What she says: I’m fine
What she means: In Legally Blonde, Elle only gets accepted because she’s hot and sent a video, but she had a 4.0 and got a 179 (out of 180) on her LSATS. Sure, her major was in Fashion Merchandising but that’s a business major, and the fake school she was at was supposed to be UCLA so she had a business degree from a major college, probably went to a great high school, had a 4.0, and a 179 on the LSATS and at that point she would have been automatically accepted so why did they make it sound like she was such a bad risk? She even had leadership experience as president of a major chapter of what is apparently a huge sorority, since Delta Nus are shown as everything from cheerleaders to senators. Harvard should have been desperate to take her. She should have been able to get in if she turned in a cocktail napkin with her name written on it. So why make up the bullshit excuse of “multiculturalism” to justify letting in an extremely qualified and highly driven candidate just for laughs? Elle Woods deserved to go to Harvard and she earned that place with academic excellence and not by being hot.
Movies for boys that are cinematically not great but are fun, kinda dumb escapist fantasies (e.g., Kingsman, Fast and the Furious, 90% of all action movies): I mean, they’re not great cinema but it’s a fun two hours at the movies just let boys have their wish fulfillment films like whatevs
Movies for girls that are cinematically not great but are fun, kinda dumb escapist fantasies (e.g., Snow White and the Huntsman, Maleficent, Jupiter Ascending): THIS IS THE DEATH KNELL OF CIVILIZATION ALL OF CINEMA MUST BE BURNED TO THE GROUND AND SALTED AND STARTED ANEW TO RID OURSELVES OF THIS PLAGUE
crying males: “disney is destroying star wars with female leads”
“rogue one also has a female lead? ugh”
“great another mary sue”
me:
I don’t mind if Star Wars has a female lead, as the Star Wars franchise has always been home to strong female characters, I do care if she is another giant Mary Sue like Rey was. Rey was so Mary Sue that it became distracting to the movie. A character with no force training takes down a trained Sith Knight, she flies a freighter designed for two pilots with no help despite the fact she had never left the planet before, and she can also repair said ship with no problem because she had spent years salvaging parts off of a broken star destroyer? The only thing she didn’t do was have all of the male characters try to romance her at once and I thank the force for that small concession.
The only good new character in episode 7 was Finn. The rest of the characterization fell flat or was just used to make Rey ascend to Mary Suedom.
anakin built the worlds fastest pod racer and c3po when he was nine
the first time luke flew a spaceship he destroyed the fucking death star.
Kylo Ren: Not a Sith. Not fully trained. Also? Injured by a bowcaster that we’d seen could take out several stormtroopers at a time.
Rey: Literally spent all of her downtime flying a flight simulator to the point that it could no longer throw anything at her she couldn’t handle. For all kinds of ships. Nor did she solely scavenge star destroyers. She spent her entire life scavenging every imaginable wreck on Jakku, and her survival depended on her learning what ships had what parts and what was valuable. This, while competing with other scavengers, most of them working in teams.
Which meant she had to learn how to fight, or else she wouldn’t have gotten out of childhood.
Basically, Rey had way more in-canon reasoning to be as good as she was than Luke Skywalker did–who basically went from never flying much out of atmo to piloting an X-wing under combat conditions and rocking it… apparently just because of genetics and the Force. Who then went on, only half-trained, into a fight that even YODA thought he was going to die in, and survived, against a man literally birthed by the Force, trained as both a Jedi AND a Sith, with about 25 years of combat experience under his belt, whereas Luke had had a lightsaber for about 3 years. What a Mary Sue he was, huh?
Rey had more reason to be what she was than Anakin Skywalker, who accidentally wound up in a fighter and accidentally destroyed a droid ship. Anakin who was such a Mary Sue he was LITERALLY A VIRGIN BIRTH. How Mary Sue is THAT?
The creators, in short, HAD TO GIVE REASONS for every single thing Rey knew how to do, because of assholes like this person, who would take any special skill she had as proof that she was a “Mary Sue” just because she was a female character. No one bothered to give those reasons to Luke or Anakin. Because they’re the hero. OF COURSE they can do the impossible. But Rey? Jesus, what a Mary Sue.
Reblogged for excellent commentary.
(I’d thought the Rey-hating twerp up there was like sixteen, in which case I’d cut them some slack, but nope turns out they’re in their 40s.)
People keep saying, “what if men did what you did to ghostbusters but the other way around!!!!!” but 1) You can’t. There isn’t one major blockbuster from the past 30 years with enough girls to do that with, and 2) Don’t assume that I wouldn’t completely support an all male cheetah girls reboot
Can I vote for Pride and Prejudice with five brothers, but we still keep Mr. Darcy?
To be honest, Supergirl is very – procedurally, formulaically, narratively, thematically – similar to The Flash. Both shows are made from much of the same Stuff, both contain very similar storylines and methods, both have a lot of the same draws like their humor and characterization. On the downside, both also tend to have a lot of the same drawbacks, like the periodic awkward dialogue and generally being about as subtle as a three-year old’s crayon drawings.
About the only major difference I can name is that Supergirl frequently lampshades its own status as a female-led superhero show, and all the double standards that come with such. And I get the impression that this often annoys a lot of viewers. Folks rag on how blatantly “meta” the show’s messages are, how
“Supergirl,” both the show and the character, is constantly complaining about having to prove herself in
ways others don’t and working twice as hard to be taken seriously.
But
the fact is…that’s kinda exactly what’s happening. Already this show
has been blasted a lot for things that I know others would get a pass on. The more similar that Supergirl is to The Flash – and it’s very similar – the more evident the double standard becomes.
People rag on Supergirl’s focus on romantic subplots and love triangles and relationship drama, calling it girly and forced. But shall we measure the amount of air-time that has been devoted to Barry Allen’s love life? ‘Cuz that’s not gonna be a small amount either. It may very well even surpass the amount of romantic focus Kara has had in the equivalent amount of time. But no one would ever call The Flash a girly show for all its requisite CW drama.
People complain about Kara being a soft character, how she’s constantly belittled at work and isn’t able to do her job well without her male co-workers stepping in, and can’t beat bad guys without someone else having to help her. They complain about her not being badass enough on her own, that she’s too vulnerable. Too girly.
And it’s like…the first five minutes of The Flash features Barry getting reamed out by his boss and needing a co-worker to cover his ass. “Captain Singh chews out Barry for something inconsequential” becomes a running gag for the rest of the season. And how many pep talks, per episode, does Barry Allen receive from every single man, woman, and child on the cast of the Flash
before he’s able to bring down the meta of the week? How many times has
he stammered some variation of the phrase “I can’t do it!” “I’m just
not fast enough!” “I’m failing you, dad!” “I’m failing you, mom!”
leading to [rolls six-sided die with supporting cast’s faces printed on
the sides] to have to talk him through whatever Flash-related
challenge he’s faced with this Tuesday on his earpiece?
It reminds me a lot, frankly, of the flak Black Widow receives whenever she displays some kind of vulnerability or fear in her appearances. Never mind that every single one of her male counterparts have filled up entire films’ worth of screentime of them being vulnerable and frightened and sad.
It’s not just centered on Kara, either. The latest episode featured General Sam Lane, who’s pretty much just a stock stereotypical military antagonist who spews nonsensical military bullshit ad nauseam, and folks are already complaining about him being a poorly-written nonsense character. Which may be all well and good, but where was this disdain when General Eiling – who’s even more cartoonish and nonsensical than Lane is – or even Amanda Waller were spewing nonsensical military bullshit ad nauseam on The Flash and Arrow? How come with them it’s all “Ooh iconic DC Comics characters are appearing on my TV screens!!!” and with Lane it’s all “This makes no sense and it is bad for not making sense”?
This show really is held to different standards on a constant basis, on nearly every aspect. I mean…folks don’t have to like it if they don’t like it, but they can’t possibly claim that they’re not taking it to task for things they wouldn’t even think twice about on other shows.
eirenical17 