IDW Publishing Forums

[Bampot]

Kylie! Now I have to start reading Ghostbusters. My SO sent that picture to me a couple weeks ago and I honestly thought it was a fanart. Fail on me, but I thought it was too cool to be true.

Anywho, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who has issues finding enjoyable female characters. The only other female characters I really like are in Portal and one of them doesn't even talk.

[Sprite]

Have you read the thread on the Smurfette Principle? Even as a young child it irked me there always seemed to be more male than female characters in cartoons (unless the cartoon was specifically aimed at a female audience, like My Little Pony) and the girls were usually boring, too.

Say you want to be a Smurf. When you're a boy, there's plenty of characters you can choose from. There's a big character variety. When you're a girl, you're pretty much stuck with Smurfette. Who's pretty much there to be "the girl".

Sheesh.
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[RaggaeTron]

Kind of like IDW's Transformers at the moment, if you want to dress up as a female transformer, Arcee is your only choice.

[GMR4LFE]

Haha oh man and to think we're the highest brain functioning organisms on the planet. Considering there are more females on the planet, why wouldn't there be more females(with developed personalities) in everyday media. This is probably a large contributor to the special attention those "few" female fans get at conventions/parties/etc.

Not sure if any of you have heard of Sam Gordon, but she's 9 yr old girl football player. Plays with the boys and is easily outperforming them! While her stats are quite superb, all of the extra attention comes because she is a girl. Not to downplay her performance, but there does seem to be a type of double standard. "Anything you can do I can do better...", if only women and men were actually treated as equals, Sam Gordon wouldn't be a child phenom and Smurfette wouldn't have been the only girl in The Smurfs. =P I guess in short, I'm saying we sadly live in a men's world. And yet we're the minorities in world population. Wut? But I definitely think women are done being pushed around, times are changing...finally.
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The biggest disability in life is a bad attitude.

[Bampot]

[GMR4LFE]

[Sprite]

The funny thing about Fifty Shades of Grey and, for that matter, Twilight too, is that they seem to have the unexpected side effect that the media have suddenly twigged to the value of the female audience. Twilight sold millions, and they saw women of all ages - moms and their daughters - flock to the cinemas. And Fifty Shades shocked a lot of men who suddenly realised that *gasp* women have sexuality and sexual fantasies just like men do!

What you see now is media doing a U-turn and offering more for the "female gaze". I don't know if I'm happy by attempts to basically sexualise men as they have always sexualised women - I'd be happier if they put more effort in adding more female characters and making them more "real" - but it's a start... As well as an interesting development.
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[GMR4LFE]

^ This is too true. Everything is just a mess! "I blame on that there teknologie, I tell ya. Ain't nothing but bad." But I just realized something, I've been doing a comic/story book thing for like 15 years and it's all males. It's a little dragon fantasy story and stuff and females are basically extinct(literally).

The few females still in my story though are without a doubt the most powerful or legendary. And I was but a middle school kid when I did start adding in females, so maybe subconsciously I made the few females "special" as a way to compensate for their extinction. LoL What has society done to me!?
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The biggest disability in life is a bad attitude.

[RaggaeTron]

I shouldn't judge Twilight, as I have yet to read the books. I think I'll pass on the movies, though. But what I've heard is that the message Twilight is sending young girls is that life is all about having a boyfriend, and without one, you're all lost and life is just not worth living.

Two of my friends have already turned down watching Skyfall as they rather see the new Twilight movie. At least one of them hates herself for loving Twilight.
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[Sprite]

I think I read an essay somewhere about the disturbing messages Twilight sends out. Hang on...

http://sarahgetscritical.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/a-feminist-critique-of-twilight-emotional-abuse-child-grooming-and-pro-choice-plots/
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[Bampot]

My friend made me read Twilight in high school. This was before the movies came out. I ended up reading the first three books because she kept promising me that there's this huge twist that changes everything at the end of the third book. I still have no idea what she meant and I told her that I'll always hate her a little for it. The positive thing is, I can fairly say that the series is awful in every way anything can be awful.

Bella is worthless without a man by her side. She has no interest in making any kind of social connections outside of Edward and his family. She ends up shunning any of the people who would otherwise have been her friends. When Edward leaves her in the second book, she almost dies. Several times. Seriously. First, she almost just dies in the woods were he left her after their breakup. Then she sits around doing nothing for months. Months. Just doing nothing. When her friends that she always treats like crap try to take her out to the movies, she tries to wonder off with some shady guys in hopes of getting raped or something. She starts riding a motorcycle just to be dangerous. Then she jumps off a cliff. This is all in hopes that maybe Edward will show up and save her. When she finally starts to get over him in favor of Jacob, he shows up again. When they get back together, he tries to stop her from seeing Jacob. Bella is 100% okay with becoming a vampire, even though that means she'll never see her family or friends again. Because who needs any other social connections when you have sparkle dude?

Oh, and Edward stole back all of the things that he had given her when they broke up. It was apparently so she wouldn't have to think about him, so she could move on. Or something. Half the books are them just dry humping and her wanting sex and him being all like "no, we have to be married, for we are proper Mormon vampires."

Then the werewolf falls in love the the baby. The end.

Oh, and it's all in first person. So painful to read. For shits and giggles, I was going to read Fifty Shades of Grey, but then I saw the girl's name is Anastasia Steele. I just can't handle that level of mary sue. I wish other women knew that there was better smut out there that's not a Twilight fanfiction with the names changed. I mean, I've read some of the sex scenes and they're just horrible and slightly hilarious.

[RaggaeTron]

Holy cow, it's even more messed up than I imagined. I think I might have to borrow the books from my aunt and see it with my own eyes.

It kind of brought this story to mind:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/1114/1224326575203.html
Kind of off topic, but the tragedy is just... it's just unbelievable...
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[Bampot]

That's just outrageous. I really don't understand what's pro-life about letting someone die. They need to change the term to pro-birth or something.

[GMR4LFE]

[RaggaeTron]