[ SECRET POST #2841 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2841 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 039 secrets from Secret Submission Post #406.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't mean everything OP was describing, but the feelings of alienation? I thought that was a pretty common link between women and kind of the whole reason we want better representation?

[(Anonymous)]

Not for me.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay. I'm glad everything is wonderful for you, then.

[(Anonymous)]

Everything isn't wonderful, but alienation based on my sex isn't a problem. Nor do I feel particularly underrepresented in media, as I am more than my sex. But clearly you're not *actually* interested in the experiences of women who aren't you, so bye.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[diet_poison]

Alienation, I can see for lots of women. Hating female love interest characters? No, not so much.

[(Anonymous)]

Happens to asexual, aromantic, and bi/lesbian women. Cannot relate at all (or rather, I spent so much time trying to relate to them and trying to relate to heterosexual love interests that I don't want to bother anymore. Been there, done that. I'm done). I also hate most of the guy characters too (and like more women characters than men characters). But hating female love interest characters can make a lot of sense. I don't like characters that are only love interests. They have to have some well developed personality or I just don't care, dislike the writers that wrote such navel grazing boring characters, and I dislike the characters themselves.

[(Anonymous)]

I am a bi woman and I have no problem relating with characters who are only love interests, so learn to speak for yourself.

[diet_poison]

That's fair, though I guess I still don't get how indifference = hate.

And I would be more frustrated with the writers than the characters themselves.

(I think because of the media I consume, I just don't run into this problem as much. I hardly watch any live-action TV or movies...)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't hate them, as someone who's wholly uninterested in romantic relationships herself. But I do find women who *only* exist as the love interest uninteresting and hard to relate to. I just stare at them and wonder how it's possible the only interesting thing they apparently do is act as an emotional prop for their man. Don't they have their own arc? Their own dreams, pitfalls, problems? Some aspect of their life that's not stapled to their man? Why on Earth should I give two shakes about them if they're just a breathing accessory?

Which is a long way of saying, I don't expect a lot of people feel this way, but I get where OP is coming from.

[diet_poison]

Ok, I think part of it for me is I don't consume a lot of the media that apparently has this trope.

But another part is when I do see a female love-interest-only character, this:

I just stare at them and wonder how it's possible the only interesting thing they apparently do is act as an emotional prop for their man. Don't they have their own arc? Their own dreams, pitfalls, problems? Some aspect of their life that's not stapled to their man?

doesn't even cross my mind. I just tend to assume that they DO have their own dreams, flaws, life, etc. and we just don't see it because that's not what the story is focusing on.

Of course, I totally get the frustration of constantly having female characters who are depicted as love interests and not main characters when with men it tends to be the other way around. But I think that's a problem with media and not the characters themselves, because every story has to have some secondary characters. I guess I think of social interactions and relationships like a web, with everyone connected to many other people in different ways, and a storyteller can only shine a light on one part of that web when telling one person's story. There are always going to be people important to the protag who we don't learn that much about, but I assume they do have their own lives off screen, and in fact I think it's fun to flesh those characters out more in my head.

[likeadeuce]

I feel like if the issue were actually 'wanting better representation,' one might indicate that they were seeking out movies that feature better representation. In this case, OP seems to be watching the same movies as their friends and being more negative about them.