#fuck the misogyny angle too. she doesn't care. she is a woman and she will not be denied her throne because of her gender either.

[infinitestalia]

"As to the girl Nettles, “She is a common thing, with the stink of sorcery upon her,” the queen declared. “My prince would ne’er lay with such a low creature. You need only look at her to know she has no drop of dragon’s blood in her.... Therefore, let a command be sent at once to Maidenpool, but only for the eyes of Lord Mooton. “Let him take her at table or abed and strike her head off. Only then shall my prince be freed"

I'm thinking zero chance they include the racist, classist overtones of R's distain for Nettles in the show. Would be great if they did but it seems obvious Saint Rhaenyra is too untouchable a character for ugly, human motivations, her fanbase needs her to be the liberal-minded Disney princess contrasted against Aegon otherwise their support of her makes no sense

Oh, less than zero. Her entire show character hinges on the idea that the only problem in this world is misogyny, which must be the only reason everyone doesn't fall at her feet, and not any of her many, many deficiencies- including her own misogyny. Same character who doesn't attempt to make a difference for any woman bar herself, who steals Driftmark from a female heir for her bastard son, who only cares about misogynistic laws of succession when they affect her:

Rhaenyra’s own claim to the Iron Throne was a special case, the Sea Snake insisted; her father had named her as his heir. Lords Rosby and Stokeworth had done no such thing. Disinheriting their sons in favor of their daughters would overturn centuries of law and precedent, and call into question the rights of scores of other lords throughout Westeros whose own claims might be seen as inferior to those of elder sisters. It was fear of losing the support of such lords, Munkun asserts in True Telling, that led the queen to decide in favor of Lord Corlys rather than Prince Daemon. The lands, castles, and coin of Houses Rosby and Stokeworth were awarded to the sons of the two executed lords.

And

At Rosby, she found the castle gates barred at her approach, by the command of the young woman whose claim she had passed over in favor of a younger brother.

She orders the murder of a teenage peasant girl- who is on her side- because she's jealous her noncey whore of a husband/uncle loved her more. Even if they won't show the language used towards Nettles (they refuse to really acknowledge the nasty Targ racial superiority & blood purity angle, I suppose the Velaryon casting makes it harder), her actions should damn her for anyone with eyes.

Her fight is only for herself, she does not want change and betterment for women, be they noble or common. She does not want women to rule after her, she just wants herself to live equal to a man without consequences and does not care for the brave smallfolk she calls "vermin". And I have no issue with that- if they just accepted it and portrayed her for what she is. That aspect made someone like Cersei even more interesting because she made no pretence; she was both victim and vicious perpetrator. Idk who decided that these Targaryen women- who enact the same violence and patriarchal tyranny on other women as the men around them- are righteous feminist queens, made to suffer the greatest injustice in history because they don't get to sit on a throne "owed" to them. They are no better than their male counterparts. They are spokes on the same damn wheel.

For all the hand wringing, she was the freest, most privileged woman in the realm, with a life and choices that almost every other woman would kill for, and she did fuck all with it for anyone but herself. (That too, poorly.) That would make for a fascinating, maddening character but instead we have to see a boring, even less compelling version of show!Daenerys, with none of the qualities that initially made her so great.

[mandy4ever69420]

u talked before about how parenthood cant be forced to someone and how mickey and sandy have no obligation of actively participating in the raising of the child they conceded but u do think they should provide financial aid to them?

i mean.. they could if they wanted to. "should" is a vague concept, but if they did, sure, it'd be a nice thing to do. mickey is more likely to want to than sandy, because he did in fact get attached to his kid. it's one of the biggest contrasts between these two & something i really enjoy - that while misogyny expects any woman to grow instant maternal attachment and that a man is less expected to know or care, that it's mickey who does care, even if he can't act on it (i think it's likely he has no idea where to find yevgeny, and even past that he may be too scared of the reaction if he did) and it's sandy who just. cannot stand being asked to care

but um! The answer to this hypothetical is twofold. thank you for sending this btw i really enjoy taking looks at angles i haven't considered yet & this is a tough question

sandy has no money. she's homeless. she cannot afford to offer financial aid to a child at this time. conversely, svetlana has married rich, and as far as we know, is in absolutely no need of financial aid.

->the invention of alimony was more or less a legal cope for the fact that women were rarely employed, or had extremely limited ways to make money. so a woman who was financially dependent on her husband would've been absolutely fucked and pressured to remain in a dangerous or unsatisfactory marriage. it's a defense against misogyny, later i believe expanded to be a genderless law as employment for women became more common

2. i spoke in vague terms before because there's no explicit canon regarding sandy, but i am saying that i think she was raped. perhaps because of homophobia, perhaps because she was a teenager in a shit situation. so the question "should mickey and sandy provide financial aid to their biological child" might be answered more easily by flipping the perspective into "should it be possible for someone to imply moral obligation to make regular payments to another by means of forcing them to conceive a child". which gives me a pretty definitive, instinctual, "no"

-> in the closest parallel i can think of if we say that sandy's kid was conceived consensualy, but she didn't want a child out of it, we get karen. who earnestly tried to legally adopt out the child to wanting parents, and hit the wall of "but sheila waaaants a cute baby". i don't see any reason karen, had she left and not returned, would have been obligated to provide financial support, but i can easily accept if people disagree on this one.

(obligatory disclaimer here. an adult having a good, understandable, or even absolutely necessary reasoning for not being in their child's life doesn't mean that that child's pain is less real if they feel abandoned. even people whose parents did not know they existed have every right to feel that loss. the child feeling abandoned doesn't cancel out that you can't force someone to be a parent in the same way that a parent having a good reason doesn't cancel out how the kid may feel.)

[mirqmarq428]

Mir reviews:

Anchorman: the legend of Ron Burgundy

This is one of those movies that your dad shows you when you're 15 and he remembers it as good manly fun but you feel icky sitting thru it and feel bad for laughing at its jokes, then mostly forget about the bad parts when 5 years later you notice that it's free with your cracked youtube app. Just me? No. According to youtube, it's somehow rated PG-13. Different times, man.

Tl;dr: this one is worse than you remember. 4/10

le Plot:

Will Ferrell plays the titular protag-kun, a popular local news anchorman. His news team is a deeply closeted gay cowboy, this mostly reasonable cologne fanatic, and an autist whose IQ is canonically 43.

The actual protagonist of the film is burgundy's "love" "interest" whose name I forgot already since her name isn't on the poster. Her dream is to anchor on national news, and she will have to stand up to institutional sexism, personal misogyny, and casual sexual harassment at every turn.

She is hired on, the boys all make moves on her, she fights them back brilliantly. Ron doesn't just want her body, he "loves" her (meaning, he wants sex but would like to be all romantic about it). Through a fair amount of bullshittery mixed with some genuine chemistry, they hit it off and make out. This is shown thru a short interpretive montage of them riding white unicorns thru heaven over rainbow pathways.

Despite promising to keep their relationship private at work, our "hero" immediately brags to the guys and tries to explain how it feels to be in love.

One day disaster strikes as burgundy is late to work due to being a oblivious pretentious asshole (he throws a burrito out his window while driving and makes the motorcyclist next to him crash, then the biker throws his dog off a bridge as punishment). Despite the men's reservations, our hero fills in for her boyfriend and delivers the news. She's great and everybody loves her. Then Ron barges in and is horrified that a _woman_ (gasp) would take his job. They shout about their misunderstandings for a while.

Despite continuing to work together, their relationship worsens further. Eventually they physically fight, and he is fired and sinks into an alcoholic depression.

End of the movie. Time to shake things up. A panda at the zoo is giving birth, this is the biggest thing to ever happen and must be reported upon. She goes looking for the perfect angle, but a random evil reporter dude knocks her into the pen of Kodiak Bears. They can't find her so end up calling Ron. He glows up quick, gets the band back together, marches down to the zoo, find the girl in with the barely-sleeping bears, and jumps in like a dumbass. His dog returns from presumed watery demise and talks the bear down (dogs and bears share a language in this world ig). They get lifted out and he lets her report on the panda birth. The. Fucking. End. Carry on Wayward Son plays over way-too-short credits (there are lots of cameos I think weird als in this one but I can't find his name on well).

le Review:

4/10 do straight men really?

I liked: her arc. 43 IQ bro was a good guy. The vibe is mostly goofy and whimsical.

The male gaze here is overpoweringly putrid. Burgundy isn't the worst, but he's still pretty bad. There's a point early on when she points out to him that he has a very visible erection in the middle of the office and he hasn't even the sense to be embarrassed.

I guess his arc is accepting that women can be equals in the workplace even if they're sex objects.

I guess her arc is accepting that she can be in love with him _and_ achieve her dream.

"toxic masculinity" is not strong enough to describe this filum. This is Nuclear Masculinity, the all-poisoning radioactive cumstain of Gilgamesh himself (but even less gay somehow).

The ending is reductively egalitarian, to the point of advocating pure tokenism. Yeah this one woman is really good at her job so let's make her a public figure to feel better about ourselves. We care.

Ugh.

[thesharondefenseleague]

mlm imo werent sexualized to the degree that wlw were in most canon media mostly because of the male gaze. Gay and Lesbian relationships or moments got very limited representation. One was probably more sympathetic but also heart breaking like say brokeback mountain. One was explicit but depicted as grotesque or twisted or perverted or immoral in some way. And the last version was the titillating version. In western media because of the assumed straight male gaze lesbians making out to titlate guys was a common thing like say in Jennifer's body. The equivalent of that with guys wasnt really that common not in western media. Not that wlw couldn't like that content but it was made to be fanservice for men .

So thats what I kind of mean by wlw were sexualized at least in western media. This equivalent with mlm in fandom never really existed they never made out for girls to find hot in the same way. It was never marketed like oh look hot guys making out. Fandom did that but not canon.

As for comic book men being sexualized kind of. There is definitely the unrealistic beauty standards but theres that debate of was it for the purpose of titillating women? Or a result of toxic masculinity putting this unattainable unsustainable goal for men. Maybe both? But both in comics and the movies they are based on the posing and clothing and moments with women get made to clearly sexualize them . It especially ovbious with comics with them twisting their bodies so their boobs and butts are jutting out. Or like movie moments like Bruce landing in Natasha's clevage. Or angles where you are staring down a female character's shirt or she has a boob window for some contrived reason. Or just reasons to give full page spreads of them in skimpy clothing.

Its rare men get depicted like this or posed like this. And when they do it often stands out because its not the norm. It's something unique. Not true with men. Even in form fitting spandex they are often posed and framed to make to make them look powerful or intelligent or to reveal things about their character.

Again not that men never get sexualized or that fanservice is always bad. Or that its not a concern that men are having these terrible body image issues. But just that for women for the sexualization its so pervasive and constant was my point.

Its just as bad in wlw in canon as it is for women in relationships with men in canon when it comes to that sexualization but i hear so much more about the problems about the wlw ship than the mlw ship. Like to use DC as a example i hear so much about how people sexualized or mishandle harleyivy but compared to that i hear very little about batcat in comparison even though Catwoman is often just as sexualized in that ship.

As for misogyny in shipping wars yes it definetly exists and is a problem as is racism and homophobia. But my issue is mostly that the problem isnt because the main popular ships are mlm. But so often I see the argument framed that way.

Like shipping wars existed between m/w ships and still do today. And they are still often pretty misogynistic towards the woman in the other ship. I don't even have to look at other fandoms I remember Steggy vs Starton getting real ugly.

Mysogny in fandom doesn't uniquely pop up when mlm are the more popular ship. Its often just as bad in fandoms where m/w is the popular ship. But people just bring it up alot more they make it bout valuing the men over the women .

Well i mean that goes both ways you could say its homophobic for valuing the straight ship as better than the gay one or liking it more. But either way its stupid they dont care bout sexism or homophobia only that their ship is more popular.

Thats the sentiment of all ship wars the gender dynamics and racial make up change nothing. Nothing except the bullshit you use for the ship war.

The problem is that people are being homophobic and mysogynistic and racist not just in regards to fictional characters but towards real people just to win a ship war. It comes out so easily. Thats the problem imo.

Mysogny for example i think isnt discussed as much when its a m/w vs m/w ship war or drama because as both ships have women it can't be used to slander the other ship. But when its drama between fans of a m/m and m/w it comes out alot again not because anyone really cares but because now because one ship lacks a woman it can be used as fodder for what people actually care about. Tearing down the other ship.

Again not that mlm fandom doesnt have mysogny. They definetly do. But they aren't mysogynistic because they ship two guys together. Thats not proof they hate women. Having a ship with women isnt proof that you aren't sexist towards women. There might be homophobia in fandoms of mlm ships and mysogny in fandoms of m/w ships.

But in the drama between a m/w and m/m ships that doesn't get brought up because no one cares if that problem can't be used to show that someone only doesn't ship your ship if they are bigoted against it. Who cares about misogyny if your ship is two guys? Who cares about homophobia if your ship is straight?

No one because they cared about the popularity of their ship not the actual issues.

Gonna under under the cut for length again.

This is a lot to read so I'm gonna respond paragraph by paragraph and hope for the best in terms of comprehension.

When it comes to media made about the LGBTQ+ community, you have to keep in mind when it was made, who made it, and who was it made for. And that it's been shown that straight women have had the same reactions to mlm content as straight men to wlw content. QaF was dumbfounded to find that the majority of their audience was straight women when the show's sex scenes were 95% between two or more men and yet that's what they ran with because hey, it got the views. The views of mlm and wlw content in the mainstream media before then was minimized, despite how fucked a lot of the other content could be. If by "most canon media" being directed at the male gaze being summer blockbusters, and more specifically comic book movies, then sure. If we step out of that box, then not really. The film examples you chose are interesting because BB is portrayed exactly how the author of the original short story wrote it which was meant to be heartbreaking since it was a tragic dramatic piece while JB has a woman who wrote and another woman who directed it while purposefully trying to allow to actress to have a level of sexuality without exploiting her as past directors have (also neither of the main characters are lesbians - one is bi, the other I think is straight but maybe questioning?).

The sexualization of wlw in modern western media is definitely a thing. I mean, the first Iron Man film has stewardesses on the private jet pole dancing if I remember correctly. It took until 2016 to stop sexualizing Scarlett in every movie: the changing scene in IM2, the lowered zipper in A1, the ass shot in Cap 2, the boob faceplant in AoU (in your third paragraph, but mentioning it here anyway). It's a joke that you know when a man directs a wlw indie film during the sex scenes. But the mlm equivalent did exist alongside it, and it's what kicked off the century.

Comics and their movies were always for men. The male bodies are male wish fulfilment for their physical appearance. The women are male wish fulfilment for their dream girls. Funnily enough, one of the least sexualized women in comics I've ever read is Sharon. She's rarely, if ever, drawn to be sexualized for the audience. I'm not even sure she's even been in those swimsuit issues Marvel did years ago. And it shows heavily that Marvel struggles to know how to appeal to women without being aggressively in your face about it. The best example of them appealing without pandering is WV, and the worst is the group shots the Russos did in IW and Endgame, especially the latter.

But the men get those poses in the movies too. Thor bathed shirtless for no reason in TDW. There's a scene in Endgame dedicated to talking about Steve's ass. Pratt in GotG. Rudd in Ant-Man. Most actors are expected to look good shirtless and put themselves through intense shit to look that way. So do the women, but they aren't doing it to have the glamor shots of their muscles. And the MCU is not the only film franchise like this. Most, if not all, franchises with majority or entirely male leads expects them all to look like bodybuilders. And I'm gonna take back that it's just for the male audience, because these bodies are meant to appeal to women who are intended to thirst for these actors too. They think these bodies is what will bring women to the theaters.

None of this will change, as you say, that women's sexualization is "constant and pervasive". The film industry is just a part of the larger whole of media. Television and advertising have a treatment of women that's beyond whatever you or I say because there are decades worth of shit to go through that would take dozens of essays worth of writing to fully divulge beyond "please stop it's gross".

Now DC is a whole other ballgame. They're pretty infamous for their artists' sexualization of heroines and villainesses. Harley, Ivy, and Selina are definitely pretty bad, but when I remember what I've seen drawn of Kara, Kori, or sometimes Barbara... But outside of one artist, I think Harley and Ivy as a couple have been drawn tamely. Can't say the same for Selina, because they just can't not draw every part of her body even when she's fully clothed.

I think it's hard not to talk about fandom misogyny outside of m/m ships because of how often popular m/m shippers have rooted their shipping into misogyny. And even with m/f ship wars, a lot of the time the "faulted" character is always the woman when majority of the time it's the man who sucks. I don't get why everyone is fighting for who should kiss Steve because Steve sucks and they'd be better off without him. But because Steve is the object of affection for our fave, we have to fight off everyone else.

Don't look at other fandoms for m/f ship wars. We don't appreciate how tame we were, even at our worst. I'm serious, I've seen so much worse.

I think why the topic of misogyny comes up more with m/m ships is because they follow a similar principle of the male characters being more developed in canon and fanon so it's who people gravitate towards.

There is definitely layers of homophobia in fandom, but there's many versions of how we see it. Homophobes who won't ship anything that's not m/f. Homophobes who ship m/m but won't support IRL rights. People who love m/m but abhor f/f, and vice-versa. The shippers who use them for personal fodder. But the sexism is more prevalent than the homophobia. And the racism way more than both combined.

And it does cause a lot of ammo, and much of it severely unjustified, in ship wars. Literally the bullshit I've seen pulled out of thin air to accuse Sharon of not being worthy because someone said she's a racist for [they literally had no reason just called her one because we said Sam and Sharon are friends because they are] and other nonsense.

The real world repercussions of the homophobia, the sexism, and the racism in fandom... there's just so much. Like we are all still people, and yet we decide because we hide behind screens to be antagonistic, and use homophobic, sexist, and racist shit to attack each other over ships just because we want to paint the other person as crazy, I guess? If you can't see that there are no enemies in ship wars and that the other side is still people, maybe you need to sit out and log off. It's baffling how often it still happens to people. Then it's no longer about ships, it's about who is an asshole.

I will say that Steve and Peggy vs Steve and Sharon is probably the only m/f ship war I've seen where misogyny is talked about. Is, not was, because it still is. Both sides call the others misogynistic. I don't think either side is, but you can see in individuals. Those who tweeted at a certain actress that she was a slut for kissing her costar certainly are though.

You are right that shipping m/m isn't inherently sexist. But tearing down women in those ships to prop up m/m has made me stop shipping certain characters altogether. People, seriously, we don't have to justify why we like them! We can just like them! And other characters can still exist! It's never been that deep.

And you're right, the popularity of the ship helps people ignore any deeper issues within them and this is a power used to silence valid criticism if it pops up.

(I hope I answered everything well for you.)

~Mod R