Mary Sue (Yes I am taking a break from schoolwork just to rant about this)

[sisterjune]

Mary SueI hate hate HATE this term. Just about every fandom I have been in has used this term to either discredit and undermine a female character and her numerous accomplishments or skill or to justify their dislike of her. Usually both. Yes there are underwritten, poorly developed female characters on tv. I can understand not liking them or

Comments

hi elle!

[sisterjune]

Ok Bella I can see being called a Mary Sue and in fact I can think of alot of book heroines where that term might actually apply as it should. But honestly I just DONT think it belongs in visual media. and I wish had the time right now to go into why. But it really goes back to how in a book, you have ONE author and some authors are very transparent in how they want you to see or feel about their characters and in how they fulfill their fantasies via their writing. In Tv, there are MANY writers and it's alot harder to come up with this issues that usually are what create Mary Sue's in the first place. but Mary Sue is basically an idealized version of a female, someone without real depth of character or human flaws, someone who is a cipher for the plot or clearly a self insert of the author. Mary Sue should NOT mean, a woman who is really ridiculously competant or pretty or popular with men. Yes the combination of these things can be hard to swallow but if it's tempered with something else or if the character makes sense, as a real person or person in that fictional world, then Mary Sue should NOT apply! No matter how much a fangirl or boy doesnt like her. and that's my beef. Mary Sue just doesnt even really make sense 90% of the time I hear it used now adays. Which isnt to say that no one ever uses it correctly but most people just dont.

Also WORD about the Gary Stu's, the are all over the damn place and no one even realizes it. I mean hell, James Bond anyone? But no one ever has an issue with him and they shouldnt necessarily but if a woman were in a similiar role as him she'd get called a Mary Sue till the cows came home and then left again.

hi tai! <3

[nekokonneko]

We American visual media has many writers, but British programmes usually have just one head writer who overseas the whole thing and single people who write episodes, so it's more likely to happen there. I've heard people call Rose Tyler and Gwen Cooper [Doctor Who and Torchwood respectively] avatars of RTD. God damn, I bring everything back to DW @.@

You read my mind! James Bond is EXACTLY who I was thinking about when I wrote about Gary Stus.