Okay, Let's Just Take a Moment Here

[belenustenebrae]

It's just a movie.Please stop using this phrase to dismiss my or other people's opinions. My opinions are based on what I perceived as an insult, something that bothered me and moved me to cry out against it. "It" being the film, fanfic or random asstwat comment of the week

Comments

[polysamachan]

I totally understand what you're saying. I may disagree with the amount of misogyny found in some works, or the importance of it, but it's always bad class to put down someone's passions. :( It never does anything but hurt someone for the ~great sin~ of having an opinion.

What work are you talking about, by the way? I'm curious.

[belenustenebrae]

We should all follow the flock and not have opinions of our own. :P

Well, it was a "last straw" kinda thing that prompted the rant. In the last couple of weeks, the two last straws being,

one, stupidfree people came to one of my communities (a tight-knit community and where people know each other a some time now) and started leaving wank comments. Afterwards some of them started to join my community and we were still talking about how those comments/drama had hurt/angered us (at the time we had thought it was our own members and not trolls, until someone researched the commenters) and one person went "just get over yourselves, it's just the internet".
=_=

and two, someone talking about Watchmen and feminism and being told "it's just a movie". I wasn't in agreement with what that person was saying, but I really didn't like that someone just dismissed her opinion out of hand like that.

[polysamachan]

There's a big difference between politely disagreeing and engaging in a conversation and actively putting down someone's beliefs. One should be encouraged (heck yeaaah, intelligent discourse) and the other is reprehensible. :(

I'll admit that I watch all the wankish comms religiously (sf, sf_d, otf_wank, fandom_wank...yeah, all), but I never get involved. (My rule on the internet is look but don't touch.) :/ I'm sorry that they broke comm rules and did that. It's easy to just say 'it's the internet', but emotions are emotions. They shouldn't be dismissed.

I just recently read Watchmen (I put up a terrific fight) and was very disturbed by the rape apologist undertones in one of the plot lines. I can see someone getting upset and I've never seen the movie. (Graphic depictions of murder and rape are really not my thing. Plus I wouldn't be able to look at Dr. Manhattan w/o thinking SMURF PORN.)

That whole debacle with David Hayter's comment on Sally recently just proved that it really wasn't 'just' a movie. Sigh.

[belenustenebrae]

I love fandom_wank (I might love it a bit too much and I was all sad when they moved over to journalfen. Debunking sockpuppet wank is on of my favorite things ever.), but I don't go over to the original post and start breaking stuff.

SMURF PORN
Omg, ahahah *laughs head off* Now I'll be thinking of little sumrfs when I see the movie ahaha.

There's a big difference between politely disagreeing and engaging in a conversation and actively putting down someone's beliefs
Exactly. :D

the rape apologist undertones
yeah that bothered me too.

I just googled the David Hayter open letter. Wow, this stuff always explodes to such epic portions. *rummages through thousands of links*

[polysamachan]

Yeah, ditto.

That's all I could think about when I first heard about it! Once I was asked what someone should shout during the movie. My suggestion was "I didn't pay $12 to watch smurf porn!"

I just saw it on f_w, tbh. Buuut it did annoy me. :/

[belenustenebrae]

f_w always leaves it nice and concise. At first I had trouble understanding where the people offended were since the first comments about the open letter were nice.

"Trust me. You'll come back, eventually. Just like Sally."
*shiver* Sounds exactly like what an abuser would say.

But f_w has some good stuff in it. Ahah, did you see the Romance book review from this post?
Oh. My.

[polysamachan]

I usually read the comments on the f_w post first, then actually page through the wank. Tells me what to expect. XD

Ugh, I know. So entitled and self-satisfied. Gave me the major heebie jeebies.

I DID. I basically lol'd forever, then sent it to my mum. She writes romance and I thought she could use a laugh.

[imperatorzlarp]

Just putting in a comment for the Watchmen here: I saw it as taking a psychological position here, not a moralizing one. I thought of it as being a way for one person to deal with having been raped by imagining that "something good come out of it," which doesn't excuse anything. It seemed portrayed as a psychological coping mechanism to me, not an apology from the moral side of things.

But then, I just liked the book and might have too high an opinion of the author :P

[polysamachan]

That wasn't actually what got me! If that was all it was, I'd go 'b'awww, that's sad.' What got me was the way that he would make :( faces and sound vaguely regretful upon death and such. It was like Moore was trying to make him a sympathetic character. I can't really put it into words? But it made my skin crawl. The rampant misogyny in the book didn't really help with that impression, tbh.

I actually hated the book and had a very low opinion of the author, so I'm equally biased. :P So we're good.

[imperatorzlarp]

*will put on feminist glasses on his second readthrough*

[polysamachan]

\o/ Go go go! Pay attention to the women in the story, their roles, and what they do. Laurie particularly pissed me off because really all she was was a warm body for Dr. Manhattan and Nite Owl 2 to bounce their ideas off of. Sure, she gave canned responses back...but her role was girlfriend to the end. Just a vehicle to get the boys' philosophy to the reader. :( Janey, too. She was such a strong, smart, independent woman. Then she loses her man and all the sudden her life is completely over? :/

And most of the others prove themselves to be heartless or 'whores'. Or both. Sigh. Even SS1 was mainly a sexual icon.

[imperatorzlarp]

Can't argue with you here. The boys did get a lot more action than the girls. But are they really portrayed to be better than the women? I mean, what do we have? A helpless nerd holed up in his garage, a violent maniac, a violent rapist maniac, an asshole with a god complex and a god who just doesn't care. Yes, they're the sympathy figures in the story and you see things through their eyes a lot more, but in the end that doesn't make you agree with Rorschach's way of going about things, does it?

About being independent, aren't those women more of a product of their times? SS1 was a sexual icon, but what else can you do with a masked hero career, really? When they said that masked heroes started in the 1940s with policemen going on the streets... how many women policemen were there? They had to come from other walks of life, so they'd have different goals, no?

Just a few cents worth of thoughts. You do have a point, though.

[polysamachan]

It was less that I felt the boys were portrayed better than girls--just that the girls' characters depended on the boys. They were there for the boys. The boys were there for the story. And they were all assholes and/or pathetic. That was kind of the point, no?

SS1 is really the only one that'd apply to, though, and she still places all her value on her sex appeal. In the modern day ones, she still seems happiest when people are looking at porno of her. (Though it can be argued that that's because of the sexual abuse and objectification she went through. Sigh.) Silhouette seemed to buck that ideal a bit, too. She didn't have a very nice end, but really--who did?

:) You have points, too. Just something to think about while reading.

[imperatorzlarp]

I do fancy myself a feminist, but looking how up there I just used "women policemen" and looking at the latest story I wrote and Belenustenebrae's reaction to it... I guess I still have a bit of a way to go. I'm trying, though, so it's always good when somebody pulls my attention towards the subject, go you!

Now Historical Climatology lessons! Hooray for two hours of talking about the weather! (Which is more interesting than it sounds :P)

[polysamachan]

I noticed that, but I figured I was getting all up in your base enough as it was. XD I'm glad you noticed, too~.

It's good to be open to these things! Really, so long as you're trying, I can't complain. Life's just learning.

Which must be awesome, because that sounds interesting!

[belenustenebrae]

I love finding meta conversations on my posts :D

Ahah, did you find my reaction too incendiary? cause I tried to tone it down.
(reminds me of an article I wrote for a teacher and he found it too controversial. Ahah, he should have seen the first draft.)
Harlequin-esque stories get to me easily, cause when the publisher actually asks for a strong male hero, most authors defect to a weaker female role. And it doesn't have to be that way.
Which is why I like Vicki Lewis Thompson, because at least she puts her characters on an equal footing.