Canon het couples with extreme sexual dimorphism?

[gnatkip]

Belle/Beast (Beauty and the Beast), Liz/Hellboy (Hellboy), Betty/Bruce (The Incredible Hulk).

I've been thinking about this lately, the fetishization of the dainty woman and the hypermasculine man. He is gigantic, and violent, and muscled up into absurdity. He is dangerous to everyone else, but not to her -- whether because of some intrinsic

Comments

[user_undefined]

Good lord, YES, this trope unsettles me like nothing else, especially because it doesn't work when the gender stereotypes are reversed. The "monstrous" man is acceptable and lovable, but the woman is not - she has to be changed before she can be loved.

I am going to check out that WoW post you linked to, for sure. The "drawing superheroes" one, sadly, was nothing new to me. Urgh.

In Gargoyles, Elisa Maza and Goliath would be the pairing you want, I think. I watched it when I was pretty young, but I can remember her fingers looking tiny in his giant clawed hand.

[magglenagall]

The "monstrous" man is acceptable and lovable, but the woman is not - she has to be changed before she can be loved.
I think you can cite Miles Vorkosigan and Sgt. Taura from Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga as an exception here. She's an 8' tall genetically engineered super-soldier with fangs and claws, while he's 4'9" with a hunched back and fragile bones. When they first meet, Taura's been held prisoner for some time, forced to live on rats, and she challenges Miles to prove she's not just an animal by making love to her as humans do - which he does. After they escape they go on to become lovers, though not a committed couple.

[gnatkip]

Really! I had no idea; how interesting. (I've only read one of the Vorkosigan books, and it didn't grab me. I think I picked the wrong one to start with.)

[magglenagall]

*nods* Some of them are definitely weaker than others, so I can see how starting off with the wrong one might put you off the series. The Miles/Taura story is in "Labyrinth," in the collection Borders of Infinity (it's a short story/novella, not a full-length novel).

[tunxeh]

Does it count when they're lion-like aliens? C. J. Cherryh's "Chanur" series (four science fiction books) has this, with a bit of a twist - the women get all the interesting jobs and the big strong men are kept out of space because of the stereotype that they're too dangerous to everyone else.

Also there's Miette and One in City of Lost Children but thinking of that as a pairing at all is a little squicky.

[gnatkip]

Hi, you!

I'm sure it does count. I've never read/seen either of those, but I've heard good things about them both.

(Has Ron Perlman made a career out of playing That Man, or what?)

*ding* You Have Ramble.

[la_fono]

Interestingk! The first one that came to mind - indeed, all the examples I could think of that came to mind were - is from comics: Swamp Thing; Swamp Thing/Abby Holland.

Also Kitty/Colossus: This and the following page from the mid-80's (check out his hands, thinking of your Sam!discussion) and this cover from 200..7?, who, interestingly, haven't been a case of, uh, inflation, which I was wondering about in a men's-size-in-comics way. Kitty's in fact got a bit taller as she was fourteen and Peter nineteen or so in the first*, and both in their twenties in the second, +/- art styles, of course. It's not as beasty as the Swamp Thing, but there's that definite air of Power Held In Check By His Love For Her

ding ding ding! (part the first)

[gnatkip]

I'm using half of my brain to respond to half of your comment tonight. Or maybe that's all of my brain. A quarter of my brain? I don't know, FULL BRAIN AHEAD.

Did you scan stuff for me? DID YOU??? You did, you scanned stuff! ♥ ♥ ♥

Ah, Swamp Thing! I was only familiar with the movie version, which I saw a long long time ago, and can't really remember, and in which she's named... something else. Alice maybe?

On that second link, I'm so taken with that first painting. It reminds me of the Fey Tarot Lovers. (I've been trying to remember that card for days, and did just this second, so you get spammed.) :)

Ooh, I didn't know about Kitty/Colossus, thank you! Giant trashcan lid hands! Wow, that cover, that's. Wow. And now I'm looking at this image and thinking, you know, I've been framing this discussion, at least in my head, as "his thighs are massive." "His shoulders are enormous." "His [fill in the blank] is gigantic." But it's also true to say, "his head is fucking miniscule." Ahaha, that amuses me.

(part the second)

[gnatkip]

Sweeping statement has its own broom.

XD XD XD

Ooh, yeah. The Terry Moore section is so much saner than the others. How messed up is it that advice like "draw real women" is a notable exception.

Have you played WoW? I know nothing about it. Just that it's this huge thing.

jaklsjdfkl Jo Chen is AMAZING; thank you for the link! Everything is... luminous.

In regards to the RL, yeah. That's. I will take this to a less public venue!