it infuriatiates me to no end how Hazbin Hotel treats the topic of rape/sexual misconduct in general. I am also a survivor so please refrain from any curt comments.
Prefacing this with the statement that should be obvious with a brain- I do not care if you like the show. Im of the opinion that DNIs are stupid and you should cater to your own experience. I have friends who like it and more power to them for enjoying a show that I cant. This is just my opinion. If you feel personally attacked by this opinion, i kindly advise you move on.
With that out of the way, the thing that irks me is the intense double standard it has with the scenes. Husk is very obviously uncomfortable with the flirting and sexual harassment that Angel Dust puts him through. Yet, its always treated as a joke or not that serious. Yet when Adam harasses women, its taken much more seriously when they are doing the exact same thing. When Angel Dust is being abused by Valentino, its played with 100 percent seriousness, but when Sir Pentious is dragged off into a room with no consent, its treated as a joke.
Similar issues with Helluva Boss, too. The intense double standard the showrunners have with these characters is insane. For HB, its sometimes worse because they shove everything away to justify a toxic yaoi couple that, by all means, is insanely unhealthy and fetishizing. The scene where Blitzo doesn't kill the couple because theyre gay and remind him of him and Stolas is so stupid.
Could you imagine the backlash if Stolas was a guy and Blitzo was a woman? This would be a rich, powerful man using a disenfranchised, struggling woman trying to make ends meet by exploiting sexual favors from her if she wants to keep her business up. Then the show twists her into being the villain because she said a few mean things. Same thing with Husk and Angel. This would be a man making a disinterested woman super uncomfortable with sexual advances and not taking no for an answer. But for some reason, once its MLM, everything is fine. It's clear that the writers have a BL/Yaoi fixation and it makes me, and many others,super uncomfortable.
Im not saying that this type of toxic dynamic shouldn't exist in fictional works or whatever, im saying that its handled with the tact and delicacy of a drunken bull in a China shop. They can be explored in interesting ways, but HB/HH does not do that. They want to justify their favorite characters' actions. The most prominent of which is Stolas, who was genuinely much more interesting before they turned him into an uwu baby smol bean who never does anything wrong. I dont like using this term, but in the traditional sense of the word, Stolas is a Mary Sue.
I wanted to like both shows, I really did. The landscape for young queer people is barren at best, and many people take comfort in these shows as it's the first time they've really felt seen by media like this. But it also worries me, as the show is not exactly tactful in its writing, representation, etc.
Also the shows suck in general when it comes to female characters and plot, and how they fucked up a genuinely interesting demon pantheon and whatever but that's a whole nother rant lmao
Sorry for formatting, im on mobile and all that jazz
