[ SECRET POST #6018 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6018 ⌋

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


01.



__________________________________________________



02.



__________________________________________________



03.



__________________________________________________



04.



__________________________________________________



05.



__________________________________________________



06.



__________________________________________________



07.
























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #860.
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

[fscom]

03. https://i.imgur.com/bQKU0zH.png

Someone else said it better on the comment secret thread, but...

[(Anonymous)]

If this is about cdramas, then it's apples and oranges. People aren't complaining about cdrama leads portrayed as child-like as part of their character development arc, they're complaining about a rather sexist, one-note stereotype that plagues female characters in cdramas, period, with not much diversity or range in female characters in general. Context matters.

Re: Someone else said it better on the comment secret thread, but...

[(Anonymous)]

It's not about c-dramas specifically.

But if you want to narrow it down: complaining about immaturity and a high-pitched voice for only one gender in the artistic tradition that fielded Tang Fan and many other nebbish, immature, unaware-of-personal-boundaries, squeaky little men is... definitely A Take.

And. While gender dynamics are certainly a bit skewed in c-dramas, there's also a solid showing in warriors, generals, doctors, high-powered businesswomen, politically astute court monsters, sect leaders, cops, quiet women who are just so terribly nice, young idiots who are about to meet Personal Growth like getting their ankles stuck in the tracks with a train coming, engineers, e-sport pros...

You're not talking apples and oranges, you're just cherry-picking.

Re: Someone else said it better on the comment secret thread, but...

[(Anonymous)]

Tang Fan gets to be a genius savant Sherlock Holmes character. He has a higher pitched voice, that's true. I wouldn't say his character is to the same degree as some childish female leads, but I suspect that what he does exhibit in terms of similar traits is perhaps down to the fact that Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty is a BL adaptation and it's not an uncommon trope for one half of the m/m ship to be portrayed as physically weaker, less mature, more dependent upon their partner, etc. Someone else can unpack why, but I suspect it's down to a toxic stereotype where one half of a gay male couple is treated as "the woman" of the relationship.

"many other nebbish, immature, unaware-of-personal-boundaries, squeaky little men" - I'm genuinely curious. Which male leads of which cdramas fit this description? IME, there's more range in male leads than there are in female leads. One or two childish female leads wouldn't be a problem if there was wider representation in the genre. But it seems weird to act like childish female leads aren't a very common thing in cdramas just because occasionally a male character also behaves immaturely.

Re: Someone else said it better on the comment secret thread, but...

[(Anonymous)]

"I'm genuinely curious. Which male leads of which cdramas fit this description?"

Tientsin Mystic and My Roommate Is A Detective off the top of my head. (I found them too grating to get past more than a couple of episodes each.) And I'm sure those leads did have skills, on account of how protagonists often do. In Psych Hunter, one of the MLs was a damn baby. (A cute baby, but still.) In Blood of Youth there was the young idiot who turns up at the inn right at the start, I think he was supposed to be a supporting character, though? In the movie Under the Three Rivers the love interest was a very pathetic (but cute) straight guy and the heroine and her openly gay bff got all the cool action scenes.

And I repeat: there is a wide representation of female characters. You're cherrypicking when you could be eating an entire orchard.

Try Princess Silver, where the female lead was trained as an assassin and the supporting cast is rife with other female assassins and spies, and also delicate-young-misses, maids, noble-women trying to get through complicated politics, and yes, some squeaky girls, two of which broke my bitter black heart before the story was done.

Song of Glory, again with an assassin-heroine, this time getting suddenly dumped into a respectable family and having to open out her worldview.

Or The Long Ballad, which has a fairly mannish FL, and a very girly 2nd FL, and they are both written with love and compassion and end up with the kind of relationship they *want*.

Or Stand By Me | Dream of Chang'an, which contrasts a young-idiot-with-a-sword FL against a cool-and-manipulative 2nd FL, again, with both written with love and compassion.

Or Oh My General, which reverses the gender dynamics right out of the gate.

Ooh, The Murder at Kairoutei, if you want slightly older businesswomen being utterly fab or nasty pieces of work, depending...

In Three Body, we spend a lot of time on an elderly scientist and the doomy backstory she survived with courage and fortitude.

Even Love Between Fairy and Devil, which got roasted here a while back has a) character development for the squeaky FL, b) multiple women in positions of authority and respect, and c) a supporting romance where the girl ends up ditching the guy she adores in favour of her career and everybody's happy with that.

And that's just off the top of my head.


It's like you're pointing out the very worst version of a stock character trope, insisting on making it gendered, and then declaring that it is Representative of Everything. Which is... certainly A Take.

Re: Someone else said it better on the comment secret thread, but...

[(Anonymous)]

I'm willing to keep an open mind about your examples, but the two I'm familiar with don't really seem to fit, IMO. The lead in My Roommate is a Detective is annoying, but I don't really see how he's on par with the general complaints about childish female leads. Likewise in Blood of Youth, if you're talking about Wu Jie, he's clearly young, idealistic and maybe a little annoying at times, but he does not act like a little boy.


"It's like you're pointing out the very worst version of a stock character trope, insisting on making it gendered, and then declaring that it is Representative of Everything. Which is... certainly A Take."

It would definitely be "... A Take" if I'd actually said that. But I didn't. I'm guessing this is one of those topics where you're bringing some baggage from all the previous (probably contentious?) discussions you've had with other people, elsewhere on the internet and now you're a touch sensitive about any criticism of female characters in cdramas because you lump them all in the same category.

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't complain if it was a childish female lead playing zoom zoom with her toy ship. I WOULD complain if the entirety of Luke Skywalker's character was to speak in a high pitched voice and whine and pout and demand his love interests' attention and this was meant to be attractive.

It's what the childishness is supposed to convey. Women are made childish in a specific way that is supposed to be able to let the man be smarter and in charge. Men are made childish to give them character growth into Men (TM).

[(Anonymous)]

Okay? Maybe watch to the end of the story sometime? Character growth happens to girls, too - it's an extremely common plotline.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Character growth happens to girls. Almost always into wives. I still don't see many childish female characters who don't grow to be a (sometimes playfully) childish wives. The only one I can think of is the recently mentioned and also recently maligned "irrelevant" Legally Blonde.

Luke Skywalker got to do character growth from a childish moisture farmer into a Jedi Knight.

[(Anonymous)]

... he was still a childish Jedi Knight, though.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Sometimes girls get married? Sure. Sometimes boys get married. Finding a romantic partner who is into you is a very common plotline. If it's a good story then there's going to be an element of negotiation where both (or more) parties find what they want and need in each other and remain their own selves inside that supportive relationship.

You just. You just seem to have an extremely limited range of things that you actually read/watch, and are trying to say that some tropes are universal. When maybe you should just read more.

[(Anonymous)]

This entire conversation is a great place to look if you want to see the phenomenon of women willfully and obtusely covering their eyes to misogynistic writing patterns and the female characters they result in, in order to imply other women are misogynists for not liking the way those female characters are written.

You can like things with misogynistic writing. You can even like female characters who are written with misogynistic writing. It's still ridiculous to deny they are misogynistic and blame other women for not liking it just because you aren't bothered by it.

[(Anonymous)]

Who said the the writing isn't - sometimes - misogynistic?

The double standard that viewers sometimes have is... you know, really coming clear in this convo, though.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

This is both a completely disingenuous reading of that conversation, and condescending in a needless and counterproductive way.

[(Anonymous)]

It's completely serious. Fandom grasps at straws to blame anyone but the writers for the misogynistic way female characters are written and other fans' distaste for it. But go ahead, keep insisting misogyny is baked into every part of society and every person in some degree or another... except the female characters in things you like and the writers who created them. They grew up in a vacuum, so any misogyny fans find in them is really a product of their own internalized misogyny.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

Like, ok. If you think writers are perfect human beings and no modern female character is created with misogynistic characteristics, then enjoy your blinders.

[(Anonymous)]

Some narratives have misogyny in them.

Some narratives don't.

Fandom(and people on this stie) vastly overstates the latter and refuses to believe the former exists at all.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm confused as to where ya'll are finding these 'childish' and immature women, because all I get to see is the straight-laced leading lady who is basically a mom to the male lead and reigns him in while she maybe gets to crack a smile once a season. I'd kinda like to see some immature and fun-loving women tbh because I barely see them.

[(Anonymous)]

Same. I'm tired of the female leads who are basically just there to be the Mom Friend to the male lead and everyone around them, I'd love to see some female leads who actually aren't that.

[(Anonymous)]

You're watching US sitcoms, dramas, and action movies. Secret OP is watching Asian dramas. They should have specified that, probably, but as someone who doesn't watch Asian dramas, I still know the grievance all too well from people who do. And trust me, switching to them is not going to give you the type of female characters you want.

[(Anonymous)]

tbh, I'd much rather a childish female lead over yet another iteration of "the writers expect us to believe that this intelligent and competent woman would somehow fall for this giant manchild."

[(Anonymous)]

Secret OP specifically said upthread that the secret wasn’t specifically talking about Asian dramas, so this comment is untrue.

[(Anonymous)]

It seems like I might have more fun though because I am so beyond done with the female lead being delegated the mom to a whiny-ass manchild who she somehow falls in love with.

So gimmie those Asian drama recs, I'll see for myself if I hate them.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, this is a really interesting discussion. Does anyone have favorite recs for storylines focused around a childish female character gaining strength and maturity? She can retain a childish personality or not, the secret just got me interested in seeing more women with that type of character arc. Some of the recs up thread sounded great. The examples that come to mind for me first are some of Tamora Pierce's protagonists, as a young reader I loved her books and they remain favorites of mine.