[ SECRET POST #4663 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4663 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 36 secrets from Secret Submission Post #668.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - 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)]

What do you mean by overdone, and why would it be different for female antiheroes?

Not-OP

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of modern protagonists lack the qualities that would make them heroes (idealism, morality, honesty, courage, trustworthiness, etc) and/or have imperfections that you'd normally see in villains/supporting characters (selfishness, greed, bigotry, alcoholism, violent tendencies, etc) making your central character an antihero because "realism" and "gritty storylines in a world of moral grey" blah blah blah. It's different with a female character because women in stories are often blatantly villains or written with heroic virtues/meant to be appealing.

There are entire genres devoted to Male Antiheroes. That's probably what is meant by overdone.

Re: Not-OP

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, so "overdone" here means "too common"? I thought OP meant they were too antihero-ish or something, which I couldn't figure out.

Anyway, from the dismissive tone of your comment it sounds like you're not keen on the idea of antiheroes either way, so hopefully someone who is will chime in.

Re: Not-OP

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't mean to be dismissive. I'm normally fine with antiheroes, but I think I'm just burned out. I'm in the "I miss Noblebright, enough with the Grimdark already" camp

Re: Not-OP

[ninefox]

I'd say I'm neutral on antiheroes. I don't love the concept out of the gate but I've loved some examples of the type quite a lot.

I think it's easy for male antiheroes to go cliché, firstly because they are so common, not just currently very popular but also part of a really long tradition that goes back through the cynical private eye of 40s and 50s detective stories and Bogart movies, all the way back to Byronic/Romantic heroes and the Sturm und Drang of post-enlightment literature really going for it on the brooding bad boys.

(If you wanted to be REALLY broad, you could trace it back through Milton's Satan and classical Tragic Heroes, but I think that's a fairly distinct type.)

Consequently, it's really easy for male anti-heroes to be really derivative - a watered down Sam Spade with more guns and less charm.

But even more than that, so much of what gets called "antiheroic" now is less about nuanced grey morality and more about having an excuse to endorse and celebrate toxic masculinity. John Winchester is Strong and Marine and Fight, so he's cool and heroic even though he's emotionally neglectful at BEST and seriously abusive at worst. And yeah, he's fighting demons, he means well - but that's my whole complaint, that the story uses the heroic 'wins a necessary fight' part of antihero to excuse all the 'anti' stuff. SO much western media is about or at least complicit in that endorsement, and it can be really tiring. Even when it is super well done in terms of morality complexity and critique, it's been done so many times that there's only so much new to say.

On the other hand, women in both media and real life are under SO many demands to be pleasing, to be nurturing, to be considerate. A woman who doesn't defer to others is so often relegated to "bitch" status, and then punished for it. (To keep with the SPN examples, look at how the show and the fandom treated Bela Talbot, who I would classify as an antihero just as much as John - but to the show, she was almost always framed as the villain.) As previous anon said, women are usually portrayed as Pure or else out and out villains - the Madonna-Whore Complex is alive and well in most media and genres. So a woman as an antihero is both more fresh just because we've seen it less, but also more interesting because it breaks from society's usual prescriptions for what that person's role in the story is allowed to be, and how that person is allowed to express themselves and how much space and selfishness they're allowed to take up, instead of falling into those assumptions very neatly. And going against that grain is generally going to produce more innovative characters and stories. Not every time - I'm completely sure a female antihero could be done super badly - but more likely.

Re: Not-OP

[(Anonymous)]

OK, yeah, I get what you mean by derivative. I think that's true in general for a lot of modern media. SPN is bottom of the barrel in that regard. That's just bad writing, period.

I enjoy the brooding male and femme fatale types, so a lot of this gender-based criticism is admittedly wasted on me. I googled female antiheroes and found a number of lists of modern versions. Probably my favorite example would be Heavenly Creatures, which works especially well since there are two of them, and they're in a romantic/sexual relationship and written in such a way that the audience feels for them despite them being dysfunctional at best and psychopathic at worst, not to mention based on actual RL murderers.

I don't think female antiheroes are as rare as you all claim, but they are rare, and I think part of that is because they are a hard sell to female audiences as well as male ones. In my experience, women tend to be more morally judgmental than men and especially judgmental of other women. (And that is not in itself a moral judgment against women, just an observation.)

Re: Not-OP

[ninefox]

Yeah, I'm not saying everything is as bad as SPN, it just makes a really clear and well-known example. And SPN itself has so many imitators now that the derivation is just ongoing. And that doesn't have to be bad - lots of media takes old tropes and puts a fun fresh spin on them - but it can also end up as...re-boiled mush, you know?

There definitely aren't no female antiheroes - personally I love the hell out of Jessica Jones, even though it's really hard to watch at times. OTOH I think anything based on IRL murderers reasonably described as "psychopathic" is a lot more "villain protagonist" than antihero. With an antihero, I don't just want to be sympathetic to them, I want to see them trying to do good even while being super tarnished. Still, I think it's telling that I can come up with entire genres based around male antiheroes, and we're discussing only individual examples for female ones. Just because some of them exist doesn't mean there isn't still a hunger for more of that kind of story, and the unexplored possibilities for it.

As for "women tend to be more judgmental," I think this is a place where we really need to watch out for turning anecdata into data. Are there lots of women who internalize and enforce patriarchal standards? YES ABSOLUTELY. Are women as a class more critical of other women that men, or do we just notice it more when some of them do it? I don't think that's a settled question. And even if it were true, is this because women are inherently critical, or because having your personhood constantly judged by certain standards will necessarily make you hyper-aware of those standards? And the more someone sacrifices to succeed within those standards the more sunk cost fallacy is going to make them invested in upholding those structures.

TLDR: profit motive shapes popular media in a sexist culture, and women aren't immune to perpetuating that culture. But popular media also goes on to reinforce/recreate/exaggerate that culture and push that culture on male and female viewers alike. And the existence of some women really caught in that mental trap doesn't invalidate a lot of us being really, really tired of some of what it creates.

Re: Not-OP

[(Anonymous)]

idk what your format usually is, but i come from comics and there aren't many female antiheroes. like, you get natasha romanov, jessica jones, and x-23. you can make an argument for catwoman and the gals from gotham city sirens as antiheroes, but they definitely definitely started out as a villains (or in harley's case, the villain's girlfriend) and didn't get to become heroes until they got their own comic.

meanwhile, dudes have punisher, deadpool, ghost rider, spawn, wolverine, rorschach, john constantine, blade, V, the hulk, bishop, cable... ive seen venom listed as an antihero, though i'm iffy on that take but i only know him from the spider-man comics so his own line probably clears that up

"rare" does not mean "nonexistent" and no one is claiming that there have never been female antiheroes (well-written or otherwise). but c'mon, there are three taken films and three john wick films and we only got uma thurman kicking ass in a yellow jumpsuit for two movies

[(Anonymous)]

I think OP means it’s a trope that’s so common and so often repeated that it’s become kind of boring.

and why would it be different for female antiheroes?

Well first of all, there are just waaaaaay more male antiheroes than female ones, at least in western media. So there’s that.

Secondly, a female character who exhibits the traits of an antihero is far more of a challenge to gender norms and stereotypes than a male character who exhibits the same traits.

Abrasiveness, self-interest, insensitivity, harsh pragmatism, an aloof and/or superior attitude, a preference for taking morally gray effective action over morally pure ineffective action, a readiness to go through people who get in their way without giving a shit what that person thinks of them, etc. Those are some traits commonly exhibited by antiheroes. When a male character exhibits these traits, a significant percentage of people eat it up with a spoon (as evidenced by how incredibly popular a lot of these antihero stories become and how long they maintain their audiences), and the people who hate it are relatively insignificant in number. Whereas when a female character exhibits even a couple of these traits, the vast majority of the time there is a large percentage of people who start frothing at the mouth, like, How DARE this BITCH be such a BITCH? HOW DARE SHE?!

Which, fuck that noise. If someone doesn't like antiheroes at all, that's fine. But there are a LOT of people out there who love antiheroes until those antiheroes are ladies, and that's just bullshit, and I think having more well-written female antiheroes is something that will help to challenge and broaden people's expectations of what a female character can successfully be.

[(Anonymous)]

I think having more well-written female antiheroes is something that will help to challenge and broaden people's expectations of what a female character can successfully be

Well, you are more optimistic than I am in that regard LOL!

But yeah, I'll take more well-written antiheroes of any gender. Speaking of, it's a shame that ScarJo movie about the transgender pimp didn't get made because it would have been a particularly interesting example if done well.