[ SECRET POST #5638 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5638 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 34 secrets from Secret Submission Post #807.
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)]

I agree with you in that the dynamic doesn't work for me and it's always annoying when writers take an interesting dynamic and make it OOC and tropey.

But I also don't think this is worth than any other dynamic people like. Not like these stories are more annoying than Pretty Bad Boy x Helpless Nice Girl. And I have to admit I rolled my eyes a little at the "could do better" part. What does that even mean? clearly the point of this trope is that it appeals to people, and not just to men. If people like it, what's the problem here?

[(Anonymous)]

And I have to admit I rolled my eyes a little at the "could do better" part. What does that even mean?

I mean, this IS a pretty common trope in mainstream media. A woman who is good-looking, smart, and just generally has her shit together, falls head over heels for a guy who is average-looking, not particularly smart, and doesn't have his shit together. I find this trope annoying--not so much each individual instance of it, but the fact that it's so common. Because it does carry with it a certain underlying ideation that it's totally natural and not worth questioning that hetero men (especially when they're white/able bodied/etc.) get to have the kind of woman they desire, regardless of whether they themselves have much to offer.

However, while it does sometimes annoy me when it comes up in a show or movie I'm watching, it's more like, "Yay, another hot, successful lady and her schlubby husband who doesn't try." *eyeroll* Not so much, "OMG this is so sexist, wow, I hate this show now!" Because again, it's not the individual instances of this trope that I take issue with; merely how common it is and how completely taken for granted it was until fairly recently.

[philstar22]

The trope would bother me less if we'd have the reverse more often (not an incompetent woman per say, but a less attractive, less together woman with the hottest, got-his-crap-together guy).

[feotakahari]

Look up Confessions of Super Mom. My mother loves this book, for obvious reasons.

[(Anonymous)]

IMO the "Girlboss Malewife" stuff is not really the same thing as the According To Jim, King Of Queens, lazy sitcom slob husband with gorgeous wife thing. That's really not primarily what's going on there at all. Very much a different thing. There are many angles to the Girlboss Malewife stuff, but none of them really line up with the King of Queens thing, I don't think.

And I don't think it's correct to write it off entirely as a male fantasy of being able to have whoever you desire, either. It definitely is partly a male fantasy (especially the more "mommy gf" side of it). But I don't think it's exclusively a male fantasy at all. And I think that's where my exasperation with the "could do better" part comes from for me - if the fantasy of having an attractive male partner who's extremely domestic and caring works for people, if that's satisfying, I don't see why that's unacceptable and that bugs me. (I also want to be clear here that I realize OP was just expressing annoyance and it's their right to be annoyed and that I'm really taking them more seriously than is justified, it's all good, I'm just trying to explain why their phrasing made me initially roll my eyes)

[meadowphoenix]

Yeah I would agree that malewife is more himbo than sitcom husband. the emotional component the man gives to his wife is the attraction. but I'm not sure what OP is seeing, because their description is more sitcom husband.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Now that I think about it, Malewife wasn't the best word for what I meant. The ship flanderizations that bother me may use that word themselves, but what they really portray is just an idiot loser guy whose only good quality is that he'd do anything for his girlfriend (but the downside is he's not able to do any of it well because he's so dumb and bad at everything).

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

That's fair enough then!

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I find it more annoying than Pretty Bad Boy x Helpless Nice Girl because at least when that dynamic happens, it's canon. (See Twilight, etc.) The fandom doesn't flanderize a good ship into an annoying one because the canon one is already annoying and I don't care about it to begin with. I understand fandoms that do turn good ships into that dynamic exist according to other comments, but they're not my fandoms so I can't really be annoyed there either because I'm not there in the fandom to see it.

"Could do better" means just that, the fandom acts like the girl is so much better than the guy but loves him anyway and doesn't even think about how that doesn't make sense, and IS the same as the Loser Guy Gets Awesome Girl cliche even if it's girls doing it. They don't realize they're doing it and that's what's frustrating. I know it's not like they actually think the guy sucks, and they portray him that way.

OP again

[(Anonymous)]

I meant "BUT they portray him that way," not "and"