My favorite thing about all the pissbabies calling her a Mary Sue already is the implication that if the lead was a guy that should make him a Gary Stu.
I keep hearing about these hordes of evil "pissbabies" who hate women in fiction but no one can produce an example of one, let alone the immense legions of "misogynerds" that social media scum claim are at our doorstep.
I sometimes play D&D with this one guy, and he complained a bit about it. One of our servers at work also went on a rant for about five minutes about the Ghostbusters reboot. Not because it looked awful overall, but because women. They consider it pandering and forcing something to make women happy.
Yeah, I haven't seen any complains either. I assume that there was a single troll on Twitter who knew he could get some idiot in the "press" to take him seriously. Hence the headline "STAR WARZ FANZ IS SEXUST!" When really, "Lone guy Trolls Twitter, is taken seriously" would have been more accurate.
Wouldn't surprise me. Something similar happened last year when several trolls (white and black) said on Twitter that they were boycotting The Force Awakens because it had a black guy in it. In short order, clickbait sites and social media went mad over an obvious (and lame) joke. Wouldn't surprise me if we're seeing a repeat.
Deleted last comment. This needs upacking a little more.
I remember in the first Star Wars film, the naive protagonist from a backwater planet pretty much stumbled and flailed his way through the movie - droid escapes, sandpeople encounters, cantina escapades, detention blocks, trash compacters, door locks, etc. - relying on his new, grudging allies to help him out, and only getting a couple of instances of luck or insight throughout. (Even if one was sending a couple of torpedos down the Death Star's exhaust pipe) And we loved him all the more for it. He WAS naive, and inexperienced, and flawed, and human. He had a fairly predictable but classic hero's journey.
Then in last Star Wars film, the naive protagonist from a backwater planet, barely scraping survival from the junk of old wrecks, somehow turns out to be hypercompetent at everything she turns her hand to, even actions that she can't possibly have known about, and is utterly loved by every 'good guy' that she encounters, within seconds. Her progression is almost precisely the opposite of the former, if you could even call it a progession - she has a couple of incidental stumbles in her inexorable, (almost) unwavering, ironically bland and personality-free role of being 'totally awesome'. With all the inherent vacuity and banality of those two words.
She, as a character, is horribly, horribly written, and seemingly intentionally so. What other label can be so easily applied but 'Mary Sue'? Does it matter if she's a girl? Does it matter if she's not a 'Gary Stu'? I could stick THAT label on the pilot character, whatever his name was, for what it's worth. I could also level that sexual discrimination accusation at people who defend the travesty because she's a girl.
TL;DR: the simple label 'Mary Sue' might be lazy, simplistic and dismissive, but no more so than all those cries against it, in Rey's case.
And now we have the Rogue One trailer and from what we can see of it, we're going to get the same thing all over again. Rey II. Rey the second. The return of the revenge of Rey. A character who's slightly less naive, maybe, but who threatens to coast through any hardship with unfathomable abilities that appear out of nowhere faster than kung-fu downloading into Neo's brain. Maybe it won't be like that. It's only a trailer so far, after all. But based on past precedent, I doubt it.
The guy featured in the cartoon says we should be glad we're not getting Anakin Skywalker again. The irony is that's what we're getting; and if the fact that they're girls is clouding any perceptions, that one's right up there with the best.
Not enough "it's true" labels.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite thing about all the pissbabies calling her a Mary Sue already is the implication that if the lead was a guy that should make him a Gary Stu.
ReplyDeleteI keep hearing about these hordes of evil "pissbabies" who hate women in fiction but no one can produce an example of one, let alone the immense legions of "misogynerds" that social media scum claim are at our doorstep.
ReplyDeleteThey are the true phantom menace.
Clearly you do not spend much time on the internet.
DeleteMy ability to step outside of a hugbox is why I laugh derisively at every alleged sighting of your favorite boogeyman.
DeleteI sometimes play D&D with this one guy, and he complained a bit about it.
DeleteOne of our servers at work also went on a rant for about five minutes about the Ghostbusters reboot. Not because it looked awful overall, but because women.
They consider it pandering and forcing something to make women happy.
What negative reaction? I saw some dorks whining that they "ripped off" Dark Forces but that's about it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I haven't seen any complains either. I assume that there was a single troll on Twitter who knew he could get some idiot in the "press" to take him seriously. Hence the headline "STAR WARZ FANZ IS SEXUST!" When really, "Lone guy Trolls Twitter, is taken seriously" would have been more accurate.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't surprise me. Something similar happened last year when several trolls (white and black) said on Twitter that they were boycotting The Force Awakens because it had a black guy in it. In short order, clickbait sites and social media went mad over an obvious (and lame) joke. Wouldn't surprise me if we're seeing a repeat.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDeleted last comment. This needs upacking a little more.
ReplyDeleteI remember in the first Star Wars film, the naive protagonist from a backwater planet pretty much stumbled and flailed his way through the movie - droid escapes, sandpeople encounters, cantina escapades, detention blocks, trash compacters, door locks, etc. - relying on his new, grudging allies to help him out, and only getting a couple of instances of luck or insight throughout. (Even if one was sending a couple of torpedos down the Death Star's exhaust pipe) And we loved him all the more for it. He WAS naive, and inexperienced, and flawed, and human. He had a fairly predictable but classic hero's journey.
Then in last Star Wars film, the naive protagonist from a backwater planet, barely scraping survival from the junk of old wrecks, somehow turns out to be hypercompetent at everything she turns her hand to, even actions that she can't possibly have known about, and is utterly loved by every 'good guy' that she encounters, within seconds. Her progression is almost precisely the opposite of the former, if you could even call it a progession - she has a couple of incidental stumbles in her inexorable, (almost) unwavering, ironically bland and personality-free role of being 'totally awesome'. With all the inherent vacuity and banality of those two words.
She, as a character, is horribly, horribly written, and seemingly intentionally so. What other label can be so easily applied but 'Mary Sue'? Does it matter if she's a girl? Does it matter if she's not a 'Gary Stu'? I could stick THAT label on the pilot character, whatever his name was, for what it's worth. I could also level that sexual discrimination accusation at people who defend the travesty because she's a girl.
TL;DR: the simple label 'Mary Sue' might be lazy, simplistic and dismissive, but no more so than all those cries against it, in Rey's case.
And now we have the Rogue One trailer and from what we can see of it, we're going to get the same thing all over again. Rey II. Rey the second. The return of the revenge of Rey. A character who's slightly less naive, maybe, but who threatens to coast through any hardship with unfathomable abilities that appear out of nowhere faster than kung-fu downloading into Neo's brain.
Maybe it won't be like that. It's only a trailer so far, after all. But based on past precedent, I doubt it.
The guy featured in the cartoon says we should be glad we're not getting Anakin Skywalker again. The irony is that's what we're getting; and if the fact that they're girls is clouding any perceptions, that one's right up there with the best.
All of that is true but
DeleteMuh soggy knees.
Opinion invalidated.