Note: I am FictionAddict on StoryTrollers, most online places know me as Hecallsmehischild, however. But we are one and the same person. This note was a response to my co-reviewer’s take on the Derpy Hooves situation and its deeper implications. I back his view, and also would like to show how there’s even more involved in the message that’s being sent out.
Hey everybody. A lot of you may have seen Channel Jacker’s recent Jacked In review, titled Snips, Snails, and Derpy Hooves. I do my best to keep my nose 95% out of his reviews, although I throw in a suggestion here and there. However I felt it was important that I come out and say something about it, because the thing is, I 100% back him on the issue of gender stereotyping in cartoons. Not only in cartoons, but in a lot of media as well.
I was first made aware of the concept of the dumb male stereotype in an 8th grade homeschool type setting, where a classmate of mine was presenting on male figures in movies and shows. The only two examples I remember were Homer Simpson of The Simpsons, and King Triton from The Little Mermaid. My classmate pointed out how usually it is Homer who is the butt of the worst jokes, shown repeatedly to be an idiot, and is generally considered an imbecile by everyone around him. In the same vein, although King Triton isn’t a flat-out idiot, he’s the other destructive stereotype. The overbearing father who doesn’t listen, and doesn’t care, and destroys his daughter’s precious collection after going into a rage. Don’t worry general audiences, Triton got what he deserved, oh yes. His daughter, who put herself in a dangerous situation, ran off, leaving him to search the whole ocean for her. Look at him all sad and depressed on that throne, moping that he can’t find his daughter that he loves so much. Serves him right for being such an uncaring jerk earlier.
If you can’t tell, this piece will be rife with sarcasm.
I didn’t grow up watching a ton of TV, but what TV I did watch, I can tell you that in at least 70% of the media I took in, a man is generally either made to look like a fool BY a woman, or IN COMPARISON TO a woman. Even in the shows I watch today, there are very few ditzy or incompetent women. In Eureka, the major corporation in the town is run by a strong, independent, single mother. Kudos to Eureka! However there is Fargo, the geeky wimpy overly nerdy genius who is played for laughs. How about Better Off Ted? Again, the office is run by a ruthless, cold, and fiercely independent woman,while the experimental products department is run by two bumbling jokers.They’re brilliant, I’ll give you that, but even they come off as completely inept, especially whenever faced with—you guessed it—a woman. Whovians out there, who among you can tell me that when you put Amy Pond and Rory Williams in a room together, you know darn well who really wears the pants in the relationship? At least 80% of the time…
Even if the men in the media aren’t idiots, they are portrayed to be inept or less worthy of respect than women these days. Why is this? Is it because, a few decades back, it was the other way around? That men were the confident care-takers of the more feeble minded women, who couldn’t so much as figure out the TV remote without a man to show her how?
If so, media, you screwed up bad.
If this is your apology to women, this bending over backwards and portraying men as oafs and doofuses, this is almost worse than what was going on before. You don’t fix the problem by swinging in the exact opposite direction, that NEVER helps ANY situation.
Do you want to know what you’ve done with your “apology”?
Not only have you cemented in the subconscious of the general population that men are dumb as dirt and women are basically God, but…no, well, that’s about it. Right there. Women are God.
And that’s where the backhand comes around, slamming us in the face a second time.
Because you see, we are perfect now. We can do no wrong.Sure, we can have a few character flaws, but God forbid we look different, or have a disability, or don’t conform to the shape determined by a piece of plastic that is so disproportionate that if she were a real woman, she would have to crawl on all fours to be able to move due her wasp-like waist and chestboulders! #barbierant
If anybody has ever checked the Dove Evolution video onYoutube, you’ve seen what happens. The process from “normal” woman to “sensual goddess” that we see plastered all over billboards every day.
Let me tell you something, your “apology”, media? You can take it and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. I’ve watched too many friends be nearly destroyed by eating disorders to give a crap for this kind ofapology. It goes nowhere. Oh, and by the way? Special needs? Yeah, two amazing, brilliant, funny, wonderful little sisters who happen to have special needs. According you, they should neither be seen nor heard. Or at least, that’s what the whole Derpy situation told me.
In the end, is My Little Pony “just a cartoon”? And are all these other shows “Just dumb shows”? You tell me. What is the general public always talking about? Who are they always comparing themselves to, and measuring their actions against? Like it or not, a massive percentage of the culture of America is based on the entertainment industry. I live in driving distance of Hollywood. I am assaulted every day by so many visuals of what women should be, that I have to tune them out just to get to work. And when I turn on a show and see the men doing their best “Duuurhurrhurr” impressions, it makes me sick.
If the media has this much power and influence in our culture, it can’t just be brushed off. It has to be held accountable. Heck, a few years back more people attributed a Tina Fey quote to the actual Sarah Palin, than real Sarah Palin quotes! What does that say about how much stock we take in the media?
I close this vaguely guided rant with this thought. What would have happened if, instead of swinging in the exact opposite direction from a bad stereotype, everyone just moved forward? The media said yeah, we screwed up. Let’s fix the female stereotype, and move on, instead of kicking the male image in the collective family jewels, and backhanding the female populace across the face a second time. Humanity isn’t lacking in creative minds, people, it can be done…
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