#your profile pic is a picture of ezekial you must have some attachment to the man

[retired-ceo]

How do you feel about Ezekiel?

My explanation under the read:more (a lot of salt, be warned)

Blorbo by proxy: I have tumblr moots who love this guy. So many. Canon isn't real if I don't look at it: I don't see the point of Feral!Zeke. They sure do exist: I have mixed neutral feelings on Ezekial. Ezekial as a character is like... idk, he's so clearly a straw-man? Like I'm not even mad that he's sexist because it's so forced and stupid. Nothing about Total Drama is subtle, but S1E1 Ezekial was so clearly just meant to be a character no one would miss. But so many other characters on the show, men and women, are sexist! There are so many sexist jokes on this show. So like... what was the fucking point? Ezekial to me is a less a character, and more of a preformance. "Look, we hate sexism! See, we get rid of the sexist character in the first episode! Wow!" And then pat themselves on the back, while continuing to write sexist comments for the rest of the show. And I didn't miss how if Ezekial wasn't such an obvious first-boot, Courtney would have gone home in his place. Like... couldn't they have figured out a more clever way to make sure Courtney wasn't eliminated, if they wanted her to stay so bad? Ugh. But anyway, as for Ezekial himself as a person he's fine, I guess? He seems to want friends, he's just like... really ignorant. It's cute that he wants to be Lindsay and Beth's friend. Yay. I just... don't care. I'm gonna be honest, nice characters aren't my thing? Evil people for me all the way. And sure Ezekial's sexist but like... none of it is actually feels like his fault. He's sexist because he's stupid, not because he's taking advantage of the real power dynamics that sexism helps create. So no villainy for me to exploit and critique :( I guess you could use Ezekial to discuss how prejudice is passed down and adopted blindly, how people should always question the information they get. And so his crime would be his gullibility, but... Ezekial's backstory is that he's homeschooled by conservatives who isolated him from the world? So like, what else was he supposed to think? How am I supposed to say he was wrong to believe that women were stupid when that was the only thing he was taught from birth? Like? I don't know. When I think about writing a story deconstructing racism or sexism, I'd like to be able to point the finger to *society* as a whole, to the wage-gap to uniform policies for girls, to talk about how prejudice manifests itself in media and life. But with Ezekial, I'd just have to go "The reason he's sexist is because the two random individuals raising him are sexist! Case closed!" Perhaps I could stretch it farther and explain how his parents got that way... but then I wouldn't be talking about Ezekial, would I? Anyway, you get the gist. I don't like his character, because I don't like any story that he's used to tell. I don't doubt that more experienced and creative writers could find a use for him, but... not me lmao. Tl;dr: Ezekial's just there for me. I don't find his actions or his backstory compelling enough to like him. And Fresh did a really bad job of writing him.