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#the way you people treat and infantilize asian men and asian characters
skadren · 1 year
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hi! as you are a nonbinary chinese american writer, can i ask you your thoughts on writing nonbinary chinese and chinese american characters? a few chinese ppl have said its offensive but nonbinary chinese / chniese american ppl exist irl so it makes sense to represent them... how would you do it + tips?
hi anon! this is a complicated topic and i’m really only one random person on the internet, so i think it's important to ask yourself: do you trust the people who are saying this is offensive? are they raising points you think make sense? are they nonbinary themselves or just white knighting? and so on
since i primarily write and read fanfic, i've really only felt particularly offended by the portrayal of chinese characters before in that context. i'm sure the world of Real Publishing(tm) has its own mess but idk any specifics about that so i'll be just giving my thoughts on what i've seen in fandom + some tips under the cut
from what i've noticed in fandom, nonbinary (and transmasc and intersex, but i digress) usually ends up being shorthand in fandom for making a canonically male character "boy lite" (canonically female characters are a bit of a scarce supply already, much less nonbinary headcanons for them). this is already really uncomfortable on its own, and there are far better posts out there that talk about soft uwu androgynous nonbinary stereotypes and why those are harmful
this compounds quite unfortunately with the fact that english-speaking fandom already has a habit of feminizing and infantilizing characters in east asian media with majority-male casts like kpop and cdramas while ignoring the existence of actual queer asian people. the kpop industry has embraced this habit of fandom and is actively leaning into it because it sells; china has tried to crack down on this by limiting media that portrays men as too effeminate for their standards.
so yeah actually i can see why people are saying nonbinary chinese characters would be offensive, because they assume it would just be more of the same, and i do think we should be questioning why fandom tends to treat east asian men as inherently less masculine. but the problem isn't that representation in and of itself is inherently offensive but that what we have is all the same, sanitized and packaged and exported to a global audience in a way that is actually quite degrading and is never even actually real representation. hypercapitalism, hooray
anyways. some tips:
being nonbinary covers so much more than just being boy lite(tm)
BEING NONBINARY COVERS MORE THAN JUST BEING BOY LITE
your character is a character first before their group identity. one informs the other but there are plenty of things that exist outside of gender or ethnicity. generally, approaching character writing primarily from the angle of "i want to represent x group" doesn't turn out too well bc it starts to feel like tokenism
on the other hand, if you could strip the character of said group identity and change them to being white and cishet and their character would work exactly the same, that's also a sign that something is wrong
different cultures construct gender differently. my gender is informed by american norms and queer history so it isn’t going to representative of someone who grew up on the mainland; on the other hand, it will never match the mainstream white american nonbinary experience, either. take the time to understand how a specific society might construct categorical gender and its norms before asking how your character would navigate it
china is a huge country. the usa is a huge country. there are also plenty of chinese people who live outside of these countries. generation and/or time period has a huge impact as well. speak to some other nonbinary chinese people! find out what they have to say about their experience
good luck with your writing!
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proship-ghost · 2 years
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⚠️ TW for SA, EDs, SH, Suicide, mentions of ableism basically the main points of things that could and can be triggering ⚠️
This is a rather controversial take that- and I may be wrong- I'd love to hear you're opinions and ideas
Honestly, I don't really like the Boyfriends webtoon OR Heartstopper either or one more than the other, as an MLM, poly and trans person
In my eyes at least, I think with Heartstopper a lot of the issues that were brought up we're not given enough time to be properly settled without it feeling rushed. Topics of EDs, SA, and similar behaviors are rushed and even in the show with Ben specifically, it's used as a plot point to get the main characters together, it feels tacky in a sense. Everyone seems to praise it for amazing LGBTQ+ rep (which it does have mostly everyone under the umbrella which is nice to see) but at the same time when it's hard to see characters beyond their label and spin-the-wheel interest in my eyes it's rather flat.
Boyfriends isn't that much better by any means, but it's a different reason. While people like to shit on and constantly slander the webtoon, (creator aside) they never seem to bring up the proper reasons.
USUALLY it's : Nerd is a proshipper (whoopty fucking do), it's cringy, the ads are bad, infantilizing sexualized characters, stereotypes, etc etc.
First off, Cringe culture is shitty and constantly placing something you don't like as cringy is shittier. Stop.
Second, the ads ARE bad in a lot of cases- the voice acting is odd and doesn't really fit the characters in my eyes- especially for Goth.
Third, Nerd isn't infantilized by any means which definition speaking "treat (someone) as a child or in a way which denies their maturity in age or experience." It's weird to see people claim he's infantilized because he's short, likes bright colors, and gets hyperfixated on K-pop, cartoons, anime, the similar ideas. It feels almost ableist in a way since (again, my opinion) Nerd feels very neuerodivergent.
•The entire point of them being Goth, Nerd, Prep, and Jock is to make fun of the stereotypical Disney-esque cliques in highschool/college settings. That's the entire point, it has little to no correlation to their queerness point blank period.
The only GENUINE criticism outside the authors behaviors (which, you can easily seperate the content from the creater) is that the characters who are of Japanese and Asian race all look like white men, which I do agree- it feels as though the author added their races to add more rep than they did to actually make those characters that race.
TLDR; Boyfriends the Webtoon is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be and Heartstopper is not as great as everyone praises it for- they're both good but they're not perfect by any means.
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pendraegon · 3 years
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every time i see white people on here who interact/are fans of asian media (in particular east asian media), then decide to treat people of color in these spaces as their [1] Get Out Of Racism Card because i follow this blogger or [2] think that said blogger is the authority on all issues??? and [3] proceeds to act not only bizarrely but inappropriately in regards to various east asian cultures as if said white person actually would know MORE than an asian blogger in regards to their own heritage is well.........i must laugh.
#it's so abhorrent.#i was very briefly in the mdzs fandom — i would even hesitate to say that in that i only liked talking about the show with my mutuals#but the things that i have seen as a result from that tag alone and likewise#other danmei/cdrama things that crop up on my dash because my mutuals are horrified by it well.#so fucking sick to death of you white people waltzing in thinking you know jackshit about asian cultures#the way you people treat and infantilize asian men and asian characters#the way that every so often posts like this pop up in these circles and yet all of you people ignore the words and comments of ACTUAL#fans of color and instead prop up white voices. it's sickening.#the way you use chinese culture to then prop up your own disgusting views regarding p*dophilia and i*cest and saying things like 'well this#is normal in the chinese fandom/in china' when VARIOUS chinese bloggers have said it's not and that you're just utilizing#progressive language in saying 'well if you criticize this work for being pedophilic/incestual/depicting X or Y positively then you're#racist against asian people' like. oh my god. do you hear yourself?#oh. this isn't about anything in particular i just. i don't know.#thought about how much im glad im no longer as active in cdrama spaces#because i don't have to deal with fetishists and racists.#but also im kind of sad because i remember being SO overjoyed by how much i adored the untamed and how even though i'm korean and not#chinese it was something that resonated with me to an extent....
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blackstarising · 3 years
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coming back to this post i made again to elaborate - especially as the ted lasso fandom is discussing sam/rebecca and fandom racism in general. there are takes that are important to make that i had failed to previously, but there's also a growing amount of takes that i have to, As A Black Person™, respectfully disagree with.
tl;dr for the essay below sam being infantilized and the sam/rebecca relationship are not the same issue and discussing the former one doesn't mean excusing the latter. and we've reached the glen of the Dark Forest where we sit down and talk about fandom racism.
i should have elaborated this in my last post about sam/rebecca, but i didn't. i'll say it now - i personally don't support sam and rebecca getting together for real. i believe what people are saying is entirely correct, even though sam is an adult legally, he and rebecca are, at the very least, two wildly different stages of life. for americans, he's at the equivalent of being a junior in college. there are things he hasn't gotten the chance to experience and there are areas he needs to grow in. when i was younger, i didn't understand the significance of these age gaps, i just thought it would be fine if it was legal, but as someone who is now a little older than sam in universe, i understand fully. we can't downplay this. whether or not you think sam works for rebecca or not, even despite the gender inversion of the Older Man Younger Woman trope, whether or not he is a legal adult, i don't think at this point in time, their relationship would work. i think it's an interesting narrative device, but i don't want to see it play out in reality.
that being said!
what's worrying me is that two discussions are being conflated here that shouldn't be. sam having agency and being a little more grown™ than he's perceived to be does not suddenly make his relationship with rebecca justified. i had decided to bring it up because sam was being brought into the spotlight again and i was starting to realizing that his infantilization was more common than i felt comfortable with.
sam's infantilization (and i will continue to call it that), is a microaggression. it's is in the range of microaggressions that i would categorize as 'fandom overcompensation'. we have a prominent character of color that exhibits traits that aren't stereotypical, and we don't want to appear racist or stereotypical, so we lean hard in the other direction. they're not aggressive, they're a Sweet Baby, they're not world weary, they're now a little naive. they're not cold and distant, they're so nice and sweet that there's no one that wouldn't want approach them, and yeah, on their face, these new traits are a departure and, on their face, they seem they look really good.
but at a certain point, it reaches an inflection point, and, like the aftertaste of a diet coke, that alleged sweetness veers into something a lot less sweet. it veers into a lack of agency for the character. it veers into an innocence that appears to indicate that the person can't even take care of themselves. it veers into a one-dimensional characterization that doesn't allow for any depth or negative emotion.
it's not kind anymore. it's not a nice departure from negative stereotypes. it's not compensating for anything.
it's patronizing.
it is important that we emphasize that characters of color are more than the toxic stereotypes we lay on them, yes, but we make a mistake in thinking that the solution is overcorrection. for one thing, people of color can usually tell. don't get it twisted, it's actually pretty obvious. for another, it just shifts from one dimension to another. people of color are still supposed to be Only One Character Trait while white people can contain multitudes. ted, who is pretty much as pollyanna as they come, can be at once innocent and naive and deep and troubled and funny and scared. jamie can be a prick and sexy and also lonely and also a victim of abuse. sam, however, even though he was bullied (by jamie, no less), is thousands of miles away from home, and has led a protest on his team, is usually just characterized as human sunshine with much less acknowledgement of any other traits beyond that.
and that's why i cringe when fandom calls sam a Sweet Baby Boy without any sense of irony. is that all we're taking away? after all this time? even for a comedy, sam has received a substantive of screen time over two whole seasons, and we've seen a range of emotions from him. so as a black person it's hurtful that it's boiled down to Sweet Baby Boy.
that's the problem. we need to subvert stereotypes, but more importantly, we need to understand that people of color are not props, or pieces of cardboard for their white counterparts. they are full and actualized and have agency in their own right and they can have other emotions than Angry and Mean or Sweet and Bubbly without any nuance between the two. i think the show actually does a relatively good job of giving sam depth (relatively, always room for improvement, mind you), especially holding it in tension with his youth, but the fandom, i worry, does not.
it's the same reason why finn from star wars started out as the next male protagonist in the sequel trilogy but by the third movie was just running around yelling for REY!! it's the same reason why when people make Phase 4 Is the Phase For Therapy gifsets for the mcu and show wanda maximoff, loki, and bucky barnes crying and being sad but purposefully exclude sam wilson who had an entire show to tell us how difficult his life is, because people find out if pee oh sees are also complex, they'll tell the church.
and the reason why i picked up on this very early on is because i am an organic, certified fresh, 100% homegrown, non-gmo, a little ashy, indigenous sub saharan African black person. the ghanaian tribes i'm descended from have told me so, my black ass parents have told me so, and the nurses at the hospital in [insert asian country here] that started freaking out about how curly my hair was as my mother was mid pushing me out told me so!
and this stuff has real life implications. listen: being patronized as a black person sucks. do you know how many times i was patted on the back for doing quite honestly, the bare minimum in school? do you know how many times i was told how 'well spoken' or 'eloquent' i was because i just happen to have a white accent or use three syllable words? do you know how many times i've been cooed over by white women who couldn't get over how sweet i was just because i wasn't confrontational or rude like they wrongly expected me to be?
that's why they're called microaggressions. it's not a cross on your lawn or having the n-word spat in your face, but it cuts you down little by little until you're completely drained.
so that's the nuance. that's the subversion. the overcompensation is not a good thing. and people of color (and i suspect, even white people) have picked up on, in general, the different ways fandom treats sam and dani and even nate. what all of these discussions are converging on is fandom racism, which is not the diet form of racism, but another place for racism to reveal itself. and yeah, it's uncomfortable. it can seem out of left field. you may want to defend yourself. you may want to explain it away. but let me tap the sign on the proverbial bus:
if you are a white person, or a person of color who is not part of that racial group, even, you do not get to decide what is not racist for someone. full stop. there are no exceptions. there is no exit clause for you. there is no 'but, actually-'. that right wasn't even yours to cede or waive.
(it's also important to note that people of color also have the right to disagree on whether something is racist, but that doesn't necessarily negate the racism - it just means there's more to discuss and they can still leave with different interpretations)
people don't just whip out accusations of racism like a blue eyes white dragon in a yu-gi-oh duel. it's not fun for us. it's not something we like to do to muzzle people we don't want to engage with. and we're not concerned with making someone feel bad or ashamed. we're exposing something painful that we have to live with and, even worse, process literally everything we experience through. we can't turn it off. we can't be 'less sensitive' or 'less nitpicky'. we are literally the primary resources, we are the proverbial wikipedia articles with 3,000 sources when it comes to racism. who else would know more than us?
what 2020 has shown us very clearly is that racism is systemic. it's not always a bunch of Evil White Men rubbing their hands together in a dark room wondering how they're going to use the 'n-word' today. it's systemic. it's the way you call that one neighborhood 'sketchy'. it's how you use 'ratchet' and 'ghetto' when describing something bad. it's how you implicitly the assume the intelligence of your friend of color. it's the way you turned up your nose and your friend's food and bullied them for it in middle school but go to restaurants run by white people who have 'uplifted' it with inauthentic ingredients. it's telling someone how Well Spoken and Eloquent they are even though you've both gone to the same schools and work at the same workplace. it's the way you look down at some people of color for having a different body type than you because they've been redlined to neighborhoods where certain foods and resources are inaccessible, and yet mock up the racial features that appeal to you either through makeup or plastic surgery.
it's how when a person of color behaves badly, they're irredeemable, but a white person performing the same act or something similar is 'having a bad day' or 'isn't normally like this' or 'has room to grow' and we can't 'wait for their redemption arc', and yes, i'm not going to cover it in detail in this post but yes this is very much about nate. other people have also brought up the nuances in his arc and compared them to other white characters so i won't do it here.
these behaviors and reactions aren't planned. they aren't orchestrated. they're quite literally unconscious because they've been lovingly baked into western society for centuries. you can't wake up and be rid of it. whether you intended it or not, it can still be racist.
and it's actually quite hurtful and unfair to imply that concerns about racism in the TL fandom are unfounded or lacking any depth or simply meant to be sensational because you simply don't agree with it. i wish it was different, but it doesn't work that way. i'm not raising this up to 'call out' or shame people, but i'm adding to this discussion because, through how we talk about sam, and even dani and nate, i'm yet again seeing a pattern that has shortchanged people of color and made them feel unwelcome in fandom for far too long.
coach beard said it best: we need to do better.
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eijispumpkin · 3 years
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while we’re on the note of racism in the banana fish fandom, here’s one other thing that bothers me about how some people talk about eiji: the constant babying and baby-talk.
non-asians and non-diaspora asians may not be aware of this, but the infantilization of asians, particularly asian men, is a looong-standing racist stereotype in the west (i know the most about it in the us because that’s where i live, but it exists in just about every white majority country, at the least.). it is insidious, and plays into the model minority stereotype by insinuating that asians are docile and subservient, not as mature as The White Man™, and incapable of being a sexual threat (i.e. “seducing” white women, and interfering with racial purity).
of course, i am not trying to say that you can never say eiji is cute or call him a baby - we all do that sometimes, because that’s just how a lot of us talk, and he was written to be an innocent. but when that “sometimes” becomes “most of the time”, you really need to step back and question why eiji is the only character the fandom as a whole treats this way. (and if this post makes you feel defensive, or if you want to reply to it telling me about how canon establishes eiji as cute and innocent so you can’t possibly have any racism to unlearn, or that you KNOW eiji’s an adult but you LIKE talking about him this way, etc., perhaps consider why you feel so strongly about doing so before you say a word.)
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cqlfeels · 3 years
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The idea that nie huaisang is feminine is any way is just so fucking infuriating and so obviously a very Fucked Up projection of (coughchristiancough) western ideals of femininity 🙄 Also the bioessentialism of it all... just say you think he's more Girly (tm) because he's not as tall and large and his brother..... just say you also portray nie mingjue as a one dimensional mindless brute because of these physical traits.... 🙄 These people are so full of shit, and its the same brand of people who look at jin guangyao and just blatantly feminize him because he's "small"????? Also while I'm there, please stop headcanoning *only* the "small and dainty" men as trans, idk what you think you're doing but its just transphobic (trans headcanons are great but sometimes you see cis people who literally are just doing a fetishized gender essentialism and its disgusting)
I don't like to accuse people of anything because a lot of the time they're just not thinking through the implications. But speaking of trends - again, no one in particular, just the overall tendencies I've seen over time - it's very worrying how this fandom treats gender.
Just to begin with, NHS and JGY are average height at best - it's everybody else that's ridiculously tall, and I think it's in part to set cultivators apart as being more imposing than your average guy. Compare the height of female characters to the "small" guys and you'll see no one could reasonably think they're small enough to be girly. (Also um. Height = gender is just objectively a funny idea. Stilettos are now a fundamental part of male fashion because they make you taller!)
Second, there's a marked trend to apply a very specific Western ideal of manhood to characters. Things like delicate fabrics, jewelry, fans, artistic inclinations - none of these are inherently feminine in the context of the vaguely defined Ye Olde China of CQL. These are all things that are appropriate for a gentleman.
That is to say... There isn't a scale that goes from NMJ at the manliest and NHS at the girliest. They are just embodying different, equally acceptable ideals of manhood: the soldier and the gentleman. NHS is an unusual Nie in the same way LJY is an unusual Lan: they don't adhere to the ideals and obligations demanded by their sects. It's got nothing to do with gender. Note that soft-spoken, art-loving, impeccably dressed LXC is considered an outstandingly impressive man.
Of course I wanna make space for people to explore gender within the safety of fiction! I think it's very understandable to project the experiences either you or people you know have! Seeing NHS who clearly doesn't fit in, and relating that to a different way people might not fit in - gender roles - is, I think, a very instinctive reaction.
However, I think we as a fandom - especially Western and white fans - need to take into account that East Asian men are often infantilized or feminized for, you know, not being the size of a tree and built like a brick wall. So to take a story made for a Chinese audience, point to half the cast and go "Twink!" and even single out some as either "Literally A Child Uwu" or "Clearly A Woman" can feel tone-deaf at best, racist at worse. So I do hope the very human trend of pointing at a character and going "I know/am someone like that!!!" is tempered by the knowledge this might be hurtful if not handled with care.
I don't think saying a headcanon is bad and has to die is fair, but I (maybe naively) think if people are made aware of cultural differences they may be misinterpreting, it's possible they'll be able to look past superficial things to headcanon even more characters as trans or gnc, you know? I don't like to think of this as "banning" femme NHS, but as saying "uh, actually nothing is stopping you from headcanoning other characters as femme! NHS isn't the only valid option! Because canonically, NHS is as femme as, idk, Wen Chao!"
(But also. Let characters who are not NMJ be unapologetically manly. I know it doesn't sound revolutionary for white people, but your experiences aren't universal!)
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southslates · 3 years
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a rant about the saturation of zvkka fandom
as a tyzula shipper i get really surprised by how the most popular lgbt/wlw atla ship before the renaissance fell off when it started; to the point where tyzula fandom still exists but it’s much smaller and constantly made fun of for being abusive 
and i think this is in part because of purity culture, where there can’t be nuance in anything and therefore tyzula is abusive and we can’t ship it! but i also think that as @army-of-mai-lovers outlined in this amazing post ty lee and azula aren’t love interests for any of the boys in the show, especially sokka and zuko, so content for them doesn’t need to exist because they simply don’t need to be sidelined. most tyzula content that exists is tyzula centric; not maiko or sukka or kataang or zutara centric, but tyzula centric. it explores ty lee and azula as characters because their chemistry is seen
you can see that most of the popular wlw atla ships in the renaissance are at least partly characterized by their relationship w zvkka, and clearly i have a lot of problems with that fandom, least of them all being the times i’ve been called a homophobe for disliking it. and one really large issue i have with zvkka fandom in general is its saturation of atla content to the point that it’s sidelined into a different au, that so many shippers see zvkka in atla when it just . . . isn’t there. it wasn’t the most popular ship before the renaissance because for fourteen years there just wasn’t . . . anything there. and i don’t know why it’s gotten popular, likely the help of some big name blogs (including the one that came up with homophobic katara) and the fact that fandom has started to really tend towards mlm ships more and more, and honestly good for zvkkas, the ship is cute, but uh
essentially just that even though zvkka has been the largest atla ship with the renaissance, it is not the most popular atla ship and it likely never will be because of that lack of longevity. there’s a lot of issues with misogyny and migratory mlm ships in fandom and i really, really see it here. zvkka fandom =/ atla fandom, atla has always and should always be more than about ships. of course i stick to mainly zutara/tyzula corners of fandom, which are super far removed from zvkka fandom in general for obvious reasons, but it’s almost sad to be entrenched in twitter and general tumblr fandom where people who’ve joined with the renaissance characterize zvkka as such a large feature of atla when atla as a fandom has always been surprisingly great with its characterization of women (atla specifically, ignoring lok etc). i’d never thought that the subtle misogyny would increase in the year 2020? and obviously as a zutara shipper i know that our fandom has had its issues with mai before, i am the last person to deny that, but i think that we are growing past it and trying to be better
one thing that i really hate seeing here is the idea that zvkka shippers “solved the ship war” by making zvkka larger than the kataang/zutara ship war. and i ship both zutara and kataang and one reason i absolutely hate this take is because i am in love with the fact that for fifteen years, whatever side you were on, atla discourse was about katara, what the brown woman in the show deserved. you can’t solve a ship war by shoe-horning her into kataang because that’s easy for your ship, because you’re just throwing away her agency and the entire point of the ship war. i actually pity a lot of people who mainly ship kataang because kataang; a ship between an asian monk and brown woman, which is canonically good representation, which is canon, is being pushed aside and made a sideship for a completely fanon mlm ship
maybe there’s a fetishization aspect in there? like i hate to make broad claims but the amount of zvkka nsfw for one, and then all the incredibly racist tropes i’ve seen there; the infantilization and feminization of zuko and the way sokka is supposed to be a big strong man or something just reeks of racism, especially when written by white people. it just strikes me as mischaracterization and the input of certain characters into boxes, because people don’t want to ship sokka and zuko, they want to ship mlm insert one and two. and i hate this because their dynamic is super interesting, canonically! i’d love to see how sokka with a plan and on-his-feet zuko work together :)
i mean fetishization is kind of prominent in internalized misogyny presenting itself as wanting two men to have sex to exclude women from the narrative, and in the post i mentioned above the op’s point was that atla fandom’s misogyny presents as unique because they don’t hate women, they just treat them like they’re really one-dimensional, and at the end of the day everything must come back to the dynamic between two guys who were intended to be cishet (i headcanon zuko as bi but i’m not stupid, this show is from 2005, it is what it is)
anyway i don’t know where i’m going with this! but i absolutely love atla wlw and i wish that the female characters could be analyzed further in depth than they are, and i’m still at a total loss to why fandom-- made by women, for women, and often queer women-- is willing to maintain so much misogyny in the guise of upholding queer rep in fanon ships with gay men. 
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God every time people characterise magnus bane as a submissive helpless useless wisp of a man who needs alec to save him I lose a fuvkin life THAT'S THE HIGH WARLOCK UR TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!!! especially when it's blatently written by someone who fancies alec
I think the main problem is that book malec stans big time infantalise alec and show malec stans infantalise magnus like how hard is it to acknowledge that they're both grown men?????? The amount of fics I've read which, depending on the source, stem from and the idea of x is smaller and therefore submissive and needs protection from big strong y like come ONNNN
lol remember when people got pissed at me for saying that the high warlock of brooklyn, son of a prince of hell, one of the most powerful warlocks alive, 400yo man with experience in training and combat, would make alec sweat in a fight
look, in general i agree with you that there is the whole "the shortest one is the fragile one in a relationship" trope and that it's annoying, but i reeealllyy can't agree that show malec stans in general infantilize magnus. i've seen my fair share of fics where magnus is infantilized and written as helpless, but they've never been anywhere near as common as the ones where it's the other way around or even where they are written as equals, tbh, and most of the time when people complain to me that magnus is being infantilized in my experience it's just that he's being written as like... human
like if magnus ever shows any vulnerability or insecurity or (god forbid) cries everyone acts as if he's being written as a shallow helpless useless creature, and that's... really not how it works. whereas alec is frequently written as the one who needs saving, who needs to be coaxed into having any conversations, who is always so insecure and afraid everyone will hate him uwu, especially the big bad brown downworlders, and half the time this is not considered as infantilizing as like, magnus having insecurities and talking to alec about it
and generally i just feel like for magnus if he is ever anything below superhumanly strong and competent (and sometimes even when he is written as that but ALSO as emotionally vulnerable) then he is shallow and useless and we gotta take into account that that's how characters of color are ALWAYS seen. brown and black characters are always seen as supposed to be superhumanly strong and competent, and never ever vulnerable or approachable in general. and if they have ever any softness or insecurity in them, people immediately lose interest. and i really feel like for a lot of people that's what goes on - the standards are SO different for magnus and alec that alec being treated as a baby and magnus being treated as human are seen as the same thing
like look, i don't know you or what you're referencing, and also i've been sick and tired of sh fic in general so recently i only read recs, so i'm not the best person to access what the general fandom tropes are, i'll admit that. but i'm just really tired of having this conversation while pretending that race is not one of the factors that is at play when we talk about the way people perceive and write alec vs magnus, when i'd argue that it's the most predominant one tbh
like if u wanna go with show fans are more likely to infantilize magnus (i still will never agree that it's as simple as "book fans infantilize alec and show fans infantilize magnus" cuz i literally hate the books and only read show fics and follow show blogs and EVEN THEN i see so much infantilized alec fic and posts i gave up on the general fandom and only read recs or stuff written by my - less than 10, only 2 of which are not in my direct circle of friends that i talk to on a daily or weekly basis, and only 4 of which are white/not black or brown - "trusted authors", but like, u can have ur opinion obviously), at least mention that in the show magnus is lighter skinned/played by an East Asian actor and not a Southeast Asian one and thus the racial stereotypes are different. (im not going to go into chinese privilege because im not sure how true that holds in the context of the US, particularly with the way china is their biggest enemy other than russia, but know that that is absolutely a thing in the asian racial context, especially when it comes to south east and south asian/brown people)
but acting like we don't live in a world where brown and black ppl are stereotyped to be strong and resilient to the point where they are literally less likely to get anesthesia in a medical procedure and that absolutely influences the way they are read and written in fiction and generally perceived by people, or where brown and black characters are always treated as emotional and physical support for white characters in fandom, is not it
like... MAGNUS IS A BROWN CHARACTER, malec is the #1 interracial ship on ao3 and the ONLY one in the current top 10 with a brown/black character other than finnpoe, can we please stop pretending that that's not a thing when we talk about fandom perceptions of him/them
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radiqueer · 5 years
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Rai@Tired | raikamudapon
[link] Tbh the discourse around the term "fujoshi" is just motivated by shaming women for their interests and sexuality, and specifically trying to seem woke by taking Japanese fan girls down a peg.
Yalls need to stop with that orientalism and colonizer attitudes. 
[link] Ok so, One of the biggest differences of how I see Japanese people digesting media and how Americans digest media is the ability to separate oneself from the topic. 
Japanese people are used to living with duality. The culture of Japan is all about honne and tatemae, and while a lot of Americans think of tatemae as situational lying, it's a specific form of communication that adds a buffer of space between people. Sometimes that buffer is helpful and sometimes it isn't but that's not what we're discussing today. 
In the same vein, Japanese fans consume media with that buffer space, and you see the difference in fandom spaces very keenly. For example, Japanese cosplayers don't tend to roleplay. I feel like the community discourages it, especially in public spaces because the idea is that you are not acting as a character or placing yourself in the character, you are borrowing a character to temporarily express yourself. In america you see encouragement of becoming the character and more closely associating with them in a way you don't really see in Japan. With cosplay, a lot of original outfits with characters isn't as widely accepted, and people are encouraged to add warning tags to heavily modified designs or non-cannon outfits. There's often a buffer between self expression and character expression, and Japanese people in general tend to have a clearer cut between fiction and reality. Americans go the opposite direction, and put themselves personally in to their fandoms. Any criticism or portrayal of a character isn't about the character, it's about *them*. 
Bl for many fujyoshi is a way to explore various topics about sex and gender, and have that safety barrier of "this is fiction that has nothing to do with reality". Theres even a famous phrase in bl circles of Japan, which is "BL is fantasy." People arent consuming bl content because they want to it be realistic. With this genre, a lot of American's first exposure to this culture is through groups that carry these Japanese ideas, especially that fiction is not about reality. There's a strong culture in fujyo circles in Japan to keep fujyo media hidden from from minors and uninterested people. 
This isn't because gay adjacent media is shameful and should be hidden, but because aside from keeping 18+ content away from minors, the content is inherently not for the benefit of non-fujyoshi, or people looking for canon content. Bl is a fantasy exploration of pre-established media, an additional step away from reality. And you see this influence in american bl fans as well. Most responsible adults discourage 18 under people from interacting with 18+ content. It is going to be much rarer for 18+ bl content to be presented to minors with no prior warning then for het media or media that explicitly sexually objectifies women. 
 And I think in conversations about this topic is where you see not just misogyny and sexual policing of woman come in, but a lot of conversations and ideas revolve around how "gross" and "strange" and "foreign compared to woke Americans" the entire culture of fujyoshi is. 
Trying to insist that Americans determine what definitions of language around a culture not originating or centered in America and sentiments about bl are "appropriate" is colonizing attitudes. It stems from the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to another country. And treating the norms of a foreign sub-culture that was not only established in Japan but continues to flourish and be the center of media produced by that subculture as gross or strange is honestly tinged with Orientalism of the "sexual far east". It's hard to say that the image that all fujyoshi are women does not influence these ideas as well. 
So let's delve in to relations between Japan and America for a hot second. Japan and America have a very unique relationship, especially for countries that are separated by the biggest ocean in the world. Without examining the entire history of the two countries, I want to focus on two points that I think shape the way Americans interact with Japanese media. First, America with it's "black ships" was the one to end Japan's Sakoku policy. They forcefully demanded Japan end it's strict regulations concerning interaction with other countries, start trading with various countries, and to open up to western influences. 
This *greatly* changed the structure of Japan, and honestly the unequal treaties and inability of the Tokugawa shogunate to manage their relations with the west lead to the end of 264 years of governance. (The Meiji restoration is exciting, please read about it.) 
The second topic you don't see many people discuss is the occupation of Japan by American(and English) forces from 1945–1952. While a lot of modernization and things that benefited common people occurred during this time, there was also wide spread instances of violence and rape. You still see generational hurt and mistrust in places like Okinawa, Sasebo, and Yokosuka where American navy bases were placed(and still exist today). If you can stomach it, I would recommend looking up statistics and reports, but I warn you the occupation was nasty business for women. 
So what does this all have to do with modern fujyoshi? So in both of these time periods, prostitutes and courtesans were an essential part of political interactions. Many Americans gained their stereotypes about Japanese women through these encounters. Specifically these interactions were sexual or tinged with the sexual availability of these women, and looking at the increased rapes during the occupation once American GI focused brothels were abolished, you can see how this lens shaped Americans opinions of Japanese women. The story of madame butterfly is only unusual in that it gives the woman in it any agency in their interaction with american men. 
So with this in mind, I think it's easy to see where a lot of stereotypes, specifically sexual stereotypes about Japan and Japanese women come from. America is used to looking at Japan as "the weird strange place of loose morals and loose women of strange sexual proclivities." This is shown how strong the influence of Japanese women as "geisha girls" is to this day, and it tints any conversation of about women and sexuality in Japan. 
In modern day, you can see this carry over in to how people look at Japanese idols and women in anime. I would even say that it's evolved to infantilize Japanese women and the view of how Japanese women are expected to behave. A lot of other people have written literature and reading about fujyoshi and how it relates to the sexual liberation of women(without necessarily involving men or gay men) so I won't go in to that here, but there will be links at the end of the thread. 
What I want to talk about is how historically America is used to putting itself front and center about any topic about the culture of Japan, and how the views Americans have about morality is considered to be "better" and more "woke"... even without context or how those sentiments shape the ideas of foreign people and foreign based media. But we also have to address how Americans have a huge problem with not being the expert voice in any conversation. 
Over the last week, a significant number of Americans have been extremely comfortable in putting the power to decide what Japanese words mean and what Japanese sub-cultures are in their own hands, sometimes even attempting to remove my Japanese voice and background from me in an effort to center their own opinions. And honestly this isn't anything new. Americans are so comfortable with thinking of Asian voices as less influential then their own, that it doesn't stop people from thinking they are the experts about a topic that *does not come from their culture*. You see it with food, you see it with fashion, you see it with everything from equating Asians to *white lite* to assuming that Asians don't exist as mixed people but simply as a monolith. 
There are so many people who were comfortable with placing themselves as experts in a sub-culture of Japanese origin that they knew nothing about, simply because they assumed it corresponded with one aspect of themselves. And it is hard to say that the confidence that these people placed themselves and their ignorance in the middle of the topic did not stem from Americans feeling of ownership over everything they enjoy. 
The people supporting these people may have thought they were being good allies by blindly supporting them, but I saw very few people bothering to further their knowledge past the loose collection of stereotypes and horror stories I saw from the internet. Some of these feelings of superiority probably stem from the fact that these people assumed that all fujyoshi or bl content consumers are women. Misogyny isn't just the expression of hate towards women, but also the idea that non-women inherently have a more valuable opinion then woman, or that women's ideas are inherently less valuable then anyone elses. 
I saw a lot of misogyny this week, both internal and external. There was hate from many people, for the idea that people they assumed women were thriving in a sub-culture that does not involve real gay men. I saw people who could not imagine that men were not at the center of a subculture created and supported by both women and queer people. I even saw examples of women bringing up their experiences as a gender they do not identify with in order to raise their voice against other assumed women. But the voices that attempted to de-legitimize assumed women grew even louder once they were speaking against Asian people, because there is an inherent assumption that their views are qualified, their opinions more valid, their morals better. 
And honestly, this isn't just an issue with white and eurocentrific supremacy, this is an issue of American supremacy. 
 And that is certainly something we need to talk about.
link: thread by @futekiya
link: thread by @dionysiaca
link: thread by @raikamudapon
please consider donating to @raikamudapon’s ko-fi
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I mean, I’m not saying I don’t agree with you, but your last two posts asking ppl to take the future cowboy and robot ninja seriously made me laugh.
regards this post about Genji and this post about McCree
I don’t have a problem with people joking around with how a bit ridiculous Genji and McCree are as character concepts. That’s a whole separate thing to me. Like, whatever about that.
But I do have a hard time laughing about the specific ways the fandom jokes around or builds specific fanon around these two because it reflects certain common patterns of bigotry. I take these things very seriously (some say too seriously) because I don’t have any patience anymore for seeing certain threads of bigotry hang around in fandom without anyone remotely thinking critically about them.
People produce massive amounts of content for Genji treating him like a delicate child who must be protected uwu and all of their content, art, fic, meta feeds into racist stereotypes like the infantilization of East Asian men.
People who produce massive amounts of content for Jesse treating him like he’s a stupid brute who is so much of an idiot that the only thing he’s useful for is shooting and all their content, art, fic, meta feeds into classist and racist/colorist stereotypes like those who aren’t rich or aren’t white (or white enough) entirely lack in intelligence.
I’m talking about pervasive threads of bigotry that get perpetuated ad nauseam in fandom. Recognizing certain bigoted patterns, stereotypes, tropes, caricatures crop up over and over and over again in how people approach certain characters makes it impossible for me and many others to laugh at things and makes it exhausting for us to even continue to engage in fandom content. Because where other people see a funny fanon, I see more caricature.
It’s possible to poke fun at Jesse’s insistence on being a flashy cowboy despite serving in a covert ops division without treating him like he’s unintelligent. It’s possible to poke fun at the idea that Genji has a shuriken launcher in his arm without treating him like he’s an adorable child without any sort of agency or capability for himself.
I’m not saying “future cowboy” and “robot ninja” are inherently serious character concepts. I’m just saying that the very specific ways that people latched onto making fun of these characters and the very specific fanons that have cropped up around them reflect very familiar patterns of racism and classism.
And that’s why I’m making posts asking people to rethink how they approach them.
Also, I do personally take McCree very seriously, lmao :P
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raptorific · 7 years
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genuine question: why do you not like people refering to lucio specifically as "boy"? tumblr tends to call every character boy/boi especialy since the mcelroys became popular so what is it about lucio in particular that isnt good to call him boy
The short answer: it’s because he’s black and the people doing it are largely white and there’s cultural baggage surrounding white people using the words “boy” and “son” to address black men. 
The long answer starts out with the idea of tonedeafness and a fandom phenomenon that crops up when predominately white fanbases are exposed to dimensional, compelling characters of color. The same thing happened with Star Wars and Pacific Rim and so many other diverse franchises lately. 
A lot of the time, white fans are genuinely not trying to be racist, but most of their faves up to this point have been white, and they haven’t considered that perhaps the way they write and talk about those faves would take on different implications when the characters’ race is considered. 
For instance, and I get in trouble a lot for bringing this up, but a few months ago there was a Disney AU fanart of Finn and Rey from Star Wars as Tarzan and Jane. Now, in the movie, Tarzan and Jane are both white, but in the art, the impact changes because Finn is a black man and the artist drew him as an animalistic ape-man who meets a delicate high-class British woman who “civilizes” him. Obviously the Tarzan/Jane dynamic has a very VERY different meaning if Tarzan is depicted as black and Jane is depicted as white, and it is in fact racist to depict Finn that way even if it wouldn’t even be the smallest problem to draw, say, Iron Man and Pepper Potts in the same exact situation. (Also if anyone is Tarzan in that pairing, it’s Rey, but I digress)
So you get these situations where people are trying to do the stuff they always do for all characters, only their faves have mostly been white up to this point so they’ve never really had to consider the racial implications of the stuff they say and write about those characters. That’s why they draw D.Va as an infant without realizing that the infantilization of East Asian women is actually a harmful racist practice, and then when informed of this fact, instead of saying “oh shit, I didn’t know I was contributing to that! Thanks for telling me, I’ll stop doing it,” they get defensive and claim that actually it doesn’t matter if the end product is 100% identical to racism, because they didn’t intend for it to be racist, that’s not what they were trying to do.
Also, generally speaking, they don’t do the same thing to white characters. While jokes at the expense of Soldier: 76 and Zarya are usually things like “he’s old and grumpy” or “she’s really strong,” jokes about Reaper are more like “he’s got a huge dick and he’s abusive and a rapist” and jokes about D.Va are usually “she’s a dirty and mischievous subhuman creature and the white guy is like her dad.” The fact that a lot of people make all these jokes and think they’re roughly equivalent speaks to how much unconscious racism they’ve got to purge from their system. 
Alright, so now that we understand that, let’s get into a little more of why “boy” and “son” in particular are not the sort of thing you should not call Lucio. 
The first and main reason is that he’s a grown man, aged 26, but more importantly, he is a black man. Historically, the words “boy” and “son” have been used on black men for two reasons: 
Because even grown black men were to be treated as childlike under white supremacy, esp. under slavery, and even after the abolition of slavery, the words “boy” and “son” are still used in order to talk down to black men. You will still frequently catch younger white people address black men older than them as “boy” or “son,” especially in a service capacity (i.e. a black waiter or employee at a store). Under slavery, the dominant white supremacist narrative was that even the smartest black people were only on the level of white children, which is obviously a complete falsehood fabricated to justify their continued subjugation by saying “they’d be lost without us.” So, by referring to black men as “boy” or “son,” that’s the message that was being communicated, that even though any given black person is grown, they’re still viewed as roughly mentally equivalent to children. 
A lot of slaveowners didn’t feel it was worth it to learn the individual names of their slaves, so they would simply address them as “boy” or “son” (or “girl” or a variety of other degrading names for women) and this practice continued even after the abolition of slavery. Again, calling back to the “black waiter” situation I referred to earlier, you still sometimes see white patrons referring to black employees as “boy” or “son” in this way. For older people, they would use the terms “Auntie” and “Uncle” as a way to deny them honorific titles such as “Mister” and “Miss,” which is where we get mascots like “Aunt Jemima” and “Uncle Ben,” both of whom were derived from this practice. A similar example is how a lot of white railroad passengers wouldn’t bother to learn the names of their car’s porter and would simply call them all “George,” which again sort of demonstrates my point: the name “George” isn’t inherently racist, lots of people have that name, but to call a black guy doing their job that carries different implications even if you “didn’t mean it that way.”
So generally, there’s nothing wrong with the words “boy” or “son” most of the time, but when you address a black man this way, it carries a whole different implication. I’m not trying to condemn anyone morally or say “you’re evil if you’ve ever used these words about Lucio” or anything, but back to the beginning of this:
I am assuming you all have positive intent, that you are all well-meaning and that you are definitely not trying to be racist. Because of this, I feel like it’s my responsibility to tell you when a thing you’re saying carries meanings that you maybe didn’t consider and definitely didn’t mean to imply. I know I would feel foolish and guilty if I found out something I’d been saying casually actually had a racist meaning that I wasn’t aware of, so I just want to say that if anyone reading this is (like me) a white person who’s really truly well-intentioned and doesn’t mean to be racist at all, your response here should be “oh wow, I didn’t know that Boy and Son are names you generally shouldn’t call black people, I’ll be more conscious of that in the future,” and if your response is to become defensive and try to prove that it isn’t bad because you didn’t mean it “that way,” it either means you aren’t well-intentioned and do mean to be racist OR it means you didn’t read the post. 
That being said, I’m happy to inform where I can, but I’m also not black, and a lot of black writers have explained this a lot more eloquently than me. I suggest you do some googling and research what they’ve said on the subject, because I’m sure they’ll give you a clearer picture than I possibly can. 
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shysweetthing · 7 years
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deathbycoldopen replied to your post: Dear Yuri on Ice fic writers, I just want to say... That’s great! I do kind of wonder about the trend in yoi fic where Yuuri is referred to as a “boy” and viktor is referred to as a “man”. Obviously there’s an age difference, but 23 is old enough that I’d comfortably call him a man. Which leaves me with the reminder of infantilizing poc by white americans (particularly calling black americans boy). As someone affected more directly by that kind of thing, does that bother you at all? (sorry for the rambly message)
I cannot speak for all Asian-Americans, or even Asian-American men. Please take this as my personal opinion of the kind of stuff that bothers me. And I apologize in advance for being kind of wordy, but I have LOTS of thoughts and they’re very complicated, so it’s hard for me to put them all down.
I have kind of a hierarchy for things that bother me, ranging from “super-racist, holy crap do NOT do this” to “argh” to “sigh.” I encounter “argh” and “sigh” level stuff all the time, everywhere. YOI fandom is no exception.
Super-racist stuff in fandom I will nope out of. Won’t read, won’t like, won’t recommend, will silently grit my teeth at all the positive comments. Argh and sigh? If the fic is otherwise redeeming, I’ll keep going, and sometimes I will even love it.
Super-racist stuff, IMO, is almost never okay; there’s just almost no way to present a character in which it makes sense, and so unless you’re an insider (in the case of writing a Yuuri that speaks imperfect English, that means a Japanese person from Japan who has gone to an English-speaking country and experienced racism for the way you spoke) you probably don’t have the experience to know how to write that well, and your dominant culture has probably given you an idea of how you think that feels for the person who is speaking that is absolutely counter to how it actually feels internally.
Stuff that isn’t at that level--the “argh” and “sigh” level--is harder to classify, and there are fewer hard and fast rules as to whether I argh or sigh. There are things I can say bother me, but someone will handle it so well that I’ll love it unreservedly.
Again, what follows relates to my personal tolerance--other people (including Asians) will not be bothered at all by things that really grate at me. On the other hand, there are things I can tolerate, that will really hurt other people.
Things that hit somewhere between “argh” and “sigh” level for me include: desexualization of Yuuri, making Yuuri a lot less competent than he canonically is, saying that Yuuri has a tiny dick, treating Yuuri as having less agency and being incredibly dependent on others to function, treating Phichit as an adjunct to Yuuri without his own wants and wishes, and... a lot of other stuff. YOI fandom isn’t perfect; it just mostly avoids super-racist.
These things can be quite complicated--there’s a real difference between writing an Asian character who is a complex, wholly functional human being, who is ace, or who has a small dick, or who has difficulty making choices--and writing a caricature where those same things feel like ugly, painful racial stereotypes. I don’t want to suggest categorical rules in these categories. 
(You can already see why this is so complicated--“small dick” is both an Asian stereotype and an insult born of shitty toxic masculinity. Men can have small and/or no dicks and still be men, and be sexy and lovable and good lovers. Likewise, Asian men can have big dicks, small dicks, or no dicks at all. Dick isn’t indicative of anything at all, and in a fic that recognizes that, I do not mind. I do mind when the fic unconsciously accepts as a given that bigger dick=better, and Yuuri is tiny.)
I think it would fall into the “super-racist, don’t do this unless you’re black and can process how this hurts and how to alleviate that hurt” to call an African-American character “boy.” I don’t think there’s a context in which a non-black person can use that word, applied to a black person, in fiction and not get tangled up in the history of that word applied to that person. (There’s a giant asterisk here about portraying racism in fiction that I’m not going to get into because it’s so massive.)
But Yuuri is not African-American, and the characters are not American, and I don’t think it carries that same context. That means that it depends heavily on how it’s handled.
In terms of Yuuri being called a boy, in my mind, this depends on a lot of factors that depend on who’s doing it and what the context is. I feel like friends saying, “Yeah, boy!” to each other isn’t a big deal. The word “boy”--in addition to the specific usage for African-Americans--can sometimes signify friendship (“that’s my boy!”) or queerness or a number of other things other than “young man.” I’ve had Victor call Yuuri a boy--as in “I don’t kiss boys who don’t cry over dogs”--and in that case, Victor is clearly assigning himself as being in the same classification as Yuuri, and that doesn’t personally bother me (obviously, or I wouldn’t have done it). It also wouldn’t bother me to have Yakov calling Yuuri a boy--Yakov is seventy, so both Yuuri and Victor are absolute CHILDREN to him. It probably would bother me if Yakov thought of Victor as a man and Yuuri as a boy, though. It’s more likely to be the reverse--Yakov has known Victor since he was a literal boy, and he met Yuuri as a man.
You didn’t suggest this, but I would also personally be leary of claiming that because “boy” is a slur used to put African-Americans in their place, it should not ever be used to describe Asian-Americans. I personally try not to disclaim ownership over the specific types of racism experienced by black people. Asians are (mostly) not insiders to the incredibly harmful use of “boy” in this case, and representing that it harms them equally implies that they would have the ability to call African-Americans “boy” as insiders, and...no. No. We don’t, we can’t, that’s not okay.
Asians experience racism, but it is not the same kind of racism that black people experience. As Asians can often be guilty of anti-black prejudice, I think it’s especially important to not coopt the African-American experience.
This is a very long response to your question, and I already know I’m glossing over some points as it is, so my apologies both for the length and incompleteness of the answer. These are my personal opinions and not everyone will agree with me, but here you are.
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So on that note, I’d love to talk about something else that @kittenfair​ brought up in her post (at the risk of enraging Cloud Strife fans everywhere, lolll no biggie a super small fandom I’m sure) but I didn’t want to derail that thread because this is quite a tangential thought—
Why is that relevant? A quick googling has informed me that the average heights of men in Japan (between 2004-2013) is 5′7 - I’m gonna guess it was probably around that or shorter back in ‘97. This is, not coincidentally, a familiar number - it’s how tall the OG says Cloud, our protagonist, is. So for the original team creating this game, the protag is average height, your “relatable” everyman. Now, if they wanted to make the villain tower over him? 6′1 isn’t bad at all! In fact, that’s a solid seven inches taller. Huge gap. Saying Sephiroth is 6′1 establishes him way taller than Cloud.
For some reason it’s a little harder to google up the average male height of the total human population without it being broken down into specific regions, but this webpage has some nice infographics that make their (albeit somewhat edited down) data a bit easier to visualize. Let’s look specifically at this one:
Tumblr media
From the countries they selected, 5′4.75″ is the lower boundary and 5′11.25″ is the upper boundary, making the mean 5′8″ and the median of this somewhat arbitrary selection 5′9.25″. Wikipedia’s more complete chart has 5′2″ as the lower boundary in Indonesia with 6′1″ as the upper boundary in the Dinaric Alps, making the worldwide mean height for men 5′7.5″. (You can’t really find an accurate median or average from this data.)
You can maybe see where I’m going with this. Cloud is not actually a shrimp. This is a post about body image and our skewed perception of it.
Even more damnably, I’d like to call attention to Livestrong’s (still somewhat arbitrary) selection of countries, ordered by height rather than alphabetically as they have done:
India: 5 feet 4.75 inches China: 5 feet 5.75 inches Mexico: 5 feet 5.75 inches Japan: 5 feet 7.25 inches Brazil: 5 feet 8.25 inches Australia: 5 feet 8.75 inches Canada: 5 feet 9 inches Russia: 5 feet 9.25 inches France: 5 feet 9.25 inches Italy: 5 feet 9.25 inches America: 5 feet 9.5 inches The UK: 5 feet 9.75 inches Spain: 5 feet 10 inches Greece: 5 feet 10.25 inches Germany: 5 feet 11.25 inches
I’ve highlighted two countries on this list, and they are the US and Japan. The US is highlighted because Livestrong is an American website and specifically addresses their article to American audiences, but also because the US tends to influence a lot of worldwide culture, and I think especially in our fandom on Tumblr, which is also a US-based website. But I've highlighted Japan because, of course, that’s where the source material we’re discussing (Cloud Strife’s height) comes from.
Out of this list, is there anything you might notice about places where the average height is lower than 5′7″ and places where the average height is higher than 5′7″? Because I am noticing a very eurocentric trend.
Here are some other countries with the smallest average male heights from Wikipedia’s list:
Bolivia: 5′3″ rural India: 5′3″ Vietnam: 5′4″ Nepal: 5′4″ Malaysia: 5′4.5″ Sri Lanka: 5′4.5″ Nigeria: 5′4.5″ India: 5′4.5″ Peru: 5′4.5″ Bahrain: 5′5″ Baghdad, Iraq: 5′5″ North Korea: 5′5″
Here are some of the countries with the tallest average male heights (they have multiple entries so I’m not going to list specific heights, but these are all in the 5′11″–6′0″ range):
Netherlands Sweden Denmark Norway Germany Iceland Serbia
So, when we say that 5′7″ is short, could it possibly be that what we’re saying is that 5′7″ is short for white people??
Now, granted, Cloud is arguably white despite coming from a Japanese game. Then again, he is arguably Japanese because Japanese character designers have a habit of creating visually Caucasian characters who we simply have to accept are Japanese/Asian “Because They Say So.” But he’s mostly perceived as white, I think, which might be why nearly everyone looks at him and his height and goes, “omg, he’s so short??”
Except...even among white people, he’s not all that short. If you consider that the average men in the US and UK are around 5′9″–5′10″, and the average men in Australia and Canada are around 5′8–5′9″, 5′7″ is only an inch shorter than that. (And I have chosen these four countries because stats say that’s where the highest percentage of my followers are from, with the overwhelming majority being US-based.) And idk about you guys but even if the difference of an inch is statistically significant, on an individual basis I never stand next to someone an inch or two shorter than me and go “wow wtf you’re so much shorter than I am.”
But...did you know that the average male heights in these countries was even that short? I live in the US and I usually observe people anecdotally marking the distinction between “short guys” and “tall guys” around 6′0″, which is a laughably unrealistic “goal” IMO. There’s also a reblog meme that goes around the Tumblr RP community now and then significantly proclaiming “reblog if your muse is shorter than 6′0″!” like that’s some kind of distinctive feature even though most humans are under 6′0″.
So where do we get these unrealistic standards from?
“The Average Height of a Model”
According to industry standards, fashion models are preferably tall but not too tall. Elite, a top modeling agency, specifies height requirements on its website. Women must be between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 11 inches tall. Men must be between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet 3 inches. Models who want to enter the Ford Supermodel of the Year Search, should be at least 5 feet 8 inches.
I used to work in a department store, and specifically for a while I sold ladies’ clothing in the “special sizes” department: “Petites” and “Women’s.” (That’s code for “short” and “fat,” which by the way are separate distinctions and there are in fact some clothing sizes that are both W and P, although good luck finding even W or P in most stores.) The technical definition of a “petite” woman, in US clothing sizes, is a woman under 5′3″.
According to Wikipedia, the average US woman is 5′3.5″.
But the average fashion model? Is 5′9.5″. And how many women do you hear in the 5′3″–5′5″ range bemoaning how “short” they are? I am 5′1.5″ and I can tell you I hear a lot, because it never slips by me unnoticed because I need to catch my eyes before they roll out of my head and you tend not to miss that.
Around here at least, men are less likely to be caught complaining about their supposed physical deficiencies than women because it’s considered unmanly to do so, but if you listen long enough and hard enough and gain the confidence of enough men under 6′0″, you might just hear a recurring insecurity expressed about the failure to reach that height and about consequently “being short.” That’s not altogether unwarranted, because, disgustingly enough, more often than I hear men expressing a preoccupation with being 6′0″ or not, I hear it from women who say they won’t even consider dating a man under 6′0″.
This is significant because of the next thing I’m going to bring up, which is the part that is going to make the Cloud Strife fandom v angry with me. 😂
Why is Cloud infantilized so much for being “short”??
Unlike the other questions I’ve posed here, I’m not asking this to set you up because I have a proposed answer ready. I am honestly baffled and a little disturbed by this. If it isn’t right to sexualize Tifa because her breasts are large (and it’s not), then why is it acceptable to treat Cloud like a cute little baby child almost precisely because he’s the shortest man in the cast? And more importantly, how does that make actual men who are 5′7″ or shorter feel? (You can come at me about “male fragility” but I hold that all humans have feelings that are worth considering even if they fall into privileged groups.) I can tell you as a woman under 5′2″ that I am sick to death of being infantilized for it, and that’s while falling into a demographic which is supposed to enjoy being thought of as “cuter” or whatever. I don’t, btw, but at least I’m not openly derided and thought of as “less of a [my gender identity here]” than I would be if I were a short man (ooo, there’s some intersectionality we never talk about).
So, a proposition for your consideration: If you tend to associate Cloud with being cute and diminutive, maybe pause and ask yourself if these feelings are influenced by his height and culturally instilled notions of shorter men being thought of as less manly, and if these assumptions do not warrant being challenged. It’s no less than I would ask anyone to do of assumptions about Tifa being hypersexual possibly having anything to do with the size of her breasts.
I welcome respectful discussion, but please note if I feel your contribution is more about arguing with me than about actually making a thoughtful contribution to the topic, I will reply on my personal blog @ravys-ravings rather than trouble my followers with unproductive bickering.
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metawitches · 6 years
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Jane The Virgin –“Chapter Four — Image JAV104A_155 — Pictured (L-R): Andrea Navedo as Xo, Gina Rodriguez as Jane and Ivonne Coll as Alba — Photo: Danny Feld/The CW — © 2014 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
This is the basic list of questions we ask ourselves while consuming media to help us determine if we’re seeing women being treated fairly or not. It’s not a yes or no checklist, or an easy, one sentence test, like the Bechdel test. But then, Alison Bechdel never meant for her test to become a widely used standardized instrument. This test requires some thinking about what you’re viewing. Misogyny is often subtle, and it’s pervasive. It’s easy to miss with one, casual viewing, but the message still gets into our heads and affects us.
That’s why these are guidelines, rather than a test. Some of these answers will be subjective, and reasonable people can disagree. We’re talking about art and the interpretation of art, after all. It also takes practice to start seeing things like camera angles and positioning, rather than letting it fly by. Hardly any of us can always spot gaslighting, especially when it’s being done by the writers and producers instead of the characters. These guidelines are just aspects of entertainment to keep in mind while viewing, to become more aware of what you’re seeing.
I (Metacrone) started working on this list in the late 80s, and it’s slowly grown. It’s still a work in progress, just like the entertainment industry. There are very few works that would pass every question with flying colors. Figure out how much you can live with watching, and the level that makes you take action. It’s okay to just watch and enjoy the show sometimes without feeling guilty, too. But, the more you can recognize the issues with entertainment and speak out, even if it’s only to one person, the more of an effect we all have on the entertainment industry.
The trick to understanding subtle misogyny, which is often institutionalized and internalized, is to look at the attitude behind the narrative, the way events and actions are framed, and the repetitiveness with which we are presented with these images. One scientist or superhero unrealistically fighting monsters in heels doesn’t matter. All of them fighting monsters unrealistically in heels while being unrealistically thin, with no muscle mass, having beautiful hair and clothing, and only a minor smudge or 2 of “sexy dirt,” matters a huge amount. It becomes the standard that everyone measures women by, even if they don’t realize they’re doing it. Especially for girls growing up surrounded by those images and looking up to those heroines. Or finding powerful female villains to be the closest thing to a well-rounded, achievable role model that is available to them.
You’ll notice we don’t include the standard used by the Bechdel test, time spent with other females talking about something other than men. We feel that standard has turned out to be a Trojan horse, as others have pointed out before us. If a woman is alone on a desert island with a man, there’s no way to pass the Bechdel test, even for the most feminist piece, whereas a piece in which a group of women do nothing but belittle each other based on patriarchal beauty standards can still pass the Bechdel test.
What’s important to us is the female characters’ appropriateness relative to the situation they find themselves in. We’re looking for women escaping the shackles of patriarchy. For women to no longer have to choose between being a madonna or a whore. To no longer be burdened with Eve’s supposed sins. We’re looking for shows where women are just women. Just regular, human people, living their lives, going about their business, as most of us do, without having male expectations placed onto them, forcing them to be weaker, or stronger, or more beautiful, or sexier, or uglier, than the situation would otherwise call for. We’re looking for female characters that haven’t been distorted in any way in order to fit male needs and expectations.
It doesn’t seem like much to ask, but it’s surprisingly hard to find. Most of us have forgotten what it might even look like. Many of us don’t even have it in our real lives, so we don’t know what to look for to begin with.
So, the next time you have some extra brain space and are watching a show, ask yourself a few of these questions. They are meant for reflection, to be applied in a thoughtful manner on a case by case basis, not to suggest that every time a woman fights in heels or wears tight, revealing clothing she’s in a misogynist show. We love a good fight in a great outfit as much as the next person. 
  Metawitches Guidelines for Spotting Misogyny vs Female Equality in Entertainment and Media
Misogynist works reduce women to five different tropes, or a combination of these tropes, if the characters are “complex”:
Madonna: The perfect, pure, unspoiled, virginal, all-giving, always nurturing mother/good girl who “deserves”, and gets, the men’s respect.  Attractive in a more controlled, more subdued way than the Whore/Bad Girl, usually involving pastels, neutral colors, and covered skin. Sandy from Grease, Jane Bennett from Pride and Prejudice and Melanie Wilkes from Gone With the Wind are examples.
Whore: The woman who is sexual, powerful, selfish, self-aware, who does not put the needs of others first at all times, and hangs around with the men, but isn’t respected. Attractive in a flashy, obvious way, involving brighter colors, and tighter, more revealing clothing than the Madonna/Good Girl. Often a villain, but also can be simply the Bad Girl or even the Bad Girl with the Heart of Gold. Scarlet O’Hara from Gone with the Wind, Kitty Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, Rizzo from Grease, and Johanna from The Hunger Games are examples.
Child: The woman who is weak and unable to think for herself, whether it’s the writers who think that, the male characters, or the woman herself. She is helpless, ditzy, silly, insane, manic, dreamy, victimized, angry, depressed, etc. There are an infinite number of reasons why the male characters might need to step in and take over the decision-making, or provide strong guidance. Guidance may be provided subtly. This one can be difficult to spot. The child usually doesn’t grow up/grow as a character, get more than token punishment for mistakes, or have any truly evil intent. Examples include Mrs Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, Frenchie from Grease, Annie from The Hunger Games and Barbra from Night of the Living Dead. This is a prominent racist stereotype as well, so it’s often used on women of color. Prissy from Gone with the Wind is a famous example.
Eve: Even though she might be the lead character, the woman is treated as if she is an extension of the male characters, instead of a separate being, especially physically. Men will guide her decision-making. She will learn everything important from them. Their love and approval will mean everything to her. Often, the love interest will touch her constantly, going so far as to move her body to where he wants it without telling her where they are going first or giving her any choice in the matter. Sex is all about him and is often a reward for his accomplishments. If the woman disobeys the man’s wishes, the universe will often teach her a lesson. Unlike the child, Eve can grow as a character, but she can only grow in male-approved directions. Eve can be a good girl and close companion to the man from the start, or she can start off as a villain and be redeemed, after she’s accepted her punishment and male guidance. Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Wonder Woman (from the 2017 movie), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jane Austin’s Emma, and Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice are Eves, as are most of the recent crop of bad ass female warriors and strong female heroines.
Invisible Woman: The women that men don’t want, unless they are used as villains or plot devices. The throwaway characters. The old (post-menopausal, sometimes younger), very young, disfigured, disabled, sick, unattractive, fat. If the piece is racist, women of color will often fall into this category. Wonder Woman 2017 erased all of the women in this category except the chosen child, the plot device secretary, and the disfigured villainess. The movie side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has also virtually erased this category, except the aging Peggy Carter and a few appearances by superhero mothers and mentors. The Ancient One in Dr. Strange was an Invisible Woman, meant to be a supremely powerful being, but instead kept in hiding, reduced to asking neophyte Dr Strange for help, and sacrificing herself, in the end.* All of the Asian women who could have played the role instead of Tilda Swinton were rendered invisible by the filmmakers.
    Now that you have an idea of what you’re looking for, let’s look at the questions.
1- Does the women’s clothing make sense for their situations, or is it meant to sexualize or infantilize characters who otherwise wouldn’t have those traits? Are older women, disabled women, fat women, and other women outside the typical Western beauty standard dressed in plain, loose clothing, while the “attractive” women are dressed in tight, revealing clothing? Are the women dressed appropriately for what they’re doing and who/when/what they are? Are they dressed sexually for no apparent reason? Are they hobbled by wearing high heels or being barefoot? Is a character wearing a tiny revealing outfit that makes her physically vulnerable to injury, or virginal white, or something else that makes her seem deliberately childlike?
2-Are women who aren’t considered traditionally attractive confined to the role of best friend, sidekick, neighbor, boss, villain: anything but leading lady? Are women who are physically disabled or disfigured actively portrayed as villains?Are the women’s faces and facial expressions allowed to be normal reactions to situations and is the level of make up they wear appropriate to the character? Are they allowed to have bad hair days, not wear makeup, have less than attractive facial expressions? Are their faces oversexualized? Are they forced to smile at all times? To wear heavy make up? Are older women so loaded up with Botox that they can’t move their facial muscles any more? Do the female characters become ridiculously frightened or scream at the first sign of trouble, no matter how brave and practical they are otherwise? 
3- If the show acknowledges bodily functions and genitals, does it acknowledge them in women? How? Is it acknowledged in a matter-of-fact way, or are women’s bodily functions and genitals seen as especially disgusting, especially those that are unique to women, such as periods and breastfeeding? Or are women’s bodily functions fetishized, with pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding turned into processes created exclusively to benefit men? Or are beautiful women too perfect to do anything as disgusting as fart or sh*t, but “ugly” women do it for laughs or to show us how scary or hideous they are?
4- Are the women unnecessarily physically manhandled by other people? Are the women fully in control of their own bodies? Do people touch them, either sexually or non-sexually, without their consent? Are their bodies picked up and moved around at will by others, without their consent? Is their personal space invaded without a second thought? Are they forced to use their bodies in ways they don’t want to, up to and including rape? Are they subject to social pressure to behave a certain way, often to the point of coercion? Are they seen as monsters who must be executed? Are they the subject of a witch hunt, or false imprisonment?
5- Is the woman in full control of her mind and power (personal power or supernatural power)? Or does she have to have a man guiding her all the time? Does a male step in and finish her fights for her (and possibly take the glory)? Is there a male guide who is the smart one, and who chuckles at her naivety? If she’s the main character, does the male get the big victory? Does she ever outgrow mentorship? (E.g.: Buffy never outgrew needing Giles to be her guide.) Does her husband, lover, or son tend to make the main decisions, or subtly guide her toward the correct decision? (We’re not talking about a woman freely asking for advice, or coming to consensus with another person.) Do men belittle the women’s intelligence and morals on a regular basis, while the women accept this treatment as normal? Do all of the female characters have an external locus of control (feel that they are powerless to affect their own world/lives, and thus end up being constant victims), or act like it when it’s time to take action, regardless of their position in the world? Do women go insane or develop other illnesses from experiences that don’t have the same effect on men? Are female characters expected to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, whether that means the couple, the family, or the country, while male characters are not? If the woman is a criminal, in the military, or has another dangerous lifestyle, is she treated equally to the men, or is she seen as a pawn in the men’s games? Did she understand the choices she was making, or was she portrayed as too stupid or naive to realize the seriousness of the life she chose?
6- Do men use subtle and not so subtle gaslighting and manipulation of women to control and coerce them, but this is accepted as normal behavior by everyone? Who is the point of view character? Are we ever given the honest point of view of the female characters? (This might be the most important question, and the hardest to discern. Characters speak the writers’ words, after all, not their own. Editors and directors manipulate which words we hear and how they are presented. But then sometimes it seems like it should be obvious. We’ve been pressured into accepting reality show conditions, for example, as okay, because the women appear to choose to trade their autonomy and dignity for fame and fortune. But is there any real choice in a coercive culture like ours, where we are bombarded from birth with certain messages?) Do women feel the need to apologize for expressing their emotions and opinions freely, especially negative ones, most especially anything involving anger or depression (for being the dreaded Debbie Downer), while men are accepted and even praised for expressing themselves? Are women automatically seen as liars and manipulators, using men for their own purposes? Does the gaslighting extend to the audience, asking us to accept that the male characters are truthful and have only good intentions? Do the women smile and nod their way through the scenes, accepting whatever is dished out to them (often with a laugh track in the background or a reality show commentary)? Do the women compete to be degraded, sometimes to the point of abuse? Do the male characters keep a judgey running commentary on the women’s behavior and looks going, as if the women can’t hear them?
7- If the show involves sex, do women initiate and enjoy sex as often and as much as men? Is it stated or implied that certain kinds of women want or enjoy sex too much? Are value judgements made on the types of sex a woman wants and enjoys, whether that’s hetero sex, kinky sex or queer sex of whatever sort? Does it show women receiving oral or being pleasured just for them at least as often as men are? If it does, does it only show women receiving pleasure from other women, or do they receive it from men? Is the man genuinely concerned with pleasing the woman just for her, or is it part of some actual or perceived competition for him? Does it show women being coerced, either subtly or overtly, into sex acts they aren’t interested in or comfortable with, while the narrative implies that they should go along with whatever their partner or culture wants? Is it stated verbally that it’s okay to say no or to stop in the middle of sex, but that’s negated by everything else in the piece? Is it stated or implied that only certain kinds of women (such as a certain age, size, race, ability, economic or beauty standard) are interested in sex, enjoy sex or are worth having sex with?  Is the man always dominant and the initiator in sexual encounters? Is the sex about power or competition rather than pleasure? Who has the power in the situation? Is everything that happens during the sexual encounters consensual and previously discussed, if the couple is trying out sexual practices that are new to them? Is the women freely choosing to have sex, or is the sex something that has been earned by the male character for fulfilling certain conditions, whether it’s taking her to dinner and a movie or helping her escape from prison? Are the characters being honest and open about themselves before having sex, or is dubious consent involved due to the dishonesty and manipulation of one or both of the partners?
8- Are the women surrounded by symbols and signs of female powerlessness and weakness? Are the women forced into a Madonna/Whore dichotomy, where good, nurturing women can’t be sexy and own their power, and bad, sexy, powerful women can’t be selfless and compassionate? Where women are either powerful or good? Where a “complex” female character is a woman who struggles to choose between being powerful or good? Does her power ultimately make her weak or evil? Is she forced to apologize for using her power? Is she self-loathing because of her power? Is she a funny-sexy woman who’s too weak for her hypersexuality to be threatening? Or a powerful but evil woman whose sexiness is portrayed as threatening? Is she turned into Eve, falling from grace and goodness with the acquisition of knowledge and adulthood? Does using her power drain her and make her physically and mentally weak? Is she self-loathing because of the necessary choices she’s had to make to survive a crisis situation, such as a war or natural disaster, or an ongoing struggle, such as poverty? What kinds of jobs do the female characters do? What kinds of roles do they play in their society? What does the culture’s religion look like? The military? Are women respected for the roles they traditionally and currently play in the culture that’s being portrayed?
9- Are they showing the truth of a woman’s experience, or are they showing exploitation? Is the woman a victim because that’s the only way the writer knows how to write women? Is a historical figure’s story being told accurately, or is it being sensationalized, with the woman being made weaker, or sexualized, or taking a backseat in her own story? Is a woman making choices that act out male fantasies rather than choices real women make, such as when characters fall in love with their rapists?
10- How are women photographed and physically positioned? How does the cinematography treat them? Is the lighting harsh, to make them look old or ugly? Soft, to make them look younger? Are women in positions that make them look smaller and more childlike? Are they positioned behind and/or below men consistently to show that the men are the more powerful and important characters? Does their position make them look dehumanized, vulnerable, self-protective, or lacking in individuality? Do they appear faceless or monstrous? Are they disappearing into shadows, or do they appear as if they’re behind shadowy bars made by blinds, making them look sinister? Is the camera tilted and/or is part of the subject of the frame obscured, making everything feel off, unstable, maybe even insane? Do all of the women look alike, in their physical characteristics and/or dress and behavior, turning them into anonymous clones lacking in individuality?
11- What kind of language is used to describe women and women’s issues? Are elderly women referred to as “grandmothers,” while elderly men are called “men”? Are women called “ladies” or “girls” while men are called “men”? Are women described by their physical characteristics, while men are described by their character traits or history? Are appropriate terms and phrases used for women’s body parts, issues and crimes against women, or are derogatory terms used, and terms that question the validity of crimes and issues, like the phrase “real” rape? Even the tone of voice that newscasters use has an effect on the way we view the people and issues they are reporting on. Do narrators, hosts, and commentators promote stereotypes of women, and manipulate the audience into feeling a certain way about certain women, such as that empowered women are “evil witches” or unmarried women who use birth control are “slutty”? Do the jokes have an anti-realistic, anti-equal woman slant (fat jokes, lying woman jokes, ageist jokes)?
12- How are female characters treated relative to male characters, in areas such as amount of screen time, focus given in the plot, and relative number of lines of dialogue? This goes for females vs males in all aspects of the production. Lead characters and series regulars are the most visible. How does the number of named female characters relate to the number of males? How prominent are the women’s roles? Are there women of color and LGBT women in the cast? How prominent are the roles the women of color and LGBT women are playing? Is there a female lead, but she’s the only named female character? Does the production have women on the creative team? If it’s a TV series, does it have female writers and directors for its episodes on a regular basis? Are there women in any of the male-oriented tech positions? Is the story about female characters who look and act like they are important to the piece (and might even be the title character) and get major screen time, but in reality the important work of the story is done by the male characters (who might technically be supporting characters)? (This, and the female lead as the sole woman are the most popular ways to dupe women into thinking they are seeing equality.)
Lucky 13- If you want to dig really deep, what is the working climate for women who work for this production, this director, this studio, this theatre, this TV network? Are they known for hiring women? For giving women their start as writers or directors? Or are they known for shutting women out of anything but acting, for enforcing unrealistic physical standards on actresses, and/or for sexually harassing the women who work for them? Worse, have they been accused of rape, pedophilia, or other crimes against women, but their wealth and influence have allowed them to escape justice? Is this a business that you are comfortable continuing to give your viewership to, knowing that views, ratings, clicks, advertising dollars and ticket sales encourage the continuation of the misogyny you’re seeing on the stage or screen? 
According to the annual Celluloid Ceiling Study, fewer than 1% of each year’s top 250 films employs more than 10 women behind the camera, whereas 70% employ 10 or more men. This has remained unchanged for the last 20 years. It will remain unchanged until we demand change with our feet.  
What we see in our entertainment influences us, but we have the power to influence it back by focussing our attention and our money onto the projects and creators that we feel are most worthy of our support. All it takes is some critical thinking and the power of an informed choice.
  *The Ancient One also has elements of the Madonna and Eve, but given her self-sacrifice and dependence on the men around her, I feel that the combination of making her soft spoken, dependent, sacrificing, hidden, and generally lacking in authority and presence serves to make her fade into the background, compared to other characters. Usually an Invisible Woman would be a smaller role, so The Ancient One is worth noting. She’s turned into a ghost when she should be a powerhouse. For comparison, look at the Netflix side of the MCU, and Madame Gao, who commands every room she walks into, before even saying a word, even though the actress, Wai Ching Ho, is physically a tiny person.
    Metawitches Guidelines for Spotting Misogyny vs Female Equality in Entertainment and Media This is the basic list of questions we ask ourselves while consuming media to help us determine if we're seeing women being treated fairly or not. 
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