A Plague of Perfect Boys
Originally posted at Uncreated Conscience.
So. Hello, blog. We haven’t spoken in a while. How are you? How are things? How’s life in your corner of the internet? I’m so sorry for treating you like that friend I speak to once every six months only when I have something exciting I want to share, but it’s a little hard to maintain close friendships when you’re so far away, you know? Besides, I’m been keeping busy in my internet life with Tumblr, and yeah, things are going really well between us.
Anyway, I wanted to come and talk to you about a problem I’ve been having. All around the internets you’ll find discussions about Mary Sues and while I certainly agree with many of the points various authors bring up, I have a problem of a different sort. You see, the term “Mary Sue” is something given to a female character by an audience, and I feel a lot of readers’ (especially female readers) problems with female characters has much more to do with societal baggage and internalized misogyny than poor writing or poor characterization.
My problem, you see, isn’t with Mary Sues. My problem is with the Plague of Perfect Boys in fiction.
Because nobody's perfect. Unless he's David Tennant. (Obligatory image of Sexy Person included in post to drive up traffic. I am transparently shallow that way.)
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