redesign (not helped by some mocking by the developers), so quite a few people (including much of the media) painted fans as being whiny and "entitled". When the game came out, there were multiple criticisms made against the game by fans and others that didn't involve the game's visual design - auto lock-on with no lock-on button, a shallower combo and style system, a strange reliance on platforming, etc. However, on many forum sites and later by several media outlets when covering the game's lackluster sales never acknowledged some of the criticism levied against the game and still thought the any of the game's detractors were just "entitled fans upset over Dante's hair".

 

[Politrukk]

Snip

Bill was just deemed worthy of the hammer that's all, the fact is when you pick up Mj?lnir you get the getup.
That's different from Masterson who merged with Thor renounced and merged and renounced before getting his own weapon.
And different from this female Thor who is actively replacing the actual Thor.

With Masterson around Thor was not considered "not Thor" anymore, with the lady in the suit that's different.

At least there's a distinction made like that on the databases and wiki's and as far as I have found the general interpretation of the characters.

The main difference is that Bill and Masterson were "deemed worthy of the power of thor" whereas our lady simply becomes Thor.

on your Masterson comment:
The asgardians don't take kindly to Masterson but there's an entire confused tangle going on there throughout his storyline.


Back to the relevant point again :

I wish they'd just write new characters and refrain from re-rolling old ones.

 

[visiblenoise]

It's because you keep looking in places where they would scream that sort of shit.

 

[Redryhno]

It's because you keep looking in places where they would scream that sort of shit.

Ok, scratch everything else I've said here, I like this answer best.

 

[JimB]

I wish they'd just write new characters and refrain from re-rolling old ones.

Then what does her being female have to do with it?

 

[Zontar]

I wish they'd just write new characters and refrain from re-rolling old ones.

The what does her being female have to do with it?

Why would you ask a question that's answered in the quotation it is a response to?

 

[JimB]

I wish they'd just write new characters and refrain from re-rolling old ones.

Then what does her being female have to do with it?

Why would you ask a question that's answered in the quotation it is a response to?

It doesn't answer the question, though. Every time he's brought it up, her femaleness has been an issue. If the only complaint is that she's not the original Thor created by Jack Kirby, then why keep bringing up her ovaries? It doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Zontar]

I wish they'd just write new characters and refrain from re-rolling old ones.

Then what does her being female have to do with it?

Why would you ask a question that's answered in the quotation it is a response to?

It doesn't answer the question, though. Every time he's brought it up, her femaleness has been an issue. If the only complaint is that she's not the original Thor created by Jack Kirby, then why keep bringing up her ovaries? It doesn't make sense to me.

I see. Well, I can't speak for him, but for me a major issue was the fact that she straight up stole his identity that was done purely as a marketing gimmick that had terrible writing (the worst in a Thor comic in at least 20 years) that made no sense in-universe and had no place being done at all.