Why do males complain about female-led stories or too many female characters when the majority are still dominated by males?
Why do males complain about female-led stories or too many female characters when the majority are still dominated by males?
One Woman in the Justice League
Just one woman, maybe two, in a team or group of men.
Also watch Jimmy Kimmel's "Muscle Man' superhero skit - "I'm the girly one"
The Avengers:
In Marvel Comics:
"Labeled "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," the original Avengers consisted of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor and the Wasp. Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in The Avengers issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him."
5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Modern films (MCU):
The original 6 Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.
Again, 5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Justice League
In DC comics:
"The Justice League originally consisted of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman"
6 / 7 original members are male. Only one is female.
In modern films (DCEU):
The members were/are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. (+ introducing Martian Manhunter (in Zack Snyder's Justice League director's cut))
5 / 6 main members in both versions of the Justice League film are male, with appearances by a 7th member in the director's cut who is also male. Only one member is female.
The Umbrella Academy (comics and show)
7 members:
- Luther (Number One / Spaceboy)
- Diego (Number Two / The Kraken)
- Allison (Number Three / The Rumor)
- Klaus (Number Four / The Séance)
- Five (Number Five / The Boy)
- Ben (Number Six / The Horror)
- Vanya (Number Seven / The White Violin) Later becomes known as Viktor and nonbinary in the television adaptation after Elliot Page's transition but that's not really relevant to this.
Here, 5 / 7 original members are male. Only two are female. Only slightly better than the other more famous superhero teams, and they had to add another member (compared to Avengers' 6 members) to improve the ratio (maybe executives still demanded to have 5 males).
Now let's look at some sitcoms and other stories.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
4 males, and 1 female slightly less prominent character who is abused constantly. The show claims to be politically aware and satirical but gets away with a lot of misogynistic comedy, tbh, that I'm willing to bet a lot of people are finding funny for the wrong reasons.
Community:
Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Pierce, Shirley. This one is a little better, 3/7 are female. Notice it's always more males though, they never let it become more than 50% female, or else then it's a "chick flick" or a "female team up" or "gender flipped" story. And of course the main character, and the leading few characters, are almost always male or mostly male.
Stranger Things:
Main original group of kids consisted of: Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and El (Eleven). 1 original female member, who is comparable to an alien and even plays the role of E.T. in direct homage. When they added Max, I saw people complaining that although they liked her, there should be only one female member. 🤦
Why is it 'iconic' to have only one female in a group of males? Does that just mean it's the tradition, the way it's always been? Can't we change that? Is it so that all the men can have a chance with the one girl, or so the males can always dominate the discussion with their use of force and manliness? Or so that whenever the team saves the day, it's mostly a bunch of men doing it, but with 'a little help' from a female/a few females (at most), too!
It's so fucked up and disgusting to me I've realised. And men don't seem to care. I'm a male and this is really disturbing to me now that I've woken up to it. How do women feel about this? Am I overreacting?
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I can't speak for anyone else. But for me personally. I don't mind if they have a female or male lead. What I care about is if the story and characters are believable. Many times it's like they just said well here we are going to have a female lead just because. Yet when you look at the story and at the character it doesn't make sense.
Ex :
A strong female lead who is supposed to be commanding people and yet when she gives commands it just comes across as bitchy not assertive. And when you look at the story the character wouldn't have the training to be able to know even what to do.
It's like the director and writers just had to put a female on the screen.
The above example is just an example not meant to point at a specific movie or show.
A few of movies where they did it right.
The women in the movie Red. That was excellent writing and acting. The original Alien movie was awesome. Oh yeah and Mr and Mrs Smith kicked ass Angelina was awesome in that movie
To many current movies just feel like a board room full of people with an agenda of let's make a movie with a female lead without asking if the scenario makes sense.
This is just my opinion as I can't speak for others.
A strong female lead
Women are strong in a different way to men and writers just gender swapping a male character is always fucking obnoxious.
A lot of writers apparently have no idea how to write interesting female characters. Some of the pushback from viewers / readers to increasing the number of female characters isn't about the characters being female, it's about them being bad characters. Boring, annoying, quippy, etc.
Nobody wants to admit that their movie flopped because it wasn't very good, so they blame sexism. Or piracy, that one's always popular.
as bitchy not assertive
Too often, a behavior is considered bossy or bitchy in a woman, but would be considered assertive or commanding in a man.
A woman crying is emotional and can't be trusted to 'do what needs to be done', a man punching holes in walls is just frustrated and can be relied upon when the going gets tough.
...or at least that's what our rather misogynistic culture likes to tell us.
Too often, I would agree with you yes. But it’s also in the context of how they’re crying and the way that they are crying. There’s a type of crying where for example, a commander is leading troops across the battlefield, watched longtime friends get blown apart and the commander sits down and just quietly cries after the battle. Whether the commander is male or female isn’t going to matter. Most people would say OK that’s reasonable level of emotion for the commander.
That little context, there is what too many directors and producers don’t understand. The emotion has to fit the character and has to fit the scene In order for it to be believable..
As far as the whole bossy and bitchy versus assertive comparing men to women. Again, I can’t speak for what other people think and say
can only speak for my personal point of view. Where I have a real problem with it is when actors and actresses aren’t taught appropriately to be assertive without being bitchy. Men generally are able to pick up on it easier. Women sometimes they don’t pick up on it and they’ve gotta have voice Training. Now that is not saying all women are that way so I don’t want somebody coming back and saying hey this guy just said all women arethis way. Well no I didn’t. But many times women don’t have the role models needed in their life to understand how to be assertive. Well, how do you act assertive on a movie screen if nobody’s ever taught you how to be assertive?
It would be no different than if somebody asked me to lead troops and combat well I don’t know how to do that. I wouldn’t knowhow to be assertive in that manner so I doubt I’d do it very well. Or for example, if somebody said hey, go repair that engine well if nobody’s ever showing me how to do it I don’t think I’d be able todo it. Given ones a technical skill and one’s a skill of how to project your voice, but if you’ve never had somebody show you howto do it or teach you how to do it and you’ve never had a role model in that manner. You might have a hard time it.
I think that's it. I was taught how to project my voice, how to use an authoritative tone and it has helped me get leadership roles. It's a skill, and it's a skill that any leader ought to have, in a film, at least.
Both men and women can do it, but you need to learn and I haven't seen nearly as many girls trying to learn it as boys
My favorite example of this is when Scrubs added Dr. Grace Miller, she was literally written to be Dr. Cox, if he was a woman.
And people despised her.
I think this guy says it well.
it just comes across as bitchy and not assertive
The problem is men get way more leeway than women in this regard. Their voice, their demeanor, the way they dress, everything must perfectly match whatever the dude is expecting or “it’s not believable.“ Male characters are rarely as scrutinized.