thatninja replied to your post:
I know I’m usually that guy who’s always...
Gambit is 100% riding on his charm and looks. Plus Rogue could punch a hole through just about anyone that could argue that, which is prolly some kinda factor.
someothermonstra replied to your post:
I know I’m usually that guy who’s always...
isn’t… isn’t that canon?
LOL it actually varies pretty wildly depending on who’s writing him. I mean, good luck finding consistent characterization with any popular comic book character that’s at least three decades old, but all kidding aside, I do love the guy and Gambit in particular is a frequent target of character assassination. There’s even a trope named after him, though I forget its specific name at the moment.
But its basically the idea that certain male characters who end up more popular with women than male comic book writers expect, or understand - like as in they don’t understand what about them appeals to female readers so much, or misunderstand the basis of that appeal - there’s this weird trend where some of them basically take it out on the character and kinda...do their best to sabotage them? Idk, its like, it frustrates certain dudes who have rigid expectations of what women want in a ‘ladies man’ type character, that when faced with characters who get that reception not because of how these writers WOULD write them, but for reasons they just...can’t put a finger on.....they basically get butthurt about it and are like ‘well what’s so great about this guy anyway.’
I mean for sure, being jealous of a comic book character - let alone one you yourself are getting paid to write - is pretty pathetic, buuuuuuut lbr, that describes a lot of dudes in that industry and I mean....there’s a pretty obvious and proven track record of characters like Gambit and Nightwing and the other well known ‘lotharios’ of the Marvel and DC universe regularly getting tanked in various runs and written as vapid airheads or thuggish jerks (not to mention cheaters), in ways that really don’t make any kind of sense from even a basic storytelling perspective and really seem to only exist to make them look bad.
One writer that always stood out in this regard for me with Dick Grayson was Chuck Dixon, who wrote his Nightwing solo comic for a long time in the 90s, as well as adjacent titles. And to be clear, it was always pretty obvious that Dixon WANTED Dick to be received by readers as a ladies’ man.....but for reasons and ways that Dixon wanted. Like Dixon was a pretty right wing, conservative d-bag at the best of times, (and also the one who made Dick a cop, which tells you all you need to know about what I think about him, lmao)....and so its not hard to guess what he THOUGHT an ultimate man’s man, macho but suave lady-killer James Bond kinda guy SHOULD look and act like, and how female readers were meant to like...swoon at his take on him.
Except....that’s not remotely Dick’s appeal, and why he’s so popular with female fans. If anything, that’s pretty much the exact OPPOSITE of the times he’s most popular with women, and like....you can kinda see throughout the course of Dixon’s Nightwing runs where that just baffles and frustrates the hell out of him....and with him then all of a sudden throwing curveballs into his OWN long-term character work and storylines, just to be kinda like ‘well what do you think of him NOW, huh?’ In particular, I’m thinking of this one infamous stand-alone issue, I think it was an annual or whatever, and it was a flashback issue that was written late in the 90s but meant to take place right before Dick was supposed to get married to Kory back in his Titans days. And it involved Dick going to see Barbara one last time before his wedding, and talking about their romantic history together and hand delivering to her the invitation to his wedding with another woman....and then she’s like wtf....and that somehow led to them sleeping together.....and then him waking up the next morning in bed with Babs and being like, well that was great, I’m off to go marry Kory now!
Seriously. That actually happened. That issue was thankfully considered non-canon by most readers and other writers and never referenced again (outside of occasional references to Dick being a cheater, but as I’ve talked about before, that BS existed long before that story and stems from the crap with Mirage).
But like....it made ZERO sense. In story, in context of the characters, in terms of how Dixon HIMSELF usually wrote both Dick AND Babs, which he’d done a LOT of....like he also wrote Birds of Prey for a long time? With Babs front and center in that? And forget about Dick even for a second, in what universe would SHE sleep with someone who was about to go marry another woman?
Like, it came absolutely out of NOWHERE, and made zero sense whatsoever, and tbh, Dixon didn’t even really try and justify it within the actual narrative, it was kinda a wham bam, well here you go, this happened, DEAL WITH IT. That story’s only purpose really was to make everybody in it look bad, b/c Dixon’s the kind of dudebro to throw a temper tantrum within his own work b/c his female readers don’t like Dick for the reasons HE thinks they should like Ultimate Ladykiller Fantasy Man Dick Grayson, but for reasons that don’t make sense to him and he CAN’T replicate because of that.
Its the same trope with Gambit. And it actually kinda originated with him, even though Dick is a vastly older character, because don’t forget, a good fifty years of Dick’s history was as a preteen and a teenager. He was only growing into that persona of the character with mass romantic/sexual appeal at the time that Gambit was created.....and right from the bat, Gambit’s creation and reception kinda threw writers for a loop.
B/c Gambit, as Claremont initially conceived him, was not SUPPOSED to be sexy. Like, he had really longterm, complicated and convoluted plans for Gambit originally, and how he was connected to Mr. Sinister and other characters, but like....in Claremont’s own words in past interviews, he’s basically said that like....Gambit was supposed to be more obnoxious than charming. Like, he kinda meant for him to be taken as this greasy, weaselly kinda sleazebag who was only ‘charming’ because of something to do with his mutant power, that much referenced but little canonized ‘charm’ ability he’s always been rumored to have in addition to his kinetic energy powers.
Except....between how artists throughout Gambit’s early years actually portrayed him, and the ways Claremont and other early writers wrote him and the things they had him saying all being taken entirely differently than they intended....Gambit was pretty much an instant hit, with female readers in particular....and just like Nightwing in later years to follow, this frustrated the SHIT out of certain writers, because they just DID NOT GET IT.
And so with Gambit, just like with Dick, half the time you have writers who are total fans and just want to show off those characters (and other characters that fit this particular niche archetype) to the best of their abilities, highlight just how competent and skilled and intelligent they are....with fans of course usually being very receptive to this and upholding these particular runs as iconic and fave portrayals, enjoying the characters here for the reasons they’re ‘naturally’ appealing to a lot of fans, etc.
Which of course, in turn, just kinda frustrates and annoys that Certain Dudebro Writer Type all over again. And thus the next time one of THEM gets their hands on these characters, there’s all these little digs built into the stories and the characters making mistakes that ‘reveal’ them as the kinda insensitive assholes they are, the jerks who don’t deserve the kind of acclaim they get, just like....Those Popular Jocks That Don’t Know How To Treat Women Right, Not like A REAL Nice Guy Like Me Would, and are really just kinda dumb airheads anyway and why do people even like them, ugh.
Anyway. So yeah. That’s definitely a thing that’s stood out for a lot of fans and readers over the years and been noted and talked about pretty extensively, with again, there even being a trope named after Gambit because of it. This weird, self-defeating obsession some guys have with making sure that like ‘Well if women aren’t going to like these Male Power Fantasy Characters for the reasons WE think they should like them, then we’re gonna make sure they just don’t like them at all.’
