The irony is that we have new generations obsessed with sexual identity while simultaneously have little or absolutely no practical experience of sex. Great deconstruction, very insightful.
@@ChrisSuperDude I highly doubt people aren't liking sex, its far more likely that less men are having access to sex since thats what the studies are really showing. Hypergamy, its strangling whats left of the crumbling hetero society. More sexual confusion, more sexuality laws, more consent laws, more lgbt training of the young to become one. No its not that people "like the idea of sex, not sex itself." Society would be having just as much sex, or definitely MORE since birth control has improved if it wasn't 'going through this psychotic sexuality experiment right now.
I don't have any problems with a writer deciding that they don't want their female protagonist to have any sexual/romantic inclinations. My issue is that modern writers tend to get so obsessed with making sure she never shows any romantic interest that they completely strip her of ALL emotional vulnerability and tenderness--no genuine friendships based on mutual trust, no familial relationships that give her a sense of comfort or identity, not even the hint of any desire on her part to have some kind of emotional connection to anyone. This isn't just stripping a character of her femininity, it's stripping her of her humanity. We evolved as social creatures living in packs. We're all hardwired to desire some form of community, even if it's just one or two good friends or close family. The reason most modern female protagonists feel so sterile and unnatural to me isn't just because they're not sexually/romantically involved with anyone--it's because they are intentionally isolated from all meaningful human contact that would require them to show any emotion beyond a sense of baseline approval of the other person.
As tired of an example as this is, take Elsa from the first Frozen movie. She has no romantic interest but is still a good feminine character with significant vulnerabilities. She is not emotionally distant (even though she tries to be, because of the plot), she truly loves her sister. Romantic love is not needed for her character but familial love is a huge part of it. With Elsa being such a popular, strong female character without a love interest you'd think other movies would take some inspiration but they went with the boring emotionless route.
I get it with what you are saying. A hero of any gender needs to have some sort of sense of love or companionship with others to help make that hero seem more as a living character and maybe more relatable as possible, when ever it is romantic, sexual, family related, friendship related, community related, or any number or those mentioned. If the heroes are completely devoid of any sort of love and support, if they are too cold and stotic, even by the story's end, then what is the point of the character?
The irony of this, especially with Galadriel is that Tolkien literally wrote a love interest for her: Celeborn. The love of her life and her soulmate. Actually, if you delve into the lore, her marriage to Celeborn was a little controversial: she was Noldor he was Sindar: two different clans who often didn't get on. He was also related to the Teleri: a tribe of Elves who lived by the sea and made ships, and were massacred by her Uncle Feanor in an event known as the First Kinslaying. This is a man who was married to his childhood sweetheart for 50 years, so he knew something about true love. Tolkien's work contains many epic and tragic romances, Arwen and Aragorn, Beren and Luthien, Idril and Tuor, Faramir and Eowyn: and those are just the ones which ended happily.
Right?? That's why this massacre of Galadriel's character makes me so mad; she already had a strong independent identity and amazing love interest. Amazon said "nah fuck that let's rewrite it OUR way"
@@HaleyWingate ....and they're going to disrespect Celeborn. They are "teasing" him for Season 2 but have made him a Silvan rather than a Sindar Prince. He's going to budget Legolas is my guess.
I can't wait for KK's Romeo and Juliet (they never fall in love because Juliet is busy fighting duels) or Othelllo (it's a rainbow hanky and Iago wants Othello for themself). I think I just thought of a franchise she'd have to work hard to screw up.
@therondayview7684 You joke about Othello, but I've seen a production where Iago was portrayed by a black man and it totally worked. The actor playing Othello had a foreign accent and the actor playing Iago had a British one. It wasn't distracting in the slightest because Iago also refers to Othello as a "moor" which implies he's foreign as well as black. The theory that Iago is supposed to be a closeted gay guy is actually rather old. Lawrence Olivier believed Iago is supposed to be gay and portrayed him with the lense of an angry, vengeful gay dude screwing over Othello because Othello got to have his forbidden love and be accepted. Iago never could.
Jrr usually wasn't interested in love or romance. Pretty much none of the main characters have wives or if they do it's functional poltical marriage. It's actually really odd this is the one part of society lotr skimps over. Like he gose into how the economy works but not marriage even though in pre modern times they were interlinked
As a woman learning martial arts, my female inspirations are types like the first Disney Mulan movie, where she first struggles during her training, but over time with perseverance, smarts and humility she is able to gradually build herself up and become a hero. My experiences are nowhere near those Mary Sues that are perfect in everything they do and don't even need any learning or training to be able to fight.
I admire that portrayal of Mulan as well. It's not just true for women, it's true for almost everyone. Natural talents are one in a million, regular people have to struggle and persevere in order to acquire a worthwhile skill. Notice also that the other male side-characters are also displayed as incompetent and bumbling, only to develop alongside Mulan.
Lack of training and work for fighting characters is a big pet peeve of mine, regardless of gender. There's no such things as talent and skills acquired in short times and on the fly, definitely not on something as hazardous and deadly as fighting. Hard-work and adaptation are essential keys to a fighter character (a type which I happen to love passionately).
It took Disney half a century to recover from the rampant sexism of Snow White (and all the cloned crap that followed--Sleeping Beauty is the same thing minus the glass coffin and dwarves), finally to make Mulan, but then to renounce humanity and start making cardboard perfect lone she-wolves. There are models like Mulan out there. Why is it so difficult to learn the lesson? Perhaps do a movie not all dominated by male OR female writers/directors and make the actual creators live a healthy compromise of values? Wouldn't hurt to have them read some good classic older literature, either. Plenty of models there.
@@pogo1140 Having her switch into even say, the robes we're very familiar with in the franchise could reflect becoming more knowledgeable and otherwise adapting to a more complex situation. Problem is, that would require a character arc.
Spider-Man had one of the best opening lines ever: ‘This, like any story worth telling, is all about a girl.’ It doesn’t matter if it’s a superhero film, or action movie, at the end of the day it takes human emotion and relationships to drive a story.
Nah, because Peter and MJ's relationship is easily the worst part of all three films. As a man you are meant to be more than a stuffer for somebody's vagina. Unfortunately, as Multiverse of Madness demonstrated, Sam Raimi apparently never figured that out, which is why all four films revolve around a loser's desire to get laid at the expense of literally everything else. You *should* have greater aspirations than whoever you might be fucking at the moment.
Yeah but that because it's a guy who is pining for a girl. Modern fem inist writers can never accept a female character pining for a guy in the same way.
@@MASTER_ORB Not the same women. These are cat lady feminists. They find characters like Edward and...discount Edward (but he's a billionaire now) as repugnant and deplorable. Not because they're bad characters, which they are, but because they're highly desireable examples of masculinity.
The ancient Greeks had like 10 different types of love. Not just sexual but romantic, platonic, familial, self-love etc. Part of what made lord of the rings so enduring was their exploration of some of these well beyond convention. So much of current Hollywood is absolutely set on being devoid of all of it because they only see love as a purely materially sexual thing
But that's been the case in Western culture for decades. Like I'm 90% certain that your father and grandfathers never said "I love you" to anyone who isn't a spouse parent child or sibling. They would never say it to a friend or army comrade. In many cultures its normal but not in ours. Platonic love just don't exist here.
I think Oswald Spengler has a more accurate prediction: if we embrace sterility, and identities bereft of anything unifying or transendent, then our civilization's time to wither has come, even if the process takes years, decades, or some centuries. Not to say we can't turn back, but that must be a choice. In short, there will still be men and women in a thousand years. The question is whether we or our civilization will be there to acknowledge it.
The irony of the ‘strong female character’ is that they are almost always made weaker by contrivance (particularly in adaptations). My go to example is always Yennefer of Vengerberg from the Witcher, where in the books and (brilliantly portrayed in) the games show her Cold sarcasm and biting wit not only mask her deepest desires and fears that are only really hinted at except in key contextual moments, but they help build a shell of understated healthy stoicism. Now looking at the Netflix adaptation of Yennefer, she has devolved into an emotional ball of teenage sulky rage where her innermost desire has become her entire character and she wears it on her sleeve. She’s now selfish, impulsive and highly emotional without the slightest hint of any form or stoicism at all. She will scream and cry her way through the story.. and it’s not just Yennefer. The character Tissaia Devrees, her mentor of sorts is known best in the book for her ‘a sorceress should be seen dead before seen shedding a single tear’ is reduced to a crying screaming blubbering mess. And this is all in the name of ‘showing their strength’. In the rings of power, Galadriel is also reduced to a bratty, aggressive, TOO stoic a figure where a sense of emotional intelligence is gone completely and been replaced with the character of a teenager. Like an uncanny valley of stoicism, she’s Hormonal almost, where the evidence of the teen brain being rewritten on a weekly basis makes the mind muddled, confused and highly susceptible to extreme emotional outbursts or sullen sulking. ‘Strong female characters’.
Idk if you've seen avatar the last air bender buuuut One episode they go see a play about themselves basically recapping the series. With Kara her character in the play is basically reduced to someone always moaning and wailing about literally anything that's happening.
@@TheScarletSlayer That was a fantastic episode. Its weird because it was basically a 100% filler episode, but it was one of my favorites in the whole series. (Come to think of it, my actual favorite episode was the collection of short stories in Ba Sing Se, which was also filler)
Excellent observations. I was also repulsed by Yennefer. I wanted SO bad to enjoy the Witcher. But the ridiculous characters that were merely wish fulfillment for weak minded, cowardly women writers was unwatchable.
I don't think a love interest is necessary, especially when it feels shoehorned and doesn't fit the main conflict or character. But it's a popular shortcut for adding a relatable human element to an action-packed story. If you don't have romance, if should be replaced with something else: friendship or family. The problem is that a lot of modern fiction leaves out this down-to-earth drama altogether. Imagine Lethal Weapon without the bromance between Riggs and Murtaugh or Aliens without Ripley's motherly role.
One of my favourite heroines is Rachel Weiss in the Mummy - she is funny and feminine and brave and smart and vulnerable. I also love a Brendan Fraser and their romance in general, I’d love to see more of that 😊
Oh snap Rick and Evie are pretty good. She's the brains to his brawn so they kind of balance each other. She saves him at the start so he's somewhat indebted to him and they both bring different things to the table despite some differences.
I still find it sad that modern screenwriters reject earlier role models. In the movie Aliens, Ripley showed courage and determination but also wanted to save a little girl and humanity. She wasn't afraid to be attracted to someone either. In SW, Leia was a princess, a senator and a general. She wasn't beating up giant guys with her fists. She was using her intelligence and taking serious risks to lead her forces. She also took risks to try to save Luke and Han; the people she cared about. That's far more relatable than the cold, aloof and alone female heroes we see on screen now. The reality is that contemporary writers have immature personal issues and that their characters embody their own fantasy of being powerful and venting their own angst upon the world.
The problem with characters such as Linda Hamilton post T1 and Ellen Ripley all along, is that they loose all sex appeal to men. Take these characters in their respective sequel movies. They are great characters and as a man, you would be very willing to fight alongside them. But not fuck them. Because they have successfully exited the womens realm to enter the mens realm.
@@Stephen64138 I agree. Feminine women attract masculine men and vice versa. Sarah Connor was a great character, a hero who had sacrificed everything. But she was a bad mother and wife. That's the point being a hero can come at a huge cost. She would be useless in a relationship (after decades in a mental institution and fighting a war) I was watching Max Manus (2008) - it's about a guy who fought in the Norweigen resistance in ww2. After the war he had PTSD, drink and drug problems. He did get married after ww2 but his life was not happy like a normal person would be. So all these "hero films" have very little to do with real heros. These films are political propaganda which push Gender Ideology Isn't it offensive in 2023 to use the term "woman" and "man" ? Let alone allow them to interact heterosexually ?
@@Stephen64138 Funny, I'd say that Corporal Hicks was totally hitting on Ripley. Pity they offed him for the third film, it could have been going somewhere.
See, the problem is never lacking a love interest. Is lacking any meaningful relationships. No character ever NEED a love interest to work, but every character NEED a meaningful relationship. That's why family value movies were so popular. The new heroines are nearly all punching bags for the plot, they do what the plot wants them to, they're never active. They have no need, no fear, thus making them boring and lifeless. Give Rey a love interest, Rey will only become a badly written character with a love interest. She won't automatically become a good character. Hollywood is not against femininity or sexuality, they're against humanity.
I agree. That's why Elsa worked so well in Frozen, it was her connection with her sister that made it work. I like the change, not everything has to be about romance and sex, but we need the motivations, to know why the characters are fighting for what they are, and to have some stakes there. If a character is perfect and just doing what they're doing without a good motivation, it's hard to be on their side.
As a writer, I'm all for a GOOD romance, but at the same time I know it isn't a necessity, and I found a lot of relationships type criminally underrated in fictions. Give me friendships, siblings relationships, mentor-student stories, interactions with parents who aren't dead or oblivious to things happening, meaningful and sane rivalries... True, any character needs link. Lack of it is a sad thing that an arc must treat, certainly not an ideal to feel fine with.
That ending line is actually one of many reasons why Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has become one of my all-time favorites, because it does it romance and family relationships SO WELL
For me, the relationship between Arwen and Aragorn in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy is one of the best romances ever put to film. How I long to see that kind of authentic love again on the big screen.
The problem with showing Rose in The Last Jedi is that she did in fact have romantic feelings for another character. The execution was completely botched in every way but she did have a "romantic interest"
I always thought they way they should’ve given Rose a redemption in the next movie. Her ‘hero moment’ at the end of the last jedi was incredibly selfish. She saved Finn for herself. At the potential expense of everybody else. She couldn’t have known that Rey was there and would open a back door for the others. His sacrifice could have bought them more time. Her stopping him could have led to everyone else getting captured or dying. But it was human. They could’ve written it as a moment of weakness. It could’ve made her character compelling and relatable. But they wrote it as a ‘hero moment’. So it turned her into a hypocrite. (Remember she stunned and arrested Finn for what she thought was him selfishly trying to leave the ship. And then she taught him about helping others… or saving animals… or something. What was their side quest about? God, that movie was garbage!) And then they pushed her aside and she was never used again.
It was so badly botched that, when I first saw it, I thought it was supposed to be a satire of parasocial celebrity crushes. I didn't realize until months after I saw it that it was meant to be dead serious. lol
@@lennythealien8051 Love at the expense of the greater good can work (like the end of The Last of Us) but I agree it's hard to get into forgiving that from a badly written Star Wars movie.
I swear everything about Rose was an afterthought and never actually brought into the rest of the creative crew because it was dropped by the next film like she was never existed. Granted, TLJ and RoS have two different director but it was clear JJ made it a priority to tear down and ignore what Rian Johnson did in order to tell his own story which is not that good. Consistency be damned. The actress herself is also quite attractive but for some reason they made her look like a side character from Big Bang Theory.
What's crazy with ROP is that it not only lacked romantic love, it lacked love period. No family love, no friendship, they tell you that there is some but it's almost never shown. The reason it feels like Elrond and Durin are sometimes about to smash is because they're the only two characters showing any resemblance of consideration for one another, which is also why it was the most appreciated part by lotr fans. Hell even Adar showed more humanity by defending the orcs than Galadriel did by going on her journey of vendetta. The og trilogy is FILLED with love in many different forms, so weird that they did not pick up on that
@@LembeckIsStaying - like that homosexual guy that made a homosexual romantic comedy for then to be angry because normal people didn't see the movie, how they are thinking in Hollywood are difficult to understand, women do not pay money to see men fall in love with other men, normal men do not pay money to see romances, and I, as heterosexual do not pay money to see men have sex with each other, who in Hollywood do not understand such things?
Hollywood: Women are strong and doesn't need nothing from nobody! Also Hollywood: Women are exactly like unrealistically overpowered asexual teenage boys.
Feminists hate men but want the fruits of their labor. They hurl constant abuse and find ever more malicious ways to pathologize men, but still demand, like slave drivers, that men protect and provide for women.
To sum it up: a generation of talentless, frigid femcels has taken over the entertainment industry and is flooding us with badly written, self-insert characters that have: - no flaws - no character arcs - no sensuality
It's ironic that the people making these chaste characters ALSO take any hint of friendship between same-sex people as signs of romantic interest (Harley Quinn & Ivy, any shipping like Finn and Poe's) and when allowed to make non-heterosexual relationships will make it entirely about sex (Bros).
@@MarsheIIo 10ish years ago is when all this stuff began. They were just friends and partners in crime until the Connor/Palmiati run confirmed them as romantic. The Force Awakens was 2015, so that would also be "a long time" by your standard.
@@robinthrush9672 yeah id say a decade is a pretty long time considering harley's debut was only 30ish years ago, and even in the 90s dini and timm liked to hint/tease romantic involvement between the two.
As a woman I don't feel close to any of those women portrayed as supposedly "strong" in all of those very commercial movies, they're just bland and without the most important......a soul. I miss the powerful yet vulnerable Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman and Lucy Lawless's Xena of my childhood 💚
@@HannaSophie-kz7dl I'm talking about the person who made the video who's complaining about how offensive it is that female characters aren't sexualized
I was thinking the other day how Starlight in the Amazon adaptation of The Boys is much more of a badass than any Marvel character, because she has a normal life with romance, family pressure, insecurities, etc., and becomes stronger from all those experiences and from being, well, human and having needs.
being a preteen/teenager is hard enough. you're working through puberty, crushes, heartbreaks, awkward relationships, sexuality, and a whole lot of confusion about all of these things. now imagine throwing a billion "genders" into the equation and everyone obsessing over the 100-step checklist to consent for every frivolous encounter that you are actively being encouraged to have by modern pop culture, and I imagine it gets a lot worse.
A mary sue is in essence, good (and perfect) at anything. So we could genuinly ask ourselves why in the hell would she need a man for? Or even children. After all, she's better than all of them. It's (almost*) like if the goal was to attack the family itself. Hmm.
Mary Sues never have a man bc what man could she possibly be sexually aroused by? She's already smarter, stronger and more capable than any man she could meet. What protection or resources could any man offer her? Women essentially trade sex for these things in human society which is why the wealthiest men have the best looking, most sexually available women. A woman cannot be sexually attracted to a man who is less than herself. Its literally impossible. Mary Sues never have a man bc even the writers can't imagine a man that this character would want.
That's why Japanese manga outsells american comics in america. Even women in Japan can write great stories aimed at MEN. Shocking. When I find out that few my favorite stories is actually were written by women, I was like "no fking way". My small sexist bubble bursted. Western male and female authors have no chance competing with that.
@@Demial_Sparda Japanese Manga gives readers what they want (even if at times its just horny anime girls with huge portions), because why else would you the creator of it would spend 10 hour's a day drawing scenes painstakingly vs American comics which have now been appropriated to be vehicles for public and scocial messaging with a increasingly decaying effort in character design and action in the name of reaching monthly issues deadlines of a contracted pre existing property.
As a woman, it took me until I was in my late 20s to realize I did not want to be the strong, independent/career woman 😂, that I had been programmed to be that way. It felt much more natural to be a soft little housewife than when i was trying to fit into the corporate world. I would cry over issues at work then cry that I had my baby in daycare. Then my husband and I decided that I should stay home. Not knocking the women who are out there kicking butt, but all women don't have to feel like they need to be super tough
The funny thing is that the super toughness you're talking about would be considered "toxic masculinity" if a man was doing it. I'm glad you figured out what works best for you though. Speaking as a straight guy the kind of stereotypically badass women shown in movies don't really appeal to me either romantically or platonically. I have enough friends who already act like men because they're men. Something a little different is nice.
It's lucky you discovered that before your late 30s with declining fertility, something which is happening more and more. I have a female friend who only ever wanted to be a mother and felt judged for that. Replacing one constructive stereotype with another is just change, not progress.
The most fun I had with a movie in recent months was No Hard Feelings in which Jennifer Lawrence's character is beyond flawed, has a sensical arc and is allowed to dress in a sexy manner. Perish the thought. The character grows, addresses shortcomings and is allowed to look good while doing it
One of my favorite scenes in Aliens was when Hicks showed Ripley how to operate a rifle. It established the attraction between the two characters and that a man can actually teach a woman something she didn’t previously know. This scene could never happen today.
One of the real issues Hollywood has is that men can no longer be seen with any kind of agency when it comes to women. They simply can't offer anything apart from a kind of bland sidekick relationship. They can't teach the woman anything and they certainly can't be seen to be rescuing them. That's why we get the kind of stuff that you see in the Mario Bros Movie where Peach is shown as being hyper competent and Luigi is pushed into the role of damsel in distress. Even when Peach is captured it's carefully depicted as a selfless sacrifice to save Toad and the movie also takes pains to make sure she rescues herself. To bring back the point of the video there is also a complete absence of any hint of a relationship between Peach and Mario.
@@LoneWolf-rc4go it makes me laugh because I know women in real life, half of them are scared of rats. They can't change a tire and if they could they wouldn't want to. This is the same sex that cries when breaking a nail. but we're suppose to believe they are these flawless avatars of power.
Trust me, if Aliens was released today it would be panned for being “woke” for having the main character a woman. There just wasn’t internet back then for the movies to be spoiled.
@@MagcargoMan there's a middle ground, y'know? Have characters that have something, ANYTHING they value that can compromise them without throwing it in at the eleventh hour
Yeah no,I fucking 8 sex and romantic relationships, especially between a man and a woman, but that just me,otherwise I think these robotic female character are dumb
Whatever my opinion is worth... It does bother me how much sex, romance and marriage has been harped on in popular culture at the cost of friendship or other types of platonic relationships. Speaking only for myself I am complicated in ways that make it extremely unlikely that I can have a stable and happy long-term relationship. I get that people are busy when they settle down, have a serious relationship, get married and have kids, it's just unfortunate that friends are forgotten about or abandoned until something happens and you need someone else to talk to. But it's also simply a reflection of how overwhelmed, overworked we all are and increasing financial uncertainty. It does worry me that we have groups of BOTH men and women who have little to no interest in forming relationships. This must be shocking to some people, but your capacity to be an ethical person is not determined by your sex, gender, race. I think it's perfectly fine to have characters that don't have a love interest, etc, but this doesn't resonate with everyone. I don't consider myself a very "feminine" but I know enough to know there are girls and women who like being feminine. And being "feminine" doesn't mean that a girl or woman can't also be strong, intelligent, competent, etc. I guess it's nice to have female characters in leading roles who are not defined by their romantic / sexual value, but at the same time its not satisfying if the concept, writing and execution is horrible. The point of diversity is you need a range of different opinions and experiences. Why can't we have women characters who embrace femininity to different degrees? Just a thought.
Trouble is, you (and me) represent the end of a society. When mass culture does not support and reinforce heterosexual relations for child bearing and rearing as well as mutual aid, it ends.
So it does bother you ,that men like me dont give a F about sex and relationships (romantic ones) I just need friends, not a fucking parasite that I had to feed and take care while ruining my mental health everyday, I smoke the arguments of "MeN aNd WomEn NeEd EaCh oTheRs" maybe for basics relationships but ,romantically ? What a fucking joke, NO.
The issue right now is that women are either entirely sexless to the point that sexuality is seen as a bad thing, something for the patriarchy, and so let's push away, or as overly obsessed with boys, your Bella Swans and others like her. There are no feminine ace people, no non-feminine women interested in romance, nothing in between. It's now all one extreme or the other, and most are now sexless entirely because vulnerability is seen as bad. We've reached a point where girls are now no longer supposed to cry lest they be seen as weak. That was was dangerous to tell boys, and it's dangerous to tell girls.
As a female viewer who loves romance and has also noticed it's steadily dwindling in popular culture, I appreciate you pointing this out. I remember reading an interview with one of the Kasdans, and he deacribed how in the sequels, they were trying to be more "cautious" about the romance as opposed to how much more open about it the Solo film was, and I was like "Why?" Why would Star Wars ever had to be cautious about that of all things? It's in the story's blood! Han and Leia, Anakin and Padme.. Heck, even Lucas himself said once that the girl getting the boy was just as important to him in Return of the Jedi as Luke's personal struggle. But this notion of "caution" when it comes to Rey, a character I actually connected with as the sequels were releasing, is evident. Even though I understand the criticisms against her, in The Force Awakens, it is made clear that she isn't a stone cold monolith, but a woman who deeply desires belonging and family, so much so that it keeps her pining for her dead one on a desert planet for thirteen years. And when she does finally leave it, she projects that vunerability onto all the older characters, as Kylo points out in The Last Jedi. Something weird and blantantly contradictory happens with her writing in that respect by the time we get to The Rise of Skywalker, though. Rey's journey to move on from her dead family into finding a new one in the wider galaxy culminates in her... ending the film declaring herself a member of another dead family. She stands alone with her small droid companion staring off into the desert sunset, a place she was supposed to move away from since the beginning. Leia is dead. Luke is dead. Ben, the one love interest she was allowed to have for fifteen seconds, literally evaporated which is odd considering their relationship was supposed to showcase the idea that this was the one man in the galaxy who understood her vunerabilities and her connection to the force and was her equal due to their unique connection as a dyad--an alchemical union. To me, it seemed like there were two sides lf the writing fighting over Rey's story throughout the sequels. One side tried to establish a delusional and emotionally vunerable young woman who had a legitimate human desire for connection and other people, while the other wanted a lone badass, the perfect female automoton who would carry on the legacy of the Jedi and Skywalker family all by herself. Not needing the aid or companionship of anyone. I mean, just imagine how different of an ending it would have been had Ben, who was a product of the older Jedi and Skywalker legacies, helped Rey as an equal to establish a new order together. An actual dyadic union, masters of two worlds, carrying on the story instead of one usurpping the other ala Princess Mononoke. But to have her being a part of a "dyad", something requiring the union and interdependence of two beings towards a singular relationship instead of full individual autonomy, is too much for the writers to bear for too long. That just wouldn't do for our independent girl boss. Instead, they opt for the male character in this union to serve this simplistic purpose and nothing more: to give his life entirely to the new, and infinitiely better female Skywalker and fade away without mention afterwards. To literally fade away into nothingness before her. It's as telling as it is sad for the wasted potential of both characters, and the kind of story we could have gotten instead.
This is exactly it, this is another comment that makes a far better story out of the mess of the 'sequels' than the hack Disney writers, who were clearly at cross-purposes the entre time. Also, yay Fraggle Rock :D
Kylo Ren was such a wasted character, Adam Driver absolutely carried the sequels no matter how much they let him down and I hope that Disney one day comes to regret how they treated his character and find a way out of the hole they dug for him
I think there would have been people who objected to the Kylo/Rey pairing and I kind of see where they're coming from. Kylo Ren is not a good person and doesn't do much during the films to redeem himself. Him ending up with Rey doesn't seem terribly realistic to me given his behavior in general. More specifically he kidnapped and mind raped her in The Force Awakens which doesn't seem very romantic to me. If he had realized the error of his ways towards the end of the previous film and spent the last one trying to correct and atone for his misdeeds I wouldn't have a problem with him and Rey riding off into the sunset together. Giving him that ending without doing the work just pushes a narrative I hate and think is harmful: bad men only need a woman's love to make them better.
@@BiggieTrismegistus It's fiction though and a lot of women love this trope, they love the idea of trying to change villains and I think the way he was offed and the lack of commitment to redeeming him turned off a lot of women from the franchise by insulting them for what they watched the sequels for, Star Wars is literally about redemption and hope
In an attempt to steer people away from viewing these characters in a perceived dehumanizing way, they've ironically dehumanized their characters by stripping them down to stoic power props.
The sheer power the executives wield to in a sense rewire the human species must be intoxicating. We can assume excessive levels of narcissism to be found in these individuals can only be rivaled by their hubris.
The upside, if you could call it that, is the rewiring isn't working, unless the goal is to make a generation of mentally ill people who will eternally and futilely try to fit a square peg (reprogramming) into a round hole (human nature). Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.
@@begzadaculafic5497 The rewiring of human nature never works, but the communists always keep trying. Unfortunately sometimes millions die while they keep trying the same stuff that doesn't work over and over, and never admitting that they were wrong in the first place.
Then quit giving them YOUR attention. You give them power. Men are just mad because they’re deformed women. Y chromosomes are shriveled up, diseased, deformed X chromosomes. Women are an image or what you’re supposed to be but can’t. That’s why you obsess over them, while they discard you all like used napkins
Thank you for articulating this so incredibly well! I came here because of the link being shared in a Star Wars fan group, but I’ll follow so I can hear well stated observations or arguments even if I don’t agree with them
This is so true. You got all these modern movies with strong female leads but, they aren't appealing at all. As soon as I see a movie that spouts a: "Strong female lead." I roll my eyes in disgust. They are also always saying that this is the first time a woman gets to be in power and will be a breathe of fresh air. Are they forgetting the movies and tv shows of the past? Such as. Kill Bill Underworld Resident Evil Cat Woman Buffy The Vampire Slayer Just to name a few. Not to mention, strong female side characters in films and shows from this era as well. I don't get why they are constantly trying to say this is new and has not been done before when this is so not true. And not to mention, they're honestly doing it worse nowadays too. It's baffling to me.
The idea that modern female characters can't have relationships because it compromises them is interesting. I know quite a few friends who are aspiring writers who write these kinds of characters because they want more depictions that allow them to feel normal in not having or wanting a family or kids, but the observation that these characters are never vulnerable with anyone is telling.
They are trying to reinforce their modern day strong independent female social engineering while their natural instincts resist that and urge them to make a loving family. The longer they suppress their natural instincts the harder it's going to hit them when they hit the wall.
George R.R Martin is an incredible example as his work gives us all kinds of men and women that are unique and never invincible. Nor do the women need to put the men down to look good. Victory is always earned. They fail, they break but they also learn and grow.
Who are all these women that don't want families? Seems like if you ever get into this discussion with people they deeply want families. They may have given up on it, but that's different than not wanting them.
Sailor Moon is an example of a femenine and strong super heroe. Her character uses the femenine atributes as strenght, giving a message that soft qualities such as compasion and forgiveness and sacrifice are as strong as power. AND IS AN ANIME/MANGA FROM THE 90S.
Thought Sailor Moon was kinda retrograde with respect to making the the title character care almost only about boys and shopping when I watched all but one episode that aired in the US in the mid90s. Pathetic, virtually dead stereotypes of a previous generation. At least they had the other sailor scouts with other interests to balance the title character's slap stickishness. But it was a childten's show. It was bound to have cookie cutter stereotype characters
@@wankertanker1813 That's only the original anime, the manga was far deeper. And in regards to the anime, even that was butchered by horrible censorship policies and editing in the west.
This video verbalized what I've felt and observed for years. There are no curves (unless you're Lizzo), there's no more "male gaze," there's no romance or sexual attraction. Elona Holmes, which was terrible, didn't even have her kissing a guy she clearly liked. So weird.
To write a good love story, you first must have experienced love first hand. If modern writers had been shown affection they wouldn't need to project themselves into women who are 'independent' from men
Considering how empowering modern feminism considers promiscuity under the guys of "sexual liberation" it really is ironic how these characters show no sexuality cause the writers consider it "degrading".
Or, they do it like she hulk, which does come across as embarrassing and degrading almost for laughs, not in the act, but in her ignorance why her hookups do not lead to anything fulfilling.
@@brandt6735 i was thinking she hulk when i was writing my comment maybe it's because they wanted to create a #relatable "comedy" for the riders so they didn't try to make her fall in line with what their idea of a badass actually is.
@@brandt6735 i don't think twerking is that degrading in comparison to other things, i can be done funny just to screw around but u do think in many cases when both men and women do it, it can be cringe.
This was a good analysis, I especially liked how you talked about the wear her down method, most people can't appreciate how that was the building block of early writing. Plus there is a thing called playing hard to get.
Human relationships are complicated, and they change over time. There are people I hated at first, who became my best friends or more. I never felt 'worn down'.
@heinoustentacles5719 are you talking about the customs or the relationships themselves? Really? That's weird. For me, it's usually the opposite, or just me continuing to hate a person because they're a horrible person.
When Hollywood promotes no differences between men and women, the result is the bland, desexualized, Mary sue we’ve been tormented with the last five years. Excellent video.
"When Hollywood promotes no differences between men and women" But haven't you heard? There *are* no differences between men and women. All those supposed differences are social constructs. (Unless, of course, you're trans.)
It's more basic than a lack of romantic interest. Even Jin Orso made some emotional connection with Andor and others in Rogue One in the form of shared purpose and camaraderie. Today's girl bosses fail to make any kind of emotional connection with anyone in the story, as if they are aloof and untouchable.
I cal Jynn and Andor "the romance that never was", they never had the time, but clearly, something was developing between them. And that ending when they hold each other as the Deathstar strike is coming... that totally got me.
@@whitewolf3051 They like it because they were fooled by the OT setting of it. It is a bland, boring and forgettable Star Wars movie with utterly forgettable characters.
I don’t think there’s ever been a time where women have been portrayed as poorly as today. These kinds of female characters are the depiction of the kind of women who are severely emotionally stunted and lonely. The kind of people who have a clear shell and you feel sorry for them because it’s unlikely that they’ll find peace in their lifetime.
@@heavytransit its actually very true and it says a lot that not having some romantic male interest you can project yourself into so you can pretend you get some pisses you off that much
@@nathanielclaw2841 No it’s not and the fact that you believe that portraying a woman engaging in normal relationships is somehow giving in to male urges proves my point.
This is why I enjoy female characters like Black Widow and Wonder Women. Yes, they are strong females. But they are NOT emotionless! They have a heart for a man and will go through great lengths to rescue them. Much like if the roles were reversed where the man rescues the kidnapped woman. I think that’s a good message to put out for women who have boyfriends or husbands. If a man has your back, you should also have his in return.
Sigourney Weaver's Ripley and Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor were protecting their child with feminine ferocity against forces way bigger than their feminine nature in the biggest female action hero roles of all time. In other cinema female leads like Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock, Trinity in the Matrix, Nargis Dutt in the classic Mother India and recently Katniss in Hunger Games kicked ass, protected their families and communities in rough conditions however maintaining their femininity which upped the stakes in plot and made the characters very relatable. However lately female leads are potrayed to be emotionless(a very feminie trait), more masculine and not feminie at all(Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Yeoh kicked ass while wearing lipstick) and very crude like an Arnie/Stallone character. No that wasn't Galadriel in Rings of Power. LOTR Galadriel was like a motherly goddess. That character in ROP was Van Damme with a wig!!!
Sarah Connor in T2 is a deconstruction of 'strong independent female' character before it become a trend. Sarah is tough as nail and very resourceful, but in order to become who she is, Sarah ended up unwittingly pushing her son away and found herself in a lonely world that no one could understand her pain. Her 'strong' attitude put her at odds with John who just wanted to have a mother, and instead of raising a son, her raised him to be a soldier. Not to mention that Sarah is also a husk for her former self who now is full of paranoid, hatred, and trauma that will never be fully healed. That's the price to become an action 'hero'. She even admitted that a literal killing machine is a better parent and companion to John than she ever was.
There are plenty of romance plot lines in the superhero genre: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, Star Lord and Gamora, Scarlet Witch and Vision, all three Spider-Men and their versions of Mary Jane, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, and the ones you mention. Every single story doesn't have to include a Cinderella plot line. I remember when conservatives used to complain that there was too much sexuality in media. Now, when they finally get their wish, they complain that there isn't enough. Also, why no complaint about sexless (or sexual-but-loveless) male protagonists? John Wick's wife gets fridged right away, so he spends the entirety of his saga in grief, with no hint of romantic anything as he piles up the body counts. James Bond gets lots of women, but they're just sex toys to him, except for a wife in the very first movie who (you guessed it) gets fridged right away. So, no chance of "domesticity" or being "compromised" for him. But that's cool, because he's a dude. No complaints about all the male superheroes who aren't getting married and raising kids. Or how about all those classic Westerns where the gunslinger gets the schoolmarm to fall in love with him, but rides off alone into the sunset without so much as a look back? We could also point to the double-standard around sexuality: if a male protagonist is hyper-sexual, with lots of women that he goes through like water without actually caring about them, he's a gigachad. If a female protagonist did that, she'd be a disgusting slut. Which is why they never do. Aside: Why did this video show Rose Tico as one of the sexless women it's complaining about? She was hated precisely _because_ she had a romantic attachment to Finn, which is why JJ Abrams made that whole thing just go away. Second Aside: I haven't seen _The Rings of Power,_ but I'm going to guess I'd be in agreement with you in rolling eyes at them turning Galadriel into Xena the Warrior Princess (GALADRIEEEEEEEL! 🤣). It's just not "her," IMO. It would have been more fitting IMO to have her use magic in combat, if she has to enter combat, or have her achieve her aims by other means. However, I'm not bothered with her not having a romance. In the original LOTR movies, she's portrayed as more of a lofty, quasi-celestial being like Gandalf. Where's _his_ love interest?
A. There's a difference between creating a compelling character who happen to be female with this: creating a strong female character, as your starting point, while undermining what makes the person compelling. B. With a much younger relative, I've shared this several times due to the interest in writing: don't fixate on surface level identity; dig deep to flesh out what human psychology will connect with long-term. C. For instance, Black Panther is one of my favorite characters, but it's not because he's Black. Instead, I am drawn to his character due to the many elements around and within him. D. In Hollywood, they're uninterested in writing compelling characters, who happen to be female; they simply want to write "strong female characters." The former works, but the latter is unlikely to connect psychologically.
Oh my goodness. You have just made me realize: that star motif on Captain Marvel's outfit is very very similar to the star motif on a certain woman's armour in Rings of Power.
@@offworlder1 They tried to link it to the lore, saying it was the Star of Finarfin, but it doesn't look anything like the Star of Finarfin. If anything, it looks like the Star Motif of the House of Feanor, which Galadriel would never have worn because she hated Feanor. Or possibly the Star of Earendil, which makes no sense as Earendil was Elrond's father but only a distant relative.
It does look like the star of ishtar, suggesting the strong warrior woman trope but it ironically also stands for (female) love, sexuality and even maternal qualities. But like with all these symbols used in hollywood, l'm sure there is also another, much more ominous, occult meaning to it my shizo brain hasn't quite figured out yet.
One of the first things Disney made after buying Star Wars was Rebels. And I noticed very quickly how they wanted to dial back on the sexuality of the women. But I overlooked it, mostly because it seemed marketed more for kids. Until we got our look at the adult version of Ahsoka, and how they essentially covered her chest with a giant serving tray. I then realized, we would never have a Slave Leia in Disney Star Wars. Even in the series Andor, which is a much more adult story, he goes to a brothel in the first episode.... but you never actually see anyone working there.
Ahsoka sucked and had unbelievable and unrelatable characters. Sabine chose to remain on Lothal during the galactic civil war instead of go home to Mandalore to be with her family. This is given in the Rebel's epilogue. She's on Lothal for TEN YEARS guarding the planet that isn't hers and living in Ezra's home. The only time she leaves in the middle of that is to train with Ahoska AND while doing that they flew around attempting to find Ezra. She thinks Ezra is her only family even though she has Hera, Zeb, Jacen, and Chopper that are her found family. She disrespects the KIA/MIA for Kanan and Ezra, she disrespects Ezra's sacrifice, the galaxy, Ahsoka, and Ezra by stealing the map and taking it to an unsecure location (after being warned not to), and she disrespects Ahsoka so much that the actress playing Sabine said she felt sick doing it. Can't have the female being vulnerable and instead have to have her being a disrespectful bitch. Sabine throws the GALAXY and her found family under the bus almost getting Hera, Chopper, and Jacen killed to see one guy she knew for only a few years ten years ago. She thought Ahsoka was dead as that point and had no way to get Ezra home. She does all this and when she sees him she reveals NOTHING of the tactical situation or any feelings at all. I've seen casual coworkers with more of an emotional reunion. No remorse, no telling Ezra essential stuff he needs to know, and especially no romantic feelings. Can't have a woman getting vulnerable at all. Ezra may have known a tunnel into the Night Mother catacombs below the fortress or some sneaky way to move closer to the fortress or some place to hide. By keeping Ezra in the dark on EVERYTHING of importance Sabine put Ezra and the Noti people's lives at risk. She shows she doesn't care about him at all. It's better to have this I guess that a woman showing any vulnerability to a man. So now we've got a woman risking the fate of a galaxy and helping start a war that will kill billions for a guy she doesn't give a shit about. She also suffers no consequences from anyone or anything for her selfishness because we can't have a woman suffering consequences either. Her character is now ranked down by Holdo in polls I saw.
Even male superheroes don't really get fleshed on romances these days. It's like they're trying to take the sexiness out of everything, which is ironic because western society is more open about sex than ever before. When it comes to Superman (Cavill's version), Aquaman, Spiderman (Holland's version), the last 2 Thor movies, most of the other recent MCU movies, romantic relationships are sidelined or forgotten about all together. None of the romances seem to have any chemistry, they lack depth, they're not fleshed out. Romance doesn't have to be the focus of such movies, but it's odd that they seem to be trying to remove it. When you compare it to e.g. the first Iron-man film, the difference is clear.
Exactly this. It's the downplaying of romance in comic book adaptations in general that is an issue. Daredevil is the best show, but Matt and Karen Page never happens. But don't forget love interests were a tool to bring female demos to the theaters back in the day. If a guy wanted to watch some guy stuff, at least there'd be a romance for the ladies. Now that the ladies are about that guy stuff, romances aren't necessary.
@ MagcargoMan So? Should everyone be relegated to watching things of the past instead of enjoying new stories that are genuinely inclusive (ie. men and women with strength, character depth, and agency) ? People have every right to crave new stories that are actually good and not degrading one gender while over simplifying the other.
Wow. That Peter Pan analogy is so on point because there is something also essentially infantilising and stunted about it. I’m gonna remember that one…
The only thing I would add was the scene from the Incredibles in which Helen finds herself having to be both a superhero and a super-mom. The part when she was telling Violet to believe in herself was pure gold.
You'd think that with Galadriel's extensive experience in fighting Orcs for centuries and her uncanny strength, she would be able to prepare the (hopefully already skilled) Numenorian ELITE soldiers for what they are up against. She instead chooses to show off, with twirly elvish moves. It doesn't help anyone, since Orcs won't be fighting like chinese stage actors, nor will the Numenorians have the ability to match her grace. Even if we're sticking with her abrasive warrior characterization, do something that makes sense. She can quickly riposte and disarm a couple Numenorians to gain their respect... but then she can go into a lesson of what to prepare for. Have her hold back her agility and nimbleness in place for brutish strength and obvious defensive gaps. TRAIN the men, don't humiliate them.
Exactly! I was hoping to see throught the fight sharo comenting about defense gaps, bad rythm and brute force, along side a miss use of the weapons they were holding. Besides. Why are they training in a bay? They could be rather training in a specisl room, and instead of going everyone at her, they could have been going ine by one. After all, it is a training sesión.
ROP is full of pointless, idiotic stuff like that. Early in the show they wanted to show Arondir was a ‘smart’ guy. So what do they do? That old Hollywood trick of having him pass some chess players (in the village), and calling out checkmate moves. Idiotic, lazy, Fast and Furious movie level writing, that incidental makes Arondir look like a pompous twat. I mean… could you even imagine a scene from LotR where Aragorn did that?!?
@@TommyGlint tbf, I can kinda, _but_ Gimli mocks him for being a-smart-guy like Legolas, and then some friendly banter ensues. Y'know, homies being homies
What's worse, in the canon, Galadriel was spending a lot of the time during the Second Age not hunting down Sauron but setting up the citadel of Lothlorien with her husband (who was the one who gave her the name Galadriel; her original name was Nerwen but she liked his nickname for her best) and bringing up her kids (one of whom was Arwen's mother). Poor old Celeborn is conspicuous by his absence in that parody of a series.
Disney has botched up many of their female heroines nowadays, but one of the few exceptions is Kate Bishop. She wanted to prove that she was more than her parents money and wanted to help people. She was clumsy, goofy, and made mistakes. But she learned from them and that’s what makes her relatable. Rescuing Lucky and wanting to have a Christmas party to cheer up Clint makes her likable. While we don’t see many inspiring female characters right now, I’m glad we have Kate and that gives me some hope for writing good female characters.
Remember how many times male heroes were about to fail in their duty or struggled with inner demons but were supported and advised in these dark moments by female character with whome they had an intimate bond? And remember how this did not take away from either the male or the female hero. Similarly, the more rate cases where we did get heroines, they would be vulnerable or angry or disillusioned, nd at this point a male character would appear to show them the love, support amd understanding they needed. And these worked because they reflect real life. The differences between men and women were acknowledged and both were empowered. Be it when Diana finds out that men can be evil but the Captaon shows her the world is still worth fighting for, or when Aragorn is unsure whether to take up the broken sword and Eowyn appears to give him strength. Everyone can relate to these moments because everyone has felt these things. It is no secret that sometimes, it is precisely the oppossite gender who is needed to give someone the push, nd sometimes the same gender (like Sam carrying Frodo..which would not have worked had Sam been a girl) nor can we imagine Diana being similarly comforted by another woman.
I really enjoy listening to your deconstructions of modern culture. Thanks for the effort you put into your scripts and videos. You deserve so many more subscribers!
Just a note, Daisy Ridley barely has feminine features. I mean, on the surface, maybe. But, unless you accept not having breasts and never confirming if she has a vagina, to be a woman, then you would be stuck.😒
Probably someone pointed out already, but there is a modern product in which the female characters are in stark contrast with sexless heroines in the video: House of Dragons. The women there have femininity, passions, love interests and loved ones. They flirt, feel sexual tension and have sexual encounters. They experience joy, grief, rage, pain, sadness, pride, cruelty and all other kind of human emotions. And because of that, they are way more appreciated and enjoyed by the public, compared to all the heroines in this video. Something proved also by the rating of HoD vs LOTR.
Dude, dude. It's simple. These "writers", have no idea how to write, never mind tell a story, nevermind create something new. So they tell stories from their lives, combine it with some existing IP, and presto, you have a "script". How are they going to write about romance? They've never experienced it.
Additional irony is that the actual lord of the rings books were pretty aromantic, you didn’t even see Arwen until the very end. Eowyn and Faramir enjoy a romantic stroll through a garden while they’re recuperating, that’s about as steamy as it got from what I remember, though it’s been a couple years since my last read
Romantic love does seem to take a backseat in the Lotr books, but there is so many other depictions of other kinds of love Love between the fellowship members themselves and Theoden and his family for example
True, and in fact I seem to recall people complaining about Arwen getting more of a role in the films than in the books for that reason. But there's a bit of a thematic reason for that in the books: all the romance is put on the back burner until the job is done and everyone goes home. Aragorn and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, Sam and Rosie, all of that happens in the end as a way of showing that the world is now safe for people to live their lives, and also to show the growth of Sam and Faramir, at least, into men who can live in their own society. In a sense, Lord of the Rings can be read as a coming of age tale--so the romance as a final plot point makes sense. (the films operated under different constraints--since the director couldn't spent a chapter on Elven love poems as Tolkien did, Arwen had to be introduced early to establish why Aragorn liked her in the first place) There's a difference between that and total aromanticism.
I love the montage of Star Wars women with no romantic interests. The only one we spend any amount of time with to learn that they might have a romantic interest is Rose, and she actually does seem to have an interest in Finn, unlike what the video implies.
This was well written and spot on. It's the brand of feminism that brought us gems like "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" and "All sex is rape" and "It's 2023. Nobody cares what men want." Of course most women, like most humans in general, do yearn for physical and romantic intimacy, but this strain of feminism has told women to feel bad about having those feelings. Some years back, these same people had a fit because a female video game character was shown crying in a situation that was perfectly reasonable to cry in. At some point, a large subset of feminists bizarrely concluded that the secret to seizing power from men was to embrace all of the worst societal norms forced on men, to basically mimic toxic masculinity. Don't have feelings, be brash and rude, etc.
Writing these days is just terrible. The reason Strong Female Character is such a trope is because the only way they can create such a character is to make all the men seem useless and dumb in comparison. This trope has a knock on effect on the rest of the cast.
You make a very good point about the lack of "himbos." It's odd that the heroines aren't "slaying" as one would expect a "queen" to. Probably because a plausible relationship like that would require something of an age or power differential in the woman's favor, and 'cougars' wouldn't fit the mold of the 'Petra Pan' heroine, who is not a woman, but a girl.
It would probably be interpreted as "demeaning" for a superpowered heroine to be attracted to and then "settle" for a "normal" man, towards whom she would then be expected to be at least a little submissive. In the film "Supergirl" (1984), there was a "normie" - in the person of the lowly groundskeeper / hunk "Ethan" (brilliantly played by Hart Bochner) - on whom Supergirl was "sweet." And even then, the dramatic tension had to be toned down or explained away by having the groundskeeper be enthralled by a love potion which reduced him to a simpering idiot. As a result, Supergirl was, essentially, fawning over a cuddly puppy dog she found by the roadside, rather than interacting with a 3-dimensional *man* blessed with *agency* .
Are going to have to employ a similar test for men? A test were two men are not bested by a woman physically, verbally nor characterologically. (Bare minimum being at least equal)
You can see it in a lot of stuff. Not just the stipulation that female characters must act like beefcake male jerks, but it's reinforced by other parts such as the Bechdel requirement of two female characters having "meaningful" conversation with each other and not about men. Which, in practice, has been one of the many ways they write the male characters as idiots or jerks. Culminating in the cringe scenes in which female characters tell each other how great they are, and the shots in which they girl-boss pose together. Comes across very contrived and insecure. The Bechdel requirements have hamstrung writing quality and you can see it being implemented everywhere if you are familiar with the list, a sizable part of "The Message".
The Bechdel test isn't that bad imo. Its only requirement is that two women talk to one another besides a man. When you think about it, a lot of the men, in many genres of movies/fiction, talk to one another about so many other things other than women; so, when they do talk to each other about women It's not exhausting to listen to or annoying because you know they have others aspects in their lives they want to achieve, go to, etc. If the writers aren't being so explicate and making this "requirement" so obvious with cringy writer or set up, it could really elevate a lot of character's development.
@@raburaburaburabu8858 The Bechdel test is nothing but more feminist whining. For one..if you think about it, regardless of males talking about other things..their lives are still mostly defined by everything besides themselves, it usually involves a women or family. Though mostly a women. From action to science fiction, most male characters entire being centers on other people. Anakin Skywalker... driven mostly by the the lost of his mother. John McClane..mostly driven mostly by the protection of his wife. John Matrix (Commando) Driven by getting his daughter back. Liam Neeson in the Taken series...the series is nothing without him protecting his family (daughter and wife) John Wick...yes its over a dog, but that dog was mostly special because it was gifted to him by his late wife. Most male superhero's are driven by the lost of a women or protection of people, including mostly women. Most of the movies feminist complain "fail the bechdel test" features one male character killing scores of other men for the sole purpose of a women, yet because the same movie features women who aren't talking about something that doesn't involve a man, that means the movie is sexist against women? Its ridiculous... even more the main reason Horror movies are driven mostly by female leads (final girl) is because studios know women garner far more sympathy in situations of peril, and men are seen as disposable. So its more effective if women drive the plot and survive then men, nobody complains about this..and its celebrated. Feminist simply need to pipe down.
Other than James Bond movies, most of the male heroes in Hollywood movies don't actually have sex on screen. Most of them feature romantic subplots limited to flirting. You don't see anyone calling those men sexless. The implication of this school of thought is that women are allegedly valued for their sexuality whereas men are valued for their individuality, hence different expectations.
@@platinumprodigy9745 ph I would beg to differ there Platty . See Hollywood runs down stream of politics and all of this bullshit is tied to one another . Now you can disagree with me but to say my statement holds no connection holds no weight . Although we can agree to disagree and continue on with our lives . 😬
This is sad but true. I enjoy seeing characters flirt and build sexual tension. Taking intimate relationships out of fantasy and superhero movies loses your female audience. Ariel is the newest to lose her man. Can we not show heteros falling in love anymore?
As a 90’s girl I saw endless re-runs of Bewitched. It covered the journey of a young woman, from newly wed, to housewife and mother. She encountered many of the kinds of family squabbles, awkward social situations, and prying: that couples often faced. When I encountered them ask a wife and mother, they were very relatable.
Thank you for this. I never understood why I liked Wandavision and Loki, and then panned so many current super hero movies shows until this video. Without romance there are no stakes. The hero has nothing to lose. Romeo had Juliet, William Wallace had Isabella, Superman has Lois, and Wanda (at the very least) had Vision,
Actually, I'm on the fence about romance subplots. If the plot is already dynamic and convoluted, trying to tie in MORE complications in a shallow 'romance' would irk me. If the romance served to enhance what is already a good plot, I'm totally down with it. That being said, the excrement that is Disney putting out their wads of crap, I think romance would make it worse, not better.
I'm so glad you made this video. The sexlessness of the Star Wars universe is weird, they literally aren't human beings if they're not contemplating sex with someone there. I think the industry should take note from Hayao Miyazaki who said 'many of my movies have strong female leads - brave, self-sufficient girls that don't think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their hearts. They'll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a saviour. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.' They care for their male counterparts, even if it's not romantic. These women don't even CARE about anyone, so what the hell are they fighting for? Vulnerability is dead
They crave righteousness, as far as I can tell. I guess it was a reaction to the overzealousness of #MeToo (there were definitely problems, but come on...) and the effects are still hurting storytelling.
Thats not true. Captain Marvel for example did actually care about a lot of people, for example Nick Fury, the innocent Skrull civilians etc. Rey cared about her friends and the resistance. Galadriel cared about the villagers in the Southlands.
@@jneilson7568 I wonder how anyone could be so ignorant towards the MeToo protests. First, the new badly written female characters being all their fault is nothing more than a slanderous allegation, and second, it was much worse than your uninformed and cold depiction.
@@abraham2172 A character saying they care, doesn’t equate to actual caring. They have to display it. They have to show it. And if they do, it feels forced.
You would expect all the relationships in media nowadays to be non-straight given our current culture... I never really noticed that this was what was really going on.
This is absolutely spot. Although you omitted one thing: strong female characters ARE still allowed to have a romantic moment IF their romance partner is also a female. Disney and the other big studios have been very keen to insert woman on woman love interests, albeit they rarely involve the main character, who as you say, must remain pure and impervious to anything which may be deemed as vulnerability. Good video, worth a sub.
Or interracial, i.e Rose and Finn, or Don Lemonlas and the single mother. But of course, never the female main character. Because caring for anyone other than herself would be a weakness.
That was brilliant as always. The thing I love most about your insightful, spot on analysis is the fact that it reveals that we know what they’re doing. They are not pulling the wool over our eyes.
The ridiculous notion that leading female's can never fail at anything just actuality makes them look void of any kind of personality whatsoever!! You just get some wooden soulless figure that no one can relate or gravitate to, and most importantly root for!! The sad thing is most of the actresses that play these leads are nice people and good at what they do but the material that they have to work with is garbage and doesn't make them look empowered at all. It does the complete opposite. Wonder when the writers will finally get the hint!!
@@MagcargoMan like I said, give them something good to work with and it's literally not a problem. A bit of character development. Modern cinema seems to lack this important aspect and it's just lazy writing. They only need to look at the past for inspiration, the likes of Ripley or Sarah Connor for instance. We went on a journey with those characters and embraced their strengths but it was well within the context of the story, so it worked. Why can't the modern writers achieve this? That's all I'm saying.
Sexuality, like it or not, is one of the things that most of the population can identify with. So, from a writer's point of view, it's one techniques to make the reader/viewer sympathize with the character. It's a shame to take it out, because it fits, in almost every story.
Curious how the crowd that always says a character's sexuality is not important is also the same crowd that gets upset if they don't see a woman dressed like a hooker in a movie.
Indeed, sexuality is a part of life. And it is also plays a part in why life at all exist. Which makes it terrible how modern movies avoid it too hard.
I don't know if it's coming from the writers themselves or if it's from studio executives, but sometimes it seems like if they can't write in their ships or whatever, they just have no romance at all. Big studio movies try to have as broad an appeal as possible, but at the same time they're trying to cater to a minority, so they can't really have it both ways and this is the end result.
Well... the studios set up the writing to fail from the get-go. Having to get everything approved via "diversity boards" turns stories from creativity to just aimless signaling.
Lara Croft in the reboots was supposed to be a lesbian with same the Asian female but they feared the backlash so since they couldbt give her a girlfriend they made so she's married to her job and doesn't have time for romance
To me a love interest raises the stakes a whole lot more because we actually get to know the people who the hero's are trying to protect. Sure a movie can do without it and can do good, and sometimes it's needed and sometimes it's not. But at the end of the day, if a movie is bad, it's bad.
Imagine Arewen leaving middle earth because "she don't need no man" AND Aragorn defeating Sauron only to come back to realize his love left him so she could be a strong woman... But she could only be safe because she tricked you into risking your life to save all of middle earth.
The irony is that we have new generations obsessed with sexual identity while simultaneously have little or absolutely no practical experience of sex. Great deconstruction, very insightful.
I agree 💯
You don’t actually know any young people, do you? Gen Z is out there having the kind of sex you wish you could have.
They like the idea of sex, not sex itself.
😂 I never considered that most of these nuts are crazed virgins. Explains a lot.
@@ChrisSuperDude I highly doubt people aren't liking sex, its far more likely that less men are having access to sex since thats what the studies are really showing. Hypergamy, its strangling whats left of the crumbling hetero society. More sexual confusion, more sexuality laws, more consent laws, more lgbt training of the young to become one. No its not that people "like the idea of sex, not sex itself." Society would be having just as much sex, or definitely MORE since birth control has improved if it wasn't 'going through this psychotic sexuality experiment right now.
I don't have any problems with a writer deciding that they don't want their female protagonist to have any sexual/romantic inclinations. My issue is that modern writers tend to get so obsessed with making sure she never shows any romantic interest that they completely strip her of ALL emotional vulnerability and tenderness--no genuine friendships based on mutual trust, no familial relationships that give her a sense of comfort or identity, not even the hint of any desire on her part to have some kind of emotional connection to anyone. This isn't just stripping a character of her femininity, it's stripping her of her humanity. We evolved as social creatures living in packs. We're all hardwired to desire some form of community, even if it's just one or two good friends or close family. The reason most modern female protagonists feel so sterile and unnatural to me isn't just because they're not sexually/romantically involved with anyone--it's because they are intentionally isolated from all meaningful human contact that would require them to show any emotion beyond a sense of baseline approval of the other person.
As tired of an example as this is, take Elsa from the first Frozen movie. She has no romantic interest but is still a good feminine character with significant vulnerabilities. She is not emotionally distant (even though she tries to be, because of the plot), she truly loves her sister. Romantic love is not needed for her character but familial love is a huge part of it. With Elsa being such a popular, strong female character without a love interest you'd think other movies would take some inspiration but they went with the boring emotionless route.
You nailed it.
I get it with what you are saying. A hero of any gender needs to have some sort of sense of love or companionship with others to help make that hero seem more as a living character and maybe more relatable as possible, when ever it is romantic, sexual, family related, friendship related, community related, or any number or those mentioned. If the heroes are completely devoid of any sort of love and support, if they are too cold and stotic, even by the story's end, then what is the point of the character?
Absolutely. Just look at what's been done in Doctor Who too
Absolutely PERFECTLY said. I couldn't improve on anything you said. 👏
The irony of this, especially with Galadriel is that Tolkien literally wrote a love interest for her: Celeborn. The love of her life and her soulmate. Actually, if you delve into the lore, her marriage to Celeborn was a little controversial: she was Noldor he was Sindar: two different clans who often didn't get on. He was also related to the Teleri: a tribe of Elves who lived by the sea and made ships, and were massacred by her Uncle Feanor in an event known as the First Kinslaying.
This is a man who was married to his childhood sweetheart for 50 years, so he knew something about true love. Tolkien's work contains many epic and tragic romances, Arwen and Aragorn, Beren and Luthien, Idril and Tuor, Faramir and Eowyn: and those are just the ones which ended happily.
Right?? That's why this massacre of Galadriel's character makes me so mad; she already had a strong independent identity and amazing love interest. Amazon said "nah fuck that let's rewrite it OUR way"
@@HaleyWingate ....and they're going to disrespect Celeborn. They are "teasing" him for Season 2 but have made him a Silvan rather than a Sindar Prince. He's going to budget Legolas is my guess.
I can't wait for KK's Romeo and Juliet (they never fall in love because Juliet is busy fighting duels) or Othelllo (it's a rainbow hanky and Iago wants Othello for themself). I think I just thought of a franchise she'd have to work hard to screw up.
@therondayview7684 You joke about Othello, but I've seen a production where Iago was portrayed by a black man and it totally worked. The actor playing Othello had a foreign accent and the actor playing Iago had a British one. It wasn't distracting in the slightest because Iago also refers to Othello as a "moor" which implies he's foreign as well as black. The theory that Iago is supposed to be a closeted gay guy is actually rather old. Lawrence Olivier believed Iago is supposed to be gay and portrayed him with the lense of an angry, vengeful gay dude screwing over Othello because Othello got to have his forbidden love and be accepted. Iago never could.
Jrr usually wasn't interested in love or romance. Pretty much none of the main characters have wives or if they do it's functional poltical marriage.
It's actually really odd this is the one part of society lotr skimps over. Like he gose into how the economy works but not marriage even though in pre modern times they were interlinked
As a woman learning martial arts, my female inspirations are types like the first Disney Mulan movie, where she first struggles during her training, but over time with perseverance, smarts and humility she is able to gradually build herself up and become a hero. My experiences are nowhere near those Mary Sues that are perfect in everything they do and don't even need any learning or training to be able to fight.
I admire that portrayal of Mulan as well. It's not just true for women, it's true for almost everyone. Natural talents are one in a million, regular people have to struggle and persevere in order to acquire a worthwhile skill. Notice also that the other male side-characters are also displayed as incompetent and bumbling, only to develop alongside Mulan.
Lack of training and work for fighting characters is a big pet peeve of mine, regardless of gender. There's no such things as talent and skills acquired in short times and on the fly, definitely not on something as hazardous and deadly as fighting. Hard-work and adaptation are essential keys to a fighter character (a type which I happen to love passionately).
It took Disney half a century to recover from the rampant sexism of Snow White (and all the cloned crap that followed--Sleeping Beauty is the same thing minus the glass coffin and dwarves), finally to make Mulan, but then to renounce humanity and start making cardboard perfect lone she-wolves. There are models like Mulan out there. Why is it so difficult to learn the lesson? Perhaps do a movie not all dominated by male OR female writers/directors and make the actual creators live a healthy compromise of values? Wouldn't hurt to have them read some good classic older literature, either. Plenty of models there.
I’m sure you watched the live action . It is the perfect contrast and example of what this video tried to explain
no, no, no ! Be like a arrogante man, dont be soft and take a axe to cute some wood. This is america now
Lucas put both Leia and Padme in beautiful gowns multiple times in their movies. Kathleen Kennedy had Rey was in a burlap sack her entire trilogy
Maybe that’s what each deserve to wear respectively. Leia and Padme gets gowns, Rey deserves essentially a garbage bag.
Lol
So what was Rey supposed to wear as a desert scavenger????
Looked to me like what Luke Skywalker wore in Ep 4.
@@pogo1140 She was wearing that outfit for years tho lol
@@pogo1140 Having her switch into even say, the robes we're very familiar with in the franchise could reflect becoming more knowledgeable and otherwise adapting to a more complex situation.
Problem is, that would require a character arc.
Spider-Man had one of the best opening lines ever: ‘This, like any story worth telling, is all about a girl.’ It doesn’t matter if it’s a superhero film, or action movie, at the end of the day it takes human emotion and relationships to drive a story.
The world runs on love.
Nah, because Peter and MJ's relationship is easily the worst part of all three films.
As a man you are meant to be more than a stuffer for somebody's vagina. Unfortunately, as Multiverse of Madness demonstrated, Sam Raimi apparently never figured that out, which is why all four films revolve around a loser's desire to get laid at the expense of literally everything else.
You *should* have greater aspirations than whoever you might be fucking at the moment.
Yeah but that because it's a guy who is pining for a girl. Modern fem inist writers can never accept a female character pining for a guy in the same way.
ironic considering how much they all loved twilight and fifty shades of grey
@@MASTER_ORB Not the same women. These are cat lady feminists. They find characters like Edward and...discount Edward (but he's a billionaire now) as repugnant and deplorable. Not because they're bad characters, which they are, but because they're highly desireable examples of masculinity.
The ancient Greeks had like 10 different types of love. Not just sexual but romantic, platonic, familial, self-love etc. Part of what made lord of the rings so enduring was their exploration of some of these well beyond convention. So much of current Hollywood is absolutely set on being devoid of all of it because they only see love as a purely materially sexual thing
But that's been the case in Western culture for decades. Like I'm 90% certain that your father and grandfathers never said "I love you" to anyone who isn't a spouse parent child or sibling. They would never say it to a friend or army comrade. In many cultures its normal but not in ours. Platonic love just don't exist here.
"One thousand years from now there will be no guys or girls, just wankers." Mark Renton was spot on with his prediction, but it came way sooner.
One of the depopulation tools employed by the elites who want the world for themselves. Just an opinion.
I think Oswald Spengler has a more accurate prediction: if we embrace sterility, and identities bereft of anything unifying or transendent, then our civilization's time to wither has come, even if the process takes years, decades, or some centuries. Not to say we can't turn back, but that must be a choice.
In short, there will still be men and women in a thousand years. The question is whether we or our civilization will be there to acknowledge it.
1980s Blockbusters: The Power of Love.
Modern Blockbusters: The Love of Power.
The irony of the ‘strong female character’ is that they are almost always made weaker by contrivance (particularly in adaptations). My go to example is always Yennefer of Vengerberg from the Witcher, where in the books and (brilliantly portrayed in) the games show her Cold sarcasm and biting wit not only mask her deepest desires and fears that are only really hinted at except in key contextual moments, but they help build a shell of understated healthy stoicism.
Now looking at the Netflix adaptation of Yennefer, she has devolved into an emotional ball of teenage sulky rage where her innermost desire has become her entire character and she wears it on her sleeve. She’s now selfish, impulsive and highly emotional without the slightest hint of any form or stoicism at all. She will scream and cry her way through the story.. and it’s not just Yennefer. The character Tissaia Devrees, her mentor of sorts is known best in the book for her ‘a sorceress should be seen dead before seen shedding a single tear’ is reduced to a crying screaming blubbering mess. And this is all in the name of ‘showing their strength’.
In the rings of power, Galadriel is also reduced to a bratty, aggressive, TOO stoic a figure where a sense of emotional intelligence is gone completely and been replaced with the character of a teenager. Like an uncanny valley of stoicism, she’s Hormonal almost, where the evidence of the teen brain being rewritten on a weekly basis makes the mind muddled, confused and highly susceptible to extreme emotional outbursts or sullen sulking.
‘Strong female characters’.
Idk if you've seen avatar the last air bender buuuut
One episode they go see a play about themselves basically recapping the series. With Kara her character in the play is basically reduced to someone always moaning and wailing about literally anything that's happening.
@@TheScarletSlayer That was a fantastic episode. Its weird because it was basically a 100% filler episode, but it was one of my favorites in the whole series.
(Come to think of it, my actual favorite episode was the collection of short stories in Ba Sing Se, which was also filler)
Excellent observations. I was also repulsed by Yennefer. I wanted SO bad to enjoy the Witcher. But the ridiculous characters that were merely wish fulfillment for weak minded, cowardly women writers was unwatchable.
@@epsteindidntkillhimself69 but swole....there is no war in Ba Sing Se 0_0
This is a good comment, the kind that I actually like to read and feel like I learn something from
I don't think a love interest is necessary, especially when it feels shoehorned and doesn't fit the main conflict or character. But it's a popular shortcut for adding a relatable human element to an action-packed story. If you don't have romance, if should be replaced with something else: friendship or family. The problem is that a lot of modern fiction leaves out this down-to-earth drama altogether. Imagine Lethal Weapon without the bromance between Riggs and Murtaugh or Aliens without Ripley's motherly role.
Yes that is the point.
One of my favourite heroines is Rachel Weiss in the Mummy - she is funny and feminine and brave and smart and vulnerable. I also love a Brendan Fraser and their romance in general, I’d love to see more of that 😊
Oh snap Rick and Evie are pretty good. She's the brains to his brawn so they kind of balance each other. She saves him at the start so he's somewhat indebted to him and they both bring different things to the table despite some differences.
Uh oh, do I sense a movie that needs a girl-boss remake?
I still find it sad that modern screenwriters reject earlier role models. In the movie Aliens, Ripley showed courage and determination but also wanted to save a little girl and humanity. She wasn't afraid to be attracted to someone either. In SW, Leia was a princess, a senator and a general. She wasn't beating up giant guys with her fists. She was using her intelligence and taking serious risks to lead her forces. She also took risks to try to save Luke and Han; the people she cared about. That's far more relatable than the cold, aloof and alone female heroes we see on screen now. The reality is that contemporary writers have immature personal issues and that their characters embody their own fantasy of being powerful and venting their own angst upon the world.
The problem with characters such as Linda Hamilton post T1 and Ellen Ripley all along, is that they loose all sex appeal to men. Take these characters in their respective sequel movies. They are great characters and as a man, you would be very willing to fight alongside them. But not fuck them. Because they have successfully exited the womens realm to enter the mens realm.
@@Stephen64138 It's not a problem, it's called having limits to suspension of disbelief. Not all of us have a fetish for Amazonian women.
@@Stephen64138 I agree.
Feminine women attract masculine men and vice versa.
Sarah Connor was a great character, a hero who had sacrificed everything.
But she was a bad mother and wife.
That's the point being a hero can come at a huge cost.
She would be useless in a relationship (after decades in a mental institution and fighting a war)
I was watching Max Manus (2008) - it's about a guy who fought in the Norweigen resistance in ww2.
After the war he had PTSD, drink and drug problems.
He did get married after ww2 but his life was not happy like a normal person would be.
So all these "hero films" have very little to do with real heros.
These films are political propaganda which push Gender Ideology
Isn't it offensive in 2023 to use the term "woman" and "man" ?
Let alone allow them to interact heterosexually ?
@@Stephen64138 Funny, I'd say that Corporal Hicks was totally hitting on Ripley. Pity they offed him for the third film, it could have been going somewhere.
You would call Leia woke for orchestrating a way to escape the cell block if you saw after you became political, don't kid yourself.
See, the problem is never lacking a love interest. Is lacking any meaningful relationships.
No character ever NEED a love interest to work, but every character NEED a meaningful relationship. That's why family value movies were so popular. The new heroines are nearly all punching bags for the plot, they do what the plot wants them to, they're never active. They have no need, no fear, thus making them boring and lifeless.
Give Rey a love interest, Rey will only become a badly written character with a love interest. She won't automatically become a good character.
Hollywood is not against femininity or sexuality, they're against humanity.
I agree. That's why Elsa worked so well in Frozen, it was her connection with her sister that made it work. I like the change, not everything has to be about romance and sex, but we need the motivations, to know why the characters are fighting for what they are, and to have some stakes there. If a character is perfect and just doing what they're doing without a good motivation, it's hard to be on their side.
Yes, relationships are literally what make us human
As a writer, I'm all for a GOOD romance, but at the same time I know it isn't a necessity, and I found a lot of relationships type criminally underrated in fictions. Give me friendships, siblings relationships, mentor-student stories, interactions with parents who aren't dead or oblivious to things happening, meaningful and sane rivalries... True, any character needs link. Lack of it is a sad thing that an arc must treat, certainly not an ideal to feel fine with.
That ending line is actually one of many reasons why Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has become one of my all-time favorites, because it does it romance and family relationships SO WELL
agree. this video is complete garbage
For me, the relationship between Arwen and Aragorn in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy is one of the best romances ever put to film. How I long to see that kind of authentic love again on the big screen.
The problem with showing Rose in The Last Jedi is that she did in fact have romantic feelings for another character. The execution was completely botched in every way but she did have a "romantic interest"
I always thought they way they should’ve given Rose a redemption in the next movie. Her ‘hero moment’ at the end of the last jedi was incredibly selfish. She saved Finn for herself. At the potential expense of everybody else. She couldn’t have known that Rey was there and would open a back door for the others. His sacrifice could have bought them more time. Her stopping him could have led to everyone else getting captured or dying. But it was human. They could’ve written it as a moment of weakness. It could’ve made her character compelling and relatable. But they wrote it as a ‘hero moment’. So it turned her into a hypocrite. (Remember she stunned and arrested Finn for what she thought was him selfishly trying to leave the ship. And then she taught him about helping others… or saving animals… or something. What was their side quest about? God, that movie was garbage!) And then they pushed her aside and she was never used again.
It was so badly botched that, when I first saw it, I thought it was supposed to be a satire of parasocial celebrity crushes. I didn't realize until months after I saw it that it was meant to be dead serious. lol
@@lennythealien8051 Love at the expense of the greater good can work (like the end of The Last of Us) but I agree it's hard to get into forgiving that from a badly written Star Wars movie.
I swear everything about Rose was an afterthought and never actually brought into the rest of the creative crew because it was dropped by the next film like she was never existed. Granted, TLJ and RoS have two different director but it was clear JJ made it a priority to tear down and ignore what Rian Johnson did in order to tell his own story which is not that good. Consistency be damned.
The actress herself is also quite attractive but for some reason they made her look like a side character from Big Bang Theory.
What's crazy with ROP is that it not only lacked romantic love, it lacked love period. No family love, no friendship, they tell you that there is some but it's almost never shown.
The reason it feels like Elrond and Durin are sometimes about to smash is because they're the only two characters showing any resemblance of consideration for one another, which is also why it was the most appreciated part by lotr fans. Hell even Adar showed more humanity by defending the orcs than Galadriel did by going on her journey of vendetta.
The og trilogy is FILLED with love in many different forms, so weird that they did not pick up on that
I was struggling with ROP, then I thought Rise Of Palpatine, then I realised Rangs Of Patriarchy!
The hack scriptwriters weren't talented enough to pull it off, even if they had tried.
What's ROP?
@@fishertheadore6095 You're better off not knowing.
I'm pretty sure the thing about Elrond and the dwarf was just them trying to emulate the Legolas-Gimli bromance in the movies.
Hollywood: Women are strong and doesnt need nothing from nobody!
Also Hollywood: Give women everything, incels.
Hollywood: this movie are not made for you men!
Also Hollywood: men are racists or something for not seeing the movie!
@@doncarlodivargas5497
That's my favorite!
@@LembeckIsStaying - like that homosexual guy that made a homosexual romantic comedy for then to be angry because normal people didn't see the movie, how they are thinking in Hollywood are difficult to understand, women do not pay money to see men fall in love with other men, normal men do not pay money to see romances, and I, as heterosexual do not pay money to see men have sex with each other, who in Hollywood do not understand such things?
Hollywood: Women are strong and doesn't need nothing from nobody!
Also Hollywood: Women are exactly like unrealistically overpowered asexual teenage boys.
Feminists hate men but want the fruits of their labor. They hurl constant abuse and find ever more malicious ways to pathologize men, but still demand, like slave drivers, that men protect and provide for women.
To sum it up: a generation of talentless, frigid femcels has taken over the entertainment industry and is flooding us with badly written, self-insert characters that have:
- no flaws
- no character arcs
- no sensuality
Creators picked for having the right Twitter posts rather than having creative ability.
It's ironic that the people making these chaste characters ALSO take any hint of friendship between same-sex people as signs of romantic interest (Harley Quinn & Ivy, any shipping like Finn and Poe's) and when allowed to make non-heterosexual relationships will make it entirely about sex (Bros).
I swear for some people any time two men interact with each other in any way at all they see it as "dripping with homoerotic tension".
harley and ivy have been canon for a long time, and they are both sensual characters so idk what youre correlating here
@@MarsheIIo 10ish years ago is when all this stuff began. They were just friends and partners in crime until the Connor/Palmiati run confirmed them as romantic. The Force Awakens was 2015, so that would also be "a long time" by your standard.
@@robinthrush9672 yeah id say a decade is a pretty long time considering harley's debut was only 30ish years ago, and even in the 90s dini and timm liked to hint/tease romantic involvement between the two.
@@MarsheIIo That's just you reading into their friendship, which was my whole point.
It's times like these that I'm grateful that characters like Kim Wexler can still exist.
Awesome character.
I wish I could 'like' your comment a hundred more times. Kim is a badass.
Didn't Kim get corrupted by Saul and then end up being some suburban wife with no opinion or confidence?
Rose, from TITANIC (1997)
@@treystephens6166 Nah, she belongs to the streets
On her deathbed and only thinking about a lay from 50 years ago
As a woman I don't feel close to any of those women portrayed as supposedly "strong" in all of those very commercial movies, they're just bland and without the most important......a soul.
I miss the powerful yet vulnerable Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman and Lucy Lawless's Xena of my childhood 💚
☺😎💙 You nailed it.
So, your ok with this male chauvinist demanding that women be sexualized in all movies
@@marcbrown6582 How Wonder Woman and Xena were sexualized for you ?
@@bluecollie55_movies25 💪💚
@@HannaSophie-kz7dl I'm talking about the person who made the video who's complaining about how offensive it is that female characters aren't sexualized
I was thinking the other day how Starlight in the Amazon adaptation of The Boys is much more of a badass than any Marvel character, because she has a normal life with romance, family pressure, insecurities, etc., and becomes stronger from all those experiences and from being, well, human and having needs.
Good point
being a preteen/teenager is hard enough. you're working through puberty, crushes, heartbreaks, awkward relationships, sexuality, and a whole lot of confusion about all of these things. now imagine throwing a billion "genders" into the equation and everyone obsessing over the 100-step checklist to consent for every frivolous encounter that you are actively being encouraged to have by modern pop culture, and I imagine it gets a lot worse.
beautifully said. The Mary Sue is written to be uncompromising.
This makes surrendering to a romantic relationship an impossibility.
...unless it´s with someone of the same gender ofc.
A mary sue is in essence, good (and perfect) at anything.
So we could genuinly ask ourselves why in the hell would she need a man for? Or even children.
After all, she's better than all of them.
It's (almost*) like if the goal was to attack the family itself. Hmm.
Mary Sues never have a man bc what man could she possibly be sexually aroused by? She's already smarter, stronger and more capable than any man she could meet. What protection or resources could any man offer her? Women essentially trade sex for these things in human society which is why the wealthiest men have the best looking, most sexually available women. A woman cannot be sexually attracted to a man who is less than herself. Its literally impossible.
Mary Sues never have a man bc even the writers can't imagine a man that this character would want.
To be fair, Rey was ready to surrender herself to Kylo ;)
She would have got kicked out of the club for sure.
@@crooster1 males are the same gender as female. Males are deformed females. Y chromosomes are shriveled up, diseased, deformed X chromosomes.
They say men are bad at writing women, but even good female writers fail to make characters capable of being romantic male or female.
with very few exceptions, most of the only good female fictional characters are written by men.
apparently Joss Weedon is really good at writing female characters. Ironic really.
That's why Japanese manga outsells american comics in america. Even women in Japan can write great stories aimed at MEN. Shocking.
When I find out that few my favorite stories is actually were written by women, I was like "no fking way". My small sexist bubble bursted.
Western male and female authors have no chance competing with that.
@@Demial_Sparda Japanese Manga gives readers what they want (even if at times its just horny anime girls with huge portions), because why else would you the creator of it would spend 10 hour's a day drawing scenes painstakingly vs American comics which have now been appropriated to be vehicles for public and scocial messaging with a increasingly decaying effort in character design and action in the name of reaching monthly issues deadlines of a contracted pre existing property.
Who said they were good writers?
As a woman, it took me until I was in my late 20s to realize I did not want to be the strong, independent/career woman 😂, that I had been programmed to be that way. It felt much more natural to be a soft little housewife than when i was trying to fit into the corporate world. I would cry over issues at work then cry that I had my baby in daycare. Then my husband and I decided that I should stay home. Not knocking the women who are out there kicking butt, but all women don't have to feel like they need to be super tough
This says more about the corporate world that about gender
The funny thing is that the super toughness you're talking about would be considered "toxic masculinity" if a man was doing it.
I'm glad you figured out what works best for you though. Speaking as a straight guy the kind of stereotypically badass women shown in movies don't really appeal to me either romantically or platonically. I have enough friends who already act like men because they're men. Something a little different is nice.
It's lucky you discovered that before your late 30s with declining fertility, something which is happening more and more. I have a female friend who only ever wanted to be a mother and felt judged for that. Replacing one constructive stereotype with another is just change, not progress.
The most fun I had with a movie in recent months was No Hard Feelings in which Jennifer Lawrence's character is beyond flawed, has a sensical arc and is allowed to dress in a sexy manner. Perish the thought. The character grows, addresses shortcomings and is allowed to look good while doing it
One of my favorite scenes in Aliens was when Hicks showed Ripley how to operate a rifle. It established the attraction between the two characters and that a man can actually teach a woman something she didn’t previously know. This scene could never happen today.
One of the real issues Hollywood has is that men can no longer be seen with any kind of agency when it comes to women. They simply can't offer anything apart from a kind of bland sidekick relationship. They can't teach the woman anything and they certainly can't be seen to be rescuing them. That's why we get the kind of stuff that you see in the Mario Bros Movie where Peach is shown as being hyper competent and Luigi is pushed into the role of damsel in distress. Even when Peach is captured it's carefully depicted as a selfless sacrifice to save Toad and the movie also takes pains to make sure she rescues herself.
To bring back the point of the video there is also a complete absence of any hint of a relationship between Peach and Mario.
@@LoneWolf-rc4go it makes me laugh because I know women in real life, half of them are scared of rats. They can't change a tire and if they could they wouldn't want to. This is the same sex that cries when breaking a nail. but we're suppose to believe they are these flawless avatars of power.
@@rickrouse7865 To be honest the Girlboss is fine as a concept but the issue is that it's become a trope and is now everywhere.
@@rickrouse7865 i was doing an apperentership program when covid started that got shutdown. When it resumed, every single women dropped out.
Trust me, if Aliens was released today it would be panned for being “woke” for having the main character a woman. There just wasn’t internet back then for the movies to be spoiled.
This is very true. It's not just the Mary Sue trope. They are sexless. No interest at in sex or even crushes. I thought that was odd.
I think it's odd that you get mad not every movie has a shoehorned rushed romance tacked onto it now.
@@MagcargoMan there's a middle ground, y'know?
Have characters that have something, ANYTHING they value that can compromise them without throwing it in at the eleventh hour
Strawmanning at its finest.
Yeah no,I fucking 8 sex and romantic relationships, especially between a man and a woman, but that just me,otherwise I think these robotic female character are dumb
Whatever my opinion is worth...
It does bother me how much sex, romance and marriage has been harped on in popular culture at the cost of friendship or other types of platonic relationships.
Speaking only for myself I am complicated in ways that make it extremely unlikely that I can have a stable and happy long-term relationship.
I get that people are busy when they settle down, have a serious relationship, get married and have kids, it's just unfortunate that friends are forgotten about or abandoned until something happens and you need someone else to talk to. But it's also simply a reflection of how overwhelmed, overworked we all are and increasing financial uncertainty.
It does worry me that we have groups of BOTH men and women who have little to no interest in forming relationships. This must be shocking to some people, but your capacity to be an ethical person is not determined by your sex, gender, race.
I think it's perfectly fine to have characters that don't have a love interest, etc, but this doesn't resonate with everyone. I don't consider myself a very "feminine" but I know enough to know there are girls and women who like being feminine. And being "feminine" doesn't mean that a girl or woman can't also be strong, intelligent, competent, etc.
I guess it's nice to have female characters in leading roles who are not defined by their romantic / sexual value, but at the same time its not satisfying if the concept, writing and execution is horrible.
The point of diversity is you need a range of different opinions and experiences.
Why can't we have women characters who embrace femininity to different degrees?
Just a thought.
Trouble is, you (and me) represent the end of a society. When mass culture does not support and reinforce heterosexual relations for child bearing and rearing as well as mutual aid, it ends.
So it does bother you ,that men like me dont give a F about sex and relationships (romantic ones) I just need friends, not a fucking parasite that I had to feed and take care while ruining my mental health everyday, I smoke the arguments of "MeN aNd WomEn NeEd EaCh oTheRs" maybe for basics relationships but ,romantically ? What a fucking joke, NO.
The issue right now is that women are either entirely sexless to the point that sexuality is seen as a bad thing, something for the patriarchy, and so let's push away, or as overly obsessed with boys, your Bella Swans and others like her. There are no feminine ace people, no non-feminine women interested in romance, nothing in between. It's now all one extreme or the other, and most are now sexless entirely because vulnerability is seen as bad. We've reached a point where girls are now no longer supposed to cry lest they be seen as weak. That was was dangerous to tell boys, and it's dangerous to tell girls.
As a female viewer who loves romance and has also noticed it's steadily dwindling in popular culture, I appreciate you pointing this out. I remember reading an interview with one of the Kasdans, and he deacribed how in the sequels, they were trying to be more "cautious" about the romance as opposed to how much more open about it the Solo film was, and I was like "Why?" Why would Star Wars ever had to be cautious about that of all things? It's in the story's blood! Han and Leia, Anakin and Padme.. Heck, even Lucas himself said once that the girl getting the boy was just as important to him in Return of the Jedi as Luke's personal struggle.
But this notion of "caution" when it comes to Rey, a character I actually connected with as the sequels were releasing, is evident. Even though I understand the criticisms against her, in The Force Awakens, it is made clear that she isn't a stone cold monolith, but a woman who deeply desires belonging and family, so much so that it keeps her pining for her dead one on a desert planet for thirteen years. And when she does finally leave it, she projects that vunerability onto all the older characters, as Kylo points out in The Last Jedi. Something weird and blantantly contradictory happens with her writing in that respect by the time we get to The Rise of Skywalker, though. Rey's journey to move on from her dead family into finding a new one in the wider galaxy culminates in her... ending the film declaring herself a member of another dead family. She stands alone with her small droid companion staring off into the desert sunset, a place she was supposed to move away from since the beginning. Leia is dead. Luke is dead. Ben, the one love interest she was allowed to have for fifteen seconds, literally evaporated which is odd considering their relationship was supposed to showcase the idea that this was the one man in the galaxy who understood her vunerabilities and her connection to the force and was her equal
due to their unique connection as a dyad--an alchemical union.
To me, it seemed like there were two sides lf the writing fighting over Rey's story throughout the sequels. One side tried to establish a delusional and emotionally vunerable young woman who had a legitimate human desire for connection and other people, while the other wanted a lone badass, the perfect female automoton who would carry on the legacy of the Jedi and Skywalker family all by herself. Not needing the aid or companionship of anyone. I mean, just imagine how different of an ending it would have been had Ben, who was a product of the older Jedi and Skywalker legacies, helped Rey as an equal to establish a new order together. An actual dyadic union, masters of two worlds, carrying on the story instead of one usurpping the other ala Princess Mononoke. But to have her being a part of a "dyad", something requiring the union and interdependence of two beings towards a singular relationship instead of full individual autonomy, is too much for the writers to bear for too long. That just wouldn't do for our independent girl boss.
Instead, they opt for the male character in this union to serve this simplistic purpose and nothing more: to give his life entirely to the new, and infinitiely better female Skywalker and fade away without mention afterwards. To literally fade away into nothingness before her. It's as telling as it is sad for the wasted potential of both characters, and the kind of story we could have gotten instead.
This is exactly it, this is another comment that makes a far better story out of the mess of the 'sequels' than the hack Disney writers, who were clearly at cross-purposes the entre time. Also, yay Fraggle Rock :D
Kylo Ren was such a wasted character, Adam Driver absolutely carried the sequels no matter how much they let him down and I hope that Disney one day comes to regret how they treated his character and find a way out of the hole they dug for him
I think there would have been people who objected to the Kylo/Rey pairing and I kind of see where they're coming from. Kylo Ren is not a good person and doesn't do much during the films to redeem himself. Him ending up with Rey doesn't seem terribly realistic to me given his behavior in general. More specifically he kidnapped and mind raped her in The Force Awakens which doesn't seem very romantic to me. If he had realized the error of his ways towards the end of the previous film and spent the last one trying to correct and atone for his misdeeds I wouldn't have a problem with him and Rey riding off into the sunset together. Giving him that ending without doing the work just pushes a narrative I hate and think is harmful: bad men only need a woman's love to make them better.
@@BiggieTrismegistus It's fiction though and a lot of women love this trope, they love the idea of trying to change villains and I think the way he was offed and the lack of commitment to redeeming him turned off a lot of women from the franchise by insulting them for what they watched the sequels for, Star Wars is literally about redemption and hope
In an attempt to steer people away from viewing these characters in a perceived dehumanizing way, they've ironically dehumanized their characters by stripping them down to stoic power props.
The sheer power the executives wield to in a sense rewire the human species must be intoxicating. We can assume excessive levels of narcissism to be found in these individuals can only be rivaled by their hubris.
The upside, if you could call it that, is the rewiring isn't working, unless the goal is to make a generation of mentally ill people who will eternally and futilely try to fit a square peg (reprogramming) into a round hole (human nature). Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.
@@begzadaculafic5497 The rewiring of human nature never works, but the communists always keep trying. Unfortunately sometimes millions die while they keep trying the same stuff that doesn't work over and over, and never admitting that they were wrong in the first place.
Then quit giving them YOUR attention. You give them power. Men are just mad because they’re deformed women. Y chromosomes are shriveled up, diseased, deformed X chromosomes. Women are an image or what you’re supposed to be but can’t. That’s why you obsess over them, while they discard you all like used napkins
Goes hand in hand
Thank you for articulating this so incredibly well! I came here because of the link being shared in a Star Wars fan group, but I’ll follow so I can hear well stated observations or arguments even if I don’t agree with them
This is so true. You got all these modern movies with strong female leads but, they aren't appealing at all. As soon as I see a movie that spouts a: "Strong female lead." I roll my eyes in disgust. They are also always saying that this is the first time a woman gets to be in power and will be a breathe of fresh air. Are they forgetting the movies and tv shows of the past? Such as.
Kill Bill
Underworld
Resident Evil
Cat Woman
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Just to name a few. Not to mention, strong female side characters in films and shows from this era as well. I don't get why they are constantly trying to say this is new and has not been done before when this is so not true. And not to mention, they're honestly doing it worse nowadays too. It's baffling to me.
The idea that modern female characters can't have relationships because it compromises them is interesting. I know quite a few friends who are aspiring writers who write these kinds of characters because they want more depictions that allow them to feel normal in not having or wanting a family or kids, but the observation that these characters are never vulnerable with anyone is telling.
It’s true just look at Game of Throne how the mother dragon got betray by love
They are trying to reinforce their modern day strong independent female social engineering while their natural instincts resist that and urge them to make a loving family. The longer they suppress their natural instincts the harder it's going to hit them when they hit the wall.
The men they want relationships with, will never settle down. Female hypergamy.
George R.R Martin is an incredible example as his work gives us all kinds of men and women that are unique and never invincible. Nor do the women need to put the men down to look good.
Victory is always earned. They fail, they break but they also learn and grow.
Who are all these women that don't want families? Seems like if you ever get into this discussion with people they deeply want families. They may have given up on it, but that's different than not wanting them.
Sailor Moon is an example of a femenine and strong super heroe. Her character uses the femenine atributes as strenght, giving a message that soft qualities such as compasion and forgiveness and sacrifice are as strong as power. AND IS AN ANIME/MANGA FROM THE 90S.
Weeb
@@Tokmurokmaybe...but he's not wrong bringing that character to the table. Sailor Moon was considered like that in the 90's.
Thought Sailor Moon was kinda retrograde with respect to making the the title character care almost only about boys and shopping when I watched all but one episode that aired in the US in the mid90s. Pathetic, virtually dead stereotypes of a previous generation.
At least they had the other sailor scouts with other interests to balance the title character's slap stickishness. But it was a childten's show. It was bound to have cookie cutter stereotype characters
@@wankertanker1813 That's only the original anime, the manga was far deeper. And in regards to the anime, even that was butchered by horrible censorship policies and editing in the west.
This video verbalized what I've felt and observed for years. There are no curves (unless you're Lizzo), there's no more "male gaze," there's no romance or sexual attraction. Elona Holmes, which was terrible, didn't even have her kissing a guy she clearly liked. So weird.
One of the best essays on the topic that I have seen. Good job, I just hope it reaches some people that are on the fence about the issues.
To write a good love story, you first must have experienced love first hand. If modern writers had been shown affection they wouldn't need to project themselves into women who are 'independent' from men
Explains the writing for she-hulk. A bunch of drunk men haters wrote the show.
Ouch that burns
Considering how empowering modern feminism considers promiscuity under the guys of "sexual liberation" it really is ironic how these characters show no sexuality cause the writers consider it "degrading".
Exactly. Shouldn't we be seeing her go ten rides on the merry go round if we're trying to be objective about the modern world?
Or, they do it like she hulk, which does come across as embarrassing and degrading almost for laughs, not in the act, but in her ignorance why her hookups do not lead to anything fulfilling.
@@brandt6735 i was thinking she hulk when i was writing my comment maybe it's because they wanted to create a #relatable "comedy" for the riders so they didn't try to make her fall in line with what their idea of a badass actually is.
@@brandt6735 i don't think twerking is that degrading in comparison to other things, i can be done funny just to screw around but u do think in many cases when both men and women do it, it can be cringe.
That's because feminists were divided during the '70s by the Feminist Sex Wars, a dispute over porn, sex work, and lesbian and trans rights.
This was a good analysis, I especially liked how you talked about the wear her down method, most people can't appreciate how that was the building block of early writing. Plus there is a thing called playing hard to get.
Human relationships are complicated, and they change over time. There are people I hated at first, who became my best friends or more. I never felt 'worn down'.
@heinoustentacles5719 are you talking about the customs or the relationships themselves? Really? That's weird. For me, it's usually the opposite, or just me continuing to hate a person because they're a horrible person.
Brilliant video! Thank you.
Excellent tone and pace throughout, as well!
When Hollywood promotes no differences between men and women, the result is the bland, desexualized, Mary sue we’ve been tormented with the last five years. Excellent video.
Ever heard of Chuck Norris or James Bond, Charles Bronson etc?
that's just not true
@@MmeKaja85all white males.
"When Hollywood promotes no differences between men and women" But haven't you heard? There *are* no differences between men and women. All those supposed differences are social constructs. (Unless, of course, you're trans.)
@@MmeKaja85 Chuck Norris heard of Chuck Norris before Chuck Norris was born.
It's more basic than a lack of romantic interest. Even Jin Orso made some emotional connection with Andor and others in Rogue One in the form of shared purpose and camaraderie. Today's girl bosses fail to make any kind of emotional connection with anyone in the story, as if they are aloof and untouchable.
No wonder Rogue One is the only Disney Star Wars that people actually likes.
I cal Jynn and Andor "the romance that never was", they never had the time, but clearly, something was developing between them. And that ending when they hold each other as the Deathstar strike is coming... that totally got me.
@@whitewolf3051 And yet it's number 3 behind The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi
@@whitewolf3051 They like it because they were fooled by the OT setting of it. It is a bland, boring and forgettable Star Wars movie with utterly forgettable characters.
@@MagcargoMan Your statement did not disprove his assertion.
Rey not only has no sexuality, she has no personality at all.
Just found your channel today & subbed you are literally SPOT ON about everything!
I don’t think there’s ever been a time where women have been portrayed as poorly as today.
These kinds of female characters are the depiction of the kind of women who are severely emotionally stunted and lonely. The kind of people who have a clear shell and you feel sorry for them because it’s unlikely that they’ll find peace in their lifetime.
Before, women were written mostly as femme fatale, damsel-in-distress, or '50s sitcom housewives.
We live in a world where femints support men taking their places.
@@darlalathan6143 that’s just flat out false.
@@heavytransit its actually very true and it says a lot that not having some romantic male interest you can project yourself into so you can pretend you get some pisses you off that much
@@nathanielclaw2841 No it’s not and the fact that you believe that portraying a woman engaging in normal relationships is somehow giving in to male urges proves my point.
This is why I enjoy female characters like Black Widow and Wonder Women. Yes, they are strong females. But they are NOT emotionless! They have a heart for a man and will go through great lengths to rescue them. Much like if the roles were reversed where the man rescues the kidnapped woman.
I think that’s a good message to put out for women who have boyfriends or husbands. If a man has your back, you should also have his in return.
Sigourney Weaver's Ripley and Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor were protecting their child with feminine ferocity against forces way bigger than their feminine nature in the biggest female action hero roles of all time. In other cinema female leads like Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock, Trinity in the Matrix, Nargis Dutt in the classic Mother India and recently Katniss in Hunger Games kicked ass, protected their families and communities in rough conditions however maintaining their femininity which upped the stakes in plot and made the characters very relatable. However lately female leads are potrayed to be emotionless(a very feminie trait), more masculine and not feminie at all(Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Yeoh kicked ass while wearing lipstick) and very crude like an Arnie/Stallone character. No that wasn't Galadriel in Rings of Power. LOTR Galadriel was like a motherly goddess. That character in ROP was Van Damme with a wig!!!
Sarah Connor in T2 is a deconstruction of 'strong independent female' character before it become a trend.
Sarah is tough as nail and very resourceful, but in order to become who she is, Sarah ended up unwittingly pushing her son away and found herself in a lonely world that no one could understand her pain. Her 'strong' attitude put her at odds with John who just wanted to have a mother, and instead of raising a son, her raised him to be a soldier. Not to mention that Sarah is also a husk for her former self who now is full of paranoid, hatred, and trauma that will never be fully healed. That's the price to become an action 'hero'. She even admitted that a literal killing machine is a better parent and companion to John than she ever was.
There are plenty of romance plot lines in the superhero genre: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, Star Lord and Gamora, Scarlet Witch and Vision, all three Spider-Men and their versions of Mary Jane, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, and the ones you mention. Every single story doesn't have to include a Cinderella plot line. I remember when conservatives used to complain that there was too much sexuality in media. Now, when they finally get their wish, they complain that there isn't enough.
Also, why no complaint about sexless (or sexual-but-loveless) male protagonists? John Wick's wife gets fridged right away, so he spends the entirety of his saga in grief, with no hint of romantic anything as he piles up the body counts. James Bond gets lots of women, but they're just sex toys to him, except for a wife in the very first movie who (you guessed it) gets fridged right away. So, no chance of "domesticity" or being "compromised" for him. But that's cool, because he's a dude. No complaints about all the male superheroes who aren't getting married and raising kids. Or how about all those classic Westerns where the gunslinger gets the schoolmarm to fall in love with him, but rides off alone into the sunset without so much as a look back?
We could also point to the double-standard around sexuality: if a male protagonist is hyper-sexual, with lots of women that he goes through like water without actually caring about them, he's a gigachad. If a female protagonist did that, she'd be a disgusting slut. Which is why they never do.
Aside: Why did this video show Rose Tico as one of the sexless women it's complaining about? She was hated precisely _because_ she had a romantic attachment to Finn, which is why JJ Abrams made that whole thing just go away.
Second Aside: I haven't seen _The Rings of Power,_ but I'm going to guess I'd be in agreement with you in rolling eyes at them turning Galadriel into Xena the Warrior Princess (GALADRIEEEEEEEL! 🤣). It's just not "her," IMO. It would have been more fitting IMO to have her use magic in combat, if she has to enter combat, or have her achieve her aims by other means. However, I'm not bothered with her not having a romance. In the original LOTR movies, she's portrayed as more of a lofty, quasi-celestial being like Gandalf. Where's _his_ love interest?
He just wants women to be half naked and mute. He doesn't care about women as people without a relationship.
The second spiderman was going out with Gwen Stacy
A. There's a difference between creating a compelling character who happen to be female with this: creating a strong female character, as your starting point, while undermining what makes the person compelling.
B. With a much younger relative, I've shared this several times due to the interest in writing:
don't fixate on surface level identity; dig deep to flesh out what human psychology will connect with long-term.
C. For instance, Black Panther is one of my favorite characters, but it's not because he's Black.
Instead, I am drawn to his character due to the many elements around and within him.
D. In Hollywood, they're uninterested in writing compelling characters, who happen to be female; they simply want to write "strong female characters."
The former works, but the latter is unlikely to connect psychologically.
Ironically, writing your character in a way where they are never compromised ends up compromising the entire effort.
Oh my goodness. You have just made me realize: that star motif on Captain Marvel's outfit is very very similar to the star motif on a certain woman's armour in Rings of Power.
It was.not an accident or coincidence, they did it on purpose.
@@offworlder1 They tried to link it to the lore, saying it was the Star of Finarfin, but it doesn't look anything like the Star of Finarfin. If anything, it looks like the Star Motif of the House of Feanor, which Galadriel would never have worn because she hated Feanor. Or possibly the Star of Earendil, which makes no sense as Earendil was Elrond's father but only a distant relative.
It does look like the star of ishtar, suggesting the strong warrior woman trope but it ironically also stands for (female) love, sexuality and even maternal qualities.
But like with all these symbols used in hollywood, l'm sure there is also another, much more ominous, occult meaning to it my shizo brain hasn't quite figured out yet.
You do an amazing job of articulating the forces at work here!
One of the first things Disney made after buying Star Wars was Rebels. And I noticed very quickly how they wanted to dial back on the sexuality of the women. But I overlooked it, mostly because it seemed marketed more for kids. Until we got our look at the adult version of Ahsoka, and how they essentially covered her chest with a giant serving tray. I then realized, we would never have a Slave Leia in Disney Star Wars. Even in the series Andor, which is a much more adult story, he goes to a brothel in the first episode.... but you never actually see anyone working there.
Indeed. Let's face it, portraying female characters as sexless, shapeless things do more harm to all women then the classic curvy but strong type.
Ahsoka sucked and had unbelievable and unrelatable characters.
Sabine chose to remain on Lothal during the galactic civil war instead of go home to Mandalore to be with her family. This is given in the Rebel's epilogue. She's on Lothal for TEN YEARS guarding the planet that isn't hers and living in Ezra's home. The only time she leaves in the middle of that is to train with Ahoska AND while doing that they flew around attempting to find Ezra.
She thinks Ezra is her only family even though she has Hera, Zeb, Jacen, and Chopper that are her found family.
She disrespects the KIA/MIA for Kanan and Ezra, she disrespects Ezra's sacrifice, the galaxy, Ahsoka, and Ezra by stealing the map and taking it to an unsecure location (after being warned not to), and she disrespects Ahsoka so much that the actress playing Sabine said she felt sick doing it. Can't have the female being vulnerable and instead have to have her being a disrespectful bitch.
Sabine throws the GALAXY and her found family under the bus almost getting Hera, Chopper, and Jacen killed to see one guy she knew for only a few years ten years ago. She thought Ahsoka was dead as that point and had no way to get Ezra home.
She does all this and when she sees him she reveals NOTHING of the tactical situation or any feelings at all. I've seen casual coworkers with more of an emotional reunion.
No remorse, no telling Ezra essential stuff he needs to know, and especially no romantic feelings. Can't have a woman getting vulnerable at all.
Ezra may have known a tunnel into the Night Mother catacombs below the fortress or some sneaky way to move closer to the fortress or some place to hide.
By keeping Ezra in the dark on EVERYTHING of importance Sabine put Ezra and the Noti people's lives at risk. She shows she doesn't care about him at all.
It's better to have this I guess that a woman showing any vulnerability to a man.
So now we've got a woman risking the fate of a galaxy and helping start a war that will kill billions for a guy she doesn't give a shit about.
She also suffers no consequences from anyone or anything for her selfishness because we can't have a woman suffering consequences either.
Her character is now ranked down by Holdo in polls I saw.
Even male superheroes don't really get fleshed on romances these days. It's like they're trying to take the sexiness out of everything, which is ironic because western society is more open about sex than ever before. When it comes to Superman (Cavill's version), Aquaman, Spiderman (Holland's version), the last 2 Thor movies, most of the other recent MCU movies, romantic relationships are sidelined or forgotten about all together. None of the romances seem to have any chemistry, they lack depth, they're not fleshed out. Romance doesn't have to be the focus of such movies, but it's odd that they seem to be trying to remove it. When you compare it to e.g. the first Iron-man film, the difference is clear.
Exactly this. It's the downplaying of romance in comic book adaptations in general that is an issue. Daredevil is the best show, but Matt and Karen Page never happens.
But don't forget love interests were a tool to bring female demos to the theaters back in the day. If a guy wanted to watch some guy stuff, at least there'd be a romance for the ladies. Now that the ladies are about that guy stuff, romances aren't necessary.
You haves decades worth of movies if you want to watch something with a tacked-on rushed romance sub-plot.
@ MagcargoMan So? Should everyone be relegated to watching things of the past instead of enjoying new stories that are genuinely inclusive (ie. men and women with strength, character depth, and agency) ? People have every right to crave new stories that are actually good and not degrading one gender while over simplifying the other.
@@nothinglikeburntvag He's crying about generic cookie-cutter superhero movies not having tacked-on romance sub-plots.
>>Even male superheroes don't really get fleshed on romances these days
Wow. That Peter Pan analogy is so on point because there is something also essentially infantilising and stunted about it. I’m gonna remember that one…
The only thing I would add was the scene from the Incredibles in which Helen finds herself having to be both a superhero and a super-mom. The part when she was telling Violet to believe in herself was pure gold.
You'd think that with Galadriel's extensive experience in fighting Orcs for centuries and her uncanny strength, she would be able to prepare the (hopefully already skilled) Numenorian ELITE soldiers for what they are up against.
She instead chooses to show off, with twirly elvish moves. It doesn't help anyone, since Orcs won't be fighting like chinese stage actors, nor will the Numenorians have the ability to match her grace.
Even if we're sticking with her abrasive warrior characterization, do something that makes sense. She can quickly riposte and disarm a couple Numenorians to gain their respect... but then she can go into a lesson of what to prepare for. Have her hold back her agility and nimbleness in place for brutish strength and obvious defensive gaps. TRAIN the men, don't humiliate them.
Centuries old and yet acts like a spoiled teenage brat.
Humiliating the men is the point.
Exactly! I was hoping to see throught the fight sharo comenting about defense gaps, bad rythm and brute force, along side a miss use of the weapons they were holding. Besides. Why are they training in a bay? They could be rather training in a specisl room, and instead of going everyone at her, they could have been going ine by one. After all, it is a training sesión.
ROP is full of pointless, idiotic stuff like that.
Early in the show they wanted to show Arondir was a ‘smart’ guy. So what do they do? That old Hollywood trick of having him pass some chess players (in the village), and calling out checkmate moves.
Idiotic, lazy, Fast and Furious movie level writing, that incidental makes Arondir look like a pompous twat.
I mean… could you even imagine a scene from LotR where Aragorn did that?!?
@@TommyGlint tbf, I can kinda, _but_ Gimli mocks him for being a-smart-guy like Legolas, and then some friendly banter ensues.
Y'know, homies being homies
The majority of us prefer male/female tension, and that's science and facts.
What's worse, in the canon, Galadriel was spending a lot of the time during the Second Age not hunting down Sauron but setting up the citadel of Lothlorien with her husband (who was the one who gave her the name Galadriel; her original name was Nerwen but she liked his nickname for her best) and bringing up her kids (one of whom was Arwen's mother). Poor old Celeborn is conspicuous by his absence in that parody of a series.
Disney has botched up many of their female heroines nowadays, but one of the few exceptions is Kate Bishop. She wanted to prove that she was more than her parents money and wanted to help people. She was clumsy, goofy, and made mistakes. But she learned from them and that’s what makes her relatable. Rescuing Lucky and wanting to have a Christmas party to cheer up Clint makes her likable. While we don’t see many inspiring female characters right now, I’m glad we have Kate and that gives me some hope for writing good female characters.
Remember how many times male heroes were about to fail in their duty or struggled with inner demons but were supported and advised in these dark moments by female character with whome they had an intimate bond?
And remember how this did not take away from either the male or the female hero. Similarly, the more rate cases where we did get heroines, they would be vulnerable or angry or disillusioned, nd at this point a male character would appear to show them the love, support amd understanding they needed.
And these worked because they reflect real life. The differences between men and women were acknowledged and both were empowered.
Be it when Diana finds out that men can be evil but the Captaon shows her the world is still worth fighting for, or when Aragorn is unsure whether to take up the broken sword and Eowyn appears to give him strength. Everyone can relate to these moments because everyone has felt these things. It is no secret that sometimes, it is precisely the oppossite gender who is needed to give someone the push, nd sometimes the same gender (like Sam carrying Frodo..which would not have worked had Sam been a girl) nor can we imagine Diana being similarly comforted by another woman.
I really enjoy listening to your deconstructions of modern culture. Thanks for the effort you put into your scripts and videos. You deserve so many more subscribers!
yes, this was actually great. keep it up
Just a note, Daisy Ridley barely has feminine features. I mean, on the surface, maybe. But, unless you accept not having breasts and never confirming if she has a vagina, to be a woman, then you would be stuck.😒
The Three Parts of Morality by C.S. Lewis Doodle
Probably someone pointed out already, but there is a modern product in which the female characters are in stark contrast with sexless heroines in the video: House of Dragons. The women there have femininity, passions, love interests and loved ones. They flirt, feel sexual tension and have sexual encounters. They experience joy, grief, rage, pain, sadness, pride, cruelty and all other kind of human emotions. And because of that, they are way more appreciated and enjoyed by the public, compared to all the heroines in this video. Something proved also by the rating of HoD vs LOTR.
What an excellent summary, great video, subscriber earned!
Dude, dude. It's simple. These "writers", have no idea how to write, never mind tell a story, nevermind create something new. So they tell stories from their lives, combine it with some existing IP, and presto, you have a "script".
How are they going to write about romance? They've never experienced it.
Additional irony is that the actual lord of the rings books were pretty aromantic, you didn’t even see Arwen until the very end. Eowyn and Faramir enjoy a romantic stroll through a garden while they’re recuperating, that’s about as steamy as it got from what I remember, though it’s been a couple years since my last read
Romantic love does seem to take a backseat in the Lotr books, but there is so many other depictions of other kinds of love
Love between the fellowship members themselves and Theoden and his family for example
True, and in fact I seem to recall people complaining about Arwen getting more of a role in the films than in the books for that reason. But there's a bit of a thematic reason for that in the books: all the romance is put on the back burner until the job is done and everyone goes home. Aragorn and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, Sam and Rosie, all of that happens in the end as a way of showing that the world is now safe for people to live their lives, and also to show the growth of Sam and Faramir, at least, into men who can live in their own society. In a sense, Lord of the Rings can be read as a coming of age tale--so the romance as a final plot point makes sense. (the films operated under different constraints--since the director couldn't spent a chapter on Elven love poems as Tolkien did, Arwen had to be introduced early to establish why Aragorn liked her in the first place)
There's a difference between that and total aromanticism.
Less is more
I love the montage of Star Wars women with no romantic interests. The only one we spend any amount of time with to learn that they might have a romantic interest is Rose, and she actually does seem to have an interest in Finn, unlike what the video implies.
This was well written and spot on. It's the brand of feminism that brought us gems like "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" and "All sex is rape" and "It's 2023. Nobody cares what men want." Of course most women, like most humans in general, do yearn for physical and romantic intimacy, but this strain of feminism has told women to feel bad about having those feelings. Some years back, these same people had a fit because a female video game character was shown crying in a situation that was perfectly reasonable to cry in. At some point, a large subset of feminists bizarrely concluded that the secret to seizing power from men was to embrace all of the worst societal norms forced on men, to basically mimic toxic masculinity. Don't have feelings, be brash and rude, etc.
Writing these days is just terrible. The reason Strong Female Character is such a trope is because the only way they can create such a character is to make all the men seem useless and dumb in comparison. This trope has a knock on effect on the rest of the cast.
To quote a video game I don't even play, "They are maidenless."
If you ever find the time, you should. It is epic
Even the Waifu wars of said game have more emotional depth than a lotta films
You make a very good point about the lack of "himbos." It's odd that the heroines aren't "slaying" as one would expect a "queen" to. Probably because a plausible relationship like that would require something of an age or power differential in the woman's favor, and 'cougars' wouldn't fit the mold of the 'Petra Pan' heroine, who is not a woman, but a girl.
It would probably be interpreted as "demeaning" for a superpowered heroine to be attracted to and then "settle" for a "normal" man, towards whom she would then be expected to be at least a little submissive. In the film "Supergirl" (1984), there was a "normie" - in the person of the lowly groundskeeper / hunk "Ethan" (brilliantly played by Hart Bochner) - on whom Supergirl was "sweet." And even then, the dramatic tension had to be toned down or explained away by having the groundskeeper be enthralled by a love potion which reduced him to a simpering idiot. As a result, Supergirl was, essentially, fawning over a cuddly puppy dog she found by the roadside, rather than interacting with a 3-dimensional *man* blessed with *agency* .
Fricken best video on this subject on YT !! Well done !!!!
The Bechdel test is the industry standard now that feminists are filling the writing rooms.
Are going to have to employ a similar test for men?
A test were two men are not bested by a woman physically, verbally nor characterologically. (Bare minimum being at least equal)
@@IncredibleMet Almost every single show and movie these days would fail that test.
You can see it in a lot of stuff. Not just the stipulation that female characters must act like beefcake male jerks, but it's reinforced by other parts such as the Bechdel requirement of two female characters having "meaningful" conversation with each other and not about men. Which, in practice, has been one of the many ways they write the male characters as idiots or jerks. Culminating in the cringe scenes in which female characters tell each other how great they are, and the shots in which they girl-boss pose together. Comes across very contrived and insecure. The Bechdel requirements have hamstrung writing quality and you can see it being implemented everywhere if you are familiar with the list, a sizable part of "The Message".
The Bechdel test isn't that bad imo. Its only requirement is that two women talk to one another besides a man. When you think about it, a lot of the men, in many genres of movies/fiction, talk to one another about so many other things other than women; so, when they do talk to each other about women It's not exhausting to listen to or annoying because you know they have others aspects in their lives they want to achieve, go to, etc. If the writers aren't being so explicate and making this "requirement" so obvious with cringy writer or set up, it could really elevate a lot of character's development.
@@raburaburaburabu8858 The Bechdel test is nothing but more feminist whining.
For one..if you think about it, regardless of males talking about other things..their lives are still mostly defined by everything besides themselves, it usually involves a women or family. Though mostly a women.
From action to science fiction, most male characters entire being centers on other people.
Anakin Skywalker... driven mostly by the the lost of his mother.
John McClane..mostly driven mostly by the protection of his wife.
John Matrix (Commando) Driven by getting his daughter back.
Liam Neeson in the Taken series...the series is nothing without him protecting his family (daughter and wife)
John Wick...yes its over a dog, but that dog was mostly special because it was gifted to him by his late wife.
Most male superhero's are driven by the lost of a women or protection of people, including mostly women.
Most of the movies feminist complain "fail the bechdel test" features one male character killing scores of other men for the sole purpose of a women, yet because the same movie features women who aren't talking about something that doesn't involve a man, that means the movie is sexist against women?
Its ridiculous... even more the main reason Horror movies are driven mostly by female leads (final girl) is because studios know women garner far more sympathy in situations of peril, and men are seen as disposable. So its more effective if women drive the plot and survive then men, nobody complains about this..and its celebrated.
Feminist simply need to pipe down.
Strong independent women who don't need no man.
I miss romance and friendships in film and media. If it's well done I find it very engaging.
I really enjoyed this video essay. Thank you
Other than James Bond movies, most of the male heroes in Hollywood movies don't actually have sex on screen. Most of them feature romantic subplots limited to flirting. You don't see anyone calling those men sexless. The implication of this school of thought is that women are allegedly valued for their sexuality whereas men are valued for their individuality, hence different expectations.
Exactly men can go without a relationship they are praised women do it they are burnt at the stake.
Hollywood - women don’t need no man !
Also Hollywood - men should be allowed to compete in women sports !
Welcome to 2023!
Your statements lack any connection or relation. 😐
@@platinumprodigy9745 ph I would beg to differ there Platty . See Hollywood runs down stream of politics and all of this bullshit is tied to one another . Now you can disagree with me but to say my statement holds no connection holds no weight . Although we can agree to disagree and continue on with our lives . 😬
This is sad but true. I enjoy seeing characters flirt and build sexual tension. Taking intimate relationships out of fantasy and superhero movies loses your female audience. Ariel is the newest to lose her man. Can we not show heteros falling in love anymore?
No... strong women need only cats and wine
As a 90’s girl I saw endless re-runs of Bewitched. It covered the journey of a young woman, from newly wed, to housewife and mother. She encountered many of the kinds of family squabbles, awkward social situations, and prying: that couples often faced. When I encountered them ask a wife and mother, they were very relatable.
Thank you for this. I never understood why I liked Wandavision and Loki, and then panned so many current super hero movies shows until this video. Without romance there are no stakes. The hero has nothing to lose. Romeo had Juliet, William Wallace had Isabella, Superman has Lois, and Wanda (at the very least) had Vision,
And Loki had himself in the form of Sylvie.
@@farseer2043and the best thing that could've happened. I'm never getting over it.
Actually, I'm on the fence about romance subplots. If the plot is already dynamic and convoluted, trying to tie in MORE complications in a shallow 'romance' would irk me. If the romance served to enhance what is already a good plot, I'm totally down with it. That being said, the excrement that is Disney putting out their wads of crap, I think romance would make it worse, not better.
I'm so glad you made this video. The sexlessness of the Star Wars universe is weird, they literally aren't human beings if they're not contemplating sex with someone there. I think the industry should take note from Hayao Miyazaki who said 'many of my movies have strong female leads - brave, self-sufficient girls that don't think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their hearts. They'll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a saviour. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.' They care for their male counterparts, even if it's not romantic.
These women don't even CARE about anyone, so what the hell are they fighting for? Vulnerability is dead
They crave righteousness, as far as I can tell. I guess it was a reaction to the overzealousness of #MeToo (there were definitely problems, but come on...) and the effects are still hurting storytelling.
Thats not true. Captain Marvel for example did actually care about a lot of people, for example Nick Fury, the innocent Skrull civilians etc. Rey cared about her friends and the resistance. Galadriel cared about the villagers in the Southlands.
@@jneilson7568 I wonder how anyone could be so ignorant towards the MeToo protests. First, the new badly written female characters being all their fault is nothing more than a slanderous allegation, and second, it was much worse than your uninformed and cold depiction.
@@abraham2172 A character saying they care, doesn’t equate to actual caring. They have to display it. They have to show it. And if they do, it feels forced.
They will show a woman sleeping with any person she just met a moment ago or they will show no loving relationship that doesn't end after a while.
You would expect all the relationships in media nowadays to be non-straight given our current culture... I never really noticed that this was what was really going on.
This is absolutely spot.
Although you omitted one thing: strong female characters ARE still allowed to have a romantic moment IF their romance partner is also a female. Disney and the other big studios have been very keen to insert woman on woman love interests, albeit they rarely involve the main character, who as you say, must remain pure and impervious to anything which may be deemed as vulnerability.
Good video, worth a sub.
Or interracial, i.e Rose and Finn, or Don Lemonlas and the single mother. But of course, never the female main character. Because caring for anyone other than herself would be a weakness.
@@rus0004 >>Rose and Finn
@@alexmuenster2102 Lmao. Yeah Rose got friendzoned hard. But China didn't like it, so thus it was.
That was brilliant as always. The thing I love most about your insightful, spot on analysis is the fact that it reveals that we know what they’re doing. They are not pulling the wool over our eyes.
I love your content more than I can say. Brilliance upon brilliance!!!
The ridiculous notion that leading female's can never fail at anything just actuality makes them look void of any kind of personality whatsoever!! You just get some wooden soulless figure that no one can relate or gravitate to, and most importantly root for!! The sad thing is most of the actresses that play these leads are nice people and good at what they do but the material that they have to work with is garbage and doesn't make them look empowered at all. It does the complete opposite. Wonder when the writers will finally get the hint!!
the writers are told what to write and they do so to get the pay check. The people that have and control the money are the ones pushing the garbage.
You never cared when male Mary Sues were everywhere in film.
@@MagcargoMan like I said, give them something good to work with and it's literally not a problem. A bit of character development. Modern cinema seems to lack this important aspect and it's just lazy writing. They only need to look at the past for inspiration, the likes of Ripley or Sarah Connor for instance. We went on a journey with those characters and embraced their strengths but it was well within the context of the story, so it worked. Why can't the modern writers achieve this? That's all I'm saying.
@@andyp621 You didn't even address what I said.
@@MagcargoMan That's because what you said was inherently stupid.
Sexuality, like it or not, is one of the things that most of the population can identify with. So, from a writer's point of view, it's one techniques to make the reader/viewer sympathize with the character. It's a shame to take it out, because it fits, in almost every story.
Curious how the crowd that always says a character's sexuality is not important is also the same crowd that gets upset if they don't see a woman dressed like a hooker in a movie.
Indeed, sexuality is a part of life. And it is also plays a part in why life at all exist. Which makes it terrible how modern movies avoid it too hard.
This was fantastic. Earned a sub!
I hadn't heard janacek in a while, the 3 seconds of in the mists at the end reminded me I liked it. 👍
I don't know if it's coming from the writers themselves or if it's from studio executives, but sometimes it seems like if they can't write in their ships or whatever, they just have no romance at all. Big studio movies try to have as broad an appeal as possible, but at the same time they're trying to cater to a minority, so they can't really have it both ways and this is the end result.
Well... the studios set up the writing to fail from the get-go. Having to get everything approved via "diversity boards" turns stories from creativity to just aimless signaling.
Lara Croft in the reboots was supposed to be a lesbian with same the Asian female but they feared the backlash so since they couldbt give her a girlfriend they made so she's married to her job and doesn't have time for romance
To me a love interest raises the stakes a whole lot more because we actually get to know the people who the hero's are trying to protect. Sure a movie can do without it and can do good, and sometimes it's needed and sometimes it's not. But at the end of the day, if a movie is bad, it's bad.
Excellent & entertaining analysis. Subscribed for more.
Very well put... thank you 🎉❤
Imagine Arewen leaving middle earth because "she don't need no man" AND Aragorn defeating Sauron only to come back to realize his love left him so she could be a strong woman... But she could only be safe because she tricked you into risking your life to save all of middle earth.