Let's Talk About Manpain and Masculinity

[eilowyn]

I had a new idea for my grad school writing sample.

MANPAIN.

It's a fan-coined term for "when a main character in a story (always male, generally white) is written with a particular kind of psychologically painful history that causes him to behave in specific ways

Comments

[red_satin_doll]

I think this terrific material to work with because I think this largely goes unnoticed and unexamined in the larger culture; or at the very least, people are able to make excuses for why the male suffers and acts why he does. (Willow mindwiping Willow? baddy-bad-bad. Angel mindwiping Buffy? He had NOBLE reasons, don'cha know?)

Speaking of Willow, This is probably beyond the scope, but I'm also interested in how certain female characters fall within the scope of suffering "manpain". Willow, for instance, doesn't fit criteria #1, but definitely fits #2 and inarguably #3. (tara) Faith OTOH certain would fit #1 but I don't see the other two applying to her. Joss said Willow was his favorite character, does the identification of a male creator lead to female characters falling into patterns generally reserved for male characters? Are there enough female characters to even trace a pattern?

What if Oz had died as was originally intended, or if Xander's death set her off? Would reversing the genders in the trope have made it more interesting, or just demonstrated how hackneyed and crass it is to begin with?