Shounen heroines and heroism

The problem is that WITCH looked so girly and for lack of a better word, lame that most guys wouldn't touch it with a twenty foot pole. I certainly wouldn't.

I'm reminded of an interview done for the short lived Voltron comic book by a rarity in US comic books, a female writer. She commented on how women were written, and came with two common types. The first was the damsel in distress types, or (not necessarily and) the so overly feminine that it bored guys and offended women (Orihime, the appearance of WITCH). The second was the humurously titled "dudes with boobs" where the male writer figures the only way a women can compete with a guy is if she looks, talks, and acts likes one.

For what it's worth, the trope is dead on.
 
Yes, one of the few things executives are right about are guys not want to watch a show that features girls (unless they're scantily clad action girls). I know a few people who never watched it because they thought it was for girls. Shame there's such a social stigma that people will assume that just because something stars females that it's automatically for them or they can't enjoy it.

Neither of which can really be applied to Will, which I like. I suppose the pink in their costumes might turn people off, though, which seems silly to me, especially with all the other stuff in the show. Will's the rare female lead who's neither a "man with boobs" or a "girly girl". She's just... a teenager.
 
I agree with that, it's also one of the reasons why I find the show alot more likable than most, if not all, the other magical girl shows out there

I don't understand this dichotomy where a character is said to be a 'man with boobs'.. to quote someone else 'Women don’t need to do womanly things in order to be women. They already are women. There are real women who really do behave just like men with breasts, and there should be a place for them in fiction.' But I think that's because that many gender neutral traits seemed to be depicted as masculine, for some reason

anyway, speaking of shounen and heroines, what about Claymore?

Personally I've only seen the first episode so I can't say alot about it, but it has been brought up in discussions where people are discussing about portrayals of females in shounen manga/anime
 
It comes down to gender roles in our society. For example, women are supposed to be submissive, while men are supposed to be assertive; women should be more emotional and sensitive while men should not show their emotions. When people start to go against what labels society places on them, then it confuses and sometimes angers people. You'll see a lot of boys being made fun of for having 'feminine' traits and vice versa. The 'men with boobs' label more than likely comes from this stigma people have against women possessing traits that are usually associated with males (strength, assertiveness, and so forth).
 
Which is a shame because it was a pretty solid show in spite of the girliness. The costumes were the one thing I thought were completely ridiculous too - but those came straight from the original comic, so there wasn't much they could do about them.

As to gender roles - I tend to think this is really a Japanese thing. You don't see this problem in Western shows. The female X-men and Justice Leaguers and Teen Titans may have girly moments and romantic urges, but the creators are very good about keeping them in the action on equal terms with the boys. They don't get the same amount of screentime, but they make their scenes count.

I think the difference is that there's been a very strong push here to show girls being strong and independent and good role models - admittedly sometimes to ridiculous extremes. Even the princesses aren't allowed to sit around and look pretty anymore. And Western toons don't target any kind of undergroud otaku market, so no mixed signals.
 
I personally liked them (except for Taranee's anyway, she got jipped since she's just in her tights and doesn't have a skirt or top like the other girls) and they did change a few things (like giving Hay Lin some pants, which she really needed)

I'd say the problem Western animation has is they tend to be shoved in your face a lot and are strong for no real reason outside of the show needing female role models. A 'I am woman, hear me roar' type of thing, if you will. Some shows generally seem to have naturally good female characters, but others you can tell only have them due to PCness and didn't put much effort into them.
 
.....If they fictional, why do they need to die? Especially Kagome, seeing as the series is over and she lives. No chance of dying ever.

I think you have some issues you need to work out concerning the opposite sex.
 
I never said men didn't need reasons, it's just writers seem to put more effort into male characters than female ones. A good example would be Katara from Avatar who got a super power boost after the first season and was able to take down professional soldiers and mastered waterbending with ease. Toph and Azula were also 'naturally good' and mastered their art before the show even began. Meanwhile, Aang and Zuko are the only ones really shown training and working at their skills throughout the series in order to better themselves and grow into harnessing their power. Similarly, you have characters like Kim Possible and Gwen Tennyson who are flawless and pretty much always right (except for maybe one or two episodes that focuses on them being wrong for their 'character flaw of the week', but that's usually the only time they are) As already mentioned, there's the 'useless damsel in the distress' as well. It seems like very few female characters are written in middle ground, only in extremes (though you could always say that's because there's more male characters, so there's more chances to hit) Of course, in the end, a bad character is a bad character, regardless of gender. It's just I notice female characters tend to have a higher proportional percentage than males.
 
I think that for me, if I had to choose between what they wore, to say, the girls from Sailor Moon or Winx Club, there's not much of a contest.. Having said that I wish Taranee kept her everyday hairstyle instead of changing it

Which is a real shame.. maybe this also explains why so many girl 'action' shows are in the 'magical' category, perhaps there's an assumption girls aren't as interested in 'training' show where the strength and abilities are not intrinsically gained by some sort of artifact?

Well, that seems to be the case in many shoujo I find, anyways, perhaps that is overgeneralizing a bit on my part
 
I can see that. Still, I don't agree about Katara. She was struggling through the first season, was all about finding herself a decent teacher, and even got jealous when Aang was better than she was at waterbending for a few episodes. I think she earned the power boost, and after that her character arc went somewhere else completely.

As for the training thing in girls shows - girls tend to be less interested in pure physical violence than boys, so you see a lot of magic-based powers and there's not much call for the kind of training scenes you're thinking of. But that's not to say the powers always come automatically. Gwen's a good example - her magic was learned gradually over the later seasons of the original Ben 10. Then it was retconned in Alien Force which pretty much defeated the whole purpose.
 
True, some writers are against showing violence against women (unless it's from another woman, or used a plot point to 'get even' with a man by kidnapping/hurting/killing his girlfriend, but man on woman violence seems to be taboo), so that may be why. W.I.T.C.H.'s broadcasted episodes were sometimes censored for TV due to that very reason (bad guys punching them in the face being cut, for example, but are present in foriegn airings of the show) which is probably why women in general get less screen time in action shows. (Disney apparently didn't realize that greenlighting an action show starring females may result in them being attacked and hurt )

I liked Katara in the first season (ignoring her role basically being the hero's love interest/sidekick for a second), but after she mastered waterbending in a few days and could mow down legion of soldiers came off, to me at least, as a "girls need role models too" moment (maybe people complained the first season had no promenant female characters so they decided to make Katara a master waterbender and introduce Toph/Azula to balance it out)

Gwen gradually growing in Ben 10 was something I liked (ignoring Alien Force really helps for a lot of things when dealing with the original series), my problem with her was the writers relied on her having to rescue Ben to prove that girls are good/he neeRAB her/she's not useless/she's better than him/etc all the time once she got her powers. Ironically, that role was destroyed in Alien Force (even though they retcon her powers to something else) and they didn't rely on that anymore.

Anyway, addressing the entire topic; ultimately, I think it all boils down to

1. These shows (shounen series and Western boy shows) are for boys, and boys would rather read/watch about other boys.
2. The wirters have no idea how to 'write for girls' (also explains why so many shows/movies, like most of Disney's stuff, abuse the 'Dead Mother Syndrome')
3. Double standarRAB (aformentioned 'violence against women' comment, sexism, and so forth)
 
As I understand it, Toph was originally intended to be male (a large, muscle-bound wrestler type IIRC) and was changed for greater gender balance, so you're half right.

Personally, though, I'd be inclined to chalk Katara's too-quick powerup to sloppy writing as opposed to any kind of feminist statement. It's HARD to show a character gradually improving through hard work, and much easier to show a training montage and then declaring, "Okay, he/she's awesome now." See also: Aang and Zuko instantly becoming firebending masters by doing the fusion dance. WTH?
 
Yes, if you go play the first Avatar game, you actually get tons of cutscenes with Toph-boy-type. He's a different character personality wise, and I think it worked better with how they changed it. The show would have continued to have a "Katara is the GIRL and so thats all she's about, GIRL PROBLEMS" feel to it, so having the ability for Katara and Toph to bond helped make it feel like less of a boys show.

I dunno, I don't think the problem was with Katara's development of her powers as much as her sudden change in character throughout season 2 and 3. Especially with her bizarre mood swings and out of character bitter pissiness towarRAB Zuko near the end of the show. The entire show kind of jumped the shark for the sake of slash-pandering and Harry Potter-esque tween drama, which is sad because it was such a near perfect show for two and a half seasons.
 
I suppose that's true; bad writing is bad writing, regardless of gender or other factors. Still, it still felt like the writers put a lot more effort into Aang and Zuko than Katara and Toph, even if that effort was sloppy. It's clear the girls were afterthoughts in that show, but that's usually how it is.
 
Avatar had extremely sloppy writing for the most part, especially in the third season. So I would use the show as a template to judge anything.
 
Er, Avatar only had three seasons. Two and a half makes the majority of the show. How could it have jumped the shark if you say it was near perfect for all but half a season of it's run? (Unless you were thinking of a different term to use for this rather than "jump the shark". "Fell short of perfection" perhaps? )
 
Endings are important. A crappy one can ruin a show.

Anyway, a lot to talk about.



They're both idiotic. I swear, pink is officially the TV's way of saying "Girls only, guys need not watch." What's wrong with a gender neutral color scheme for the outfits? You can still be sexy, but it's been very firmly engraved in the minRAB of viewers that pink = girl show.



That sounRAB funny. Although if a writer can't write women...should he be forced to? I don't think that's necessarily the case.



1. I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean, the 80's had lots of action girls in anime, unless Bubblegum Crisis was a magical girl series and I missed the memo. But for some reason, all action girls had to become magical girls, and that had to be the worst thing that could possibly happen to female
protagonists.
2. True. Kishimoto of Naruto fame confessed he had NO idea how to write women until his superiors basically put the proverbial gun to his head and forced him to add female characters. Dead Mother Syndrome, I like that. Mothers are seen as a hazard in action shows.
3. True as well, which leaRAB to the magical girl glut.
 
In general, no, but in the specific case of Avatar, I don't think the writers had any particular trouble with their female characters that they didn't have with ALL their characters. The show isn't perfect by any means, I just don't think its flaws had much to do with the gender of its characters.
 
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