DANG, chat I didn't expect this to do that well HONESTLY jjgkghjjgkhgjh My anxiety is like 📈📈📈 Comments are already a cesspit of weirdos hyper-focusing on Viv (DON'T MAKE ME TAP THE SIGN 58:52) and it hasn't even been up for 24 hours, we are so screwed.
FR, she literally could’ve just been a smart antagonist and create the main conflict herself, but noooo they had to label her as a “dumb b**ch” and add a male character to be the real villain because they refuse to write stella like an actual character
exactly. i heard the shows are lgbt friendly and i love that but listening to the dialogue in this video, i will definitely never watch hazbin or helluva because what even is that writing?? it's so disappointing
You can call it gayverse so far with ammount of focus this stuff gets in both shows now bruh. Never give moneys and power to yaoi obsessed girls who didnt grown up from this phase
This show's lgbt "representation" is the most lame and performative thing I have seen in my life. A lot of characters are gay/bi/pan while lesbians are almost noexistent, there are no trans characters aside of background npcs and Morgana Ignis's self insert, and non-binary/genderfluid/intersex etc are noexistent aswell.
@closermercury518 literally like... who would use "hair haver" or "teeth having" as an insult?? its so stupid and sexist in such an absurd way, the implication that someone is just reduced to a (gendered) body part to make the insult "funnier" is so stupid??
i do believe it's because millie is flatter, so still degrading but at millie's expense, saying that shes so jealous of her that she included it in her insult... so even more misogyny! because no, a grown woman who's married still has to be insecure about her looks... right... edit: absolutely no reason for blitz to be saying it, though. its actually ridiculous.
It FRUSTRATES me how shallow Stella is as a character. How tf does Viv expect me to take the abuse Stolas endures from her seriously if the show itself doesn’t even treat her serious. But then we get Valentino, who is most definitely 10 times WORSE than her, and he gets to be humanized. We get to see him when he’s not abusing Angel, and he’s a goofy guy, which makes him all the more terrifying and makes the abuse Angel suffers from him all the more horrific
the fact that they use her to sell sexy dommy mommy merch doesn't help + is lowkey problematic for conflating abuse for BDSM(we're supposed to find her almost backhanding Stolass irrideemable, but think it's hot to fantisize about?)
Don't worry, Viv actually said about Valentino and his character that he's "stupid and acts like a trophy wife." I saw this in a video recently discussing the Hazbin Hotel season. And honestly, as someone who was genuinely scared of Valentino and simultaneously liked him as a true antagonist and bastard, such words seem extremely strange. I'm just wondering if Vivienne and the other writers (I don't know who they are) remember Valentino's character in the first season, in Angel's video. What kind of "trophy wife" is he talking about? After one of the writers said that, I'm really scared to watch the third season, or even wait for it. Because that's where we'll be able to see Angel and Valentino revealed. I just don't want to see them justify him. I liked him purely as an antagonist, not as a misunderstood omega for Vox. That's another reason I dislike the Static Moths. Sorry for any mistakes, I'm just using Google Translate. Sorry again if anything is wrong.
i thought that too. yeah stella is a prissy elitist bitch for sure. But so is her husband!! they are in the same boat. forced to marry, forced to have a child, forced to be with each other when they are obviously not each others type.
@greedfox7842 Bro don't be an old man yells at cloud type. Every generation had slop, gen z had johny test and Fred as icons. Gen y had Fanboy & Chum Chum, Planet Sheen and Mr pickles. Gen X had Mega babies and Do not get me started on all the rip offs of transformers, g.i joe and thundercats in the 80's. Plus all the really really bad hannah babarba things / ripoffs before gen x
It doesn't bother me that some characters are horribly misogynistic, it's that there are absolutely *zero* consequences for being misogynistic. They are rewarded for it.
Prolly because males, most of the time get portrayed "normally" on other medias? While 99.9% franchises on the internet literally just exist to flash us with "women's fanservice"
Hey um dude i know you probably meant noyhing by it, but calling women females, especially in the same sentence where you say men, is also misogynistic language. It reduces us to our sex and our reproductive organs.
@carleighcarmody2479Ah I had no idea. I’m a girl myself, and I hear people say it all the time so I assumed it was a normal word in the English language. Doesn’t women also have wo in front of men though, so wouldn’t that be the same? Just curious.
Oh wait, I looked into it. I see now that it’s the definition of the word that’s the issue, sorry. I always was told it was just another synonym for women and girl, and used it absent-mindedly without thinking. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable with my language.
@Itz_Mothii the problem with calling women females isn't because female has 'male' in it, it's because female is usually used more as a way to speak of the female body. English isn't my first language either, so it's a little hard to explain, but a woman is a person, whilst female is the body. It's like if you talk about "a man and a female", you're talking about a person and a body, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth, y'know? If you're talking about a person or people, it's just better to use woman/women and man/men. It's also just very common for misogynists to refer to women as females yet not call men males, they only demean and objectify women, reducing them to just their gender, whilst men are allowed to be people
The fact people portray the line about stolas not being enthusiastic in having sex with stella as her raping him is wild, considering the fact that she says in the next line that she doesn't actually want to have sex with him either, almost like they are both victims of sexual assault through the fact that they are being forced into a sexual relationship by their families...
Right? That conversation literally ends with Stella saying she was glad to get pregnant because that meant she didn’t have to have sex anymore. THAT’S NOT A THING A VILLAIN SAYS. Sure, Stella is saying it in a demeaning way about Stolas, but that’s also how a victim might reshape a narrative where they are in control.
@thecheck968 to preface this, I am not at all saying this behavior is okay, but this is literally how HB writers could have used her doing this: Genuinely, Stella could also be portrayed as taking her unresolved feelings about this horrible situation out on Stolas, as a way for her to exert what bit of control she has. It would make her even more tragic of a character, but nope. Sadly, she’s just evil from the start. Which, they can have that cake and eat it too if they show nuance!!! But they DON’T. Evil kids don’t deserve to be put into an arranged marriage where you’re both forced into r*pe just for your family’s convenience. Like, genuinely her being ab*sive can work. It’d just need some Olympic level stretches, leaps, and bounds to fix what’s already here.
What really doubles down on things is that an old couples portrait shows that the two of them did care for one another at some point, even going as far as to show one of Stolas’ flowers in her “hair”. Issue is, they probably would’ve been great friends if they weren’t forced to breed an heir. Obviously it’s not Stolas’ fault for happening to be a gay man, but it’s just really sad that the two of them were forced to live an uneasy and miserable existence while blaming one another as being the reason neither are happy in their marriage. Stella clearly never knew how to address those under her, and comes from a place of very very high privilege, so I assume that played a role in why she felt so betrayed by her HUSBAND not being able to enjoy her the way she probably was promised. Her flaw is that she thinks his disinterest is quite literally chosen and that he’s this monster for cheating on her, while Stolas major flaw is how his he’s trapped in a relationship with somebody he can’t force himself to even feel any attraction towards. He’s just left with needs forever doomed to be unmet, settling on him being this horn-dog who similar to his wove can’t fathom why an Imp of all people wouldn’t wanna do the honors of being with somebody of such a position of privilege. Stella can’t fathom that his disinterest is “Oh, he’s gay.” Instead painting him as the bad guy for barely taking his royal role seriously. Both birds are immensely powerful, but neither actually have much control over their own lives. Without a doubt Stella feels justified in her actions, and Stolas I imagine also. It’s just unspoken resentment against the forces at play forcing them to live out these very specific roles that clearly don’t align. In a world that Stolas was born to another father, he and Stella likely would’ve been friends. They likely would’ve enjoyed plat life together and gossip about that ever Hell’s higher ups are going on about, and overall jsut enjoying one another purely platonically. But the systems at play didn’t ever see them as people, just roles to be filled. Truly heartbreaking.
@Markthinkmark 100% agreed. I fell off of Hazbin Hotel after season 1, but I heard the show put in a lot of work to flesh out Valentino. And I think that’s important. We label these very evil but very human actions as monstrous and it stops us from reflecting on why people would act this way. Worse, it stops us from accepting that people we know (or just know about via media) would do these awful things. I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll say it a hundred times more: despite the rating and the sex jokes, the show has the maturity and subtlety of a children’s show.
Never watched the show, but the idea of the main female lead being reduced to "the wife of this other guy" is INSANE. Them having a shared ex and the show only focuses on HIS relationship with the ex??? Are you kidding me????
Pretty sure that once the baby is born the show will sideline Millie again to focus on some stupid subplot about Moxxie being insecure for the 999th time.
@YoLoVeoTodo122 i almost want to watch it just to hate it more professionally. But I’ve never had Amazon prime and never will, so I’ll continue being on the sidelines and see if this becomes true (most likely will be)
You know the writers didn't care about Millie's character when the only idea they came up with to make her "interesting" was a stupid pregnancy plot. It's pretty obvious Vivzie eliminated Millie from the show because she wasn't interested in developing her.
"But Blitzo isn't supposed to be a perfect protagonist, we're supposed to see a lot of the things he does in a morally nuanced or negative light, yeah he slut shamed Verosika but that's because he's bad to Verosika, not because the show is-" okay so why is the audience encouraged to laugh along with him? And why are so many of the women this kind of vitriol gets thrown at one dimensional misogynistic stereotypes? Hell why are some of the MAJOR female characters made up primarily of misogynistic stereotypes? I'm all here for bad people doing bad things in hell to a certain extent, but when the writing and framing is reenforcing the misogyny it isn't a misogynistic character, it's a misogynistic show.
@Jdudec367 How aren't they? You have a whole video here about why they are, with all the points; now defend yours. How aren't all the female characters badly written, misoginistic, and an accesory to the male characters?
@Jdudec367Verosika is one-dimensional. Her whole character is angry, hypersexual ex-girlfriend. Her entire involvement with the show revolves around Blitz and her relationship with him. Loona and Millie are one note extras whose whole purpose is to add dimension to or assist Blitz and Moxxie, these are objective things that Vivzie has addressed and that Viktor elaborates on if you watch the full video. As for misogynistic stereotypes, Loona would be the angry goth girl and Millie would be the "wife", (as in her whole character is being Moxxie's wife). While, this isn't to say they have ZERO characterization, their stories and characterization compared to male characters are incredibly minimal or male-centric.
I don't remember what book, I think it was one of Doestoevisky's best sellers, talks about a guy that is a bad guy, I don't read it yet but I think he is either a murderer or raper, what matters is, I heard it because my friend read it, and she said "gods, this guy is so bad, I honestly want him to die". And for me that is the mistake of the whole hazbin and helluva thing, if we remove the narrative and keep the story it's really good, the speeches are good, if we remove the bridges between the moments they are really good, if you take only the dance of stolas and blitzø and remove the context a person who sees will be like: oh, their relationship is progressing, and won't think about the whole problematic of stolas not being a good father right before it or how blitzø also didn't have much options. If the shows were build in a way that even being the protagonist, the main cast were shown as sinners and demons. (Paying for their mistakes or simply being miserable since it's hell). If in various moments it was shown that blitzø is a bad person and you agree with the people it would be really good, like that party episode where he says he made things wrong and we agree, in this moment he is wrote as someone mean and worthless, a ex, a burden, no one cares about him. If you mean character is a villain then don't give him a good time of screen as hero, if you want examples Jeffrey Dahmer is bad because of it, and She-Ra is good because of it, one the villain is shown as the strong guy and the other the villain is weak and slowly turning worse day per day, even avatar shows that, and other shows perform bad in showing villains a part of the main cast, but, I think I'm yapping too much at this point.
RIGHT? Why is the sin of lust viewed as liberating but the succubus is some mindless degenerate horndog Like the only way the show tries to humanize Verosika is making her relationship about Blitzo. Her sexual promiscuity is constantly portrayed as this immoral character flaw (as if all these men aren’t sex crazy)
Who the heck is sex shaming Verosika EXCEPT Blitz though?? That's literally the point, Verosika is only shamed by her EX who's not suppose to be a good person 💀
like the video said they format her as a villain in that way. She’s supposed to be seem as a villain to everyone who is with the main cast, and you, because she is so sexual.
I would love to see more of her. She is amazing and very feminine to me. I dont think she is "one of the boys". We should stop with the stereotype that strong female characters are similar to boys like... thats so old for me. I agree with the rest though, the show didnt find any better for her than giving THE ONLY LEAD FEMALE CHARACTER a pregnancy arc.... Shame.
@alejandrasanchez3022 you’re misunderstanding. No one is saying she’s masculine. “One of the boys” just means a woman who’s accepted as a man because she may do non stereotypically feminine things (like her lust for fighting or how her human costume is almost always male). But she’s still a very feminine person.
@Jdudec367Yes, she looks like that, she sometimes is dressed like man in some episodes and Millie has been a bit neglected, and it's taken them a long time to develop her character in an episode of Ghostf******. I'd like to know more about her and other female characters, but Vivziepop doesn't know how to write "women" roles.
Vivienne Medrano claims that helluva is more male focused while hazbin is more female focused when that is not the case. BOTH of the shows are male focused and that sucks because if hazbin is what Viv’s writing looks like when she “focuses” on women then I can only imagine how bad it’s going to be when she eventually gets to developing the girls in helluva.
@ArchieRatsworth In a way I think that makes it worse. Like you’re telling me you had a whole team of people writing ts and not one of them chose to revise these writing decisions??😭
I never thought about it, but when you brought up the "pegging" jokes used against Moxxie I realized something: Why is him being pegged by his wife weird when multiple characters in both shows regularly have gay Sex where they both do and receive penetration? That's such a weird thing to make fun of a character for when he's the only one in a healthy relationship. You did mention why so I can't add to it much, but yeah
That's one aspect I noticed. Like...Blitzo must have received penetration at some point (especially with a "toy"). So I'm not sure why he's bringing it up specifically.
The series is weird in this aspect. While it tries to be a progressive series with its portrayal of LGBT couples, it still fails both with the female characters and with the male bottoms (Pentious, Moxxie, Stolas, and especially Angel), who are depicted as pathetic, helpless, and weak.
I honestly refuse to believe that Brandon had zero input in the lines he says as blitz. Viv is definitely responsible for greenlighting most of it but if you watched stuff on his main channel, he talks just like this in his skits too.
The difference, in my opinion, is that his videos focuses on awful people being awful and we love seeing them struggle. Even Sam (who's super straight, frfr) who's amongst the most empathetic is a super homophobic conservative who does really bad shit. What his characters does aren't treated as good, they aren't the heroes of their stories. Blitzø on the other hand... is.
to be fair, his old skits not only didn't age well (most of them imo), but these were him portraying bad people acting like they are, mean and bad, so this was in character blitz on the other hand... idk
Most of Brandon's characters are meant to be satirical. The comedy comes from how horrible they are and how obvious it is. Some of them did have more empathetic sides to them, but those were also kinda played for laughs in how absurd they were. For example, the character "Bryce Tankthrust" literally ripped out her heart as a child and offered it to another character, who then proceeded to throw up on it in disgust, which made her the heartless person she became. Blitz, in the meantime, is a real character who is being written seriously.
I feel flashbacks to yaoi fandom in the 2010's, who hand the unreasonably mean idiot ball to the women who could get between their ship for any reason. I have no problem with Stella being mean, or resentful of her husband, but they made her REALLY dumb in season two.
Yeah, there's been a long history of (internalized) misogyny in the yaoi fandom (it's one thing to focus the writing on the main gay men, it's another to depict the female characters as horrible or one-dimensional). It's sad seeing women who don't seem to think stories about women are worth telling :( I'm genderfluid & bi so I like stories about queer love including male romance, but it also really sours it when the female supporting cast isn't done well.
@SolaireHighwindhard agree. It's so upsetting because the female characters don't have to be dumb or written out! They can still be good! I see less of it these days but there's also the classic hating of q female character who "gets in the way" of a ship, which I also do not get.
Wholeheartedly agree, this is why a lot of people say the writing gives off ‘toxic fujoshi’ vibes. Also I wish Stella at least was a smart villain but even that role was for her brother.
The amount of times I saw Kairi get killed for Sora/Rikku pairings was disturbing. And how CASUAL it was. To see Stella written with thge EXACT same vitriol makes me think the Helluva writers never quite grew up from that mindset.
this still happens to this day unfortunately. Im in a fandom that hates a female character I like just bc she “gets in the way” of a noncanon mlm ship, but they defend and praise her male stalker/sexual harasser (who happens to be in that noncanon ship.) i see so many posts wishing her dead or making her out to be dumb or a fujoshi..? Ig that way they can pretend their sexism is approved personally by a fictional character. the constant misogyny and sole focus on the male characters in fandoms needs to be studied
Stolas cheats on his wife, abuses and manipulates an imp into sexual favours while also degrading him, neglects his daughter and makes sex jokes right in front of her and the show treats him as one of the good guys who did nothing wrong Verosika had a relationship with blitzo, got frustrated by him being selfish and using all her money and she breaks up with him, and she’s constantly shamed by the narrative and treated like the spawn of Satan because she’s proud of her sexuality
I agree with everything you say, except the manipulation part... Because... It wasn't Blitz who invaded his house to rob the book and then forced himself on him at the start...? Like, after that Stolas do very insufferable things, but I don't like the way that Stolas is backing off while Blitz approaches him because he looks uncomfortable. Even if he likes Blitz, that doesn't mean this is okay. I believe these both characters are insufferable, so insufferable that I feel very lazy to watch more episodes so I just stopped
@Ahnaomano-u1l Blitz did not force himself on him. Stolas just thought he was into him and in order for him to not realize he was stealing, Blitz ending up playing along after a while. Blitz literally needs that book for income, which Stolas knows, yet instead of telling him he can’t have it or figuring out a way to help him, he makes it so Blitz has to have sex with him every month. He makes it very clear that all he cares about is sex and he degrades him, even without realizing it. It’s not intentionally manipulation because Stolas doesn’t realize how horrible of a person he is, but he makes Blitz believe that he was in the right and makes him feel bad about it.
Stolas literally realizes that keeping him on a leash of a deal is wrong through the numerous songs and arguments he has with Blitzø. He realized how much he was neglecting Octavia in the most recent episode and honestly throughout the show. The most recent episode where Octavia walks away from Stolas is a culmination of the neglect Stolas was subjecting her to. He was also definitely wrong for the transactional relationship he let develop between him and Blitzø, especially with the power dynamics. Blitz calls him out for it whenever Stolas tries to get closer to him, even if it seems like Blitzø is pushing another person away. Which, in Blitz's perspective, makes sense to me. His personality also works well with the plain fact that Stolas is exploiting him, and gives him more motive to push Stolas away. In part, rightfully, but also because Blitzo is just avoidant and the writers wanted to feature his avoidant personality and the conflict it brings. In the end, Stolas realizes (in part) how fucked it is to keep Blitz on the other end of a leash through their deal, and gives him an Asmodeus crystal
@kuniziteyeah we know but their argument episode feels still eh... And lots of people point at it as a strange way to shame Blitz while Stolas is the biggest problem
Its ironic how the men of the show are allowed to be super freaky and sexual yet when a female character does the shame she is automatically ridiculed and slut-shamed. What a progressive show /s
HONESTLY, so true. Since there's such a constant stream of profanity at all times, I feel like a lot of people just get used to it and start to tune it out. I, myself, had to rewind several times because despite literally rewatching the whole shot to take notes on each time there was something nasty and sexist said, the cursing is just So Much that I missed a few things as I was watching.
Also, a lot of fans are younger and don't necessarily have experience with analyzing bigoted tropes in media, or think that any critical analysis is somehow anti-fandom.
@rottika When so many slurs are used so constantly, it also makes you forget that each slur has a specific severity and context to it. When the show drew the like at the R-word, it made me think "Wait, why's THAT too much for this show? And WHY did you aknowledge it jokingly?"
@aiyokai83 They've used the r-slur before, I think in season 1 or just the pilot. They just decided not to use it in season 2 anymore for whatever reason.
I’m reminded of the moment in Bojack Horseman where Flip is talking about why they brought Diane on as a writer for Philbert: “so when people watch the show and get to the end credits they can say, ‘oh a woman worked on this, guess it’s not sexist’ “
If you read some of Blitz’s lines straight from the script without knowing what show it was for, you’d think it was straight from Andrew Tate’s crooked mouth.
I got called a misogynist for pointing out how drastically underdeveloped the female characters are in hb and hh compared to the male characters like are we fr 💔🥀
I think it’s insane how little we actually know about what Blitz and Verosika’s relationship. The audience is subjected to tons of misogynistic jokes made at her expense, but as far as we know Blitz is the one who was in the wrong in the relationship?? It genuinely bothers me so much how little nuance there is to anything. Why explore the dynamic between Loona and Beelzebub when you can just pit them against each other? Smh. The show is allergic to exploring relationships between women, and I’d argue even fully developing a lot of their relationships to men.
While there's myriad things to gripe about for any given series, I find it handy to zero in on something core. Something fundamental that doesn't just exist as an isolated bad decision but rather something that blemishes the work in its entirety. For me it's Blitz. The series wants me to like him, in that 'loveable asshole protagonist who messes up a lot but we cheer because deep down we know they're better or trying to be better' or something like that, it's not rocket science writing, but neither is it necessarily a doomed approach. The problem is the series fails to make me care about Blitzo as a person. I don't like him, so I don't much care when bad things happen to him. The attempts made to garner my sympathy mostly boil down unfortunate things happening to him past and present, but Blitz as a PERSON is just a miserable jerk who is sad about being lonely because he's a miserable jerk, but he has no other motivation to do anything or accomplish anything. At least Moxxie and Millie have that most basic motivation of 'they're a couple and want to support each other'. Why does Blitz even care about his job and the money it brings besides throway jokes about spending it on horses? But enough with just complaining, what you said about Verosika highlights how easy it would have been to avoid this. We're shown that Blitz has all these powerful connections and broken romances in his past, all of which amount to this idea of a character who fell from grace. But even in the past Blitz is exactly the damn same. If we saw a Blitzo who was genuinely likeable, whom we could understand why these various people fell in love with him, maybe we could actually give a damn about the Blitz of today. Give us contrasting depictions, so we can invest hope. Hell, it would even bleed into the dynamic with Stolas in an interesting way. He fell in love with a charade and a lie, he tries to force what isn't there... what if through his interactions with Blitz's exes he gets an inkling as to who the real Blitz used to be. Perhaps Stolas' story could pivot into falling out of love with Blitz, only to fall back in once the guy actually starts to recover and reclaim his old groove. Give the audience a reason to care about Blitz's fate, and we'll actually be invested in his ups and downs. If he's just an angry, jerky joke character, I'm not gonna care when he flips on the woe is me switch.
@Jdudec367 they’re misogynistic jokes. They’re exclusively using misogynistic slurs or jabs at her sexual nature, something the show rarely does towards its male cast. Stolas is literally a horny sex freak and despite a few light jokes here and there, his sexual nature is treated as liberating
i cannot stand this show but i do slightly disagree with some of the points here. i think with verosika we are fully meant to see blitz as being in the wrong. the show knows blitz is shitty and it implies that verosika’s anger towards him isn’t irrational. one of my favourite subtle hints is that she has his name tattooed on her with an X over it. him calling her a bunch of slurs in episode three when they meet again is one of the few times where the crappy “it takes place in hell” excuse is believable for me because he just sounds like someone from our world who isn’t holding back. however, my issue with verosika is that she’s so NOTHING outside of her past relationship to blitz. i was super interested to learn more about her character after episode 3 but we literally never learn more about her than what it set up. i hate the whole “i hate blitzo” party, i fully believed that while she hated him, it wasn’t like a core part of her life and personality and just something that got reignited whenever she saw him against her will. she just exists in order to further blitz’s development with stolas. i also think it could’ve been effective if we saw her being upset by all the names he calls her and blitz has to rethink himself-while he hates being discriminated against for being an imp, he realises he’s done that for her as a succubus. same thing with loona and bee, i disagree that they were ever really put against each other. bee isn’t possessive of her boyfriend nor does she hate him being around loona because she seems to genuinely like her. the one time she snaps at loona it’s quick and unrelated to loona having a crush on her bf. they’re clearly trying to subvert our expectations of a “cat fight” by having bee be chill and being a sister to loona. the narrative also doesn’t ever really try to pit them against each other because it’s clear tex only sees loona as a friend. they’re not an actual ship, he’s just the guy loona so happens to like who so happens to have a nice gf. however, loona and bee’s relationship still feels shallow and misogynistic because again i don’t know anything about these women. they are so so flat and maybe that’s acceptable for bee because she’s a side character but loona is part of the main cast and she’s gets nothing to do outside of her relationship to her dad. i think it’s so telling that when they tried to give her her own episode in season 1 episode 8, blitz comes in less than halfway through because they have no idea what to do. the emotional moment of the episode is about him thinking he’ll die alone, not loona or bee. i think that’s why this show frustrates me more than other blatantly misogynistic works, it wants to have the illusion of being a feminist liberal show but it feels like it physically wretches whenever it has to focus on a character who isn’t a twink
I would like to see the relationship of Blitz & Verosika from how they met to how it went down. So we can see how it changed so badly. Sure we could gets hints of their past but it would be nice to see it
@sully42O I like the show despite all its faults, but I also shared your interpretation of Verosika, Loona, and Bee. With Loona and Bee specifically, it felt like they originally planned for the classic "fighting over a man" trope (which at least has some emotional stakes and understandable conflict) and tried to rewrite to avoid it, and unfortunately just landed on introvert goth vs. extrovert raver girl (which was frustrating to watch because I was like, "LOONA JUST GO HOME OR TO A METAL SHOW YOU'RE KILLING THE VIBE, DAMN").
What is with the team giving a rapist pimp moth man in one show 10 times more depth than a furious woman trapped in a loveless marriage? And they STILL gave more villain spotlight to a man over her. It’s also weird that in all three instances of cheating in the series, a woman is demonized.
@aubreyhart-b6t I think it’s less about Stolas being gay and more about the fact that he cheated on her with an Imp, the demon class at the lowest in Hell’s social ladder and saw that as a personal insult.
This is so true!!! I get so mad over them trying to humanize Valentino in Hazbin. It's genuinely gross. The fact that he has so much merch too is wild to me. If I saw anyone in the wild wearing Val merch I'd give them the most bombastic side eye.
@AGhostInTheCorner ??? there's nothing wrong with having a villain have more than one side. All the villains and bad guys have merch, and valentino is my favorite character in the same way someone who has vox as a favorite character isn't immediately a supporter of dictators. I'm sure there are plenty of characters you love that are also not good people, but that doesn't make them bad characters. I actually think the depth of valentino makes him mor realistic and terrifying, because my abuser was also really fun and charming, as a lot are - that's what makes an abuser often dangerous and effective in their horrible methods. The problem they're stating, is that they didn't develop stella to, not that they did develop a character. that's a good thing. There are plenty of murderers in the show that also get humanized. because bad people are humans. i'd argue it's worse they throw an abuser in and don't humanize them. like stella.
@misspinat869 narratively, the only purpose to the incest implications is to further make stella and andy as gross as possible. accurate or not, the intent is to make you hate them more.
What I've noticed in Mammons midseason musical extravaganza, is that Fizz gets sexualised,fat shamed by the fattest guy on the show, is afraid to be seen without his make up,is treated with immediate hostility by two younger women and has a male stalker who feels entitled to him. He's basically getting treated like a woman, and its taken very seriously by the narrative, the closest the series gets to treating misogyny seriously is an episode about a gay clown who throws gendered slurs at the only women in the episode.
@Natu-Shabbyi think it's more about how being a fat man is more exuasable than being a fat woman (an amout of hate i see every time in social media when woman has just a little belly is killing me 💀 and fat men in a lot of cases just being ignored) saying from my fat experience
@Natu-Shabbyit wouldn't change much in the whole view because bodyshaming is bad yes, but it's such a uncanny irony because most of her main characters are VERY skinny, then the only fat guy is the actual evil and vile thing we were expecting since the start??
2 women who would have been groomed then treated like Fizz was right? Who's gonna help them when they crack under the pressure? Good for Fizz that he escaped but I wonder what happened to Glitz and Glam after that? When will Mammon's cruel competitions end?
@Jdudec367 actually deltarune is not inspired by a masterpiece. undertale was the test for delatrune, so if anything deltarune inspired undertale, not the other way around.
@Jdudec367 Of course the show has flaws, but the toxicity of the main characters (particularly Bojack Horseman) is purposefully addressed and deconstructed throughout the show
I'm never getting over how episode 3 of the second season literally started with Millie being upset about running into her ex, and it ended up being a Moxxie episode and we now have to wait several years to see her backstory with the ex. Watch the pregnancy story also end up being mostly about Moxxie and his daddy issues
Yeah, I don’t understand why they made a plot point of Millie being an ex with Chaz when they didn’t even do anything with it? Like, you could have removed that plot point from the episode, and it wouldn’t have affected the story. What was the point of that?
@cosmok-1367 I genuinely think Moxxie's backstory w Chaz should've been given to Millie. Like Moxxie already gets a sad backstory/flashback in his one that focuses on his parents and childhood, and that one is more plot relevant and easily more compelling. he doesn't need a second sob story. it should've been Millie who Chaz left in the dust to get thrown into jail. Even Moxxie's relationship with Chaz doesn't really affect anything, I think the forced marriage plotline could work regardless of whether or not they are exes.
An entire separate episode could be made about the sexual harassment and assault depictions in this show and their implications and a person could probably easily talk about that for multiple hours
I get what you are trying to say but... Remember this is a show about a gang of demons who kill people for a living and enjoy doing so, breaking the laws of both their world (which seems to be a brutal and corrupt dictatorship with insanely unfair class differences, from what we see throughout the show, especially in Mastermind) and ours (which gets the D.H.O.R.K.S send after them) and set up that very same business through some mild prostitution. It having problematic stuff kind of just makes sense. It would be a bit weird if a demon lowlife like Blitz drew the line at calling someone a swear word or making crude sex jokes
"a writers blindspot" is literally such a good way to put it. ive felt this way about all bigotry controversies with the hellaverse, none of them feel malicious, they just feel like the writers were relying on tropes they were uneducated about and the team wasn't diverse enough to have someone point out the problems. also about luna, I feel like most of her characterisation makes like 10x more sense if you just convince yourself shes a teenager. her insane mood swings, and usually immature behaviour makes so much more sense under that context. I feel like she was originally supposed to be a teen, but they changed to it to appeal to the gooners
I wish I could agree but Viv has openly bragged about liking anti-feminist RUclipsrs and making OCs to berate progressive women. I don’t think she hates women, but she definitely doesn’t care about social justice
"I don't think she hates women" well she has the passion for it if she's making OCs to actively tear them down and make a mockery of them! That seems pretty hateful to me!
Loona spend her teenage years locked away in an adoption system that looks more like a prison and was then adopted by someone who babies her, it kind of makes sense that she hasnt made the jump to a mature adult yet
That’s because so much of this is just worse homestuck. Like a genuinely insane amount. The entire premise of apology tour is literally done by a homestuck character
when i saw the scene where octavia believed stolas had died and stella pulled her into a hug, it was like for a split second i thought there was actually going to be an interesting plotline. i assumed she would start doting on her, treating her like a real daughter with the whole “now your father is gone, but it’s okay because mommy’s got you!” vibe just so she could keep her from finding out the truth. i was excited, i was happy to see a plotline with stella that allowed her to DO anything. but then. that didn’t happen and she just went back to being a cartoonish villain twirling her mustache and cackling. that’s on me for believing in this show, i suppose
Prob bc they got a deal with Amazon Prime now which means they don’t have to tone down stuff for RUclips monetisation ig tho I wonder how it’ll look like
Moxxy being made fun of for being a more feminine/more empathetic man reminds me of how in Ancient Greece (I think) bottoms in say gex were shamed because it was the more "feminine" role tbh
My bro Moxxie is the best character in his group, but the show swears to us that he's a pathetic man. I can't even say I like him because the show doesn't help us by keeping him from going anywhere, and that irritates me because while they use Moxxie, who is the least bad of the group, as a punching bag, Blitzo and the others are praised when they're really messed up in the head. I think the version of Moxxie that worked (in a way) was King from TADC when he became lucid. Imagine if Moxxie was an imp who didn't like to kill but does it because it's the only way? Maybe he would even help Blitz deal with his traumas instead of being the show's punching bag.
Moxxie aint feminine at all, wdym? Just because he is softer or more empathetic doesnt mean feminine. Also, why is only a problem when the man is soft but not the hundreds of female characters that are soft too but people praise them for being in their "female roles"? Thats exactly why Moxxie is very important, because he is just a soft husband with a masculine role that isnt the stereotypical warrior, protective, strong.
@alejandrasanchez3022 It's not pathetic in the Homelander sense, pathetic in the sense of "poor boy, he's so sensitive, let me put him in front of the TV and give him a tub of ice cream."
Not just Ancient Greece. Ancient Egypt and Rome also shamed the bottom of homosexual intercourse (The Egyptian myth "The contedings of Horus and Set" is one of the oldest myths in the world and it has this trope)
10:34 I find it telling that this was the only joke I laughed at, probably bc the punchline wasn’t centred around misogyny. They could’ve subbed any word in and I still would’ve laughed
the line right after is one of the few witty disses in HB. I don’t think Stolas was meant to degrade Stella the way Andrealphus does here in particular, the joke makes fun of her lack of education despite being noble rather than her gender, and it fits Stolas even more than that self-censor he just did before it, since he is in fact high-class.
THANK YOU!! it's so funny how Vivienne said "Helluva is a male centered show, but hazbin is a more female centered show 🥺" Like, the female characters in hazbin suck as well so, I thinks this is a writing issue😭😭😭
@northrnstar REALLL like I get that she's supposed to be prideful, but she's not supposed to be STUPID. Just naive, but in the second season especially, she's genuinely stupid
@WalmartTable you know the writings bad when you made an unnecessary character flaw for the DAUGHTER of PRIDE. That was not being prideful that's just being moronically dumb
The funny thing is that Vivienne CAN write somewhat interesting female characters(Lute being an example), they obviously are still not written as well as the male characters but she is still capable of being at least somewhat competent as writing female characters. The problem is that she just deliberately chooses not to write female characters well, so she either doesn’t, or if she does she has to find a reason to put them on the back burner to further develop her male characters. I think it just comes down to the issue that Vivienne doesn’t like actually writing women, so she puts significantly less effort into them than the men. For a long time we are not told about if Stella cares about Octavia until only, like, the most recent episode. Even though Octavia is supposed to be a relevant character. And when it is it’s just “oh Stella doesn’t care about her either! Haha, did you know you’re meant to hate this character?” Seriously? I mean it’s fine to have irredeemable characters, I actually love them, but they don’t work when they aren’t written well and are barely a competent villain. Stella was shown at one point to seemingly be very clever, calling a hit on her husband, but then it’s revealed that “oops haha no Stella’s actually really dumb because of this dumb reason involving the Grimoire!!” Wait, what? Wasn’t the WHOLE point the fact that Stella was angry at Stolas for his affair and tearing the family apart? Why does she now care about the Grimoire? Is it possibly because Vivienne suddenly realized she no longer wanted to actually write Stella and needed a reason to push her to the side and focus on a different villain who was a man and not a woman? Probably.
That conversation between Octavia and Loona would make so much more sense if it was inverted. We could have Octavia pointing out that Loona's father is trying, implying she doesn't feel like her own father is trying to be a good father, and Loona maybe getting some character growth. But, no, we need to baby Stolas, that's the most important thing in the show
To be clearer, I think the episode shouldn't have any kind of resolution for Stolas Octavia's relationship. It should have been a crack in something that would fully break when Stolas chooses to die for his affair partner and leave his child behind.
Yeah, that conversation never made any sense in the context of the show. Why is Loona defending Stolas when she's literally never interacted with him before that point? She has no idea what kind of father Stolas is or what Octavia's actual problem is. Just odd writing all around.
Especially since Stolas was too busy laughing at Blitzo doing misogynistic stand up to even look for his daughter that, 'he loves and cares for.' He needs to own up to the fact that he would sacrifice his daughter for an orgasm. Oh wait. HE DID.
This. I also thought Luna and Octavia might actually become friends and interact more in later episodes, maybe having some character development over bonding about their crappy dads or idk, school, or whatever they do. Genuinely neither character has anything going on outside of work or being angsty so I don't know what they would talk about. I guess music maybe? The pair would make a really good friendship foil against Stolas and Blitzo's toxic af relationship. They could be the ones breaking the generational cycle of misery both families are steeped in. Alas, it will never be. Hell I wanted Octavia to call Luna to talk about things. Maybe give some insight into why Octavia made no attempts to contact her father (not that Stolas tried that hard to contact her either). My god they fumbled the bag with Octavia so much. If her character didn't exist I genuinely don't think it would have changed anything.
It concerns me that Brandon Rogers is not called out for the writing as much as Vivienne is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he was the one to suggest that Stolitz should be a canon ship, while at the time Stolas was meant to be the antagonist in the pilot. He also co-wrote on Sinsmas and has made multiple jokes about Millie's pregnancy at conventions, which leads me to believe he had some part with that writing choice. His work is very reminiscent of Helluva and Hazbin's humor (not sure if there's as much misogyny since I've only seen clips), and he even showed up as a cameo in Episode Zero, so it baffles me even more not I have not seen any attempt to call him out on his actions in the various videos critiquing the show and it's women characters
im not an avid helluva watcher, but i recall that brandon basically just told his opinion that blitz and stolas were a good couple and vivziepop chose to make it canon, so i think he has less of a hand with that one
@Birdyboys As a straight guy, it is kinda appalling that this show focuses more on men than the “conservative” shows. I know this is a more progressive show, and I would assume that they would focus more (if not entirely) on the women. But the fact that it focus almost entirely on the male characters, who are all just a bunch of gay dudes, is honestly weird. You would think that they would give more focus on the female characters of the cast, and yeah, there is tons of potential for them.
I've seen fans actually justifying Helluva Boss' treatment of their female characters because it was claimed by Vivziepop years ago that she wanted to make HB "male focused" and she would in turn make Hazbin Hotel more "female focused". But Hazbin Hotel, despite having a main character who is a girl, still focuses A LOT on their male characters (Alastor, Angel Dust, Sir Pentius, Vox, Lucifer, etc). All of these male characters have their own backstories and are used to drive the plot forward. Season 2 main characters may as well have been Alastor and Vox, because Charlie didn't do jackshit. Meanwhile, for the female characters: Vaggi was criticized for being characterized as having no ideals or goals of her own outside of being there for her girlfriend Charlie. Niffty is pretty much just there as comedic relief for being a crazy maniac who is also cute and small. Cherri Bomb doesn't have much characterization outside of being Angel Dust's best friend and Sir Pentius' love interest.
You're the first person I've seen mention others using Vivzie's flaws as an excuse to be misogynistic and I'm so glad you put that in the spotlight, cuz I see ts happen so much in person too. Great video!!!
Oh my god yes! Thank you! I have been genuinely so surprised at all the sexism and misogyny in both of Vivziepops shows for a while and I thought I was losing my mind BC I didn't hear anyone else talking about it 😭. My most recent thing I was angry about was in Hazbin Hotel season 2 where we finally get a scene thats supposed to be Vaggie and Charlie having sex and it's this awkward metaphoric dance number. Like, I'm not a gooner I swear, but I found it so odd how all the guys in relationships with guys can be so overt about being sexual, but once it was two girls, they had to have their sexuality toned down into a metaphor! Like, that was so weird 😭 They have the weakest relationship of EVERYONE. It's so bizarre like idk. As a woman who is attracted to women, it's just something I find odd.
YES, Charlie and Vaggie made me so sad as someone why was really intrigued by the pilot and waited years to get to see a main character with an established wlw relationship (as someone who is sapphic) and... I was so sad when I felt like I could barely enjoy their relationship or them as characters because they honestly just felt like an afterthought? Which is so fucking bizarre for characters who were supposed to be the Main Characters. It just makes me sad man. Their relationship is so wonderful on paper and ties in so well to the main plot elements of the show, I just wish they were written better, or more.
I personally thought that the dance number was very sweet and well needed. But yes, it's its own double standard in a way on how people view mlm relationships vs wlw relationships. Mlm is raw, passionate, sex filled where it's overt and in your face. Whereas they see women having sex with each other as, 'noooo they're dainty and cute and I just wanna see them kiss gently and hold hands and uwu I love girls'. They don't see them as adults. It's sanitized and put as pure. Like sex would ruin the aesthetic or something.
What PMO the most about stella is her brother, he shouldn’t even exist as a major character because EVERYTHING he did could’ve been done by stella herself They could’ve written her as a real narcissistic abuser who actually creates the conflict in the show. Imagine if instead of being dumb and treating octavia like garbage in sinsmas she actually love bombed her to drive via and her father further apart? Imagine if how much potential she could’ve had as a villain if the writers didnt just make her a caricature to be hated on? They added a male character to be the villain of the show because they refuse to make stella interesting, they refuse to give her a purpose other than being the fandom’s punching bag
I hate how one MF on Reddit was saying Stella groomed Octavia NO SHE DID NOT! 1. She's too much of a dumbass to really be a Groomer 2. There was WAY more than enough evidence to support that Stolas does not give AF about Via
My thoughts exactly as a part of me still thinks Stella could have worked either way on each side of the paper not just as a one dimensional caricature of a screaming woman who’s there for no reason than to have her brother do the work. My god Viv, give this woman DEPTH.
thank you thank you for commenting on the misogyny towards Viv herself it is awful to listen to criticisms of her works just turn into a misogynistic slop masquerading as progressive
I had to grow out of a lot of my own internalized misogyny so its kind of sad seeing other people point fingers and blame at the primary show runner, like she was doing all these things on purpose, when I don't think she has. I cant tell when it's on purpose, when it's ironic or parody, and when it feels like a mistake. I feel like she's afraid to give women agency or focus for fear of them being lambasted for being mary sues, either subconsciously or otherwise. I feel that way because that's what primarily held me back in my own growth. I don't know if that's true or what, just my speculation. Maybe just to help me feel better and hope for the best. I'm gonna stop being parasocial right now lol.
my god the way the compilation of the name calling is mainly blitzo. I know he’s supposed to be an asshole but goddamn, not a good look for the main character to whom you’re supposed to like later on. 😭
Honestly, none of them bothered me because I see Blitzo as a machine gun of insults regardless of what he believes or supports. He'd be the kind of guy who yells that someone is a f4gg0t and needs to go suck a dick while, well, sucking one himself. But this one (17:26) is really creepy, it's weird how I didn't remember this threat or how I haven't seen anyone else commenting on it, like, I don't see how this phrase could not be related to r4p3, especially with Moxxie's reaction. It's quite unsettling.
46:10 Kinda a random side tangent, but it’s something that has been on my mind with how Octavia is marketed (mostly in merch and whatnot). She’s pretty much the only female character who isn’t heavily sexualized-obviously because she’s underaged, but also because she’s one of the only existing Ace characters in the entire show. Asexual representation is so hard to come by and I wish we could get characters under that umbrella who aren’t constantly sidelined. It’s so common for ace characters to simply….be tossed in there? And not do much? Aside from Alastor I guess-but he still gets to be shipped with other males (Vox) which helps increase his popularity regardless of the Ace label being attached to him. Idk it almost feels like the narrative deems her story “not interesting enough” to actually explore because there’s a lack of sex jokes to be made from it. Why dedicate time to this teenage girl struggling with very valid concerns of her unstable homelife when we can instead make sexual remakes with the rest of the cast/male leads! I know it’s kinda silly of me to bring up her ace identity in the midst of this discussion (like perhaps I’m unfairly liking correlation to causation) but as a fellow ace it kinda irks me that the one character I can semi-relate to is very underutilized. Whenever she’s on screen I can finally breath because that’s the one time we finally catch a break from the overwhelming amounts of crass humor lol
Imagine if there was a plot line where we see that Octavia doesn't want to marry another royalty, or anyone, even though she has to, and how it affects her.
Part of the reason she is marketed that way is because she is 17, underaged which she kinda has to be for some of the divorce plot and her parents fighting over her to make sense. The other character who is similar to her in age is Loona. who I personally believe was made to be in her 20s only because her design appeals her to a very specific audience and they wanted to be able to sexualize her in the marketing.
I wanna write an au from Stella's pov, from her childhood and how she felt about the marriage all her life. She's still gonna be herself and abusive, but it's gonna actually discuss her mindstate
i've seen "its hell, what do you expect" thrown around as an argument before and- how is that even an argument? so all people who don't swear also go to heaven or? clearly not in this show! "i like edgy humour" is barely a comeback at all considering its not even applicable to this but somehow people still use it, despite everything.
"Oh, but Stella is a domestic abuser." Okay, and our protagonists are murderers who find pleasure in killing people, whether innocent or not, and probably have a body count in the three digits. And no, murderers aren't better people than abusers just because they aren't abusers. Shocking, i know. Edit: For those who are misunderstanding, no, I'm not justifying Stella's actions. What she did is still wrong and there's no justification for it. What I'm saying is that the protagonists are not better people than her just because they are not abusers; they are still murderers who derive pleasure from killing. They are no better than a domestic abuser just because they are not, well, abusers.
What's sad is that Stella doesn't even have any powers, shes just there to give birth to an heir. If Vizviepop would stop focusing on Stolas and Blitz for a few minutes, we'd have her backstory by now. Fans are writing better stories than the creator because they actually see potential in the character
And whether people want to acknowledge it or not, Stolace was also an abuser, I know the crew have been trying to retcon and victimize stolace to hell and back, pun intended. But he was someone that harassed and abused his power over Blitzø and sesmingly heavily neglected the needs of his daughter, especially in season 1
"Isn't it possible Stella is also a victim of incest?" Gonna corroborate this: I know absolutely NOTHING about helluva, beyond what I've heard from one friend and your videos. And I fully thought the ice dude that was with her in those scenes was some other nobleman trying to marry her to take over her ex-husband's title. So. Take from that what you will!
Yup. People who just watch the show will probably assume it's a Game of Thrones situation, they won't know Andrealphus is gay if they don't follow all of the lore & merch drops. And there's the fact that him being gay doesn't "fix" the situation and suddenly make his actions normal. It's possible to harass or rape someone who you're not attracted to
@InsanityCatz9999Yup. Stolas, Vassago, and Andrealphus are all gay. At this rate, I won't be shocked if Paimon is also confirmed gay eventually and his children are all products of mpreg
As someone who's followed this series since the pilot, I distinctly remember how heavily praised ep 2 was for it's nuanced take on divorce. How it tackled the way Stolas's actions were affecting his family but also portraying how much his current situtaion was making him miserable. At the time I thought it balanced the perspective of Stolas, Stella, and Octavia well. Only for this slow realization that no, you're NOT supossed to sympthatize with every party involved, Stolas is GOOD and Stella is EVIL. Stella's feelings of betrayal aren't real or understandable, she's just a comedic punching bag. She can't even have her OWN evil actions, no it has to be her brother pulling the strings like are you serious? Helluva wants to be a complex story about bad people yet it screams at the viewer who you are and aren't supossed to root for. Stolas can't be a cheater, he can't be an absent father, because that would make him *gulp* a bad person, so they just hand wave it away and put all the blame on a non character. It's kind of bizzare to see a series touted as so edgy and problematic so terrified to make a main character *too* unlikable, there always has to be an excuse, it's always someone else's fault. It's frustrating to watch and makes for an unengaging narritive.
It's why the whole "oh they're in hell" excuse more flimsy. I'd be willing to excuse that if the writing was better and more nuanced. [re Ep 2] I remember when that came out. I remember really liking it because of the same points you brought up. Then they repeated that plot point when Octavia goes to Las Angelus. And then other stuff happens.
Like when the Circus came out and the cracks began to show, everyone’s complaint (including mine) was that the show was ruining one of its best aspects: it’s about terrible people you care about. Everyone understood, even back in season 1, that Stella is a bad person, but she didn’t deserve to be cheated on. And Stolas is a gay man locked in a loveless marriage, but he shouldn’t have cheated on his wife. And yet the show contorts itself to justifying Stolas’s actions instead of letting him deal with the consequences. I can’t wait for Octavia to learn that she was apparently being selfish and stupid for turning on her father
@Jdudec367 the issue is that every character empathises with him. he isn't called out for being a cheater by anyone but Stella (designated EVIL character) and possibly Octavia (designated plot device). Moxxie doesn't care, Millie doesn't care, and Loona, although empathising with Octavia, does not seem to have any bad opinion of Stolas even though she's seen first-hand what his abuse has done to her
@Birdyboys "I can't wait for Octavia to learn that she was apparently being selfish and stupid for turning on her father." This. I'm waiting for the show to punish her too. Or turn her into the proper villain, an anti-Charlie Morningstar who doesn't reconnect with her father, and we have to kill her at the end of the show or something. I have lost faith in both shows to portray women tastefully at all.
this is what happens when a creator never grows out of their NLOG phase; the 'other girls' are all treated like they are part of a shallow, evil, mentally-challenged monolith. Creators who write women like this are telling on themselves. But I think everyone already knew that VivziePop is kind of horribly immature and has a bad personality...? It's just sad how many people love her art that they allow themselves to consume the scripts that these character designs are saddled with. I tried watching this show because I loved the art/thought some of the music was catchy, but the dialogue and plot made me feel like it was actively eroding my brain.
It’s really not surprising that Vivi’s woman writing is so bad. When asked to rate her 10 fav HH’s characters, her top 5 were all men and her bottom 5 were all women. She writes the characters, yet she intentionally writes the women to be unappealing to her. She doesn’t care for her MC, and while it could he cus she based Charlie off herself, that doesn’t explain the rest of the women or why the men are so beloved.
Something I noticed was that both shows are really pretty weird about gay men. I'm not accusing anyone of anything because I don't know anyone involved, but it always rubbed me the wrong way I guess? It's kinda giving those girls on Tumblr that are super into reading yaoi and treat gay people like a fandom almost
@austing2473 I agree! When I initially wrote the comment I had also included how she fetishized gay men. But I removed it cuz tbh, I couldn’t justify it beyond Stolitz. I haven’t actually watched HH, so I didn’t want to say anything about a series I hadn’t watched. I know about some of it, and from what I have heard it def feels like she’s weird about gay men.
i also dont like how her idea of a cool strong woman is a cookie cutter crazy girl ala harley quinn suicide squad version and how most of her female characters embrace being called a bitch. for someone whos supposedly a bisexual feminist woman her understanding of female depth is on the level of middle aged marvel fans. she doesnt care about women and its pretty clear, nobody would care if she made her shows abt men only. but she likes to insist she cares about the women which is more damaging than admitting she just wants to write about men. however her writing of men is also quite fetishy especially gay men. shes a proffesional writer yet writes and directs like one would an ao3 fanfic for voltron
I really want to make a character inspired by Stella, where it actually explores a woman in an arrange marriage and getting cheated on. Her situation sounds so interesting to explore, but nope! She's got to be evil. (anyways cool video)
Right? Of course Stella cares about her reputation being ruined. She was forced into a loveless marriage, denied magic powers, and then expected to raise a kid she didn’t willingly have (who, since she’s a girl born into the family, will inherit her life). The only thing Stella has is reputation and even that was taken from her.
Her entire childhood was being groomed to marry and give birth to royalty, and she was expected to play that part. And she was sold to a gay man who resents her entire existence, with no power herself, and if he hadn't been exiled she probably would have lost everything and been cast aside as a "used woman." Hmm where else have we seen little girls blatantly sold to rich men who are the only ones to face consequences?
@thecheck968Her reputation is not ruined in the slightest. what exactly does she lose in the dalliance her husband has? Is she poorer? No. Does she lose her child? No, is she stripped of power and prestige? No. Helluva Boss is more about toxic relationships than any actual plot regarding Hell and the hierarchy. Is Stella one dimensional? Yes, but she was meant to be that way. We are literally introduced to her via a picture of her strangling someone. Not every character needs an in depth analysis or even humanization.
Heaven isn't really the bad guys. Only the Exorcists were bad. The winners, the Seraphim, the cherubs and the highest authority (the Speaker) are good, the only flaw being Sera being misguided as she didn't know sinners could ever be redeemed. Heaven is often antagonistic to the Hell protagonists for a good reason in Helluva Boss. The cherubs were trying to stop IMP from killing someone, for example.
Heaven is ironically more level headed and open minded than the "heroic rebel protagonists". Makes you wonder why you should be rooting for Hell to begin with. Most of Heaven's problems come from ignorance. Hell's problems come from Lucifer being a wise guy and introducing evil to the world! Like Adam is an ass, but we forget Lucifer had a part to play in the fact people are being sent to Hell.
Stella reads like a gay fetish fanfiction where the writer makes the fem canonical relationship so vile that it becomes a parody of itself. Also, to bring up some very intense stuff going on to further explain why the B-word is a misogynistic slur as you mentioned in the video. Renee Good, upon being murdered, her killer called her a "f-ing b-" I don't like bringing up that, but when that section of the video was going, especially when some characters called fem characters in the show "f-ing b-" it was literally all i could think about while that segment was playing.
ima be honest. i feel more sorry for stella than stolass. yes i know shes an abuser. but like, shes the one who had to get pregnant and lay an egg unwillingly. like jeez, "poor stolas needing to have a child young" STELLA WAS THE ONE THAT HAD TO GET PREGNANT?????????? whos to bet that the only thing she was meant to be in the goetia family was a mother, nothing else. she was also forced into the marriage but in a worse position. no powers, no duties, only being a mother that SHE most likely didn't even want to be. plus lets not act like shes worse than IMP, who literally KILLS PEOPLE FOR A LIVING, what's the worst stella has actually done? throw an imp at stolass, slap him, and try to put a hit on him? yeah shes better than our protags
I really don’t think the show is trying to say IMP are “good guys.” They are literal demons. A lot of the narrative of the show is, “our lives suck at our own hands and we have to live with the consequences of that.” The thing that make the protagonists better than the antagonists is that they show remorse for their actions. Stella and the other royals haven’t had that arch. It is realistic to have people go through the same traumatic situation, lash out, but then one kind of person doubles down on revenge and hate, and the other feels guilt and regret. I’m not saying the story has to resonate with everyone, but I do think it is interesting to say that a character can’t be a victim AND evil. Which is think is the point of the show?
I love when shows are about people where everyone and everything sucks and they’re just trying their best, but Helluva boss has double standards like you mentioned. Why is Stella worse than the gang? Wouldn’t it make more sense if everyone was just considered horrible? Everyone is horrible but the show trying to present certain characters as more virtuous than others rubs me the wrong way
@mintyhippo8125 the point isnt that theyre trying to be portrayed as good guys, but that theyre somehow supposed to be more sympathetic characters than stella. they have their own agency, both literally and as people. while still being considered a lower class of demon, they aren’t weighed down by that personally and its never shown to truly effect how we portray them. for stella however, her relationship with the fandom is solely based on her proximity to stolas, and the gaze we see her through, which IS a viewer who is supposed to LIKE stolas. we see her at both her angriest and most vulnerable moments, and everytime we are meant to hate her more and more and never encouraged to do any thinking about her as a character outside of how stolas perceives her. in general the concept of only portraying a woman through the lens of her husband is vaguely misogynist, but its further soured by the fact that we are never allowed to perceive her outside of how her husband does after repeatedly cheating on her and embarrassing her throughout the marriage she also never wanted part in but has maintained due to the social and familial pressure placed on HER most heavily as the wise whose only purpose was to bear a child.
@herec0mestheCh33f and the protagonists have done much worse with the hand waving excuse of “but it’s hell.” Either it’s hell and get the fuck over it, or it’s not “just hell” and there’s a moral standard expected.
As a straight male fan of the Hellaverse, I’ve noticed this too. I was particularly frustrated with how shallow they made Stella as a character. She had such great potential for a solid antagonist but gave the role in the story SHE should’ve had to Andrealphus. On top of the show’s irritating consistency with REFUSING to give Millie any development that doesn’t involve Moxxie. Even season 2’s ending is with her being pregnant with his baby. Like come on… (Don’t know if you say any of this I haven’t finished the video yet..)
Great comment, just want to give you a little nudge (if this matters to you). The idea of pregnant with "his" baby does imply that he does something to *her* and that the baby isn't hers, unless that was the point you were trying to make. I see people say that sort of thing very oftenly and it's a very way common way of referring to pregnancy, but still one that's rooted in sexism. (Not upset at you, not disagreeing with you, just giving another perspective in case to potentially strengthen your argument. I hope you have a good day today!)
My biggest gripe with Stella is that it’s fine for her to be a villain and stay a villain but that doesn’t mean she had to be shallow too. Deep villains that have sad moments can exist while still being evil
@lmaoconfetti yeah problem is Millie is written to be an extension of Moxxie, so it is "his baby " you're a fool if you think the writers will treat this any different.
I really hated how they made many fans hate Octavia because they keep pushing the fans to like Stolas. Like, Octavia had all the rights to be upset with her dad but they keep showing how sad and despaired Stolas is due to Octavia shutting him away from her life. So fans just brush her off as an “ungrateful spoiled brat” which is so sad. Stolas failed her as a parent but the show justifies his decisions and actions of neglecting Octavia.
So SO much agreement on Stella. I am old enough to have been around when the worst of yaoi misogyny ran rampant and the way she is written is 100% THAT.
As much as I hate the camp episode. Moxxie was also being very misogynistic in that by embodying extremely sexist stereotypes, so it seems as if the writers may have been trying to use the sexism he faces as a sort of narrative karmic justice
Tbh, fair point, I can see how they might have been going for that. But if that was the goal, they kinda shot themselves in the foot by making all the teenage girl background characters pretty much the same stereotype as the one he's attempting to mimic. :'D Would have worked a lot better if the girls were less shallow, even just a little bit, imo.
It kinda bothers me how the episode adds to the misconception that "masculinity will always be rewarded" that a lot of trans people have to deal with constantly. Like sure, girls can be tomboys, but usually they are expected to grow out of it after a certain age, and to become feminine like all other women and girls, which is also something that heavily impacts how masculine women and transmasculine people are treated. Millie being portrayed as being treated as perfect at performing masculinity and being rewarded for it and getting popular for it makes it seem like all displays of masculinity are praised, when in reality any masculinity that doesnt fit into the narrow definitions that are seen as desirable are heavily mocked and ostracized, as we see with Moxxie being treated terribly and like he's not manly enough for showing a softer side of masculinity in other episodes.
@PixelHeroViish another thing they do is they damage a character just to prove a point in the plot or something. Because they made Charlie act so dumb and all over the place for no reason. Yes she did have reasons too, but they genuinely could've just done a better job at writing her character. Same with Stella and Andre, like they purposefully want you to hate/dislike them for acting so obnoxious.
Finally someone has said it out loud... Vivzie really hates her female characters, the forced pregnancy arc she gave Millie instead of actually developing her character was the last straw for me
"Oh, there's no misogyny in the narrative and fandom of the helluvaverse!" Oh, my friend, I guarantee you, it have. Proof? Simple. How Stella is treated by the narrative and fandom versus how Vox and Val are treated. (Yes, I know they're characters from different shows, but both shows take place in the same universe, are written by the same person, and have practically the same fandom. So it doesn't change much.) Why Vox and Valentino can gain a moment of empathy from the series and be treated cutely by the fandom (with people making cute headcanons of them and cute comics) but Stella can't? What I'm trying to say is: Why can Vox and Valentino be humanized and Stella cannot? It's funny how this fandom loves to humanize Vox and Valentino by saying things like "even abusers are human too." And well, they're not wrong about that. But the irony is that when you try to do the same thing with Stella, you get attacked by them and you're not allowed to humanize her. "Oh, you're trying to make her out to be a tragic abuser, but she's not, and she doesn't care about the arranged marriage." Oh yes, but you can humanize abusers and human traffickers, right? Its totally fine for Valentino and Vox stans to want to cosplay as them, act like them, and make cute head canons of them because "Abusers aren't one dimensional villains! You just lack media literacy." But the MOMENT you even think of remotely humanizing Stella, its "Nuh Uh! You can't do that! You're glorifying an abuser! Stella can't be good! She has to be the worst person ever or else you're justifying what she did!" Which is it? Can abusers be written as multi dimensional characters or do they have to be explicitly evil every waking moment they're on screen? Pick a side and stick with it at least, man. I'm not one to accuse others of things, but the reason of this is 100% sexism: the helluvaverse shows have an awful habit of finding ways to minimize and demonize women for every little thing they do. stella was cheated on by stolas and wants vengance for the damage he's done? no nuance allowed, she's just a crazy and all of a sudden stupid woman who is an abuser so you CANT like her, but lets make a bunch of merch of her anyways meanwhile valentino and vox get infinitely more screen time than her, more praise and excuses, validation, affection and support. idek how to explain what is going on here because the jokes just write themselves. And remember, Stella is supposed to be one of, if not the main villain of the series, by the way.
@toxic_shr00mFirst, there are many people who try to defend the Helluvaverse by saying there's no misogyny in the fandom or the narrative; just go to any Helluvaverse critique video and you'll see hundreds of people defending. It's incredibly easy to find. So to say that nobody said that is to be ignorant, especially if we're talking about the helluvaverse fandom. Secondly, I simply copied the message from a critical post I made myself on Tumblr, only making a few minor changes. So I didn't waste any time doing it.
@rottikaThe treatment Vox and Val receive from the audience compared to Stella's treatment is definitive proof that yes, misogyny exists in this fandom. I've seen people being attacked by hundreds of fans simply for making videos showing even the slightest bit of empathy for Stella. But videos that make Vox empathetic and portray him as a sad, uwu boy are praised and acclaimed. Damn hypocrisy
There are so many cool female characters but they just don't get to shine like at all. Just in design at this point. I definitely feel like the shows are better at creating characters than writing them.
Stella’s personality reminds me of how boomers describe their wives. Overdramatic, abusive, ruin everything. They treat their wives like the villains, the same way Stella is created.
I agree with you that helluva boss analysis videos are unwatchable with the amount of random attacks on person and sexist bigotry. I wish there was an understanding that something being bad does not make it okay to be randomly cruel to the creator
OMG please analyze Hazbin. It was supposed to be a "woman-focused" story, but, like HB, every woman is shelved for the men. AND HAZBIN HAS A FEMALE LEAD.
Hazbin literally doesn’t have a single female character in the main cast ever permanently affecting the plot and it drives me NUTS. all the things they do and plan fail or end up inconsequential, they learn things by coincidence, they’re constantly saved by male characters… the male characters get SO MUCH unjustified solo screen time to flesh them out. the only time that happened to Vaggie iirc was the fight with Lute. Charlie is nearly never on screen without Alastor and/or Vaggie in the same scene.
@atlas-scifipunk what? Female characters permanently effect the plot all the time. Female characters permanently effect the plot heaps, more so than male characters. None of the characters have much solo screen time, and why would they, being alone just means theres less they can do
Even if the show wanted to make Stella a one note shallow villain, I cannot fathom why she was replaced by an equally one note shallow character like Andrealphus. He adds NOTHING that couldn’t have been accomplished narratively by Stella already. It kills any opportunity for Octavia to have her relationship with her mom explored. I’m left to infer Octavia and Stella’s relationship and why Octavia wants her parents to stay together instead of actually seeing it.
This might be based but Stella could’ve been a good villain for the topic of woman abusers if the writers put as much energy into her as they did with Valentino from HH, hell it’d even make more sense as to why Octavia doesn’t interact with her mother as she probably witnessed said abuse as a kid.
Glad to see the discussion on the whole sexist treatment given toward the women of Helluva Boss as it’s refreshing to know your not crazy when noticing a pattern but in a more nuanced way.
@Inkkyyk1ttyy tons of incest. The giant Morty&Summer incest baby in space was only the tip of the iceberg, from the top of my head I can remember the Ms. Smith and her clone selfcest episode, but after the "Jerry is being forced to fuck his own mother by a fortune cookie" episode I straight up dropped the show.
For a 'fun' test regarding helluva boss' misogyny, count how many of the flashbacks are focused primarily on female characters, the number may not surprise you
The problem with the hellaverse is that vivziepop is treating it like a cute little yaoi fanfic of her ocs instead of an actual show with and active audience and fanbase
44:27 I have legit been saying since this episode came out that she better abort that thing 😭😭 I have put up with a lot with this show but forcing her to go through a pregnancy arc might genuinely be my breaking point
I feel like they are going to. And make a big stand about how abortion is good and right and justified and that anyone against it is a stupid ducking moron. And I'm pro-choice but seeing how this show tackles things like divorce, cheating, and everything else, yeah, it seems like it would go down this route. Bojack Horseman this ain't.
@ProfessionalOverthinker468 I mean, yeah. Depending on the context. Tho is ultimately the creator's choice whether she keeps the baby or not. Pregnancy is used as a plot device, tho I rarely see it well used when it comes to develop a female character. The options are endless, yet I wouldn't be suprised if they waste it, despite of the choice is made. (The potential of character development is independent on wether she aborts or keeps the pregnancy. Unfortunately I bet my yet to buy PC nothing meaningful will come out of it and will just stay as a cliff hanger)
I stopped watching years ago, I have friends who like it but there is just so many issues and its hard to watch. I stopped watching before the first episode of Hazbin came out, I appreciate you making this, I am not a woman so this affects me a lot less, however it is just gross, it does frustrate me a lot how many fans are unwilling to even acknowledge this stuff or are all against misogyny until its something they like or a trendy piece of media. Honestly my final straw was I (a gay man) felt uncomfortable about how fetishy it felt around the queer man and when the sexual assault song leaked for Hazbin and I got really badly triggered.
I, as a gay man would also like to contribute to this statement; the show(s) make me uncomfortable, especially since man-on-man SA/coercion/-rape and whatnot is handled based on how the writers wanted it to be treated- sometimes it’s a joke, sometimes a serious trauma for a certain character (Angel Dust), or even totally brushed aside due to our social sentiment of male abuse (Blitz being abusive toward Moxxie, whetever you like it or not, those 🍇 threats if Moxxie were a woman wouldn't be brushed aside). I dislike it ESPECIALLY knowing that if the characters would be women, this wouldn't have happened- or would be labeled rightfully as SA/sexual violence and the writing team would be shamed for it publicly. So instead, we’re stuck in two shows where men being sexually assaulted is turned into a joke, a rapist gets a sob song about another rapist, and a women is getting to deal with more trauma than each of the aforementioned assaulters since the writers team cannot deal with the loss, or hurt of a twink
As a transman who likes men, I'm stuck in the same boat. There was quite alot of stuff I had problems with, but stuck it out because a ( thankfully) now ex friend loved both hazbin and helluva, it wasn't until hazbin came out , me getting pressured into watching it that I had finally had enough of this mess ( hell the stress of the aftermath from being badgered to , and agreeing to watching it made me loose my will to live due to remembering some trauma that was similar to the song mentioned). This mess was so bad, that seeing anything of these characters outside of critique content actually makes me upset ( it sounds childish, I know but holy crap). I apologize for rambling alot.
@zexionblackdrolf no need to apologize for rambling, thats rough and understandable. I know some survivors find that character comforting I just don't see it. especially with everything I've heard after the fact? (abuse jokes, mishandled characters, ect ect) its shocking how many people are willing to defend that scene specifically and his character specifically. Another aspect of it, really, you don't get to see male victims of that, I remember I was already done with the Viz universe at this point, but I had some hope, because it is hard to find a character who went through that stuff who is male who resonates with me in those experiences. Representation is so incredibly important I am glad that friend is a ex friend, I am sorry they put you in a incredibly triggering mental space, keep being strong, I know I dont know the details or anything (nor should I) and I am a internet stranger, but it can get better with time and healing, its scary but I am glad you're here.
@GroovySuperHellthank you, so much that means alot. I a currently have a therapist as I type this, and seems to be getting help some days are better then others, and you are very correct about rep of men who were victims of SA , and not alot of the depictions are well handed sadly, these two shows though take the cake in the fact it's treated as comedy. I hope everything gets better with you too.
Having recently watched Breaking Bad I just want to drop some appreciation for Jesse who probably says bitch way more than the compilation does and only twice is it to refer to women and one of them is directly shown as one of his lowest moments and he suffers for it. And it’s not thrown in a way like he’s saying insulting a man for being ‘like a woman’ either.
One more little detail in how Moxxie gets kinda lumped into a feminine role just to mock him is how much of a running gag it is for other characters to fat shame him (though he is objectively quite skinny) a running gag seen most commonly with female characters (the fatphobia in these shows is probably another whole video on its own) It does feel like a lot of the misogyny aimed at Moxxie's feminine traits is meant to deflect from the misogyny aimed at the actual female characters. Like the girls look more girlboss and therefore feminist because look how pathetic this man is! When in reality the ways he is made to look pathetic are all rooted in misogyny.
The whole writing of the show is so strange to me, because while I understand that the main cast are meant to be bad people, so it makes sense for some characters to be openly bigoted; the narrative is very selective about which actions are to be considered 'bad'. My main problem with the misogynistic language and how frequently it's used is that it's treated as run-of-the-mill slang/insults instead of being portrayed as ignorant and harmful. I'm not a skilled writer at the moment, but I think that a good example of having characters who frequently says sexist things without reinforcing misogynistic stereotypes would be the way that South Park (which is a show that I'm pretty sure is one of Medrano's inspirations) portrays Cartman when he's acting misogynistic. I haven't watched too many episodes since I'm personally not interested in it that much, but in the ones that I have seen, the stereotypes Cartman projects onto women are portrayed as ridiculous, and the joke is on him and how idiotic he sounds. Even Hazbin itself has a better portrayal of a character shamelessly perpetuating bigotry. When Vox demeans Valentino for speaking in Spanish and calls it an "island language", he is immediately called out for being dumb when Valentino says that he's from Florida. Now, characters don't always have to be explicitly called out by other characters, but I think the narrative should be semi-clear that the use of bigoted language is to be looked down upon, not the target of said language. Hell, even the homophobic behavior of that woman who wants I.M.P. to kill her ex-husband for cheating on her (I think it was the Sinsmas episode?) is rightly depicted as deplorable and icky.
Yes! I want more stories where they're not afraid of having problematic/shit behaviors but isn't afraid of calling out on it or showing the consequences. It's why I'm really liking Digital Circus and how it's been handling Jax. Though I admit it's too early for me to praise it since, IDK, there can always be a 180 or something.
@JLCL01 That's another great example, they portray problematic actions without endorsing them. I also love how they're able to imply why he acts horribly without using said reasons to justify his behavior.
I think that would be seen as they’re all so clearly meant to not be good people that what they say IS casual slang and insults. I have zero interest in this show but I feel like anyone watching is probably obviously not taking any of it seriously or actually thinking that’s how you speak to people lol
i wouldn't mind the b word being used if they were cleaver on how they use it like only using it for female hellhounds and calling the male hellhounds mutts it's just insults no cleaverness is put in them it's just insults for insults i think the point it's just Detroit really shines with the insults instead of calling Veronika a slut why not say 'you rabid bat' or something they aren't humans so why do they have human insults like just using human insults is soooo boring too
i think the issue still stands. btch is still a gendered swear whereas mutt is a. rarely seen as a swear irl, and b. not gender-specific. mutt could also be used for a woman and it wouldn't have the same weight
I WISH that Stella and Octavia’s storyline was taken more seriously. It had SO MUCH POTENTIAL. Stella could have been an interesting character, who’s a villain but had good reason to be and be complex, and Octavia could have had a chance to truly shine and show how all of it is truly affecting her as a child of divorce. But I guess Stolas needs sympathy, so we’re going to make Stella a major villain who’s dumb and one dimensional, and make sure that Octavia is seen as in the wrong for not going back to her dad and only being there to develop him. I WISH they had taken these characters in a more interesting way that wasn’t there to support the male character.
thanks for the warning about the comp, I was called (screamed at) every misogynistic term under the sun by a previous abusive boyfriend and hearing those terms nowadays is just so uncomfortable
Something I find really funny, I was super misogynistic in how i wrote stories and participated in fandom spaces (female characters almost never made it into my top five or even ten favorites and i would push female characters aside in favor of yaoi) and becoming a hellaverse fan has actually fixed that. It feels like it should've done the opposite but idk maybe the writing is so misogynistic it reverse psychologied me into liking female characters more Also, I wanted to add that I had no idea the B-word was considered a slur until now and I'm grateful it's been pointed out to me
REAL. I’m in a lot of Danmei spaces now which means the female character pickings are…often not great (IM LOOKING AT YOU MXTX WTF WAS JIANG YANLI???? WHY DID YOU TREAT QIU HAITANG LIKE THAT???) and somehow, someway, the hellaverse was so bad in a way that made me latch on to Stella and Octavia and hate all the guys 😭
They could've made Stella abusive BECAUSE of her situation. Stolas is just another man in this male-built system controlling her life, so of course she hates him and abuses him. It doesn't justify it no, but it'd give sooo much more depth to her. And maybe you could see her personality change with Octavia, where she either tries to give her daughter more than what she was allow to have as a girl, or because this system is all she knows, unfortunately continues it onto her. Like, give her more than being a psychotic wife in a gay romance plot.
DANG, chat I didn't expect this to do that well HONESTLY jjgkghjjgkhgjh My anxiety is like 📈📈📈
Comments are already a cesspit of weirdos hyper-focusing on Viv (DON'T MAKE ME TAP THE SIGN 58:52) and it hasn't even been up for 24 hours, we are so screwed.
You made a great video! Hopefully a better audience will find it
Woof
@fishfunginfunknowing both the fandom and the hatedom… no… no it will not
@GigaPrime-y16 Well we can hope
@fishfunginfunnah trust, both sides are gonna tear this vid to shreds
The fact there is at least two instances in that comp of people using the just fact someone even has breasts as a insult is wild.
If I were randomly called 'tits', I would feel really weird.
God forbid we have anatomy :/
as a man, if I were called "penis-haver" I'd be pissed af, even if it were a joke.
@G.mandude-v6t That's one decent sperm bank.😏
Stellas brother's only exist because they din't want to develop Stella.
Facts i fear
Stella could’ve at least had the role of a “smart/cunning type villain” but any good quality at all had to be given to a male character instead
Andrealphus should have never existed
FR, she literally could’ve just been a smart antagonist and create the main conflict herself, but noooo they had to label her as a “dumb b**ch” and add a male character to be the real villain because they refuse to write stella like an actual character
And he's only gay on paper because Medrano didn't want us feeling bad for a victim of incest. Seriously, there is no homosexual explanation for that.
Hellaverse is an example of how making half of your cast gay won't automatically turn all messages in the show progressive.
True.
exactly. i heard the shows are lgbt friendly and i love that but listening to the dialogue in this video, i will definitely never watch hazbin or helluva because what even is that writing?? it's so disappointing
Especially how in this one all the yaoi tropes are here in the open telling you to jerk off to these twinks making out.
You can call it gayverse so far with ammount of focus this stuff gets in both shows now bruh. Never give moneys and power to yaoi obsessed girls who didnt grown up from this phase
This show's lgbt "representation" is the most lame and performative thing I have seen in my life. A lot of characters are gay/bi/pan while lesbians are almost noexistent, there are no trans characters aside of background npcs and Morgana Ignis's self insert, and non-binary/genderfluid/intersex etc are noexistent aswell.
how is tit-having even an insult?? ive never even heard it before this video, what is that writers room on?
imagine you're regarded as nipples just for existing
@closermercury518 literally like... who would use "hair haver" or "teeth having" as an insult?? its so stupid and sexist in such an absurd way, the implication that someone is just reduced to a (gendered) body part to make the insult "funnier" is so stupid??
@goodnightgoodnightgoodnightidk what brandon and vivienne is thinking🙄
@closermercury518 Me neither! That has to be the most absurd kind of creative but also uninspiring insult ever.
i do believe it's because millie is flatter, so still degrading but at millie's expense, saying that shes so jealous of her that she included it in her insult...
so even more misogyny! because no, a grown woman who's married still has to be insecure about her looks... right...
edit: absolutely no reason for blitz to be saying it, though. its actually ridiculous.
“My name is Viktor with a K”
my dumbass: “…Kictor”
*Kiktor
@Lavendercatboy
Kiktork
@Lavendercatboy *kirktor🧍
@Lavendercatboykickfork
Yeah same here lol
It FRUSTRATES me how shallow Stella is as a character. How tf does Viv expect me to take the abuse Stolas endures from her seriously if the show itself doesn’t even treat her serious. But then we get Valentino, who is most definitely 10 times WORSE than her, and he gets to be humanized. We get to see him when he’s not abusing Angel, and he’s a goofy guy, which makes him all the more terrifying and makes the abuse Angel suffers from him all the more horrific
the fact that they use her to sell sexy dommy mommy merch doesn't help + is lowkey problematic for conflating abuse for BDSM(we're supposed to find her almost backhanding Stolass irrideemable, but think it's hot to fantisize about?)
Don't worry, Viv actually said about Valentino and his character that he's "stupid and acts like a trophy wife." I saw this in a video recently discussing the Hazbin Hotel season. And honestly, as someone who was genuinely scared of Valentino and simultaneously liked him as a true antagonist and bastard, such words seem extremely strange. I'm just wondering if Vivienne and the other writers (I don't know who they are) remember Valentino's character in the first season, in Angel's video. What kind of "trophy wife" is he talking about? After one of the writers said that, I'm really scared to watch the third season, or even wait for it. Because that's where we'll be able to see Angel and Valentino revealed. I just don't want to see them justify him. I liked him purely as an antagonist, not as a misunderstood omega for Vox. That's another reason I dislike the Static Moths. Sorry for any mistakes, I'm just using Google Translate.
Sorry again if anything is wrong.
vivzie is an illiterate, the only media she has ever consumed is gen-A cartoons. it shows in her poorly conceived characters.
i thought that too. yeah stella is a prissy elitist bitch for sure. But so is her husband!! they are in the same boat. forced to marry, forced to have a child, forced to be with each other when they are obviously not each others type.
@greedfox7842 Bro don't be an old man yells at cloud type. Every generation had slop, gen z had johny test and Fred as icons. Gen y had Fanboy & Chum Chum, Planet Sheen and Mr pickles. Gen X had Mega babies and Do not get me started on all the rip offs of transformers, g.i joe and thundercats in the 80's. Plus all the really really bad hannah babarba things / ripoffs before gen x
It doesn't bother me that some characters are horribly misogynistic, it's that there are absolutely *zero* consequences for being misogynistic. They are rewarded for it.
This is my problem too. Moxie never stands up for his wife consistently enough, and Moxie tolerates too much BS. Same with Loona. I don't know.
It’s weird how men being sexual is usually seen as the norm or something funny while women being sexual is seen as disgusting or weird in Viv’s work.
Prolly because males, most of the time get portrayed "normally" on other medias?
While 99.9% franchises on the internet literally just exist to flash us with "women's fanservice"
Hey um dude i know you probably meant noyhing by it, but calling women females, especially in the same sentence where you say men, is also misogynistic language. It reduces us to our sex and our reproductive organs.
@carleighcarmody2479Ah I had no idea. I’m a girl myself, and I hear people say it all the time so I assumed it was a normal word in the English language. Doesn’t women also have wo in front of men though, so wouldn’t that be the same? Just curious.
Oh wait, I looked into it. I see now that it’s the definition of the word that’s the issue, sorry. I always was told it was just another synonym for women and girl, and used it absent-mindedly without thinking. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable with my language.
@Itz_Mothii the problem with calling women females isn't because female has 'male' in it, it's because female is usually used more as a way to speak of the female body. English isn't my first language either, so it's a little hard to explain, but a woman is a person, whilst female is the body. It's like if you talk about "a man and a female", you're talking about a person and a body, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth, y'know? If you're talking about a person or people, it's just better to use woman/women and man/men. It's also just very common for misogynists to refer to women as females yet not call men males, they only demean and objectify women, reducing them to just their gender, whilst men are allowed to be people
The way I've seen fanfics made by guys to get themselves with Loona that bothered to give more depth to her than the actual show
I’m interested in checking those out tbh.
Name's of the fics please!
The difference between a fujoshi creator of the show and incel men. I think I am starting to reconsider which type is more frightening
Yeah well if i shipped myself with a character i'd probably want them to be fairly complex
Autism (Pure, Holy) vs Fujo Sloppa
The fact people portray the line about stolas not being enthusiastic in having sex with stella as her raping him is wild, considering the fact that she says in the next line that she doesn't actually want to have sex with him either, almost like they are both victims of sexual assault through the fact that they are being forced into a sexual relationship by their families...
Right? That conversation literally ends with Stella saying she was glad to get pregnant because that meant she didn’t have to have sex anymore. THAT’S NOT A THING A VILLAIN SAYS. Sure, Stella is saying it in a demeaning way about Stolas, but that’s also how a victim might reshape a narrative where they are in control.
@thecheck968 to preface this, I am not at all saying this behavior is okay, but this is literally how HB writers could have used her doing this:
Genuinely, Stella could also be portrayed as taking her unresolved feelings about this horrible situation out on Stolas, as a way for her to exert what bit of control she has. It would make her even more tragic of a character, but nope. Sadly, she’s just evil from the start. Which, they can have that cake and eat it too if they show nuance!!! But they DON’T. Evil kids don’t deserve to be put into an arranged marriage where you’re both forced into r*pe just for your family’s convenience. Like, genuinely her being ab*sive can work. It’d just need some Olympic level stretches, leaps, and bounds to fix what’s already here.
What really doubles down on things is that an old couples portrait shows that the two of them did care for one another at some point, even going as far as to show one of Stolas’ flowers in her “hair”. Issue is, they probably would’ve been great friends if they weren’t forced to breed an heir.
Obviously it’s not Stolas’ fault for happening to be a gay man, but it’s just really sad that the two of them were forced to live an uneasy and miserable existence while blaming one another as being the reason neither are happy in their marriage.
Stella clearly never knew how to address those under her, and comes from a place of very very high privilege, so I assume that played a role in why she felt so betrayed by her HUSBAND not being able to enjoy her the way she probably was promised.
Her flaw is that she thinks his disinterest is quite literally chosen and that he’s this monster for cheating on her, while Stolas major flaw is how his he’s trapped in a relationship with somebody he can’t force himself to even feel any attraction towards. He’s just left with needs forever doomed to be unmet, settling on him being this horn-dog who similar to his wove can’t fathom why an Imp of all people wouldn’t wanna do the honors of being with somebody of such a position of privilege.
Stella can’t fathom that his disinterest is “Oh, he’s gay.” Instead painting him as the bad guy for barely taking his royal role seriously. Both birds are immensely powerful, but neither actually have much control over their own lives.
Without a doubt Stella feels justified in her actions, and Stolas I imagine also. It’s just unspoken resentment against the forces at play forcing them to live out these very specific roles that clearly don’t align.
In a world that Stolas was born to another father, he and Stella likely would’ve been friends. They likely would’ve enjoyed plat life together and gossip about that ever Hell’s higher ups are going on about, and overall jsut enjoying one another purely platonically. But the systems at play didn’t ever see them as people, just roles to be filled.
Truly heartbreaking.
@Markthinkmark 100% agreed. I fell off of Hazbin Hotel after season 1, but I heard the show put in a lot of work to flesh out Valentino. And I think that’s important. We label these very evil but very human actions as monstrous and it stops us from reflecting on why people would act this way. Worse, it stops us from accepting that people we know (or just know about via media) would do these awful things.
I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll say it a hundred times more: despite the rating and the sex jokes, the show has the maturity and subtlety of a children’s show.
It really depends on who was the one to force themselves on the other, that makes the one the rapist regardless of reasoning behind the action.
Blitz using "females" instead of "women" is such a redditor moment...
That made me SOOOO mad!
It'd nothing wrong it means the same fucking thing
He’s a bad man.
Wait when did he do that
@thecartoonstar"I am not above hitting a female"
Never watched the show, but the idea of the main female lead being reduced to "the wife of this other guy" is INSANE. Them having a shared ex and the show only focuses on HIS relationship with the ex??? Are you kidding me????
That and Millie having to go on a pregnant arc in the season finale because they didn't know what to do with her
It's kinda insane
Pretty sure that once the baby is born the show will sideline Millie again to focus on some stupid subplot about Moxxie being insecure for the 999th time.
@YoLoVeoTodo122 i almost want to watch it just to hate it more professionally. But I’ve never had Amazon prime and never will, so I’ll continue being on the sidelines and see if this becomes true (most likely will be)
You know the writers didn't care about Millie's character when the only idea they came up with to make her "interesting" was a stupid pregnancy plot.
It's pretty obvious Vivzie eliminated Millie from the show because she wasn't interested in developing her.
@piffbaI'm a little confused what you mean since Helluva Boss is free on RUclips (unless season 3 will no longer be free)
"But Blitzo isn't supposed to be a perfect protagonist, we're supposed to see a lot of the things he does in a morally nuanced or negative light, yeah he slut shamed Verosika but that's because he's bad to Verosika, not because the show is-" okay so why is the audience encouraged to laugh along with him? And why are so many of the women this kind of vitriol gets thrown at one dimensional misogynistic stereotypes? Hell why are some of the MAJOR female characters made up primarily of misogynistic stereotypes? I'm all here for bad people doing bad things in hell to a certain extent, but when the writing and framing is reenforcing the misogyny it isn't a misogynistic character, it's a misogynistic show.
@Jdudec367 How aren't they? You have a whole video here about why they are, with all the points; now defend yours.
How aren't all the female characters badly written, misoginistic, and an accesory to the male characters?
@Jdudec367Verosika is one-dimensional. Her whole character is angry, hypersexual ex-girlfriend. Her entire involvement with the show revolves around Blitz and her relationship with him. Loona and Millie are one note extras whose whole purpose is to add dimension to or assist Blitz and Moxxie, these are objective things that Vivzie has addressed and that Viktor elaborates on if you watch the full video. As for misogynistic stereotypes, Loona would be the angry goth girl and Millie would be the "wife", (as in her whole character is being Moxxie's wife).
While, this isn't to say they have ZERO characterization, their stories and characterization compared to male characters are incredibly minimal or male-centric.
@Jdudec367 Naaah.
I don't remember what book, I think it was one of Doestoevisky's best sellers, talks about a guy that is a bad guy, I don't read it yet but I think he is either a murderer or raper, what matters is, I heard it because my friend read it, and she said "gods, this guy is so bad, I honestly want him to die". And for me that is the mistake of the whole hazbin and helluva thing, if we remove the narrative and keep the story it's really good, the speeches are good, if we remove the bridges between the moments they are really good, if you take only the dance of stolas and blitzø and remove the context a person who sees will be like: oh, their relationship is progressing, and won't think about the whole problematic of stolas not being a good father right before it or how blitzø also didn't have much options. If the shows were build in a way that even being the protagonist, the main cast were shown as sinners and demons. (Paying for their mistakes or simply being miserable since it's hell). If in various moments it was shown that blitzø is a bad person and you agree with the people it would be really good, like that party episode where he says he made things wrong and we agree, in this moment he is wrote as someone mean and worthless, a ex, a burden, no one cares about him. If you mean character is a villain then don't give him a good time of screen as hero, if you want examples Jeffrey Dahmer is bad because of it, and She-Ra is good because of it, one the villain is shown as the strong guy and the other the villain is weak and slowly turning worse day per day, even avatar shows that, and other shows perform bad in showing villains a part of the main cast, but, I think I'm yapping too much at this point.
@redpanda6497what do You mean about Naah?
I can't be the only one who finds it ridiculous that the show constantly sex shames a god damn SUCCUBUS.
RIGHT? Why is the sin of lust viewed as liberating but the succubus is some mindless degenerate horndog
Like the only way the show tries to humanize Verosika is making her relationship about Blitzo. Her sexual promiscuity is constantly portrayed as this immoral character flaw (as if all these men aren’t sex crazy)
how so, which character? its been some time ive watched the serie so i dont remember them all
@alejandrasanchez3022 Verosika
Who the heck is sex shaming Verosika EXCEPT Blitz though?? That's literally the point, Verosika is only shamed by her EX who's not suppose to be a good person 💀
like the video said they format her as a villain in that way. She’s supposed to be seem as a villain to everyone who is with the main cast, and you, because she is so sexual.
Millie feels like she was written to be, "one of the boys." If only they gave her as much character focus as the boys.
I would love to see more of her. She is amazing and very feminine to me. I dont think she is "one of the boys". We should stop with the stereotype that strong female characters are similar to boys like... thats so old for me. I agree with the rest though, the show didnt find any better for her than giving THE ONLY LEAD FEMALE CHARACTER a pregnancy arc.... Shame.
real, millie feels like she was written by someone that used to say "i hang out with boys and not girls because there's too much drama!"
@alejandrasanchez3022 you’re misunderstanding. No one is saying she’s masculine. “One of the boys” just means a woman who’s accepted as a man because she may do non stereotypically feminine things (like her lust for fighting or how her human costume is almost always male). But she’s still a very feminine person.
@Birdyboys that doesn't make sense. She's either strong thus portrayed as too masculine, or she's still very feminine.
@Jdudec367Yes, she looks like that, she sometimes is dressed like man in some episodes and Millie has been a bit neglected, and it's taken them a long time to develop her character in an episode of Ghostf******. I'd like to know more about her and other female characters, but Vivziepop doesn't know how to write "women" roles.
Vivienne Medrano claims that helluva is more male focused while hazbin is more female focused when that is not the case. BOTH of the shows are male focused and that sucks because if hazbin is what Viv’s writing looks like when she “focuses” on women then I can only imagine how bad it’s going to be when she eventually gets to developing the girls in helluva.
Yeah, I am starting to get conserned.
To be fairly honest you could probably describe every female character in both HB and HH in like 2 sentences because of how undeveloped they are 💔
We need to remember that Viv isn't writing this alone. Her co-writersp have some blame to take as well.
@ArchieRatsworth In a way I think that makes it worse. Like you’re telling me you had a whole team of people writing ts and not one of them chose to revise these writing decisions??😭
Hazbin hotel is the Alastor show
I never thought about it, but when you brought up the "pegging" jokes used against Moxxie I realized something: Why is him being pegged by his wife weird when multiple characters in both shows regularly have gay Sex where they both do and receive penetration? That's such a weird thing to make fun of a character for when he's the only one in a healthy relationship. You did mention why so I can't add to it much, but yeah
That's one aspect I noticed. Like...Blitzo must have received penetration at some point (especially with a "toy"). So I'm not sure why he's bringing it up specifically.
BeCauSe bE a BuTtoM hUsBanD iN hEtErO rElATiOnShIP iS fUuuN , obviously
@daria8571 Yeah that's probably it lol, it's just kinda weird cuz it's hardly different from two men doing it 😭
Because a woman is doing it.
The series is weird in this aspect. While it tries to be a progressive series with its portrayal of LGBT couples, it still fails both with the female characters and with the male bottoms (Pentious, Moxxie, Stolas, and especially Angel), who are depicted as pathetic, helpless, and weak.
I honestly refuse to believe that Brandon had zero input in the lines he says as blitz. Viv is definitely responsible for greenlighting most of it but if you watched stuff on his main channel, he talks just like this in his skits too.
I was thinking that. A lot of his lines are in a similar vein to his old skits.
The difference, in my opinion, is that his videos focuses on awful people being awful and we love seeing them struggle. Even Sam (who's super straight, frfr) who's amongst the most empathetic is a super homophobic conservative who does really bad shit.
What his characters does aren't treated as good, they aren't the heroes of their stories.
Blitzø on the other hand... is.
to be fair, his old skits not only didn't age well (most of them imo), but these were him portraying bad people acting like they are, mean and bad, so this was in character
blitz on the other hand... idk
Most of Brandon's characters are meant to be satirical. The comedy comes from how horrible they are and how obvious it is. Some of them did have more empathetic sides to them, but those were also kinda played for laughs in how absurd they were. For example, the character "Bryce Tankthrust" literally ripped out her heart as a child and offered it to another character, who then proceeded to throw up on it in disgust, which made her the heartless person she became.
Blitz, in the meantime, is a real character who is being written seriously.
@plutonix5792 wait this series is serious? 😭 its been almost six years since i last seen this
“Helluva boss is misogynistic!” Fork found in the kitchen
There's a fish in the ocean
@sultan4d169 not for long…
air found in sky
Liar found in congress.
Do you know that in Africa, every 60 seconds... a minute passes.🤯
Rampant sexism and misogyny but jokes about not saying the r word anymore. what a show
Just goes to show the belief that everyone catagory of person deserves more respect than women do.
"tit-haver" is such a wild insult 😭. Like, I've never even heard this insult in my life. They legit just came up with that with pure malice bro.
Like thats not even in a sorta kinda grey zone where it depends on the context like bitch... thats.... thats just straight up misogyny unbridled...
Of course a skin haver would say this(this is supposed to be an exaggeration of what they are doing).
AND ITS SO INSANE...??? Like I can't control what I'm born with...? should I just cut them off right here and now Orr..???
@Kllms-ww2fo I wanna /half joking, I want top surgery in a safe way
@Kllms-ww2foyou gotta go on your buddah grindset im afraid
I feel flashbacks to yaoi fandom in the 2010's, who hand the unreasonably mean idiot ball to the women who could get between their ship for any reason. I have no problem with Stella being mean, or resentful of her husband, but they made her REALLY dumb in season two.
Yeah, there's been a long history of (internalized) misogyny in the yaoi fandom (it's one thing to focus the writing on the main gay men, it's another to depict the female characters as horrible or one-dimensional). It's sad seeing women who don't seem to think stories about women are worth telling :( I'm genderfluid & bi so I like stories about queer love including male romance, but it also really sours it when the female supporting cast isn't done well.
@SolaireHighwindhard agree. It's so upsetting because the female characters don't have to be dumb or written out! They can still be good! I see less of it these days but there's also the classic hating of q female character who "gets in the way" of a ship, which I also do not get.
Wholeheartedly agree, this is why a lot of people say the writing gives off ‘toxic fujoshi’ vibes. Also I wish Stella at least was a smart villain but even that role was for her brother.
The amount of times I saw Kairi get killed for Sora/Rikku pairings was disturbing. And how CASUAL it was.
To see Stella written with thge EXACT same vitriol makes me think the Helluva writers never quite grew up from that mindset.
this still happens to this day unfortunately. Im in a fandom that hates a female character I like just bc she “gets in the way” of a noncanon mlm ship, but they defend and praise her male stalker/sexual harasser (who happens to be in that noncanon ship.) i see so many posts wishing her dead or making her out to be dumb or a fujoshi..? Ig that way they can pretend their sexism is approved personally by a fictional character. the constant misogyny and sole focus on the male characters in fandoms needs to be studied
Stolas gets seventeen episodes trying to excuse his coercive sexual relationship with Blitz but GOD FORBID Stella gets an INKLING of development
Stolas cheats on his wife, abuses and manipulates an imp into sexual favours while also degrading him, neglects his daughter and makes sex jokes right in front of her and the show treats him as one of the good guys who did nothing wrong
Verosika had a relationship with blitzo, got frustrated by him being selfish and using all her money and she breaks up with him, and she’s constantly shamed by the narrative and treated like the spawn of Satan because she’s proud of her sexuality
I agree with everything you say, except the manipulation part... Because... It wasn't Blitz who invaded his house to rob the book and then forced himself on him at the start...? Like, after that Stolas do very insufferable things, but I don't like the way that Stolas is backing off while Blitz approaches him because he looks uncomfortable. Even if he likes Blitz, that doesn't mean this is okay. I believe these both characters are insufferable, so insufferable that I feel very lazy to watch more episodes so I just stopped
@Ahnaomano-u1l Blitz did not force himself on him. Stolas just thought he was into him and in order for him to not realize he was stealing, Blitz ending up playing along after a while. Blitz literally needs that book for income, which Stolas knows, yet instead of telling him he can’t have it or figuring out a way to help him, he makes it so Blitz has to have sex with him every month. He makes it very clear that all he cares about is sex and he degrades him, even without realizing it. It’s not intentionally manipulation because Stolas doesn’t realize how horrible of a person he is, but he makes Blitz believe that he was in the right and makes him feel bad about it.
Stolas literally realizes that keeping him on a leash of a deal is wrong through the numerous songs and arguments he has with Blitzø. He realized how much he was neglecting Octavia in the most recent episode and honestly throughout the show. The most recent episode where Octavia walks away from Stolas is a culmination of the neglect Stolas was subjecting her to. He was also definitely wrong for the transactional relationship he let develop between him and Blitzø, especially with the power dynamics. Blitz calls him out for it whenever Stolas tries to get closer to him, even if it seems like Blitzø is pushing another person away. Which, in Blitz's perspective, makes sense to me. His personality also works well with the plain fact that Stolas is exploiting him, and gives him more motive to push Stolas away. In part, rightfully, but also because Blitzo is just avoidant and the writers wanted to feature his avoidant personality and the conflict it brings. In the end, Stolas realizes (in part) how fucked it is to keep Blitz on the other end of a leash through their deal, and gives him an Asmodeus crystal
@kuniziteyeah we know but their argument episode feels still eh... And lots of people point at it as a strange way to shame Blitz while Stolas is the biggest problem
Its ironic how the men of the show are allowed to be super freaky and sexual yet when a female character does the shame she is automatically ridiculed and slut-shamed. What a progressive show /s
i think fans miss the bigotry because the show is so full of cursing and insults, they all start to blend together into a mush
HONESTLY, so true. Since there's such a constant stream of profanity at all times, I feel like a lot of people just get used to it and start to tune it out. I, myself, had to rewind several times because despite literally rewatching the whole shot to take notes on each time there was something nasty and sexist said, the cursing is just So Much that I missed a few things as I was watching.
Also, a lot of fans are younger and don't necessarily have experience with analyzing bigoted tropes in media, or think that any critical analysis is somehow anti-fandom.
@rottika When so many slurs are used so constantly, it also makes you forget that each slur has a specific severity and context to it. When the show drew the like at the R-word, it made me think "Wait, why's THAT too much for this show? And WHY did you aknowledge it jokingly?"
@aiyokai83 They've used the r-slur before, I think in season 1 or just the pilot. They just decided not to use it in season 2 anymore for whatever reason.
@Jdudec367 Explain how it isn't then. I'd like actual arguments beyond "Nuh uh" this time, mind you
I’m reminded of the moment in Bojack Horseman where Flip is talking about why they brought Diane on as a writer for Philbert: “so when people watch the show and get to the end credits they can say, ‘oh a woman worked on this, guess it’s not sexist’ “
Yeah, we often assume that something can't be offensive if it's done by someone from a discriminated person.
"Bag of holes" genuinely is rooted in so much hatred (the phrase itself) demeaning women to their sexual organs is so gross 😕
If you read some of Blitz’s lines straight from the script without knowing what show it was for, you’d think it was straight from Andrew Tate’s crooked mouth.
Male characters are also referred to like that too, soooooooo????
seriously!!! like how hard would it have been to change the line to maybe “shitbag” or something along those lines. it’s disgusting
It’s genuinely hilarious. Blitz is a bad man.
@syntheticreality549 smartest helluva boss fan
I got called a misogynist for pointing out how drastically underdeveloped the female characters are in hb and hh compared to the male characters like are we fr 💔🥀
I think it’s insane how little we actually know about what Blitz and Verosika’s relationship. The audience is subjected to tons of misogynistic jokes made at her expense, but as far as we know Blitz is the one who was in the wrong in the relationship?? It genuinely bothers me so much how little nuance there is to anything. Why explore the dynamic between Loona and Beelzebub when you can just pit them against each other? Smh. The show is allergic to exploring relationships between women, and I’d argue even fully developing a lot of their relationships to men.
While there's myriad things to gripe about for any given series, I find it handy to zero in on something core. Something fundamental that doesn't just exist as an isolated bad decision but rather something that blemishes the work in its entirety. For me it's Blitz. The series wants me to like him, in that 'loveable asshole protagonist who messes up a lot but we cheer because deep down we know they're better or trying to be better' or something like that, it's not rocket science writing, but neither is it necessarily a doomed approach. The problem is the series fails to make me care about Blitzo as a person. I don't like him, so I don't much care when bad things happen to him. The attempts made to garner my sympathy mostly boil down unfortunate things happening to him past and present, but Blitz as a PERSON is just a miserable jerk who is sad about being lonely because he's a miserable jerk, but he has no other motivation to do anything or accomplish anything. At least Moxxie and Millie have that most basic motivation of 'they're a couple and want to support each other'. Why does Blitz even care about his job and the money it brings besides throway jokes about spending it on horses?
But enough with just complaining, what you said about Verosika highlights how easy it would have been to avoid this. We're shown that Blitz has all these powerful connections and broken romances in his past, all of which amount to this idea of a character who fell from grace. But even in the past Blitz is exactly the damn same. If we saw a Blitzo who was genuinely likeable, whom we could understand why these various people fell in love with him, maybe we could actually give a damn about the Blitz of today. Give us contrasting depictions, so we can invest hope. Hell, it would even bleed into the dynamic with Stolas in an interesting way. He fell in love with a charade and a lie, he tries to force what isn't there... what if through his interactions with Blitz's exes he gets an inkling as to who the real Blitz used to be. Perhaps Stolas' story could pivot into falling out of love with Blitz, only to fall back in once the guy actually starts to recover and reclaim his old groove.
Give the audience a reason to care about Blitz's fate, and we'll actually be invested in his ups and downs. If he's just an angry, jerky joke character, I'm not gonna care when he flips on the woe is me switch.
@Jdudec367 they’re misogynistic jokes. They’re exclusively using misogynistic slurs or jabs at her sexual nature, something the show rarely does towards its male cast.
Stolas is literally a horny sex freak and despite a few light jokes here and there, his sexual nature is treated as liberating
i cannot stand this show but i do slightly disagree with some of the points here. i think with verosika we are fully meant to see blitz as being in the wrong. the show knows blitz is shitty and it implies that verosika’s anger towards him isn’t irrational. one of my favourite subtle hints is that she has his name tattooed on her with an X over it. him calling her a bunch of slurs in episode three when they meet again is one of the few times where the crappy “it takes place in hell” excuse is believable for me because he just sounds like someone from our world who isn’t holding back. however, my issue with verosika is that she’s so NOTHING outside of her past relationship to blitz. i was super interested to learn more about her character after episode 3 but we literally never learn more about her than what it set up. i hate the whole “i hate blitzo” party, i fully believed that while she hated him, it wasn’t like a core part of her life and personality and just something that got reignited whenever she saw him against her will. she just exists in order to further blitz’s development with stolas. i also think it could’ve been effective if we saw her being upset by all the names he calls her and blitz has to rethink himself-while he hates being discriminated against for being an imp, he realises he’s done that for her as a succubus.
same thing with loona and bee, i disagree that they were ever really put against each other. bee isn’t possessive of her boyfriend nor does she hate him being around loona because she seems to genuinely like her. the one time she snaps at loona it’s quick and unrelated to loona having a crush on her bf. they’re clearly trying to subvert our expectations of a “cat fight” by having bee be chill and being a sister to loona. the narrative also doesn’t ever really try to pit them against each other because it’s clear tex only sees loona as a friend. they’re not an actual ship, he’s just the guy loona so happens to like who so happens to have a nice gf. however, loona and bee’s relationship still feels shallow and misogynistic because again i don’t know anything about these women. they are so so flat and maybe that’s acceptable for bee because she’s a side character but loona is part of the main cast and she’s gets nothing to do outside of her relationship to her dad. i think it’s so telling that when they tried to give her her own episode in season 1 episode 8, blitz comes in less than halfway through because they have no idea what to do. the emotional moment of the episode is about him thinking he’ll die alone, not loona or bee. i think that’s why this show frustrates me more than other blatantly misogynistic works, it wants to have the illusion of being a feminist liberal show but it feels like it physically wretches whenever it has to focus on a character who isn’t a twink
I would like to see the relationship of Blitz & Verosika from how they met to how it went down. So we can see how it changed so badly. Sure we could gets hints of their past but it would be nice to see it
@sully42O I like the show despite all its faults, but I also shared your interpretation of Verosika, Loona, and Bee. With Loona and Bee specifically, it felt like they originally planned for the classic "fighting over a man" trope (which at least has some emotional stakes and understandable conflict) and tried to rewrite to avoid it, and unfortunately just landed on introvert goth vs. extrovert raver girl (which was frustrating to watch because I was like, "LOONA JUST GO HOME OR TO A METAL SHOW YOU'RE KILLING THE VIBE, DAMN").
What is with the team giving a rapist pimp moth man in one show 10 times more depth than a furious woman trapped in a loveless marriage? And they STILL gave more villain spotlight to a man over her.
It’s also weird that in all three instances of cheating in the series, a woman is demonized.
Why aren't more people bothered by that actually?
I actually assumed that Karen lied about her ex cheating, and only actually wanted him dead simply because he's gay.
@aubreyhart-b6t I think it’s less about Stolas being gay and more about the fact that he cheated on her with an Imp, the demon class at the lowest in Hell’s social ladder and saw that as a personal insult.
This is so true!!! I get so mad over them trying to humanize Valentino in Hazbin. It's genuinely gross. The fact that he has so much merch too is wild to me. If I saw anyone in the wild wearing Val merch I'd give them the most bombastic side eye.
@AGhostInTheCorner ??? there's nothing wrong with having a villain have more than one side. All the villains and bad guys have merch, and valentino is my favorite character in the same way someone who has vox as a favorite character isn't immediately a supporter of dictators. I'm sure there are plenty of characters you love that are also not good people, but that doesn't make them bad characters. I actually think the depth of valentino makes him mor realistic and terrifying, because my abuser was also really fun and charming, as a lot are - that's what makes an abuser often dangerous and effective in their horrible methods. The problem they're stating, is that they didn't develop stella to, not that they did develop a character. that's a good thing. There are plenty of murderers in the show that also get humanized. because bad people are humans. i'd argue it's worse they throw an abuser in and don't humanize them. like stella.
Someone's brother saying ' You're so fucking lucky your attractive ' or ' hot ' ... gross
The Coffin of Andry and Stelley
It's because he's closet gay.
Actually it made sense if they're subtly incest because they're royalties and demons after all that also applied in real life history.
it's a joke about rich/royal inbreeding being common historically irl
@misspinat869 narratively, the only purpose to the incest implications is to further make stella and andy as gross as possible. accurate or not, the intent is to make you hate them more.
Stella's brother only exists to not develop Stella it makes me mad
i love your axolotl icon....
What I've noticed in Mammons midseason musical extravaganza, is that Fizz gets sexualised,fat shamed by the fattest guy on the show, is afraid to be seen without his make up,is treated with immediate hostility by two younger women and has a male stalker who feels entitled to him.
He's basically getting treated like a woman, and its taken very seriously by the narrative, the closest the series gets to treating misogyny seriously is an episode about a gay clown who throws gendered slurs at the only women in the episode.
"Fat shamed by the fattest guy in the show" it wouldn't have been any better if he was shamed by a skinny person. It's all around fatphobia.
@Natu-Shabbyi think it's more about how being a fat man is more exuasable than being a fat woman (an amout of hate i see every time in social media when woman has just a little belly is killing me 💀 and fat men in a lot of cases just being ignored) saying from my fat experience
@Natu-Shabbyit wouldn't change much in the whole view because bodyshaming is bad yes, but it's such a uncanny irony because most of her main characters are VERY skinny, then the only fat guy is the actual evil and vile thing we were expecting since the start??
Or it could be saying that even men experience these things, especially performers.
2 women who would have been groomed then treated like Fizz was right? Who's gonna help them when they crack under the pressure? Good for Fizz that he escaped but I wonder what happened to Glitz and Glam after that? When will Mammon's cruel competitions end?
"Helluva Boss is inspired by Bojack Horseman" (Has none of the commentary on toxic masculinity and sexism in Bojack Horseman)
lol it must be inspired by bojack horseman from the perspective of someone with NEGATIVE media literacy 😭😭
noooooononono you dont get it the show is based on bojack horseman because Medrano wants her show to have the same number of seasons :3
@Jdudec367 actually deltarune is not inspired by a masterpiece.
undertale was the test for delatrune, so if anything deltarune inspired undertale, not the other way around.
@Jdudec367
Of course the show has flaws, but the toxicity of the main characters (particularly Bojack Horseman) is purposefully addressed and deconstructed throughout the show
@Jdudec367 bojack horseman is good tho
I'm never getting over how episode 3 of the second season literally started with Millie being upset about running into her ex, and it ended up being a Moxxie episode and we now have to wait several years to see her backstory with the ex. Watch the pregnancy story also end up being mostly about Moxxie and his daddy issues
Yeah, I don’t understand why they made a plot point of Millie being an ex with Chaz when they didn’t even do anything with it? Like, you could have removed that plot point from the episode, and it wouldn’t have affected the story. What was the point of that?
@cosmok-1367 I genuinely think Moxxie's backstory w Chaz should've been given to Millie. Like Moxxie already gets a sad backstory/flashback in his one that focuses on his parents and childhood, and that one is more plot relevant and easily more compelling. he doesn't need a second sob story. it should've been Millie who Chaz left in the dust to get thrown into jail. Even Moxxie's relationship with Chaz doesn't really affect anything, I think the forced marriage plotline could work regardless of whether or not they are exes.
there is not a doubt in my mind theyre gonna have an episode about moxxie being scared hes like his dad
I FORGOT abt that damn plotpoint holy shit. God this show man...
They literally made Chaz Millie’s ex just for the punchline of Blitzøs reaction of “Someone f***ed both of you?!”
An entire separate episode could be made about the sexual harassment and assault depictions in this show and their implications and a person could probably easily talk about that for multiple hours
Hazbin hotel too...
I get what you are trying to say but... Remember this is a show about a gang of demons who kill people for a living and enjoy doing so, breaking the laws of both their world (which seems to be a brutal and corrupt dictatorship with insanely unfair class differences, from what we see throughout the show, especially in Mastermind) and ours (which gets the D.H.O.R.K.S send after them) and set up that very same business through some mild prostitution.
It having problematic stuff kind of just makes sense. It would be a bit weird if a demon lowlife like Blitz drew the line at calling someone a swear word or making crude sex jokes
@banjotiki3910I haven't even watched this show and this seems so obvious to me like isn't the point that its hell and everything is awful? Lol
The way Vivzie writes women reminds me of girls who make misogynistic jokes to try to be 'one of the guys'
Now everyone will say Viv is a "pick me" ._.
Or just an egotistical fujoshi?
“you see - i am focusing on men more, and gays!”
EXACTLY
Surprise though most normal guys would think she’s a weirdo if it wasn’t a joke bc she can’t be frfr
If Loona wasn't attractive, she would be one of the most hated characters in the show.
She deserves the hate anyways, but still.
Honestly I find Octavia and Stella WAY more attractive than her.
Thank you!!! I see SO many people say she’s their favorite character and I don’t understand it, she’s horrible
Tbh if Stolas wasn’t attractive, he would also be a lot more hated.
I find her attractive, and that actually makes me angrier because such a gorgeous design was wasted on such a nothing character.
agreed.I think loona kinda feeds into the "Goth Mommy" sterotype that some men like and in my opnion it kinds grosses me out in a sense.
"a writers blindspot" is literally such a good way to put it. ive felt this way about all bigotry controversies with the hellaverse, none of them feel malicious, they just feel like the writers were relying on tropes they were uneducated about and the team wasn't diverse enough to have someone point out the problems.
also about luna, I feel like most of her characterisation makes like 10x more sense if you just convince yourself shes a teenager. her insane mood swings, and usually immature behaviour makes so much more sense under that context. I feel like she was originally supposed to be a teen, but they changed to it to appeal to the gooners
I wish I could agree but Viv has openly bragged about liking anti-feminist RUclipsrs and making OCs to berate progressive women. I don’t think she hates women, but she definitely doesn’t care about social justice
"I don't think she hates women" well she has the passion for it if she's making OCs to actively tear them down and make a mockery of them! That seems pretty hateful to me!
@Birdyboys I didn't know about that. eek! gross.
Loona spend her teenage years locked away in an adoption system that looks more like a prison and was then adopted by someone who babies her, it kind of makes sense that she hasnt made the jump to a mature adult yet
That’s because so much of this is just worse homestuck. Like a genuinely insane amount. The entire premise of apology tour is literally done by a homestuck character
when i saw the scene where octavia believed stolas had died and stella pulled her into a hug, it was like for a split second i thought there was actually going to be an interesting plotline. i assumed she would start doting on her, treating her like a real daughter with the whole “now your father is gone, but it’s okay because mommy’s got you!” vibe just so she could keep her from finding out the truth. i was excited, i was happy to see a plotline with stella that allowed her to DO anything. but then. that didn’t happen and she just went back to being a cartoonish villain twirling her mustache and cackling. that’s on me for believing in this show, i suppose
And Viv and Brandon confirmed that Season 3 Will be a lot more raunchier, dirtier, and a uncensord, which is WAY too far from normal 💔
Deadass how is that even possible
They're just going into p*rn teritory at this point, So unneccesary🤮
Prob bc they got a deal with Amazon Prime now which means they don’t have to tone down stuff for RUclips monetisation ig tho I wonder how it’ll look like
bro... 🥀💔💔🥀
they’re gonna make a new cuss word
Moxxy being made fun of for being a more feminine/more empathetic man reminds me of how in Ancient Greece (I think) bottoms in say gex were shamed because it was the more "feminine" role tbh
My bro Moxxie is the best character in his group, but the show swears to us that he's a pathetic man. I can't even say I like him because the show doesn't help us by keeping him from going anywhere, and that irritates me because while they use Moxxie, who is the least bad of the group, as a punching bag, Blitzo and the others are praised when they're really messed up in the head.
I think the version of Moxxie that worked (in a way) was King from TADC when he became lucid. Imagine if Moxxie was an imp who didn't like to kill but does it because it's the only way? Maybe he would even help Blitz deal with his traumas instead of being the show's punching bag.
Moxxie aint feminine at all, wdym? Just because he is softer or more empathetic doesnt mean feminine. Also, why is only a problem when the man is soft but not the hundreds of female characters that are soft too but people praise them for being in their "female roles"? Thats exactly why Moxxie is very important, because he is just a soft husband with a masculine role that isnt the stereotypical warrior, protective, strong.
@EsKeleto2507 i actually agree with you in some points but i never saw Moxxie as the pathetic guy
@alejandrasanchez3022 It's not pathetic in the Homelander sense, pathetic in the sense of "poor boy, he's so sensitive, let me put him in front of the TV and give him a tub of ice cream."
Not just Ancient Greece.
Ancient Egypt and Rome also shamed the bottom of homosexual intercourse (The Egyptian myth "The contedings of Horus and Set" is one of the oldest myths in the world and it has this trope)
10:34 I find it telling that this was the only joke I laughed at, probably bc the punchline wasn’t centred around misogyny. They could’ve subbed any word in and I still would’ve laughed
Moron?
?
the line right after is one of the few witty disses in HB. I don’t think Stolas was meant to degrade Stella the way Andrealphus does here in particular, the joke makes fun of her lack of education despite being noble rather than her gender, and it fits Stolas even more than that self-censor he just did before it, since he is in fact high-class.
very very weird that Viv sees stories as either "male led" or "female led" ...... thats...... telling...
THANK YOU!!
it's so funny how Vivienne said "Helluva is a male centered show, but hazbin is a more female centered show 🥺"
Like, the female characters in hazbin suck as well so, I thinks this is a writing issue😭😭😭
lowkey it's like charlie got lobotomized in s2. why the hell would she go to vox right after he CLEARLY showed he's not someone to be trusted????
@northrnstar REALLL like I get that she's supposed to be prideful, but she's not supposed to be STUPID. Just naive, but in the second season especially, she's genuinely stupid
lowk man i think viv is just kind of a pick me for that. way too much fan service too, it interferes with the stories
@WalmartTable you know the writings bad when you made an unnecessary character flaw for the DAUGHTER of PRIDE. That was not being prideful that's just being moronically dumb
The funny thing is that Vivienne CAN write somewhat interesting female characters(Lute being an example), they obviously are still not written as well as the male characters but she is still capable of being at least somewhat competent as writing female characters. The problem is that she just deliberately chooses not to write female characters well, so she either doesn’t, or if she does she has to find a reason to put them on the back burner to further develop her male characters.
I think it just comes down to the issue that Vivienne doesn’t like actually writing women, so she puts significantly less effort into them than the men. For a long time we are not told about if Stella cares about Octavia until only, like, the most recent episode. Even though Octavia is supposed to be a relevant character. And when it is it’s just “oh Stella doesn’t care about her either! Haha, did you know you’re meant to hate this character?” Seriously? I mean it’s fine to have irredeemable characters, I actually love them, but they don’t work when they aren’t written well and are barely a competent villain. Stella was shown at one point to seemingly be very clever, calling a hit on her husband, but then it’s revealed that “oops haha no Stella’s actually really dumb because of this dumb reason involving the Grimoire!!” Wait, what? Wasn’t the WHOLE point the fact that Stella was angry at Stolas for his affair and tearing the family apart? Why does she now care about the Grimoire? Is it possibly because Vivienne suddenly realized she no longer wanted to actually write Stella and needed a reason to push her to the side and focus on a different villain who was a man and not a woman? Probably.
That conversation between Octavia and Loona would make so much more sense if it was inverted. We could have Octavia pointing out that Loona's father is trying, implying she doesn't feel like her own father is trying to be a good father, and Loona maybe getting some character growth. But, no, we need to baby Stolas, that's the most important thing in the show
To be clearer, I think the episode shouldn't have any kind of resolution for Stolas Octavia's relationship. It should have been a crack in something that would fully break when Stolas chooses to die for his affair partner and leave his child behind.
Yeah, that conversation never made any sense in the context of the show. Why is Loona defending Stolas when she's literally never interacted with him before that point? She has no idea what kind of father Stolas is or what Octavia's actual problem is. Just odd writing all around.
Especially since Stolas was too busy laughing at Blitzo doing misogynistic stand up to even look for his daughter that, 'he loves and cares for.'
He needs to own up to the fact that he would sacrifice his daughter for an orgasm.
Oh wait. HE DID.
This. I also thought Luna and Octavia might actually become friends and interact more in later episodes, maybe having some character development over bonding about their crappy dads or idk, school, or whatever they do. Genuinely neither character has anything going on outside of work or being angsty so I don't know what they would talk about. I guess music maybe? The pair would make a really good friendship foil against Stolas and Blitzo's toxic af relationship. They could be the ones breaking the generational cycle of misery both families are steeped in. Alas, it will never be. Hell I wanted Octavia to call Luna to talk about things. Maybe give some insight into why Octavia made no attempts to contact her father (not that Stolas tried that hard to contact her either). My god they fumbled the bag with Octavia so much. If her character didn't exist I genuinely don't think it would have changed anything.
@NikkiBuddersseeing how Brandon called her a 'cockblock' I don't think she'll be written well unless it's to make Stolas feel bad.
It concerns me that Brandon Rogers is not called out for the writing as much as Vivienne is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he was the one to suggest that Stolitz should be a canon ship, while at the time Stolas was meant to be the antagonist in the pilot. He also co-wrote on Sinsmas and has made multiple jokes about Millie's pregnancy at conventions, which leads me to believe he had some part with that writing choice. His work is very reminiscent of Helluva and Hazbin's humor (not sure if there's as much misogyny since I've only seen clips), and he even showed up as a cameo in Episode Zero, so it baffles me even more not I have not seen any attempt to call him out on his actions in the various videos critiquing the show and it's women characters
GENUINELY. There's also that clip of him talking about how much he hates Octavia that's like. Really sus, on God.
@rottika OCTAVIA?? Isn't she just some kid raised by unfit parents??? What the hell??
Eek. If he's the one responsible for Stolitz being written the way it is, then he's got some 'splaining to do.
@LiveMadpole He joked about her being a cockblock for not letting Stolas and Blitz be together.
im not an avid helluva watcher, but i recall that brandon basically just told his opinion that blitz and stolas were a good couple and vivziepop chose to make it canon, so i think he has less of a hand with that one
Thank you for reinforcing my decision to never watch this or hazbin hotel 😭
That’s why it shocks me when people act like the hellaverse is so progressive. Like… women really are at the bottom of the ladder/pecking order.
SOCIETY IS PROGRESSIVE WITHOUT WOMEN, ONLY FACTUAL HELLUVA BOSS TAKE.
Unfortunately a lot of people will overlook misogyny if it’s from a queer story. Fandoms are just annoying like that
@Birdyboys As a straight guy, it is kinda appalling that this show focuses more on men than the “conservative” shows. I know this is a more progressive show, and I would assume that they would focus more (if not entirely) on the women. But the fact that it focus almost entirely on the male characters, who are all just a bunch of gay dudes, is honestly weird. You would think that they would give more focus on the female characters of the cast, and yeah, there is tons of potential for them.
I mean, race is a big factor as well. Like the averge white women has more privelege than the average black man
I've seen fans actually justifying Helluva Boss' treatment of their female characters because it was claimed by Vivziepop years ago that she wanted to make HB "male focused" and she would in turn make Hazbin Hotel more "female focused".
But Hazbin Hotel, despite having a main character who is a girl, still focuses A LOT on their male characters (Alastor, Angel Dust, Sir Pentius, Vox, Lucifer, etc). All of these male characters have their own backstories and are used to drive the plot forward. Season 2 main characters may as well have been Alastor and Vox, because Charlie didn't do jackshit.
Meanwhile, for the female characters:
Vaggi was criticized for being characterized as having no ideals or goals of her own outside of being there for her girlfriend Charlie.
Niffty is pretty much just there as comedic relief for being a crazy maniac who is also cute and small.
Cherri Bomb doesn't have much characterization outside of being Angel Dust's best friend and Sir Pentius' love interest.
You're the first person I've seen mention others using Vivzie's flaws as an excuse to be misogynistic and I'm so glad you put that in the spotlight, cuz I see ts happen so much in person too. Great video!!!
Oh my god yes! Thank you! I have been genuinely so surprised at all the sexism and misogyny in both of Vivziepops shows for a while and I thought I was losing my mind BC I didn't hear anyone else talking about it 😭.
My most recent thing I was angry about was in Hazbin Hotel season 2 where we finally get a scene thats supposed to be Vaggie and Charlie having sex and it's this awkward metaphoric dance number.
Like, I'm not a gooner I swear, but I found it so odd how all the guys in relationships with guys can be so overt about being sexual, but once it was two girls, they had to have their sexuality toned down into a metaphor! Like, that was so weird 😭
They have the weakest relationship of EVERYONE. It's so bizarre like idk. As a woman who is attracted to women, it's just something I find odd.
YES, Charlie and Vaggie made me so sad as someone why was really intrigued by the pilot and waited years to get to see a main character with an established wlw relationship (as someone who is sapphic) and... I was so sad when I felt like I could barely enjoy their relationship or them as characters because they honestly just felt like an afterthought? Which is so fucking bizarre for characters who were supposed to be the Main Characters. It just makes me sad man. Their relationship is so wonderful on paper and ties in so well to the main plot elements of the show, I just wish they were written better, or more.
I personally thought that the dance number was very sweet and well needed. But yes, it's its own double standard in a way on how people view mlm relationships vs wlw relationships.
Mlm is raw, passionate, sex filled where it's overt and in your face.
Whereas they see women having sex with each other as, 'noooo they're dainty and cute and I just wanna see them kiss gently and hold hands and uwu I love girls'. They don't see them as adults. It's sanitized and put as pure. Like sex would ruin the aesthetic or something.
40:00 me hearing my favorite helluva boss character getting slandered and knowing its all true
The way I feel this in my soul lmao i just stand there while some rando insults my pile of garbage, and im just "yeah you right"
I love my shitty inconsistent poorly written characters 😊
What PMO the most about stella is her brother, he shouldn’t even exist as a major character because EVERYTHING he did could’ve been done by stella herself
They could’ve written her as a real narcissistic abuser who actually creates the conflict in the show. Imagine if instead of being dumb and treating octavia like garbage in sinsmas she actually love bombed her to drive via and her father further apart? Imagine if how much potential she could’ve had as a villain if the writers didnt just make her a caricature to be hated on?
They added a male character to be the villain of the show because they refuse to make stella interesting, they refuse to give her a purpose other than being the fandom’s punching bag
I hate how one MF on Reddit was saying Stella groomed Octavia
NO SHE DID NOT!
1. She's too much of a dumbass to really be a Groomer
2. There was WAY more than enough evidence to support that Stolas does not give AF about Via
My thoughts exactly as a part of me still thinks Stella could have worked either way on each side of the paper not just as a one dimensional caricature of a screaming woman who’s there for no reason than to have her brother do the work. My god Viv, give this woman DEPTH.
I hate Andrealphus so much like you have no idea. He only exist so the writers dont have to give Stella any agency at all
thank you thank you for commenting on the misogyny towards Viv herself
it is awful to listen to criticisms of her works just turn into a misogynistic slop masquerading as progressive
I had to grow out of a lot of my own internalized misogyny so its kind of sad seeing other people point fingers and blame at the primary show runner, like she was doing all these things on purpose, when I don't think she has. I cant tell when it's on purpose, when it's ironic or parody, and when it feels like a mistake. I feel like she's afraid to give women agency or focus for fear of them being lambasted for being mary sues, either subconsciously or otherwise. I feel that way because that's what primarily held me back in my own growth. I don't know if that's true or what, just my speculation. Maybe just to help me feel better and hope for the best. I'm gonna stop being parasocial right now lol.
Luckily I appreciate the ladies of Helluva Boss, even when others won't. ❤❤❤
God bless, justice for my girlies. 🙏
Me too, honestly.
Even when the *writers won’t☝️
@thegenericviewer7439 That's true.
"tit-haver" LMAO WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS THAT INSULT
That's like calling somebody "spider hands" for daring to have five fingers. And the context makes it even weirder and grosser.
my god the way the compilation of the name calling is mainly blitzo. I know he’s supposed to be an asshole but goddamn, not a good look for the main character to whom you’re supposed to like later on. 😭
Not only the name calling, but the way he bites into the slurs with his whole chest is... I know it's acting but damn ...
Taken out of context, and skips over the episodes
@killerbee1974 "You dont get it, the slurs are okay because the women who theyre directed to are written to be shallow bad people !"
Honestly, none of them bothered me because I see Blitzo as a machine gun of insults regardless of what he believes or supports. He'd be the kind of guy who yells that someone is a f4gg0t and needs to go suck a dick while, well, sucking one himself.
But this one (17:26) is really creepy, it's weird how I didn't remember this threat or how I haven't seen anyone else commenting on it, like, I don't see how this phrase could not be related to r4p3, especially with Moxxie's reaction. It's quite unsettling.
Even worse when you realize his adopted daughter is a Hellhound, who consider "bitch" a slur.
46:10 Kinda a random side tangent, but it’s something that has been on my mind with how Octavia is marketed (mostly in merch and whatnot). She’s pretty much the only female character who isn’t heavily sexualized-obviously because she’s underaged, but also because she’s one of the only existing Ace characters in the entire show. Asexual representation is so hard to come by and I wish we could get characters under that umbrella who aren’t constantly sidelined. It’s so common for ace characters to simply….be tossed in there? And not do much? Aside from Alastor I guess-but he still gets to be shipped with other males (Vox) which helps increase his popularity regardless of the Ace label being attached to him. Idk it almost feels like the narrative deems her story “not interesting enough” to actually explore because there’s a lack of sex jokes to be made from it. Why dedicate time to this teenage girl struggling with very valid concerns of her unstable homelife when we can instead make sexual remakes with the rest of the cast/male leads! I know it’s kinda silly of me to bring up her ace identity in the midst of this discussion (like perhaps I’m unfairly liking correlation to causation) but as a fellow ace it kinda irks me that the one character I can semi-relate to is very underutilized. Whenever she’s on screen I can finally breath because that’s the one time we finally catch a break from the overwhelming amounts of crass humor lol
Tuvieron una increíble oportunidad para desarrollar al personaje de Octavia y simplemente no la aprovecharon
Imagine if there was a plot line where we see that Octavia doesn't want to marry another royalty, or anyone, even though she has to, and how it affects her.
"Isn't heavily sexualised" OH boy you have no idea...
@luxclys Octavia da para mucho pero simplemente no hacen nada con ella
Part of the reason she is marketed that way is because she is 17, underaged which she kinda has to be for some of the divorce plot and her parents fighting over her to make sense. The other character who is similar to her in age is Loona. who I personally believe was made to be in her 20s only because her design appeals her to a very specific audience and they wanted to be able to sexualize her in the marketing.
I wanna write an au from Stella's pov, from her childhood and how she felt about the marriage all her life. She's still gonna be herself and abusive, but it's gonna actually discuss her mindstate
When ur done PLEASE show me
-a number 1 stella fan
@Goobergobbs it'll prolly be a while cause I take 6 billion years to write anything but I will if I remember!!
@unripelemon1142 yessss 😼
Uhh would it weird to sub to u >_>
Just to like see ur videos (i swear im nice and hey i can say hi anytime i see you hehe)
@Goobergobbsno, you can if you want :0 you seem really cool
@unripelemon1142 YYAAAHHH
i've seen "its hell, what do you expect" thrown around as an argument before and- how is that even an argument? so all people who don't swear also go to heaven or? clearly not in this show!
"i like edgy humour" is barely a comeback at all considering its not even applicable to this but somehow people still use it, despite everything.
"Oh, but Stella is a domestic abuser."
Okay, and our protagonists are murderers who find pleasure in killing people, whether innocent or not, and probably have a body count in the three digits.
And no, murderers aren't better people than abusers just because they aren't abusers. Shocking, i know.
Edit: For those who are misunderstanding, no, I'm not justifying Stella's actions. What she did is still wrong and there's no justification for it. What I'm saying is that the protagonists are not better people than her just because they are not abusers; they are still murderers who derive pleasure from killing. They are no better than a domestic abuser just because they are not, well, abusers.
Literally omg
What's sad is that Stella doesn't even have any powers, shes just there to give birth to an heir. If Vizviepop would stop focusing on Stolas and Blitz for a few minutes, we'd have her backstory by now. Fans are writing better stories than the creator because they actually see potential in the character
And whether people want to acknowledge it or not, Stolace was also an abuser, I know the crew have been trying to retcon and victimize stolace to hell and back, pun intended. But he was someone that harassed and abused his power over Blitzø and sesmingly heavily neglected the needs of his daughter, especially in season 1
@gOat_GrandMaExactly, it's difficult to take the abuse that Stolas suffer seriously when the narrative itself doesn't treat the abuser seriously.
I love stella shes my favorite uwu
"Isn't it possible Stella is also a victim of incest?"
Gonna corroborate this: I know absolutely NOTHING about helluva, beyond what I've heard from one friend and your videos. And I fully thought the ice dude that was with her in those scenes was some other nobleman trying to marry her to take over her ex-husband's title. So. Take from that what you will!
Yup. People who just watch the show will probably assume it's a Game of Thrones situation, they won't know Andrealphus is gay if they don't follow all of the lore & merch drops.
And there's the fact that him being gay doesn't "fix" the situation and suddenly make his actions normal. It's possible to harass or rape someone who you're not attracted to
@Rey_Palpatine WAIT HE'S GAY??? Literally had no idea about that considering how he talks about Stella. 😭
@rottika Yh no he’s GAY
(Ngl I think all of the men in the bird bloodline are gay I’m gonna be so fr
@rottika Yep, it was confirmed in the pride art 💔
@InsanityCatz9999Yup. Stolas, Vassago, and Andrealphus are all gay. At this rate, I won't be shocked if Paimon is also confirmed gay eventually and his children are all products of mpreg
As someone who's followed this series since the pilot, I distinctly remember how heavily praised ep 2 was for it's nuanced take on divorce. How it tackled the way Stolas's actions were affecting his family but also portraying how much his current situtaion was making him miserable. At the time I thought it balanced the perspective of Stolas, Stella, and Octavia well. Only for this slow realization that no, you're NOT supossed to sympthatize with every party involved, Stolas is GOOD and Stella is EVIL. Stella's feelings of betrayal aren't real or understandable, she's just a comedic punching bag. She can't even have her OWN evil actions, no it has to be her brother pulling the strings like are you serious? Helluva wants to be a complex story about bad people yet it screams at the viewer who you are and aren't supossed to root for. Stolas can't be a cheater, he can't be an absent father, because that would make him *gulp* a bad person, so they just hand wave it away and put all the blame on a non character. It's kind of bizzare to see a series touted as so edgy and problematic so terrified to make a main character *too* unlikable, there always has to be an excuse, it's always someone else's fault. It's frustrating to watch and makes for an unengaging narritive.
It's why the whole "oh they're in hell" excuse more flimsy. I'd be willing to excuse that if the writing was better and more nuanced.
[re Ep 2]
I remember when that came out. I remember really liking it because of the same points you brought up. Then they repeated that plot point when Octavia goes to Las Angelus. And then other stuff happens.
Like when the Circus came out and the cracks began to show, everyone’s complaint (including mine) was that the show was ruining one of its best aspects: it’s about terrible people you care about.
Everyone understood, even back in season 1, that Stella is a bad person, but she didn’t deserve to be cheated on. And Stolas is a gay man locked in a loveless marriage, but he shouldn’t have cheated on his wife. And yet the show contorts itself to justifying Stolas’s actions instead of letting him deal with the consequences. I can’t wait for Octavia to learn that she was apparently being selfish and stupid for turning on her father
You just put it into words so perfect that I actually feel a little better that someone understands the way I feel
@Jdudec367 the issue is that every character empathises with him. he isn't called out for being a cheater by anyone but Stella (designated EVIL character) and possibly Octavia (designated plot device). Moxxie doesn't care, Millie doesn't care, and Loona, although empathising with Octavia, does not seem to have any bad opinion of Stolas even though she's seen first-hand what his abuse has done to her
@Birdyboys "I can't wait for Octavia to learn that she was apparently being selfish and stupid for turning on her father." This. I'm waiting for the show to punish her too. Or turn her into the proper villain, an anti-Charlie Morningstar who doesn't reconnect with her father, and we have to kill her at the end of the show or something. I have lost faith in both shows to portray women tastefully at all.
this is what happens when a creator never grows out of their NLOG phase; the 'other girls' are all treated like they are part of a shallow, evil, mentally-challenged monolith. Creators who write women like this are telling on themselves. But I think everyone already knew that VivziePop is kind of horribly immature and has a bad personality...? It's just sad how many people love her art that they allow themselves to consume the scripts that these character designs are saddled with. I tried watching this show because I loved the art/thought some of the music was catchy, but the dialogue and plot made me feel like it was actively eroding my brain.
I think so too.
It’s really not surprising that Vivi’s woman writing is so bad. When asked to rate her 10 fav HH’s characters, her top 5 were all men and her bottom 5 were all women.
She writes the characters, yet she intentionally writes the women to be unappealing to her. She doesn’t care for her MC, and while it could he cus she based Charlie off herself, that doesn’t explain the rest of the women or why the men are so beloved.
Something I noticed was that both shows are really pretty weird about gay men. I'm not accusing anyone of anything because I don't know anyone involved, but it always rubbed me the wrong way I guess? It's kinda giving those girls on Tumblr that are super into reading yaoi and treat gay people like a fandom almost
Now it makes sense why Charlie is such a toxic girlfriend.
@austing2473 I agree! When I initially wrote the comment I had also included how she fetishized gay men. But I removed it cuz tbh, I couldn’t justify it beyond Stolitz. I haven’t actually watched HH, so I didn’t want to say anything about a series I hadn’t watched. I know about some of it, and from what I have heard it def feels like she’s weird about gay men.
i also dont like how her idea of a cool strong woman is a cookie cutter crazy girl ala harley quinn suicide squad version and how most of her female characters embrace being called a bitch. for someone whos supposedly a bisexual feminist woman her understanding of female depth is on the level of middle aged marvel fans. she doesnt care about women and its pretty clear, nobody would care if she made her shows abt men only. but she likes to insist she cares about the women which is more damaging than admitting she just wants to write about men. however her writing of men is also quite fetishy especially gay men. shes a proffesional writer yet writes and directs like one would an ao3 fanfic for voltron
@austing2473 The Vivienne fujoshi allegations are alive and well.
I really want to make a character inspired by Stella, where it actually explores a woman in an arrange marriage and getting cheated on. Her situation sounds so interesting to explore, but nope! She's got to be evil. (anyways cool video)
Right? Of course Stella cares about her reputation being ruined. She was forced into a loveless marriage, denied magic powers, and then expected to raise a kid she didn’t willingly have (who, since she’s a girl born into the family, will inherit her life). The only thing Stella has is reputation and even that was taken from her.
@jennifervan75 where does it explore Stella’s feelings about her arranged marriage without villanizing her
Her entire childhood was being groomed to marry and give birth to royalty, and she was expected to play that part. And she was sold to a gay man who resents her entire existence, with no power herself, and if he hadn't been exiled she probably would have lost everything and been cast aside as a "used woman."
Hmm where else have we seen little girls blatantly sold to rich men who are the only ones to face consequences?
@thecheck968Her reputation is not ruined in the slightest. what exactly does she lose in the dalliance her husband has? Is she poorer? No. Does she lose her child? No, is she stripped of power and prestige? No. Helluva Boss is more about toxic relationships than any actual plot regarding Hell and the hierarchy. Is Stella one dimensional? Yes, but she was meant to be that way. We are literally introduced to her via a picture of her strangling someone. Not every character needs an in depth analysis or even humanization.
That's Cersei Lannister in the Game Of Thrones books lowkey
both helluva boss and hazbin hotel, despite being shows set in hell where heaven in the bad guys, are weirdly evangelical in their morals.
This is a great point
Heaven isn't really the bad guys. Only the Exorcists were bad. The winners, the Seraphim, the cherubs and the highest authority (the Speaker) are good, the only flaw being Sera being misguided as she didn't know sinners could ever be redeemed. Heaven is often antagonistic to the Hell protagonists for a good reason in Helluva Boss. The cherubs were trying to stop IMP from killing someone, for example.
Heaven is ironically more level headed and open minded than the "heroic rebel protagonists". Makes you wonder why you should be rooting for Hell to begin with. Most of Heaven's problems come from ignorance. Hell's problems come from Lucifer being a wise guy and introducing evil to the world! Like Adam is an ass, but we forget Lucifer had a part to play in the fact people are being sent to Hell.
@Why12318 The seraphim ordained the genocide. Kinda fucking crazy to think theyre poor misguided little babies
But that's the thing, heaven are not "the bad guys"
Stella reads like a gay fetish fanfiction where the writer makes the fem canonical relationship so vile that it becomes a parody of itself.
Also, to bring up some very intense stuff going on to further explain why the B-word is a misogynistic slur as you mentioned in the video. Renee Good, upon being murdered, her killer called her a "f-ing b-" I don't like bringing up that, but when that section of the video was going, especially when some characters called fem characters in the show "f-ing b-" it was literally all i could think about while that segment was playing.
15:18 this point kinda just reminded me of how the ICE agent that shot Renee Good called her a "fucking bitch" after doing so.
I was looking for exactly this comment.
I thought the exact same thing... what a world we live in T-T
They WHAT.
FAFO, learn to drive.
ima be honest. i feel more sorry for stella than stolass. yes i know shes an abuser. but like, shes the one who had to get pregnant and lay an egg unwillingly. like jeez, "poor stolas needing to have a child young" STELLA WAS THE ONE THAT HAD TO GET PREGNANT??????????
whos to bet that the only thing she was meant to be in the goetia family was a mother, nothing else. she was also forced into the marriage but in a worse position. no powers, no duties, only being a mother that SHE most likely didn't even want to be.
plus lets not act like shes worse than IMP, who literally KILLS PEOPLE FOR A LIVING, what's the worst stella has actually done? throw an imp at stolass, slap him, and try to put a hit on him? yeah shes better than our protags
I really don’t think the show is trying to say IMP are “good guys.” They are literal demons. A lot of the narrative of the show is, “our lives suck at our own hands and we have to live with the consequences of that.”
The thing that make the protagonists better than the antagonists is that they show remorse for their actions. Stella and the other royals haven’t had that arch. It is realistic to have people go through the same traumatic situation, lash out, but then one kind of person doubles down on revenge and hate, and the other feels guilt and regret.
I’m not saying the story has to resonate with everyone, but I do think it is interesting to say that a character can’t be a victim AND evil. Which is think is the point of the show?
I love when shows are about people where everyone and everything sucks and they’re just trying their best, but Helluva boss has double standards like you mentioned. Why is Stella worse than the gang? Wouldn’t it make more sense if everyone was just considered horrible? Everyone is horrible but the show trying to present certain characters as more virtuous than others rubs me the wrong way
@mintyhippo8125 the point isnt that theyre trying to be portrayed as good guys, but that theyre somehow supposed to be more sympathetic characters than stella. they have their own agency, both literally and as people. while still being considered a lower class of demon, they aren’t weighed down by that personally and its never shown to truly effect how we portray them. for stella however, her relationship with the fandom is solely based on her proximity to stolas, and the gaze we see her through, which IS a viewer who is supposed to LIKE stolas. we see her at both her angriest and most vulnerable moments, and everytime we are meant to hate her more and more and never encouraged to do any thinking about her as a character outside of how stolas perceives her. in general the concept of only portraying a woman through the lens of her husband is vaguely misogynist, but its further soured by the fact that we are never allowed to perceive her outside of how her husband does after repeatedly cheating on her and embarrassing her throughout the marriage she also never wanted part in but has maintained due to the social and familial pressure placed on HER most heavily as the wise whose only purpose was to bear a child.
I mean she's trying to kill people. That makes her at least as bad as the protagonists.
@herec0mestheCh33f and the protagonists have done much worse with the hand waving excuse of “but it’s hell.” Either it’s hell and get the fuck over it, or it’s not “just hell” and there’s a moral standard expected.
As a straight male fan of the Hellaverse, I’ve noticed this too. I was particularly frustrated with how shallow they made Stella as a character. She had such great potential for a solid antagonist but gave the role in the story SHE should’ve had to Andrealphus.
On top of the show’s irritating consistency with REFUSING to give Millie any development that doesn’t involve Moxxie. Even season 2’s ending is with her being pregnant with his baby. Like come on…
(Don’t know if you say any of this I haven’t finished the video yet..)
Great comment, just want to give you a little nudge (if this matters to you). The idea of pregnant with "his" baby does imply that he does something to *her* and that the baby isn't hers, unless that was the point you were trying to make. I see people say that sort of thing very oftenly and it's a very way common way of referring to pregnancy, but still one that's rooted in sexism. (Not upset at you, not disagreeing with you, just giving another perspective in case to potentially strengthen your argument. I hope you have a good day today!)
My biggest gripe with Stella is that it’s fine for her to be a villain and stay a villain but that doesn’t mean she had to be shallow too. Deep villains that have sad moments can exist while still being evil
@lmaoconfettiI mean, societal blah aside it's essentially 'his' baby with how Millie is written as such a cardboard cutout of a character
@lmaoconfetti nice to see someone else calling that gross use of language out lol. it's not just meeee for once!!
@lmaoconfetti yeah problem is Millie is written to be an extension of Moxxie, so it is "his baby " you're a fool if you think the writers will treat this any different.
I really hated how they made many fans hate Octavia because they keep pushing the fans to like Stolas. Like, Octavia had all the rights to be upset with her dad but they keep showing how sad and despaired Stolas is due to Octavia shutting him away from her life. So fans just brush her off as an “ungrateful spoiled brat” which is so sad.
Stolas failed her as a parent but the show justifies his decisions and actions of neglecting Octavia.
I like Via, and I'm very proud that she cut ties with Stolas. However, I am starting to think that she might return to him after a while.
So SO much agreement on Stella. I am old enough to have been around when the worst of yaoi misogyny ran rampant and the way she is written is 100% THAT.
Facts
As much as I hate the camp episode. Moxxie was also being very misogynistic in that by embodying extremely sexist stereotypes, so it seems as if the writers may have been trying to use the sexism he faces as a sort of narrative karmic justice
Tbh, fair point, I can see how they might have been going for that. But if that was the goal, they kinda shot themselves in the foot by making all the teenage girl background characters pretty much the same stereotype as the one he's attempting to mimic. :'D
Would have worked a lot better if the girls were less shallow, even just a little bit, imo.
I'm pretty sure he doesn't act that way before or since then either, so it's just suddenly there for a string of bad jokes and that's it
It kinda bothers me how the episode adds to the misconception that "masculinity will always be rewarded" that a lot of trans people have to deal with constantly. Like sure, girls can be tomboys, but usually they are expected to grow out of it after a certain age, and to become feminine like all other women and girls, which is also something that heavily impacts how masculine women and transmasculine people are treated. Millie being portrayed as being treated as perfect at performing masculinity and being rewarded for it and getting popular for it makes it seem like all displays of masculinity are praised, when in reality any masculinity that doesnt fit into the narrow definitions that are seen as desirable are heavily mocked and ostracized, as we see with Moxxie being treated terribly and like he's not manly enough for showing a softer side of masculinity in other episodes.
@PixelHeroViish another thing they do is they damage a character just to prove a point in the plot or something.
Because they made Charlie act so dumb and all over the place for no reason. Yes she did have reasons too, but they genuinely could've just done a better job at writing her character. Same with Stella and Andre, like they purposefully want you to hate/dislike them for acting so obnoxious.
@T_E_G Yeah! They sacrifice character for jokes or specific things to say and it doesn't really work in most cases
Finally someone has said it out loud... Vivzie really hates her female characters, the forced pregnancy arc she gave Millie instead of actually developing her character was the last straw for me
"Oh, there's no misogyny in the narrative and fandom of the helluvaverse!"
Oh, my friend, I guarantee you, it have. Proof? Simple.
How Stella is treated by the narrative and fandom versus how Vox and Val are treated.
(Yes, I know they're characters from different shows, but both shows take place in the same universe, are written by the same person, and have practically the same fandom. So it doesn't change much.)
Why Vox and Valentino can gain a moment of empathy from the series and be treated cutely by the fandom (with people making cute headcanons of them and cute comics) but Stella can't?
What I'm trying to say is:
Why can Vox and Valentino be humanized and Stella cannot?
It's funny how this fandom loves to humanize Vox and Valentino by saying things like "even abusers are human too."
And well, they're not wrong about that.
But the irony is that when you try to do the same thing with Stella, you get attacked by them and you're not allowed to humanize her.
"Oh, you're trying to make her out to be a tragic abuser, but she's not, and she doesn't care about the arranged marriage."
Oh yes, but you can humanize abusers and human traffickers, right?
Its totally fine for Valentino and Vox stans to want to cosplay as them, act like them, and make cute head canons of them because "Abusers aren't one dimensional villains! You just lack media literacy."
But the MOMENT you even think of remotely humanizing Stella, its "Nuh Uh! You can't do that! You're glorifying an abuser! Stella can't be good! She has to be the worst person ever or else you're justifying what she did!"
Which is it? Can abusers be written as multi dimensional characters or do they have to be explicitly evil every waking moment they're on screen? Pick a side and stick with it at least, man.
I'm not one to accuse others of things, but the reason of this is 100% sexism: the helluvaverse shows have an awful habit of finding ways to minimize and demonize women for every little thing they do. stella was cheated on by stolas and wants vengance for the damage he's done? no nuance allowed, she's just a crazy and all of a sudden stupid woman who is an abuser so you CANT like her, but lets make a bunch of merch of her anyways
meanwhile valentino and vox get infinitely more screen time than her, more praise and excuses, validation, affection and support. idek how to explain what is going on here because the jokes just write themselves.
And remember, Stella is supposed to be one of, if not the main villain of the series, by the way.
writing an essay about something nobody said is crazy
REAL OMG
@toxic_shr00mFirst, there are many people who try to defend the Helluvaverse by saying there's no misogyny in the fandom or the narrative; just go to any Helluvaverse critique video and you'll see hundreds of people defending. It's incredibly easy to find.
So to say that nobody said that is to be ignorant, especially if we're talking about the helluvaverse fandom.
Secondly, I simply copied the message from a critical post I made myself on Tumblr, only making a few minor changes. So I didn't waste any time doing it.
This is SO TRUE actually, I didn't even think about that!
@rottikaThe treatment Vox and Val receive from the audience compared to Stella's treatment is definitive proof that yes, misogyny exists in this fandom.
I've seen people being attacked by hundreds of fans simply for making videos showing even the slightest bit of empathy for Stella. But videos that make Vox empathetic and portray him as a sad, uwu boy are praised and acclaimed.
Damn hypocrisy
There are so many cool female characters but they just don't get to shine like at all. Just in design at this point. I definitely feel like the shows are better at creating characters than writing them.
Agreed, at this point all I'm here for is the designs... I just wasn't feeling it after the stolitz stuff recently
20:11 I was NOT expecting to hear that uncensored lol
Its so funny because I like Moxie because of these reasons. He reminds me of James from pokemon especially in the early seasons of pokemon.
Same lol
Hit me like a sledgehammer
Same it caught me off guard TwT
neither was i. i emded up doing that laugh you do when you hear something shocking or unexpected lmfao
Stella’s personality reminds me of how boomers describe their wives. Overdramatic, abusive, ruin everything. They treat their wives like the villains, the same way Stella is created.
I agree with you that helluva boss analysis videos are unwatchable with the amount of random attacks on person and sexist bigotry. I wish there was an understanding that something being bad does not make it okay to be randomly cruel to the creator
OMG please analyze Hazbin. It was supposed to be a "woman-focused" story, but, like HB, every woman is shelved for the men. AND HAZBIN HAS A FEMALE LEAD.
That shit pissed me off
And said female lead is HORRIBLE!!! Like, Vagatha can literally do better than Charlie.
Hazbin literally doesn’t have a single female character in the main cast ever permanently affecting the plot and it drives me NUTS. all the things they do and plan fail or end up inconsequential, they learn things by coincidence, they’re constantly saved by male characters… the male characters get SO MUCH unjustified solo screen time to flesh them out.
the only time that happened to Vaggie iirc was the fight with Lute. Charlie is nearly never on screen without Alastor and/or Vaggie in the same scene.
Also Charlie and Vaggie's relationship is so poorly written. Vaggie just seems like a side character for Charlie
@atlas-scifipunk what? Female characters permanently effect the plot all the time. Female characters permanently effect the plot heaps, more so than male characters.
None of the characters have much solo screen time, and why would they, being alone just means theres less they can do
Even if the show wanted to make Stella a one note shallow villain, I cannot fathom why she was replaced by an equally one note shallow character like Andrealphus. He adds NOTHING that couldn’t have been accomplished narratively by Stella already. It kills any opportunity for Octavia to have her relationship with her mom explored. I’m left to infer Octavia and Stella’s relationship and why Octavia wants her parents to stay together instead of actually seeing it.
This might be based but Stella could’ve been a good villain for the topic of woman abusers if the writers put as much energy into her as they did with Valentino from HH, hell it’d even make more sense as to why Octavia doesn’t interact with her mother as she probably witnessed said abuse as a kid.
That makes so much sense!
Glad to see the discussion on the whole sexist treatment given toward the women of Helluva Boss as it’s refreshing to know your not crazy when noticing a pattern but in a more nuanced way.
58:01 I feel as though whoever wrote this script and decided to keep it in the final production needs to be called out because 😬
Who let the Rick and Morty writers onto the Spindlehorse team??? /J
@MurrayJones1 what happened in Rick and Morty??😭
@Inkkyyk1ttyythere is an unnatural amount of inc3st jokes in that show. Like an absurd amount 😭
@MurrayJones1 damn-
@Inkkyyk1ttyy tons of incest. The giant Morty&Summer incest baby in space was only the tip of the iceberg, from the top of my head I can remember the Ms. Smith and her clone selfcest episode, but after the "Jerry is being forced to fuck his own mother by a fortune cookie" episode I straight up dropped the show.
For a 'fun' test regarding helluva boss' misogyny, count how many of the flashbacks are focused primarily on female characters, the number may not surprise you
The Millie flashback in "Ghostfuckers" is a trick since it has Blitzo in it lol.
@JLCL01 Loona's in 'Seeing Stars' too.
@aubreyhart-b6t the fact that LOONA’s trauma gives Blitzo a panic attack still astounds me
The problem with the hellaverse is that vivziepop is treating it like a cute little yaoi fanfic of her ocs instead of an actual show with and active audience and fanbase
She treats her fanbase like high school teens who has reach puberty
2:56 the fact that you need a three minute disclaimer in this video about this not being toxic just shows how damn sensitive this fandom is
Yepo, exact reason why i don't like to interact with the fandom. They'll jump you for having a simple opinion
It's mostly kids and teenagers who watch this show
@MASTEROFEVIL thats terrifying because its 18+
Just like it's creator honestly
Ngl that’s most the internet these days. I’m not in this fandom and the disclaimers didn’t even phase me that’s just the state of ppl nowadays.
44:27 I have legit been saying since this episode came out that she better abort that thing 😭😭 I have put up with a lot with this show but forcing her to go through a pregnancy arc might genuinely be my breaking point
I feel like they are going to. And make a big stand about how abortion is good and right and justified and that anyone against it is a stupid ducking moron.
And I'm pro-choice but seeing how this show tackles things like divorce, cheating, and everything else, yeah, it seems like it would go down this route.
Bojack Horseman this ain't.
@ProfessionalOverthinker468 more like the creators choice but go on
@ProfessionalOverthinker468 I mean, yeah. Depending on the context. Tho is ultimately the creator's choice whether she keeps the baby or not. Pregnancy is used as a plot device, tho I rarely see it well used when it comes to develop a female character. The options are endless, yet I wouldn't be suprised if they waste it, despite of the choice is made. (The potential of character development is independent on wether she aborts or keeps the pregnancy. Unfortunately I bet my yet to buy PC nothing meaningful will come out of it and will just stay as a cliff hanger)
@HebiHouse lol that episode. Can't believe it's the same series that got be bawling.
@notagambler19I know! That show is so good!
I stopped watching years ago, I have friends who like it but there is just so many issues and its hard to watch. I stopped watching before the first episode of Hazbin came out, I appreciate you making this, I am not a woman so this affects me a lot less, however it is just gross, it does frustrate me a lot how many fans are unwilling to even acknowledge this stuff or are all against misogyny until its something they like or a trendy piece of media.
Honestly my final straw was I (a gay man) felt uncomfortable about how fetishy it felt around the queer man and when the sexual assault song leaked for Hazbin and I got really badly triggered.
I, as a gay man would also like to contribute to this statement; the show(s) make me uncomfortable, especially since man-on-man SA/coercion/-rape and whatnot is handled based on how the writers wanted it to be treated- sometimes it’s a joke, sometimes a serious trauma for a certain character (Angel Dust), or even totally brushed aside due to our social sentiment of male abuse (Blitz being abusive toward Moxxie, whetever you like it or not, those 🍇 threats if Moxxie were a woman wouldn't be brushed aside). I dislike it ESPECIALLY knowing that if the characters would be women, this wouldn't have happened- or would be labeled rightfully as SA/sexual violence and the writing team would be shamed for it publicly. So instead, we’re stuck in two shows where men being sexually assaulted is turned into a joke, a rapist gets a sob song about another rapist, and a women is getting to deal with more trauma than each of the aforementioned assaulters since the writers team cannot deal with the loss, or hurt of a twink
As a transman who likes men, I'm stuck in the same boat. There was quite alot of stuff I had problems with, but stuck it out because a ( thankfully) now ex friend loved both hazbin and helluva, it wasn't until hazbin came out , me getting pressured into watching it that I had finally had enough of this mess ( hell the stress of the aftermath from being badgered to , and agreeing to watching it made me loose my will to live due to remembering some trauma that was similar to the song mentioned). This mess was so bad, that seeing anything of these characters outside of critique content actually makes me upset ( it sounds childish, I know but holy crap). I apologize for rambling alot.
@zexionblackdrolf no need to apologize for rambling, thats rough and understandable. I know some survivors find that character comforting I just don't see it. especially with everything I've heard after the fact? (abuse jokes, mishandled characters, ect ect) its shocking how many people are willing to defend that scene specifically and his character specifically.
Another aspect of it, really, you don't get to see male victims of that, I remember I was already done with the Viz universe at this point, but I had some hope, because it is hard to find a character who went through that stuff who is male who resonates with me in those experiences. Representation is so incredibly important
I am glad that friend is a ex friend, I am sorry they put you in a incredibly triggering mental space, keep being strong, I know I dont know the details or anything (nor should I) and I am a internet stranger, but it can get better with time and healing, its scary but I am glad you're here.
@GroovySuperHellthank you, so much that means alot. I a currently have a therapist as I type this, and seems to be getting help some days are better then others, and you are very correct about rep of men who were victims of SA , and not alot of the depictions are well handed sadly, these two shows though take the cake in the fact it's treated as comedy. I hope everything gets better with you too.
a man making this about himself
Having recently watched Breaking Bad I just want to drop some appreciation for Jesse who probably says bitch way more than the compilation does and only twice is it to refer to women and one of them is directly shown as one of his lowest moments and he suffers for it. And it’s not thrown in a way like he’s saying insulting a man for being ‘like a woman’ either.
One more little detail in how Moxxie gets kinda lumped into a feminine role just to mock him is how much of a running gag it is for other characters to fat shame him (though he is objectively quite skinny) a running gag seen most commonly with female characters (the fatphobia in these shows is probably another whole video on its own)
It does feel like a lot of the misogyny aimed at Moxxie's feminine traits is meant to deflect from the misogyny aimed at the actual female characters. Like the girls look more girlboss and therefore feminist because look how pathetic this man is! When in reality the ways he is made to look pathetic are all rooted in misogyny.
YES thank you for pointing out the fatphobia in addition!! I feel a lot of people tend to forget that part unfortunately
The whole writing of the show is so strange to me, because while I understand that the main cast are meant to be bad people, so it makes sense for some characters to be openly bigoted; the narrative is very selective about which actions are to be considered 'bad'. My main problem with the misogynistic language and how frequently it's used is that it's treated as run-of-the-mill slang/insults instead of being portrayed as ignorant and harmful.
I'm not a skilled writer at the moment, but I think that a good example of having characters who frequently says sexist things without reinforcing misogynistic stereotypes would be the way that South Park (which is a show that I'm pretty sure is one of Medrano's inspirations) portrays Cartman when he's acting misogynistic. I haven't watched too many episodes since I'm personally not interested in it that much, but in the ones that I have seen, the stereotypes Cartman projects onto women are portrayed as ridiculous, and the joke is on him and how idiotic he sounds. Even Hazbin itself has a better portrayal of a character shamelessly perpetuating bigotry. When Vox demeans Valentino for speaking in Spanish and calls it an "island language", he is immediately called out for being dumb when Valentino says that he's from Florida. Now, characters don't always have to be explicitly called out by other characters, but I think the narrative should be semi-clear that the use of bigoted language is to be looked down upon, not the target of said language. Hell, even the homophobic behavior of that woman who wants I.M.P. to kill her ex-husband for cheating on her (I think it was the Sinsmas episode?) is rightly depicted as deplorable and icky.
Yes! I want more stories where they're not afraid of having problematic/shit behaviors but isn't afraid of calling out on it or showing the consequences.
It's why I'm really liking Digital Circus and how it's been handling Jax. Though I admit it's too early for me to praise it since, IDK, there can always be a 180 or something.
@JLCL01 That's another great example, they portray problematic actions without endorsing them. I also love how they're able to imply why he acts horribly without using said reasons to justify his behavior.
I think that would be seen as they’re all so clearly meant to not be good people that what they say IS casual slang and insults.
I have zero interest in this show but I feel like anyone watching is probably obviously not taking any of it seriously or actually thinking that’s how you speak to people lol
i wouldn't mind the b word being used if they were cleaver on how they use it like only using it for female hellhounds and calling the male hellhounds mutts it's just insults no cleaverness is put in them it's just insults for insults i think the point it's just Detroit really shines with the insults instead of calling Veronika a slut why not say 'you rabid bat' or something they aren't humans so why do they have human insults like just using human insults is soooo boring too
Cleaver?
@Fickle_Mistress1624op means clever
i think the issue still stands. btch is still a gendered swear whereas mutt is a. rarely seen as a swear irl, and b. not gender-specific. mutt could also be used for a woman and it wouldn't have the same weight
@thefezturtle i do get that my point is the swears are just so pointless and so overused
Renee Good was called a 'bitch' immediately after her murderer killed her.
I WISH that Stella and Octavia’s storyline was taken more seriously. It had SO MUCH POTENTIAL. Stella could have been an interesting character, who’s a villain but had good reason to be and be complex, and Octavia could have had a chance to truly shine and show how all of it is truly affecting her as a child of divorce. But I guess Stolas needs sympathy, so we’re going to make Stella a major villain who’s dumb and one dimensional, and make sure that Octavia is seen as in the wrong for not going back to her dad and only being there to develop him. I WISH they had taken these characters in a more interesting way that wasn’t there to support the male character.
thanks for the warning about the comp, I was called (screamed at) every misogynistic term under the sun by a previous abusive boyfriend and hearing those terms nowadays is just so uncomfortable
I'm sorry to hear you had to go through something as awful as that, I hope you're healing after leaving that douchemonkey in the dust. ❤︎
Hoping you are safe and doing better now. I wish you all the best for your healing journey !
❤
Something I find really funny, I was super misogynistic in how i wrote stories and participated in fandom spaces (female characters almost never made it into my top five or even ten favorites and i would push female characters aside in favor of yaoi) and becoming a hellaverse fan has actually fixed that. It feels like it should've done the opposite but idk maybe the writing is so misogynistic it reverse psychologied me into liking female characters more
Also, I wanted to add that I had no idea the B-word was considered a slur until now and I'm grateful it's been pointed out to me
yo im sorry, but I think all you did was become a lesbian.
Yippie :)
It chased the misogyny out of your soul lmaooooooo
REAL. I’m in a lot of Danmei spaces now which means the female character pickings are…often not great (IM LOOKING AT YOU MXTX WTF WAS JIANG YANLI???? WHY DID YOU TREAT QIU HAITANG LIKE THAT???) and somehow, someway, the hellaverse was so bad in a way that made me latch on to Stella and Octavia and hate all the guys 😭
well 2 negatives make a positive so...
They could've made Stella abusive BECAUSE of her situation. Stolas is just another man in this male-built system controlling her life, so of course she hates him and abuses him. It doesn't justify it no, but it'd give sooo much more depth to her. And maybe you could see her personality change with Octavia, where she either tries to give her daughter more than what she was allow to have as a girl, or because this system is all she knows, unfortunately continues it onto her. Like, give her more than being a psychotic wife in a gay romance plot.