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I'm Just a Girl in the World...

  • Mar. 28th, 2005 at 10:43 AM
schooled
My buddy, [info]cro2 linked to some great articles about the treatment of women in shoujo manga in his blog--

http://comics.212.net/2005_03_01_archive.shtml#111179389919616177

Speaking as a woman who has been in anime fandom since 1990, all I can really do is nod my head in disappointed, knowing agreement. Anime and manga are often not "woman-friendly". They're not as bad as American superhero comics, where highly powered, competent, beautiful heroines are regularly de-powered, raped, murdered, tied up, mind-controlled, blinded, turned into cripples, driven insane by their "woman-ness" (periods, childbirth, desire for love, yadda yadda yadda...), and just generally crushed into the dirt to appease a generation of writers and fans who obviously have some real issues with accepting women as equals. See, in American superhero comics, the subjugation and dehumanization of women is just TEXT, it's not even subtext. Unless women being murdered and stuffed into refrigerators has become a subtle code for "that bitch cheerleader was mean to me in high school". The stuff in anime and manga is much more subtle. The fans are told to cheer for sweet, innocent, sexually unthreatening Belldandy who loves to cook and clean and be supportive, quiet and lovely. They are told to boo the mature, sexy temptress Urd, who loves to get it on and who doesn't back down in arguments. (I won't go into the fact that so many of the fans instead fixated on twelve-year-old spoiled brat Skuld, because the whole "anime fan=pedophile!" argument has been done to death.... my theory is that those guys are painfully emotionally immature, as they are often the same guys who fixate on the characters who are "chibi", miniature or fairies- like the fairy characters in Dunbine or the titular character in Handmaid May, a robot girl who is only six inches tall. Obviously, a girl that is little can never hurt them.) Often, in the "magical girlfriend" genre, one of the most popular genres in all of boys' anime and manga (esp. in America), the girl is a goddess, an alien, a demoness, or a video girl from another dimension, but what remains the same is her unswerving loyalty and love of the hero in the face of any and all hardships. This worked in the first "magical girlfriend" manga, Urusei Yatsura, because Lum was not a passive doormat. Ataru treated her badly and she loved him in the face of it, but she got jealous, smacked him around when he strayed, and was allowed to have a terrible temper. It made for good comedy. (And not surprisingly, Rumiko Takahashi is a woman...) In almost all of the "magical girlfriend" shows since, the bite has been taken out of the girls. (And many of the boys, who are so boring and interchangeable as to be one character...) It's no surprise that many of them recently have been about robots who love their masters unconditionally, or that the abuse-taking, completely passive clone girl Rei Ayanami was the number one fantasy for years.

The thing is, this stuff doesn't just affect the Japanese people who read it. It's influenced the culture of anime fandom in America to such a degree that I knew tons of fans who got all their ideas about "how relationships should be" from shoujo manga and anime. I knew people who created drama in their lives that made the twists and turns of Marmalade Boy seem boring. I knew guys who saw the "magical girlfriend" ideal and thought all women should hold to that standard. I went to cons and was condescended to, talked down to, and patronized by guys who thought they were being suave and chivalrous. When I cut my hair short or shaved my head, I was chastised for "ruining my looks". When I cursed, laughed too loudly, made bitchy comments or showed any display of temper, I took shit for it from guys who were annoyed that I wasn't a "delicate flower". When I stood up for myself and refused to take shit, I was labelled a "bitch". This didn't really make me sad or mad, this just made me think that a lot of guys in anime fandom were scared of strong, adult women. It was borne out when I would talk to friends like Adam Warren- whenever he had Kei "misbehave" in his brilliant Dirty Pair comics, he would receive hatemail about how he was ruining the character of a "beautiful, delicate flower". (Kei's character in the anime was actually a boy-crazy redhead who blew up whole planets...) When he did his genius take on Bubblegum Crisis, he took loads of shit for making the character of Priss (a motorcycle-riding, tomboyish, possibly lesbian rockstar in the anime) into a cursing, drinking, SMOKING punk singer who kicked everyone's ass. Um, hello?! (Yes, seriously, people flipped out about the smoking. They lost their proverbial shit over it, even though original creator Kenichi Sonoda fully agreed with Adam's take on the character.) I wasn't the only woman this stuff happened to- other female comic pros got crap in anime fandom. I know Lea Hernandez took loads of crap back in the 1980's when she ran the American branch of General Products, and not just from her Japanese bosses. Girls who organized conventions had their work belittled or ignored, in favor of guys who had helped them out. Female fansubbers and anime club organizers always had to have a handy guy to run interference for them with fans who refused to listen to a woman. Sexism is alive and well in the hallowed halls of anime fandom, even if the fandom is now evenly split between men and women. I'd say I took more chauvinistic crap in anime fandom than I ever did in the comics industry or even furry fandom.

Cultural values do translate. They seep into the brains of the people watching or reading, like a virus. Obviously, I'm not proposing any kind of "anime is bad!" thing here, but often, people think that because something is foreign from a foreign culture, the underlying cultural values will not translate or be transmitted. But no, I think the messages are coming through loud and clear.

EDIT: Okay, I was going to allow all comments to this post, but I can't do that unless I allow all comments on ALL my LJ posts, and that's not happening. Boo on LJ's stupid comment settings.
  • Mood: snarky

Comments

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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 10:51 am (UTC)
Funny...
I was trying to explain american culture aand views to my Japanese friends, our communal views, personal freedom etc.. and had a hard time making it stick. So I drove about 1 hour west of Fort Worth with them and found a place in the middle of nowhere and said "now you live out here..your nearest neighbor is 2 miles that way....and some theives keep taking your chickens"..etc THEN they got the whole guns/self sufficent/frontier mentality. They admitted it scared the hell out of them to be so alone and isolated. Everything about Amercian culture, ideas, actions etc crystallized for them in one fell swoop. Kinda fun..they had a whole lot more respect for us ( Amercians ) than before.
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[info]ruggels wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 11:05 am (UTC)
Wow... that is an excellent point. Very well done.

Scott
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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 29th, 2005 02:22 am (UTC)
Thanks. Because Japan is such a collective culture it is hard to translate some of our cultural values to them. They literally do not have words for some of it. Take cars for example. I was explaining to Keiko about the position of the car in the US. To the Japanese a car is a mode of transport.. and a symbol of station. Getting a drivers license is rough ( the government makes it HARD ) Streets in the cities are, shall we say, car unfriendly and the roads between the cities in Japan have a speed limit of 45 mph. ( NO JOKE!! ). In America a drivers license represents FREEDOM and to a certain extent adulthood. The car is THE means to that freedom we love, to go WHERE-EVER at our discretion. After seeing the country from the road ( she drove from LA to Dallas via I10/I20 she came away stunned. First..she FULLY realized just how big the US really is, how much of it has NOTHING in it, and how that car ( like the horse before it ) was critical to her situation, and second she UNDERSTOOD what it meant to have the ability go ANYWHERE she wanted. ( Trains, she said do NOT do that..and you run on their time not yours! ) She drove at about 85 miles an hour ( she felt like a race driver ) and was on the road for 3 days ( stops included ).
She also trashed the stereotype that we are lazy.. she saw Americans working ( farmers, framers, grocers etc..) in person. Her perspective on our houses was amusing too ( her mother's even more so...)
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[info]ruggels wrote:
Mar. 29th, 2005 02:25 pm (UTC)
What did she say about houses? That they were warehouses for our stuff? or that they could get as big as we wanted, because of all the space.

Scott
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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 30th, 2005 02:53 am (UTC)
Well first that it was no wonder we have so much stuff..we have big rooms to fill. Second, that the average American house is better constructed than the average Japanese house ( no joke ). Third, by comparison we live in mansions, they live in huts, and the spaces between houses is HUGE. ( most houses in Japan are slapped together ah la brownstones in New York/ Chicago etc.. ) Fourth, that a room other than the bedrooms that is made to do and is used for one activity ( dining, game room, etc. ) is the Ultimate in decadence that 'they' all would love to have.
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[info]ruggels wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 10:58 am (UTC)
Interesting observations there. Read all the link backs. Oddly my Comics reading has dramatically tapered off, so I don't have many current references )Oter than the current spiderman, and a couple of Manga tiny books, but in general, they look to be fairly cautionary without being censorious.

Scott
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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 11:04 am (UTC)
And a geeky as it might sound..I think the Sci-Fi world in general is not only anti female..but anti family in general. This has been changing recently: Andromedia is a notable example. Nietzscheians hold the family almost sacred, and will do ANYTHING to advance it. Mothers are revered and viewed as strong, smart, tough, yet still loving. They are valued for their abilities and the contributions. Yes.. I married a Nietzscheian woman ( in my view ) and I will train my daughter in the use of arms and tools..I don't buy into the whole weak sex thing.
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[info]ruggels wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 11:09 am (UTC)
very anti Female. if you look at old Pulp work, the Female in a lot of the art was "The Victory Token". Sure some authors wrote strong women, but theur stories usually had other things going for them. But generally SF was a refuge for people who didn't play sports, and who did not get access to prime physical specimines that their more socially, and physically adept classmembers did, and so a bit of sour grapes and misogyny flavored the mix. It was really bad in Gamer (the paper kind), until the groups had suffuicient number of women in the gaming group put paid to the "Raped by orcs" scenario. In Electronic gaming, many females either have ambigouous handles, or really girly ones if they are supremely skilled.

Scott

Scott
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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 30th, 2005 03:16 am (UTC)
You aren't kidding about the old paper gamer sub-culture! Beth ( was a D&D'er when we met ( 1985 ) and we hit it off..but OY' my gaming buddies were all up in arms about it, until she kicked their asses around the table top a couple of times ( Battletech, SFB ).
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[info]doronjosama wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 11:17 am (UTC)
Oh, I agree with you on this- the anti-family, anti-children bias in various fandoms is something that has bothered me for some time- I like kids, I think they are fun. But I have overheard so many people in various fandoms bitch and whine about people bringing their children or babies to conventions- even if the ones bitching have not been affected by the presence of the little ones in any way! I could probably write an entire doctoral thesis on the nature of social relations in fandom in regards to how "families' are perceived- often, a fan perceives his group or "circle" (to use the Japanese term...) as a surrogate family, and when members of said circle get married and start families of their own, many of the circle members feel betrayed. With their circle, they often have created a family that they believe will never change, thus allowing them to persist in living in a fantasy world where they will never have to grow up. Lotta guys (and girls) in fandom with Peter Pan complexes.... The presence of real, actual children and families in their "play areas" (conventions, fandom events...) intrudes on their mental fantasy world. Often the people who have gotten married and had kids are seen as "selling out" and "no longer REAL fans", which is patently ridiculous.

Of course, this is all armchair pop psychology on my part.... ^_^; And yes, I can't imagine Beth or Nat being cowering, weak females! ^_^ They're tough! ^_^
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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 29th, 2005 01:47 am (UTC)
This is good we need to do this as a live discussion at a con or a chat etc..

over drinks?
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[info]matthigh wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 11:23 am (UTC)
As a slightly related note, there was a radio report on BBC this weekend -- for the very first time, there is the hint of a possibility that a WOMAN may end up as the head of a major Japanese corporation (some retail giant I'm not familiar with). While this is so common in America now as to be non-newsworthy (there are plenty of women as heads of major corporations in the US now), it's causing really big ripples in Japan, as something unthinkable among the older generation of Japanese businessmen. In the United States, there is a woman on the board of *every* company on the Top 200 list. In Japan, there's like 2 women on the boards of the major companies, period. Some human rights group had a report last year that Japan was even on the trailing edge in women's rights when compared to other Asian nations -- the only nation with a more gender-repressive society in the workplace was, interestingly enough, South Korea.

How does this relate to how women are treated and viewed in shojo manga? Well, I just see it as yet another example of how different our cultures are -- there is still a *tremendous* gap between the sexes in Japan that we (as anime and manga fans) often try to igore or look the other way -- and this gap is deep-rooted and cultural. While I do not claim to say America is perfect -- very far from it -- I think we may often take some of America's freedoms and changes over the past half-century for granted, and assume it's like that elsewhere as well. Things are changing in Japan, but very very slowly, and it is a generational change. It may decades -- if at all -- before sexism is relegated to the back halls of Japanese history.
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[info]doronjosama wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 01:17 pm (UTC)
Totally agree here. The Japanese artists we deal with regard me as somewhat of a novelty- a woman who runs her own company? But they are completely unsurprised that I am still unmarried. In fact, they seem to expect that I sacrificed marriage for the career. ^_^;

Japan is a very sexist place. Though women really do control many of the households there (money, children's education, etc.), they are still very much expected to stop working once they are married and have children. It's changing, but as you said, very slowly.
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[info]matthigh wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 01:39 pm (UTC)
You gotta remember that most of the Japanese manga artists that you are dealing with on a business level are, themselves, somewhat unusual -- after all how many funny animal dojinshi artists are there in Japan?

But also, it should be noted that the "Christmas Cake" philosophy in regard to unmarried women is also changing in Japan. (For those who don't know, there's an old saying in Japan that a woman who is unmarried after the age of 25 is just as stale as a Christmas Cake the day after Christmas). While the idea of a woman who is unmarried in her late twenties and thirties is still somewhat of a novelty, it is becoming less of a novelty every year, as more and more common as women struggle to find their place in the workplace. Women are making in-roads, though -- in the past 20 years, the percentage of women in lower and middle management positions has increased from 2% to 11%, and the number of unmarried women in their thirties has something like quintupled.

Hmph. Now I have a desire to go back and watch "A Taxing Woman" again (I have it on DVD). I'm in that frame of mind now.
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[info]cablefraga wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 11:35 am (UTC)
Wow, I never really paid too much attention to this type of topic, and never knew that Adam Warren got that much hell for making his female characters strong. My mother was always heavily into sci-fi, and I remember being a young child her yelling at a Buck Rogers episode for the woman to do something more than just stand around and be scenery during an action scene.

Pablo and I've always had the philosophy to raise Niki as a strong, confident, powerful woman, who isn't a snob. To be beautiful, yet kick ass.

My fault really, I just haven't read as much, but it does encourage me to read more and have open discussions with both my kids.

Come to think of it, I do know of a predominately female fan club, (for firefly) and I know there are male fans of the show, but perhaps the lack of males may be due to lack of male leadership.

I keep thinking how this would make a great discussion panel... but can't help thinking that this may bum us chicks out.
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[info]doronjosama wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 01:22 pm (UTC)
This would make a great discussion panel, as long as it could be kept on track and not turned into a "men suck!" kind of thing. ^_^; It'd be fascinating to get some of the older ladies of the fandom to give their perspective, and get some of the younger women in to give a modern take. The roles of women in anime fandom could make for an excellent roundtable discussion ("More than just cosplay- the roles of women in anime fandom")- as would a panel on body/beauty issues for girls in fandom. How many cosplay girls have you seen self-destruct when they got older, gained weight, or generally started getting ignored in favor of the "new hotness"? And how many have made themselves sick with excess dieting? It'd be fascinating stuff!
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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 29th, 2005 01:46 am (UTC)
You REALLY aught to get with Beth on this! Her perspective is unique ( OLD book scifi and anime fan, cosplayer, poet, mother, martial artist, gamer and smof in one creature. Besides you could stay at our new house in the country when you come up for Akon ( HAHAHA!!)
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le_eh wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 12:34 pm (UTC)
I've just gotta say this is something that annoys me SO much in anime in particular (I absolutely adore Urusei Yatsura, but loathe everything else that's come out of the 'harem' genre). I'm so tired of the formula of the simpering girl who NEEDS to be with someone in order to be complete. It's the main reason I started up the Y? comic, cuz I'm tired of that sort of message constantly being thrust into all sorts of comics and such.

Thanks for writing this. It was a really good read.
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[info]doronjosama wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 01:14 pm (UTC)
You're welcome! I really try not to get all up on my feminist high horse too often, but sometimes I just can't help it. ^_^;

And regarding Y?- you are just making me want to publish that comic MORE. ^_~
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le_eh wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 01:36 pm (UTC)
Well reading this made me WANT you to publish it, so we're even. ;P Just sounds like you totally understand what I'm wanting to do with this.

Seriously, this is one of the main reasons I'm so dissinterated in anime now. I'm so tired of the way the females act. I loved FLCL recently because there were absolutely no simpering female characters in it, and HE was the one that was looking up to Haruko, instead of the other way around, which is so often done.

This sorta thing is also why I keep making female characters that smoke and drink and the like. Because it annoys so many people who find that intimidating or whatever. It just makes me make sure to do it MORE. :P There's just not nearly enough 'tough chicks' to look upto in comics.
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[info]narumi wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 12:35 pm (UTC)
o.o yeah, there are several shoujo titles I won't touch but then...er...but uhm...yeah the ikeda riyoko stuff...its the art...I swear...not the stories....uh...i'll go away now...
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[info]doronjosama wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 01:13 pm (UTC)
Hey, I admit, I love a good, juicy shoujo story full of bad relationships! Mostly because it's great to watch and yell at the main characters! But Ikeda-sama? Come on, this is the woman who gave us Brother, Dear Brother, a manga full of subverted lesbian desire that explodes into crazy slap-fests, and Rose of Versailles, which was chock-a-block with crossdressing. Not to mention the haughty Marie Antoinette who refused to do as she was told! When that stuff came out in the 1970's in Japan, people's heads must have exploded- think how controversial and feminist those things must have been!

There could also be an interesting debate about the sub/dom roles in boys' love/yaoi manga as well- so many of the subservient, simpering, willowy guys in those might as well be stand-ins for the passive shoujo manga heroine- and they often look the same! Even though the comics are about gay guys getting it on, they also carry the message that feminine=passive and submissive, which I'm sure has an effect on the Japanese girls reading such things.
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[info]narumi wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 05:36 pm (UTC)
Well, actually with Rose of Versailles I was thinking more along the lines of the attempted rape/attempted murder-suicide/sudden love revelation...though it does have that whole She beat us up, we love our commander thing that is definitly a reversal...lol

There are only a couple of Yaoi/shounen-ai books I'll read anymore and that's exactly why I don't read more. I have no problem with the the pairing, but its got to atleast be semi-believable or interesting for me. (Yes, I've actually gotten rid of Kaze to Ki no Uta)
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[info]zrath wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 01:20 pm (UTC)


I like Urd.
I like Deunan.
I like Lum.
I like Adam Warren's "DP" and "BGC" stuff (and I don't even like "BGC" that much).
But I've been watching less and less anime, since about '92.
I started actually seeking out anime in '85-'86.
I joined the Santa Monica, CA, branch of the C/FO around that time.
I watched lots and lots of anime there, of all kind.
And I started noticing the patterns. After all, there arent't that many of them.
And they're agressively recycled at every possible opportunity.
The one that started to really bug me was the overt misogyny.
I think the turning point was the first "Crying Freeman" OVA (OAV, whatever).
It raised misogyny to a new art form.
After that, I just couldn't watch anime the same way again.
These days, I only like a few shows, like "Cowboy Bebop" (strong, mature woman! Surprise!)

This stuff's just not healthy.
And yeah, it has an effect on those who read and view it.

Hey, I just had a thought.
Is this why some people complained that the new "Battlestar Galactica" series
had a female Starbuck?
I mean, aside from the gender change, the character is the same! A blonde, cigar-smoking,
ass-kicking, card-playing insubordinate son of a gun! (I mean, daughter of a gun)
What a funny old world...


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[info]zrath wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 01:23 pm (UTC)


Nausicaa! How could I forget Nausicaa?
A girly girl who can kick your ass!
Gotta love it.


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[info]doronjosama wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 04:31 pm (UTC)
Thanks for responding! Since you are a European, I wondered if you would have a different perspective. But then, you have to love the French, who consider mature women to be as sexy as young women! ^_~
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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 29th, 2005 01:40 am (UTC)
..some of us still love Raquel as she is now.

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[info]crazymike wrote:
Mar. 29th, 2005 01:31 am (UTC)
When the new Battlestar Galactica cast was announced..I admit I gave a jaundiced eye to the female Starbuck...because to me at the time it seemed a total pc line grab. Now that I have seen the actress play the part..I am impressed! The REALLY cool part is that she spent a weekend at Dirk Benedict's house doing research and got EVERYTHING perfect...the mouth, the 'tude, the hotshot pilot, even the way she holds the stogy and the cards. Very, very well done and totally true to the character. Incidentally Sheba, the daughter of ' The Legendary Commander Cain ' was the first strong female I loved in Sci-fi ( I know that this is a discussion that started with Manga..but I figure an old fan is an old fan...)

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[info]prickvixen wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 03:56 pm (UTC)
See, those are precisely the reasons why I like you; but then, I don't see you as someone to try to date or go to bed with. (I don't see much of anyone that way, for that matter.) In fact, I often worry I won't be up to your standards in some way or another.

I think this isn't so much about the cultural values as it is about the people receiving them: many of the people in the various fandoms are introverts or social novices, and they're largely a blank slate with regard to social behavior. They look to their favorite fantasy material for guidance, and often their interpretation of it comes out like this.

You know about the fan versus lifestyler debate, but I really think most fans approach this stuff as a lifestyle on some level, or at least as a fetish (not necesarily sexual), because they so rarely seem to care about the substance of the actual material, at least in my experience. At best they'll run on impressions, which may or may not be projected.
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[info]doronjosama wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 04:33 pm (UTC)
Excellent points! Yes, many fan-types are socially retarded, and thus, sponges for these sorts of messages. And yes, many fans fetishize the material as well- I know many people who will insist anything from Japan is brilliant simply because it is FROM JAPAN. (Not true, crap is produced in every country! Yay!)

And me? Standards? Come on now.... ^_~
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[info]prickvixen wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 06:38 pm (UTC)
Yes, standards. Maybe it's more to do with me... in the back of my mind I'm trying not to do anything overtly 'guy' at you, because I know how much of that nonsense you have to put up with. On top of not wanting to be 'guy' anything.

Thinking about the 'magical girlfriend' genre, I feel like I want to defend Ryouko from Tenchi Muyo, since she out of the bunch on that show has something like an excuse. She's buried in a cave for 700 years, semi-aware, and her first human contact is Tenchi, who also happens to be the person who releases her from the cave. Unfortunately they don't explore it very much; she soon becomes indistinguishable from the rest in mindless adoration of the title character. The rest of the girls have no such excuse.

The boy in these stories has to be a cipher, though; the idea is to have the viewer identify with him. He's supposed to be like one of those cutouts you stick your head through while someone takes a photo, so you look like a musclebuilder or a gorilla or something. Too bad I associate more with the artificial girl. :)
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[info]coyotecoyote wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 04:38 pm (UTC)
Gentleman's Gentleman.
I never understood why so many anime fans on the internet liked Belldandy and Kasumi.
They're the exact OPPOSITE of what I look for in a cartoon woman.
They're bland, weak, quiet, boring, quote-unquote-"flawless", happy homemakers...
Is there any guy who genuinely wants that?
Or do they just think they want that?

Maybe what they want isn't a girlfriend, but a butler.
Not even a MAID. They totally want a BUTLER.
Or a gentleman's gentleman.

If there was a manga where a shy, nerdy 16-year-old boy magically gets a gentleman's gentleman, it'd be EXACTLY like the magical girlfriend mangas:
"I took the liberty of pressing Sir's uniform and preparing Sir a gourmet boxed luncheon this morning."
"F-f-f-for ME?" *blush*
"Quite."
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[info]doronjosama wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 04:44 pm (UTC)
Re: Gentleman's Gentleman.
Okay, I want this comic to exist NOW, because I would read it ALL THE TIME! ^_^

The other prevalent theory among my friends is that the guys who cream over Belldandy and Kasumi just want a girlfriend who will basically be their mommy. Which is a whole other kind of "ewwwww!"
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[info]ruggels wrote:
Mar. 29th, 2005 02:47 pm (UTC)
Re: Gentleman's Gentleman.
this is getting odder and deeper, and more interesting.

The thing about this is that the simpering harem genre, just absolutely repels me for other reasons, as well as that I cannot stand weakness. The comics are also rather too focused on relationships, and not enough fighting and stuff blowing up. It just doesn't interest me, unless it's about events and situations larger than the characters. These comics are aside from the gender roles, entirely too domestic and mundane, for me.

However, looking at these, I probably would advise my brother to not allow my nieces to read these as they would 1.) Piss off their mom with the simpering and weakness as well, and 2.) Give then a rather poor take on what young romance is like.


Then again, I could just be a much more advanced age version of the "typical" (rather than "Fannish" male reader See: Washington Times Article about the loss of male fiction readers.

Interesting Topic, though.

Scott

P.S. As to the Butler comic. ey if they could make a highly rated T.V. show from the premise (Joe Millionaire)< with decent scripting, it would probably make a much better comic.
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[info]brokenlibrarian wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 05:45 pm (UTC)
Re: Gentleman's Gentleman.
You must draw this. It will be greatest parody of the retarded "Sexy Maid Girl" manga/game/anime genre ever.

I propose calling it "Jeeves-O-Matic".
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[info]prickvixen wrote:
Mar. 28th, 2005 06:27 pm (UTC)
Re: Gentleman's Gentleman.
In other words, any issue of 'Richie Rich' where he invites his trophy po' friends over.
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[info]divalea wrote:
Mar. 29th, 2005 07:35 pm (UTC)
Huhn...crap I got at GP. I think that was a lot more to do with the problem that it was some weird trophy thing, a novelty, for the guys at Gainax. Too much like real work, it was, and there was Nadia and Toho breathing hard at them.

More recently, though, harem manga and anime, maid anime, just get up my ass and die. I'm so sick of them. I want to write one and give it a truck ending.

What gets me on my worst days is how a woman's work is dismissed. Same old story, but here one more time:
In 1998, there was no end of bitching from (crap) retailers about Cathedral Child, my first graphic novel. Its digest size was "too small" to fit in their racks, and the $9.95 price point was "too low". (The same ones would bitch later about the $3.50 cover price of Rumble Girls being too high. I didn't disagree it was too high (I didn't set it), but MAKE UP MY MIND.)
At that same time, TokyoPop was still publishing manga at...wait for it...about the same size and for $16.95.
Now, thanks to Waldenbooks/Borders graphic novel guy Kurt Hassler turning TPop on to the idea of lower price points, you'd think TPop had invented $9.95 small-format books.
Um. Guys. I was there first. And second: Clockwork Angels came out in 1999.
And I'm still there: Rumble Girls: Silky Warrior Tansie trade from NBM, almost twice the size of CC and CA is...$9.95.
I also said many times that until manga started to get into bookstores, instead of having to sneak into comics speciality shops, manga (and graphic novels) aimed at female readers would never really take off, because most comic stores repel girls and women.
I was right about that, too.

As for the child hostility in fandom: yep. Been there, done that. I get none now that I don't have a babe in arms or stroller, but I used to get some evil shit when I did. Fucking evil drive-by shit. Jokes about "If I kill it, I eat it." Being banished to non-public sides of Green Rooms. Being told to not change my baby on a table where people would eat. Getting the hairy eyeball at a dinner I was invited to at WorldCon 93. Get the hairy eyeball at room parties I was invited to.
Gee, no wonder I felt so ugly after I had kids.

At Katsucon, the spouse of the person running the Green Room made a "joke" about burying his hard plastic membership card in my daughter's head because she was between him and TV. No one thought to ask her to duck. (Never mind that the room was arranged so that there was NO WAY to cross it without passing in front of the TV.)
Or hey, HOW ABOUT THIS: TURN OFF THE FUCKING TV, it's a Green Room, not a camp out.
I exploded. I surveyed my husband, Trish LeDoux, and Lisa Jonte' about how they'd have handled that. Trish: "I'd have torn off his head and shit down his neck." Lisa: "What the FUCK?" Husband: "Told them to fuck off."
So, my offering to (as I recall, I was pretty pissed off) to kick the guy's ass was about right. I was not coy about my distaste: I said I was in a "really bad fucking mood" at least twice.
The same guy was watching Kill Bill while my daughter was in the Green Room on Saturday afternoon. UM. NO. Besides the fact that it's not YOUR GREEN ROOM to watch TV in, how about exercising that gob of grease on top of your spinal column: is KILL BILL appropriate for an 11-year-old? SURVEY SAYS: NO.
And swearing a storm. Now, I swear in front of my kids, but not in front of other people's. Tirsh asked him to cool it. He did not. Trish took Summer to her room.
On Sunday, another parent was in with their toddler. There was a bowl of candy. The toddler upset the bowl. Adults made "helpful" remarks about smacking the toddler while the mortified dad picked up the candy. After the second time the toddler turned over the candy, I scooped it up and put it on top of the entertainment center. C'Mon, it's one bowl of candy. It's Sunday afternoon. No one wants the candy! MOVE THE FUCKING CANDY OUT OF REACH. AND MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS ABOUT HOW PEOPLE DISCIPLINE THEIR KIDS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE JUST SITTING ON YOUR ASS.
I was seriously disappointed in the Green Room staff.
Being a host is about making your guests comfortable, not about them not inconveniencing you.
(Katsucon chairman Richard Kim, listened to my bitching about all this and did apologize. BUT STILL.)
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