Why I Wear Princess Leia's Metal Slave Bikini

crimson5pheonix

It took 6 months to read my title.
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LifeCharacter said:
crimson5pheonix said:
That doesn't change that your argument is poor and thinks less of women.
Well, except you've said precisely nothing about my actual argument other than this weird thing where saying that the arguments of one woman aren't very good mean that I must think less of all women everywhere. And the thing is that I'm not even sure how that works outside of the mind of someone who thinks that every single woman is the same and has the same opinions and makes the same arguments, because, otherwise, criticizing the poor arguments and badly supported opinions of one woman wouldn't mean doing the same to every last woman in existence. Who knows, maybe you do think that.
Defensiveness aside, you're the one saying that a woman's opinion doesn't matter.
 

crimson5pheonix

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LifeCharacter said:
crimson5pheonix said:
Defensiveness aside, you're the one saying that a woman's opinion doesn't matter.
Complete misrepresentations aside, I'm the one who says that this particular woman's opinion is founded on poor arguments and therefore can be disregarded. Which, to someone utterly incapable of honestly representing what another person has said, means that I've declared that we should all disregard the opinions of all women everywhere. I would say to have a good night, but I'm worried you'll twist that into me threatening to beat everyone who disagrees with me to death with the moon, so I'll just leave it. Also, I wouldn't really mean it so why bother?
You're the one telling people what to think. It's actually perfectly possible to disagree with someone without assuming they're just being paid, or that they're bad people or anything similar.
 

crimson5pheonix

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LifeCharacter said:
crimson5pheonix said:
You're the one telling people what to think. It's actually perfectly possible to disagree with someone without assuming they're just being paid, or that they're bad people or anything similar.
I'm aware. But then, that would be sort of clear if you bothered to actually respond to what I had actually written rather than whatever fantasy best suits your desire to complain about someone daring to criticize someone's opinion and the crappy arguments she based it on.
Several people have disagreed with her in this thread. You're the one I'm talking to. The other people managed to make more reasonable arguments.
 

F-I-D-O

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WinterWyvern said:
If she said:

"I like the bikini outfit because it's sexy and cool, and I think it's dumb to hide sexy costumes, so I'll wear it even more in protest for Disney's dumb sex-ophobic plan"

....I couldn't have agreed more.

But no, she said:

"I wear the bikini outfit because IT'S EMPOWERING!!!"

....and that's kinda ridiculous.
So...if the crux of her argument was how you feel and now how she feels about said metallic clothing you'd have been fine with it?

I see Disney's marketing not as sexphobic, but as number crunching. They probably aren't selling too many RotJ figures anymore. It also lets them stop any argument of "why are you still sexing up Leia" if they sell those figures alongside the new episode VII lead. I'd be surprised if they try and crack down on Halloween costumes and the like (sales are sales), but it really just seems like a company phasing out an old visual for a new one - not too much different from moving between Optimus Prime toys.

And while you might not see the outfit as empowering, its a repeat of the visual trend set in the first movie. There, you have Leia in a white dress, as the personification of princess in distress, take control of her own rescue (despite not wearing armor) and get everyone out. With RotJ, you have Leia again doing more than her clothing (a core component of characterization in films) would imply she can do - the similarly dressed Twi'lek can do nothing as she dies. Leia takes control when opportunity arises, using the only tool available to her - the chain attached to the bikini. Whether or not you see it as a symbol of feminism is irrelevant - it's a core scene of a beloved character rising above her current station to handle a problem, gaining power from a disadvantage.
 

Erttheking

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How about we all take a step back and then have this discussion when we can talk without out making it personal?
 

Tsun Tzu

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Unsurprisingly, I agree with ya Liana.

Not much more to say there, but the whole thing is just sad, all the way around.

Callate said:
(Checks watch)...So, everybody convinced that their opposites are irredeemable in their ignorance, malicious in their intent, cemented in their closed-mindedness, and that they were fully justified in their preconceptions again?

I mean, if you really feel that a metal bikini is the fulcrum on which so much rides that it's necessary to become incandescently ballistic about it, being either the final straw before the world slides either into either feminist tyranny or the universal acceptance of female slavery, far be it from me to stand in your way.

But if those ideas seem, perhaps, the tiniest bit hyperbolic, maybe you could grant those who disagree with you the slightest shred of humanity, perhaps even try to find some common ground? Make actual progress? Expand some horizons?

Look, I'm not claiming to be above this kind of thing, or that I've never gotten overly heated in an argument that wasn't worth the trouble. But to see this kind of spite and sneering, just outside the boundaries of the terms of use, over and over again, doesn't convince me of the peerless enlightenment and unassailable goodness of anyone participating. It just makes me tired.
Wrong tree. Wrong tree!

Really though, just quoting you because it bears repeating.

Unfortunately, it will likely be ignored because we're all apparently bitter kidults with axes the size of Texas and a grinding wheel to match.

erttheking said:
How about we all take a step back and then have this discussion when we can talk without out making it personal?
Yeah!

Nobody around here does that...that kinda thing!



You...you should all be ashamed of yourselves.
 

runic knight

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So, Leia's outfit represents a sexual and empowered woman taking vengeance on her captor? I guess I can see where they'd pick that up from, the jabba murder scene was pretty brutal and the whole thing seemed like an outright planned assassination in the end. Seriously, that many people in place seemed far more than impromptu. Hell, freeing Han, putting chewie into the prison, Luke letting himself get captured after the Rankor pit, the lightsaber clearly waiting on signal, and Lando in waiting all were far more than needed if they were just trying things peaceful like. That was an Ocean's Eleven assassination, with Leia taking the lead, accepting the humiliation in order to do her duty and kill the slug boss. That is some pretty empowering ideas there.

So yeah, definitely a valid reason to like the costume, it can certainly represent women empowerment through an ironic twist in a "slave" outfit. Imagine sort of the same reason as a collar with a broken chain might represent wildness and freedom despite it being, you know, a collar that restricts and all that.

LifeCharacter said:
in general
You do know that she explained why she called them "counterfeit feminists" and that in doing so, your attempt to dismiss it all without going after the arguments used to back it really comes off as disingenuous dismissal. So I have to ask for a little clarity here. Are you calling her wrong and claiming she is pandering to a group you dislike, with the heavily implied notion that she is fake in what she says (as pandering generally is an over the top appeal to an audience) because she is using her reasoning to point to discrepancies in her view of feminism compared to what you think feminism is, or are you declaring her wrong because you disagree with her support of the costume on the basis of a feminist argument that you dislike? Is it the conclusion you find fault with because it runs counter your view of feminism, or is it the use of feminism to support her argument that you find flaw with here?
 

TheSlothOverlord

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chocolate pickles said:
Better hope the SJW's and morality police don't get wind of this. They'll have a field day.
It is too late now. They have already come and are (gasp!) politely disagreeing with the author! THE HORROR.

Considering how often the dreaded "SJWs" are talked about and how often they're actually seen, I'm surprised we don't have cryptozoologists trying to find them yet.

LifeCharacter said:
crimson5pheonix said:
The passive aggressiveness is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

LifeCharacter said:
I wasn't aware pandering and disengenuous were now horrible charges that one must never level at anyone ever lest they wish to insist that they don't hold any of the opinions they're actually stating.
Except that is the very definition of being disingenuous and pandering. And I'd say those are pretty serious charges when leveled against a journalist. Sure, you can disagree with the argument itself, but unless you have some magical insight into the inner workings of her mind (and I consider that unlikely), then I don't really see how you can claim she is being insincere.
Phasmal said:
By the way, anyone want to buy some counterfeit feminism? Looks just like the real stuff, I swear. But just don't come cryin' to me if you get busted by the Feminism Police.
Oh yeah, and how do I know you're not actually an undercover Feminism Officer looking to lock me in Feminist Jail hmmm?! And don't give me the whole "a Feminist Officer has to tell you the truth when you ask them", that's an urban myth!
 

TheSlothOverlord

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The_Kodu said:
TheSlothOverlord said:
chocolate pickles said:
Better hope the SJW's and morality police don't get wind of this. They'll have a field day.
It is too late now. They have already come and are (gasp!) politely disagreeing with the author! THE HORROR.
Was this before or after they accused the Author of being in short a liar doing to to pander to an audience and called her arguments poor and likened them to an "Anti-feminist checklist". All the time failing to actually present evidence for any of these or argue why the arguments were poor?

I don't consider it particularly polite to level claims like that against people without at least some reasoning or evidence backing them up.
It was before, my dear friend. I am somewhat confused why you would use a plural pronoun to refer to a single person who started a prolonged fight and did accuse the author of being a liar (and the other stuff). Which I have mentioned in my last comment. Otherwise though I didn't see anyone else throwing accusations at the author, even though a lot of them disagreed. Unless I missed something on the first page of the comments of course.
 

BytByte

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Here's a thought. There are probably people out there who think that fat stinky Jabba was the hot one in that scene. Ewwwwww. But hey, it was harder to get your rocks off in the 80s, so I think we can make an exception
 

TheSlothOverlord

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The_Kodu said:
Sorry I've been spending too much time near social justice I was using the singular they ( the Social justice version of the royal WE). You didn't miss anything it was the one you responded to.
Oh, I'm actually a fan of the singular they, if only because it's a more graceful option than "he or she". I was just confused because in your original post you referred to multiple people :p.
The_Kodu said:
Then again the idea of reducing the argument to absurdity. Well it's already got there when the main argument for stopping making the toys seems to be "Won't someone please think of the children who I don't actually have to buy this figure for at all and can buy an entirely different Leia figure instead"
I never really got the idea of protecting children from all mentions of the birds and the bees. Sure you probably don't want to expose them to the rich fetish world, which could be somewhat traumatizing to an unprepared mind; but is it really necessary to hide the mere biological fact of sex or is it just because we've come to see it as something inherently dirty and the mere knowledge of it will irreversibly taint your mind?
 

LetalisK

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I more or less agree with Liana. Particularly this line: "So Disney can do what it wants, and counterfeit feminists can cheer the decision after it's been made for them, obeying their own slave masters without the fabulous outfit."

I know there is no unifying theory of feminism, but someone celebrating the slave outfit being gone as progressive for women actually feels a little slut shamey to me. Much like free speech, it's not about liking what women choose, but acknowledging that they should have the choice, ideologically speaking. At least that's how I view it.