6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Characters

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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby Edgar Cabrera » Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:28 pm

FaceTheCitizen wrote:
Edgar Cabrera wrote:As pretty much every single article about these themes by Cracked, it left me on the fence. Yes, the Sherlock episode with Irene made me wince at some moments (goddamnit Moffat), but the other entries seemed like low-hanging fruits. I mean, Avatar: The Last Airbender? It was almost like the "sexist video game problems bigger than the boobs" one.

I disagree. In the show, Katara was competent, able to go toe-to-toe with tough opponents, and was even one of few people to learn a powerful, but deadly skill. In the movie, she was turned into a little bitch.

So yeah, that was disappointing.

I think that I was misunderestood there, or I used the wrong wording. When I mentioned The Last Airbender I was referring to the "low-hanging fruit" thing. As in, how the movie was such a tragedy on every sense, including the whole "let's recast the protagonists as white kids but leave the villain's race as it was." As one of the comments said, "If only that was the only problem with M. Night's 'The Last Airbender' massacre."

But yeah, the frustation is completely understandable when both of the Avatar series are filled with badass women, and it took Shyamalan to make one of the most capable ones a damsel in distress.

TheSyrupNugget wrote:Were I a conspiracy theorist, I would accuse the higher-ups of making such a decision for the expressed purpose of attracting more vitriolic comments and hate-speech in a Machiavellian attempt to prove their own point about the alleged misogynistic evils of the comment section. But I'm not, so I'm just gonna take this opportunity to express that I don't actually think that's what's going on.

But if that is what they were going for, it would admittedly be a pretty brilliant Batman gambit.

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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby Marcuse » Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:41 pm

I think the contention is that as much as the depiction of the female characters in the film version of Avatar sucked, the entire film sucked and didn't do justice to its characters or plot. Picking out just the female characters in a film that sucked all round for all the characters and saying it's based on misogyny or some misplaced carelessness in the handling of female characters is belied by the generalised misunderstanding of the source material and the poor handling of all the characters as a whole.

Of course, that doesn't mean that poor filmmaking tropes don't descend into gender stereotyping which makes the female characters into "little bitches". It just means it's not done because of malice, just laziness and stupidity.
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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby Andropov4 » Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:31 pm

I would think that's how most sexist portrayals in media happen, really. It's not people sitting down and wondering "How can I degrade women and make men look like violent idiots?", but rather the use of old tropes and cliches with little thought.
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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:37 pm

Well, obviously, more time thinking means less time for cocaine! What?! What do you mean that's not the job description of a screenwriter? You mean TV lied to me?........Oh.
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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby gregfrankenstein » Fri Feb 06, 2015 3:53 am

You'd think a social justice article would know better than to use a term like "strong female", which implies that women are inherently weak. It's the gender equivalent of when Archie Bunker used to refer to Sammy Davis Jr. as "one of the good ones".

This article fails at its own Tumblr-iness.
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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby CultofZoidberg » Sun Feb 08, 2015 11:59 pm

Andropov4 wrote:I would think that's how most sexist portrayals in media happen, really. It's not people sitting down and wondering "How can I degrade women and make men look like violent idiots?", but rather the use of old tropes and cliches with little thought.



Yes, but I really think that's more laziness than anything.

Also, the Cersei one was the only really egregious one. The show if anything made her way less awful.
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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby QuincyMorris » Mon Feb 09, 2015 9:44 am

It's not exactly a secret that Cracked is absolutely infested with those shrews from Tumblr... we talk about it on /gamergate/ all the time.

However, it's really important to note that Cracked is, in essence, pandering to a very extremist, niche audience that has no real sway in the real world. They have already alienated a lot of their fanbase, myself included, due to the ridiculous things they've pulled to show support for these kind of people. Censoring comments section, those crazy gamergate articles, and the downright insane beliefs they hold about the relationship between men and women. It's getting to the point that people are getting fed up with it. Wong's actions aren't just something we complain about here on the chat room anymore... Cracked is starting to get a very poor reputation online in general, not just among people like me who hate them for political reasons.
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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby Andropov4 » Mon Feb 09, 2015 4:21 pm

I don't know that Cracked is particularly extremist. And I don't recall any insane beliefs about the relationships between the sexes (though I wouldn't be even a little surprised if there was an article in the archives called "6 Insane Beliefs About The Relationships Between Men and Women").
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Re: 6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Character

Postby sunglasses » Mon Feb 09, 2015 4:41 pm

Ok.

So, I actually do agree a bit with Coraline. They essentially introduced a character for exposition and he does essentially trap the hand which is something Coraline did in the book.

She pretended to have a tea party and ignored the creeping hand of doom until it sprung and she could trap it inside a blanket with rocks and tossed it down the well (essentially). So I can get why people would get a tad irritated by this removal. It essentially takes a young resourceful woman and makes her a trope. Damsel in distress.

Sadly, I'm used to strong female characters getting the re-write in films. It irks me. And yes, I doubt its not purposeful in the "Hahahaha, let us make this character weak. Yes." but in more the "Well, let's have it fit the tried and true trope."

We can also flip this and talk about instances were male characters were made female in the films-in an insulting manner. Key point here: The Andromeda Strain. Dr. Peter Leavitt, who has epilepsy and doesn't tell anymore and then misses an important data point because of flashing lights becomes Dr. Ruth Leavitt in the film. They literally made the male character who makes a boo boo into a female character who makes a boo boo. That is some really insulting shit, in my opinion.
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