ComicGate: Someone at Breitbart telling the truth about misandry in comics

[GoneGaltParticipant 361]

I’m including the entire article in the event this article is removed – hard to believe that Breitbart allowed ‘f~~~’ to show up here …

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/02/14/female-thor-is-what-happens-when-progressive-hand-wringing-and-misandry-ruin-a-cherished-art-form/

Female Thor Is What Happens When Progressive Hand-Wringing And Misandry Ruin A Cherished Art-Form

 

You may have heard that Marvel has turned Thor into a woman. What you probably don’t know, because you likely greeted the news with bafflement and horror and then resolved never to pick up a comic book from that company ever again, is just what a disaster the initiative is turning out to be.

Thor a woman? It’s hard to believe the most macho, overtly masculine character in the comic canon could possibly be reimagined as a broad. But that’s almost certainly precisely the reason Thor was chosen: as a f~~~-you to so-called nerdbros from the achingly progressive staff of today’s comic book establishment.

This has led to some questions from comic book fans. Questions such as: will Wonder Woman turn out to be a tranny? Is the Incredible Hulk only incredible because he endured cruel fat-shaming as a teen but didn’t let his size define him? And shouldn’t Spider-Man be a gay latino?

That last one’s not a joke, by the way: in 2011, Marvel unveiled a bisexual Spider-Man that was half-black and half-latino, called Miles Morales, to the consternation and confusion of ordinary comic book fans, as part of its Ultimate series of character reboots. We’re told “erasure,” whereby people’s pasts are scrubbed out by those in authority, is a social justice issue. Well, right now there’s erasure going in the basic, canonical biographies of some of Marvel’s most cherished superheroes.

Captain America, too, is changing: he’s becoming black. Changes like this are designed to provoke readers, and they do–not because readers are racist or sexist, but because they understand that certain characteristics are intrinsic to certain characters. James Bond and Captain America are obviously white. It is a part of their personalities. Thor is obviously a man; to suggest otherwise is daft.

What sticks in the craw of the fans I’ve spoken to about female Thor is how utterly transparent the political posturing is behind the change. No one likes their thunder stolen but there is simply no good literary justification for making Thor a woman, they say–and the results have been execrable. You can write intelligent satire about masculinity without making a classic masculine icon into a girl, an observation that seems to have escaped Marvel’s writers.

Here’s a typical comment, from a popular comic forum at Comicvine:

this is a blatant PR stunt on Marvel’s part designed to pander to feminist calls for women to have greater roles in comics. The only problem here is that most fans don’t want different Thor’s or Captain America’s, we just want good stories with the same old heroes. Change things up a little, introduce some interesting plot points, bring in some solid characterisation and entertaining action, add in some extra elements and you have the recipe for the right kind of comic. That’s what Aaron was doing before and that’s what has made Thor: God of Thunder one of the best comics Marvel are currently putting out. But editorial interference seems to think that it’s a good idea to promote ‘gender equality.’

If I was directly addressing the Thor creative team and editors who seem to want gender equality in the Thor line, this is what I’d say. Make a damn effort to promote Thor’s female support cast; Jane Foster, Roz Solomon, Lady Sif, Valkyrie, hell even Angela since you’re bringing her in (and I have the feeling Angela is going to be the new Thor now.) Believe me when I say female characters need more promotion and treatment in comics but make them new characters or flesh out the old ones you have. Don’t shoe horn a female character into a male hero’s position as, at the end of the day, she’s still defined by the male character, not her own legacy. I know Marvel are going for the “anyone can wield the power of Thor, even women” approach but this is ultimately detrimental to the female hero. Why? Because making a female version of a male hero demeans the male hero and leaves the superheroine being solely defined as a female replacement of the male hero.

This comment hits upon another reason why this new generation of “strong female characters” in movies, books and comics is absurdly counterproductive: it flattens women’s characters out to a few boring, stereotypically male characteristics such as physical strength. As this blog post from science fiction writer Vox Day suggests, “strong women” very often represent little more than men in women’s clothing, with none of the virtues or subtleties that female characters can bring to a storyline.

“Most ‘strong female’ characters observably are not women, they are simply male characters dressed in female suits. They don’t talk like women, they don’t act like women, and when we’re shown their interior monologues, they don’t think like women either. They’re about as convincingly female as those latent serial killers who like to wear those bizarre rubber women suits. They are, in fact, the literary equivalent of those freaks,” says Day.

Men don’t seem to care about gender-swapping great female characters, which rather gives away the game about the sort of agenda driving these awful decisions. Why is there a demand for female versions of male superheroes, but no demand the other way? I mean, have you ever heard of calls for a male Lara Croft? It makes very little sense, until you learn that comic books, fantasy and sci-fi were taken over years ago by ultra-progressive misandrists who basically hate their own core audiences.

Does that sound familiar? It should: the recent GamerGate controversy in video games happened because ordinary gamers, unlike comic book readers or fans of fantasy and sci-fi, stood up to the authoritarian moral panic brigade in the press and their feminist agitator icons and said: no. We don’t recognise the world you’re sketching out, and we don’t want your bizarre and outlandish politics to pollute our hobby.

Retroactive continuity and franchise reboots are being used today not to shine fresh light on the enduring themes of superhero stories, such as triumphing against the odds or the ultimate victory of good over evil, but for cack-handed, tone-deaf ideological reasons that simply aren’t resonating with most readers.

This, in a nutshell, is what GamerGate supporters are concerned about when they say social-justice warriors will ruin video games. Because, while there’s no evidence that video games make people violent or sexist, there’s plenty to suggest that imagination-based hobbies are wrecked when the hand-wringing progressives come to town.

And if you don’t believe me, take a look at the following cells (note: click on the link at the top to see the cells) from the new female Thor comic and tell me this excruciatingly cringeworthy dialogue is something any normal person would pay money to read and enjoy. While you’re at it, consider the following extracts from reviews of the issue in question, and ask yourself again why fans and journalists haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye in the last few years.

“There is something incredibly charming about the way Jason Aaron writes Thor, particularly the juxtaposition between Thor’s newly Asgardian speech and her very ordinary inner monologue.”
– Newsarama

“Not only do these scenes subtly acknowledge and render inert the concerns voiced by real life detractors, but they also paint the character in a stronger, more resilient light.”
— IGN

“In this issue, we get some very direct engagement with the feminist discourse.”
— Comicosity

[Smitty the Great OneParticipant 1535]

Jesus Harold Aloysius Meriweather Motherf~~~ing Christ! Is there nothing SJW’s can’t f~~~ up? Nothing screams petty asshole like f~~~ing up a good thing for the sake of people that wouldn’t care anyway. This is purely punitive, it’s not like they’ll open up a whole new female market in comics. Plain and simple they are f~~~ing up something men like just to f~~~ it up. I like my Marvel and DC universe the way it imperfectly is.

Anybody out the want to see a male version of Rogue, or Wonder Woman? I didn’t think so, just like no one actually INTO comics wants a female Thor. What next the female Beta-Ray Bill? Thor’s a broad what does that do to Sif, or even Loki? They are messing with Norse mythology now, so all bets are off. I just can’t wait for female Prof. X, she’ll be one bald bitch, YaY who feels empowered?

Is this what Social Justice Warriors think makes a difference? Do feminists or even women care about comics, I highly doubt it. It’s just one more way to make men unhappy by f~~~ing up something they like. I like comics, I got happy as f~~~ when Doomsday beat Superman to death…. yeah I said it. I was one gakked out bastard for “The Infinity Gauntlet” series…. (spoiler alert expect this series coming soon to be introduced by Guardians of the Galaxy).

So after comics what’s next will Jesus become a woman, will the Son of God “magically” become His Daughter? Perhaps a re-writing of history, I mean let’s be honest men have been given way to much credit for good things, it’s time we give women their due. Georgina Patton might as well have led the 3rd Army across Europe. Surely men won’t mind giving up the prestige of say Sir Isaac Newton, we’ll just say Olivia Newton-John was the “mother” of modern physics. Yeah, what does the truth matter anymore…

Life is too long to play by someone elses rules....

[KeymasterKeymaster]

First female Ghostbusters and now this. I wish it were funny, but it’s just lame.
And Smitty took the words right out of my thought bubble.

What’s with all these SJWs f~~~ing EVERYTHING up. For the amount of anything-male-interest destruction they cause, you wonder why they want to be more like men. If I thought “men are doing everything wrong”… I wouldn’t want to be “more like them”. Women don’t give a f~~~ about comics. Walk into any comic book store and the place is mostly men and girls are dragged in there kicking and screaming.

Feminism is about trying to tell women they can’t be “happy” unless they enjoy the same things MEN do.

Thanks for including the whole thing – and for taking the time to format it(!) nicely. If you ever find something online you think we should archive (even a whole webpage) let us know and we can archive a copy in the original context. S~~~ has a way of disappearing in the Manosphere and our prime directive is to preserve it. ( Breitbart are definitely allies and I have taken to checking them out more often since the Sexodus , but even that was pulled for a few days and we had to resurrect it from Google’s cache.)

If you keep doing what you've always done... you're gonna keep getting what you always got.

[BrainPilotParticipant 7640]

I’m not a comic fan, and I’ll admit having little knowledge of comics. But I have being paying attention to women for a very long time. As I read this, it occurs to me that comic books are printed on printing presses, which were an invention of a man. If women don’t feel that the comic book industry benefits them or treats them fairly, why can’t they just invent something of their own that they can have and design and mold however they like to benefit themselves as much as they wish?

When I hear women complain that they are not fairly treated by the comic book business, my first thought is a quote from one of their favorite leaders: “YOU DIDN’T BUILD THAT”. Women did not invent the printing press, and they are not the target audience that has spent the money on comic books that have supported that industry since it was created (by men).

I read somewhere that there are only 13 people in the history of the world who have ever walked on the moon. Every one of them is a man. That would seem unfair to women. Women, if they agree that this is unfair, should get together and build a 300 foot long rocket and just go do it (the way men did). Surely with all the advantages they’ve been given in education for these last decades, they could come up with a team of women to do this. Comic books, by comparison, should be fairly easy.

This is my biggest issue with feminism, and the main reason that I am a mgtow. I see them as people who seek to be given half of the ownership and control of things that they did not participate in the effort and sacrifices required to build. They aren’t equally represented in government positions, but they didn’t equally fight and die in the war that made this government possible. They want a woman for president (the ultimate commander of all American military forces), but they don’t ever complain about not fighting and dying in the dirty, dangerous combat roles in the military. Anytime I see feminism complaining about inequality somewhere, I look and find some enormous inequality in the effort and sacrifices men have made in that same area in order to create it.

I have a life that I am pretty happy with, and I am very certain that I DID BUILD THIS. The only way that I can know for sure that what I build belongs to me in the same proportion as the effort and sacrifice I made to build it (100%), is to make sure that I am not married when I do it. Otherwise, it’s apparent to me that I will be fortunate if I am allowed to own any part of it at all. I can’t figure out how it’s possible to motivate a married man to build anything anymore. The only way it seems possible to me to do this, is to convince that married man of the lie that what he is building is actually going to be his.

Judging from the dwindling numbers of capable men willing to get married, it looks as if that lie is becoming more and more difficult to sell…

Look, it's not my fault that tornado dropped a house on your sister. Now get back on your broom and get your ass out of here... and take your monkeys with you

[Anonymous 11]

Is is just my perception or does Iron Man have a subliminal cowering submissive expression of weakness drawn into his mask? He looks like f~~~ing “Iron Mangina” in that panel to me.

Gentlemen, this s~~~ has gone too far as if we don’t already know.

[– Deleted on Request –Spectator 936]

Stuff like this makes me glad I largely gave up on pop culture years ago.  When I do dabble in it, it’s prime stuff, like Breaking Bad.

 

[casqueteroParticipant 85]

The reasons behind all these character / franchise “reboots” is not related to gender – it’s related to money.

The comic superhero universe (specially DC) is mostly White and male. That fact was unimportant until they started to make summer blockbusters based on these characters. When movies like Iron Man, X-men, Superman, Batman, and others began to make big $$$, Marvel and DC opened themselves to a wider audience that included women and men of various ethnic groups… and now they want to be represented in those stories as well. Both Marvel and DC realized that their traditional market – white suburban males – is smaller than expected and that they had been ignoring the growing markets.

Like it or not, women are 50.8% of the US population… How many movies have the studios made with a central super-heroine?

Blacks are 14% of the population. Besides a few minor characters, how many Black superheroes do you see on movies?

Latinos are 16% of the population (counting only those of us who are legal immigrants). How many superheroes are Latinos?

The movie viewers want to be represented in the media  and are approaching the studios and the publishing companies. That’s why you see those gender and race changes – Marvel and DC NEED to bring these new readers. Are they going to achieve it? Probably not… they made the changes too late. The new generation of readers is already entrenched in manga and the teen novels (most of them them written by women). The characters in these books / stories have either ambiguous races and genders (like in many manga titles) or their race / gender is easily swapped without affecting the story.

Comic companies are screwed… If they don’t make the changes, the kids will watch the summer movie and lose interest after they buy two or three numbers because they don’t see someone like them on the printed pages.  If they do the changes, the older fans will stop buying the series because they miss the old character that looked like them. That’s why sales numbers of Female Thor are below the expectations – they lost the traditional reader and could not attract the new reader they expected to get.

If you are a comic fan, don’t worry – they will go back to their old self in a few months from now.

[BrainPilotParticipant 7640]

No argument with any of that Casquetero. ‘sounds like you’re way more informed than I am re:comics. And I don’t mean to say that anyone or any group, including women, should be exclude from them. But if women are going to be included in comics, can’t new female characters and new female centered stories be created (by them and for them) instead of taking something created by men and castrating it to make it more woman friendly? Do we really have to castrate Thor and give him t~~~? Do we really have to switch the entire cast of ghost busters to women? Can’t something new and successful be created about women instead of trying to take something successful about men and mutating it to be about women?

This strategy seems like they want something to be about women that is successful, but instead of taking the risk of creating something new about women and investing time and effort into it to make it successful (and taking the risk that it won’t be), they are instead hedging their bets by taking something about men already proven to be successful and trying to mutate that into a something successful about women, without the risk of creating something new and unproven?

help me out here if I’m off in the weeds. I really am uninformed re: comics.

Look, it's not my fault that tornado dropped a house on your sister. Now get back on your broom and get your ass out of here... and take your monkeys with you

[casqueteroParticipant 85]

@brainpilot : I have NO IDEA about comics. I don’t read them, or collect them. The last time I read one was while I was in college in 1991.

What I know about (just a little) is about designing products, making them, and selling it to the masses. It doesn’t matter if they are cars, razors, or comics – it is exactly the same process.

Why using a known character and turn “him” a woman to sell to women? Why not creating a new female main character? Simple. MONEY. New characters are difficult to SELL. Developing a new main character (male or female) requires a huge investment in development and marketing – and still is a bet they don’t want to do on new markets. It is a lot easier from a business to try variations on known properties with “minor” changes and see how they work before creating a new line of products. That’s why we did not get a new Hispanic, Black, or gay superhero – we got a biracial / bisexual Spiderman. That’s why we got a Black Green Lantern, why we are getting a Black Captain America, and a female Ms. Marvel. It is a lot easier and cheaper to change a known character like Superman / Thor / Spiderman, and see how it works. If it is accepted, they can create an “alternate universe” and a different line. If it doesn’t work, simply bring a deus ex machina and return everything to the way it was before.

Why are the new Ghostbusters an all female cast? SAME. F~~~ING. DEAL. Is cheaper to take a known property and repackage it for a new audience than to create a new product. Say that they are the daughters of the original ghost busters and voila!, you just refreshed a classic property and repackaged it for a new generation of viewers (while keeping the copyrights in your possession). Did they screwed up your childhood in the process? It doesn’t matter because YOU are not their main market anymore… Look at Transformers, TMNT, and others…

When women began to work by the masses during (and after) WWII , businesses realized they had to sell stuff for women. What did they do? Paint the same product they had been selling guys for decades in pink, white, and other pastel colors and sell them as women versions. Hey, Black and Decker still does it!

Guess what the entertainment industry doing now?

The techniques are the same, the product is a different one…

[RennieParticipant]

– Deleted on Request – wrote:

Stuff like this makes me glad I largely gave up on pop culture years ago. When I do dabble in it, it’s prime stuff, like Breaking Bad.

For sure, when your stuff of choice is not mainstream, you don’t have to put up with watching it be destroyed by the greedy, exploitative and incompetent.

[HimeoParticipant 471]

Relevant Video:

[BrainPilotParticipant 7640]

This is what I thought Cas’… taking the path of least resistance and greatest reward while minimizing risk. This is what women do. Exactly my point… but as a recipe for business, or politics, or the military… probably not so much. If the creators of the original Superman would have behaved this way, the original Superman would never have been created… Women don’t enter any field until men have sacrificed to build it, and made it safe. Then, they arrive and demand to be equally included…starting from the top.

Look, it's not my fault that tornado dropped a house on your sister. Now get back on your broom and get your ass out of here... and take your monkeys with you

[Author]

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