this is actually making me pissed off
So, the writer and artist duo for the webcomic Penny and Aggie have begun to write a new comic: Menage a 3. Now, Penny and Aggie is a great webcomic in that it's about two girls having an antagonistic rivalry relationship in high school...and I have yet to be bored with it. Disappointed with the story, sometimes, especially when Penny is made the golden girl and Aggie is left on the wayside with little to no story arcs, and when sometimes the pacing leaves something to be desired- but not bored, and not immediately apathetic as I usually am to high school plotlines. The characters have depth, they're interesting, they act like real teenagers, and their relationships with each other feel real. They deal with consequences to their actions and are all very human. All in all, good webcomic. The other, Cool Cat Studio, is less amazing, especially with the alien subplot and the fact that the female lead alienated and cheated on her boyfriend and was subsequently forgiven in a heartbeat, but still good.
So, I read some of Menage a 3, and I feel humongously disappointed in the writer. It sets up the traditional 'harem' trope that's utilized in a lot of anime, where a normal, often unappealing guy is set up with a handful of extraordinary women. And Gary is about as unappealing as they come. He's spineless, passive-aggressive, whiny, and ruled completely by his hormones. The new apartment-mates are Zii, who plays the part of the perky, fun artsy girl, and DiDi. DiDi is apparently thusly named for her breasts, which could function as flotation devices. This character seems to be good-natured and helpful, feminine, and very strong in that she can lift a stack of boxes without complaint.(Which makes one of the characters to make a comment about her actually being a man. Causing me a twitch of knee-jerk rage, because women can't be strong all by themselves. Heaven forbid.) Once this character stepped on screen, all the other characters have only talked about one thing: her breasts. It's either a shock reaction or snide jokes about them, (when asked if the truck was safe, Zii said:"Not to worry, we have at least two airbags,") and even the visual 'humor' is made by having DiDi walk around with her enormous boobs. The whole story is revolving around this woman's chest, and it pisses me off.
One: because apparently the only worth her character has to the story is to be a walking set of tits, when she's easily the most compassionate and thoughtful character in the damn thing.
Two: Because of how tasteless and cheap it is. Seriously, they crossed the line when they gave us a character that looked like a walking blow-up doll, having the entire gag reel of the story be about 'hee hee, look at how big her breasts are! aren't big breasts comical in their caricatured sexiness?' is just...tacky. It's entertainment with no entertaining qualities, and the whole plot of the strip seems to fall entirely on making DiDi's breasts the butt of all the jokes. Which, in turn, pisses me off some more because I know someone who is very insecure about their large breasts, and has had to deal with remarks like this. This is like getting a fat character or a crippled character to walk around and having all the supporting and main cast take pot-shots at how fat or crippled they are. It's disgusting. And then I get into sexual objectification and, well, I go incoherent.
So far, it's all been sex and tits jokes and stereotypical gay guys, with nothing really witty or intelligent at all. Nothing that grabs a reader into a story, unless you're an oversexed teenager and get off on watching cartoonish, inanimate boob drawings. Color me unimpressed.
So, I read some of Menage a 3, and I feel humongously disappointed in the writer. It sets up the traditional 'harem' trope that's utilized in a lot of anime, where a normal, often unappealing guy is set up with a handful of extraordinary women. And Gary is about as unappealing as they come. He's spineless, passive-aggressive, whiny, and ruled completely by his hormones. The new apartment-mates are Zii, who plays the part of the perky, fun artsy girl, and DiDi. DiDi is apparently thusly named for her breasts, which could function as flotation devices. This character seems to be good-natured and helpful, feminine, and very strong in that she can lift a stack of boxes without complaint.(Which makes one of the characters to make a comment about her actually being a man. Causing me a twitch of knee-jerk rage, because women can't be strong all by themselves. Heaven forbid.) Once this character stepped on screen, all the other characters have only talked about one thing: her breasts. It's either a shock reaction or snide jokes about them, (when asked if the truck was safe, Zii said:"Not to worry, we have at least two airbags,") and even the visual 'humor' is made by having DiDi walk around with her enormous boobs. The whole story is revolving around this woman's chest, and it pisses me off.
One: because apparently the only worth her character has to the story is to be a walking set of tits, when she's easily the most compassionate and thoughtful character in the damn thing.
Two: Because of how tasteless and cheap it is. Seriously, they crossed the line when they gave us a character that looked like a walking blow-up doll, having the entire gag reel of the story be about 'hee hee, look at how big her breasts are! aren't big breasts comical in their caricatured sexiness?' is just...tacky. It's entertainment with no entertaining qualities, and the whole plot of the strip seems to fall entirely on making DiDi's breasts the butt of all the jokes. Which, in turn, pisses me off some more because I know someone who is very insecure about their large breasts, and has had to deal with remarks like this. This is like getting a fat character or a crippled character to walk around and having all the supporting and main cast take pot-shots at how fat or crippled they are. It's disgusting. And then I get into sexual objectification and, well, I go incoherent.
So far, it's all been sex and tits jokes and stereotypical gay guys, with nothing really witty or intelligent at all. Nothing that grabs a reader into a story, unless you're an oversexed teenager and get off on watching cartoonish, inanimate boob drawings. Color me unimpressed.