#someone tried to argue the Ultimates version isn't an iconic version of him and like bro 616 simon isnt an iconic simon. simon isnt iconic.

[brw]

All the fucking racist clowns talking about "ugh they're RUINING Wonder Man" is genuinely so hysterical because absolutely fucking nobody thought about Wonder Man before this show was announced. I know this because I searched like a fucking dog trying to find an actual community of Wonder Man fans. There was a CBR thread and absolutely nothing else. It was me and that weird homophobically gay cosplay video where he's played by an Australian against the world. Do NOT act like you know what the fuck you're talking about saying they ruined Wonder Man. He hadn't been on a consistent team in going on a decade by the time the show was announced.

[drbased]

I watched this really, really good analysis of always sunny and I agreed with all of it, but she had to sneak the obligatory 'Charlie is a nonbinary icon' in there. Here's why Charlie being nonbinary would destroy one of the entire conceits of the show:

As she says, IASIP is a satire; it holds up a funhouse mirror to society and says, 'this is how you look' so we laugh but also can think about our actions and beliefs. In this satire, Mac, Dennis and Charlie represent the three facets of maleness and masculinity:

Dennis: Dennis represents rape culture, sexual insecurity and tyrannical narcissism

Mac: Mac represents hyper-masculinity, the 'naturalising' of patriarchy through religion, and the misogyny and homophobia that come with that

Charlie: Charlie represents audacity. Charlie is disgusting, uneducated and gullible. But he has absolutely no shame, he has zero self-awareness and no insecurity. He believes that he's owed the waitress despite offering nothing of value; he simply deserves her because he wants her.

Frank is the glue that binds them together. Frank is, in many ways, all of them combined: the lechery of Dennis, the bigotry of Mac, and the audacity of Charlie. But he has a confidence that they don't; he is more successful than they will ever be, because he puts the effort in. At the end of the day, Frank shows that even if these guys actually tried they'd still be abhorrent people with failed relationships living in squalor; this isn't a case of 'failed masculinity' holding the three men back; the values they all share are rotten to the core.

Painting Charlie as nonbinary misses the whole point; he's supposed to represent the more respectable face of masculinity - someone who is on the surface nicer, more respectful of women, who has romantic ideals and simple dreams, who toils stoicly with no delusions of grandure. He's supposed to represent the family-oriented, respectful, humble male. A good salt-of-the-earth working man. But in reality, as anyone who has met a man will verify, your chances of meeting a genuinely humble man are slim. He might be 'humble' in the sense that he does the shit jobs that no one else can do, but that never stops him from indulging in ridiculous schemes, from assuming that he knows how to be a lawyer, from stalking his chosen woman. He is demonstrably actively proud of his working-man status.

If you say he's nonbinary, or any gender other than male, the satire is lost; you concede that these traits aren't masculine enough and therefore aren't male enough. If you say he's nonbinary, you concede that he is sufficiently kinder than the others to 'opt out' of maleness (and yet terfs are the 'men bad' ideology 🤔), and his stalking is now seen as a genderless belief and activity rather than one that has an incredibly clear history of being something men do to women.

This is a more extreme version of how 'nice guys' present themselves; they believe that because they're not like Dennis (they don't actively seek to rape women), or like Mac (they don't make misogynistic comments and insults to a woman's face) then they must be the respectful form of maleness, which is Charlie. But Charlie's form of maleness doesn't stand in contrast to the others; it merely represents another facet to maleness that works together with them. After all, if those forms of masculinity contrasted each other, then the characters would argue all the time that the other is being disrespectful to women. But none of them care. If anything, they stand a united front against women like The Waitress, they will join forces to torture Dee, they will accept Dennis as a rapist as long as they don't have to think about it too much. And that's how misogyny operates in the real world; men may have contrasting beliefs about what 'counts' as misogyny, but ultimately they will all protect each other in the end. At the end of 'The Nightman Cometh' they all gather round the heartbroken Charlie, as if what he did was a sincere gesture of love to a human being, and not a comically obvious attempt at manipulation. It's deeply cruel and misogynist to paint Charlie as anything other than a man.