MAN PAIN two point aha! a field guide

[pocochina]

I’ve started to realize that when we say MAN PAIN, we don’t just mean MAN PAIN. Like “insomnia,” MAN PAIN is something different from “occasional sleepless night”/”fictional man suffering in one way or another.” Rather, it is an umbrella term for several distinct but possibly overlapping conditions.

Comments

[rosaxx50]

Agree with all your categories:

The characterization of the pained man gets stepped on by the PTBs in their rush to manipulate the audience by stuffing a woman in the fridge. VERDICT: tough to pin on the dude, unless you already don’t like him, but a highly transparent weakness in the narrative.

Yep, though it doesn't reflect well on the male characters, it's really the show itself that suffers because of this narrative.

There’s the undeserved MAN PAIN. This is when a narrative overrates the sympathy the audience will have for a particular character, and therefore overplay its hand regarding his MAN PAIN.

Mhm, this might actually be my least favourite, personally. (I go back and forth between this one and type 3). I think Elena Gilbert falls under this category, in a lot of ways -- the emphasis placed on her sacrifices vs, say, the (non)-emphasis placed on Bonnie's sacrifices.

As I had occasion to say elsewhere on a locked post today, I adore Tennant’s Doctor because he was so clearly struggling to keep his head above water

[pocochina]

See, I think Elena is fascinating precisely because she fits into all four categories? She's messed-up by grief, in a way that has always struck me as pretty sympathetic and realistic (1), if also sometimes self-involved in a (totally non-character killing) teenage way (4). She feels ~really constantly endlessly BAD about messing with Jeremy's mind/teaming up with Esther against Elijah/whatever - but that never *stops* her, if anything, she thinks on some level that the feeling really bad about it all turns the whole thing into a situation where she shows her goodness (3). And a lot of the response to that does sometimes feel really Type 2 - who is this GIRL, co-opting this traditional male space of having her pain prioritized?!

Which, again, all comes around to the way I think this makes her pretty sympathetic and *really* interesting - these are all tools, not necessarily writing failures.

I think the reason it's so condemned is because the narrative doesn't support his position (and instead frames it by other people's - Martha's

[wheatear]

who is this GIRL, co-opting this traditional male space of having her pain prioritized?!

This explains a lot to me about why Elena is often so hated in fandom. There are real weaknesses in the narrative, which come as a result of the "manpain" trope, but maybe fandom doesn't accept it so readily with a female character, idk.

[pocochina]

I think that's a big part of the reaction to her. I mean, she has some very real flaws which give perfectly legitimate reasons to take issue with her? And of course it's not a perfect narrative. But yeah, I think that's definitely a factor at play, that she's not ENTITLED to our attention about her issues.

[upupa_epops]

See, I have a problem with this whole "Man Pain" thing. Mainly because, generally speaking, I'm not the kind of person who often feels sympathy for fictional characters. It really takes A LOT to make me feel for them. My brain automatically frames things as: "You feel bad about things, Terrible Person, which makes sense. Terrible People are people, they have feelings. You're still a Terrible Person though". So it's difficult for me to recognize emotional manipulation I don't really respond to, and never have. The only time in my life I literally screamed "MAN PAIN!" at my screen was when I was watching Supernatural, and in one of the early seasons, there's a werewolf girl that they think they'd be able to help, but in the end they kill her. Only the killing is not shown. Instead, we see one of the Winchesters (I forget which) crying. Which was just wrong. Dude, this so wasn't about you.

[pocochina]

"You feel bad about things, Terrible Person, which makes sense. Terrible People are people, they have feelings. You're still a Terrible Person though"

lol! I don't think all of this applies just to Terrible People, though. Felix Gaeta is basically the best dude ever, and his grief in response to That Fridging in 4.5 is integral to his big decision in the next episode.

The only time in my life I literally screamed "MAN PAIN!" at my screen was when I was watching Supernatural, and in one of the early seasons, there's a werewolf girl that they think they'd be able to help, but in the end they kill her. Only the killing is not shown. Instead, we see one of the Winchesters (I forget which) crying. Which was just wrong. Dude, this so wasn't about you.

Yeah, no, I know the episode you're thinking of, and it's worse than you're remembering. When we hear the shots, it's not Sam crying, it's Dean making frowny-face about how sad HE is over Sam's grief.

[pocochina]

I've read it! And yes, the meta and vid are extremely thoughtful. I think where I was a little unsatisfied with it, though, is that it rolls together a lot of critiques? ie, the WiR critique is an important one, and one I agree with, but I don't think it's like a 1:1 correlation with man pain, where the fridged woman's romantic partner (a) is always the most affected and (b) has his grief highlighted disproportionately. And in comments I felt like I saw the general problem I always worry about, which is that "I oppose the use of female characters in this way" gets taken as license to indulge in "I HATE X male character, what a dick, blah blah, because RIGHTEOUSNESS" which, problems.

I agree with you completely on Matt being an asshole, definitely. And I think not just his but the narrative's insistence on focusing on the ways he has this petty power he can abuse speaks to a lot of assumptions about masculinity and hierarchy.

[pocochina]

Yes yes yes. What I don't think most writers understand when they're doing that calculation, though, is how much audiences are conditioned to equate might and right (or more uncharitably, the human tendency to identify with bullies so as to distance from victims). A character who *does* abuse is shown as important/sympathetic/heroic because he has shown he *can* abuse. To counteract this would take a *lot* of exploring and centering the victim's POV.

Which, fine line. It can be done well. ie, I think that TVD does something really interesting with this power dynamic in showing Klaus as both powerful and pathetic, and that it's very willing to have other characters point out what he has done to them. Klaus gets vetted a lot more than, say, Elijah, who is totally complicit in the same bullshit.

[pocochina]

"Dwelling on the abuser's pain at greater length than the trauma of their victims, and denying the victims a true voice or honest emotional reactions." If I see that happening then I go from "I don't care about your pain" to "I hate you." LOL.

lol, yeah, I'm with you there. Even then, I can usually live with it as long as I stay as far away as possible from their sympathizers in fandom.

This may actually be one of the reasons why I'm one of about 2 people in fandom who can deal with Klaus better than Elijah. I don't like either of them, but at least Klaus gets called out more, and more honestly.Yeah. I'm a huge fan of Elijah, but I don't think he's "honorable," I don't think he's "moral," I don't think he's in any way better than Klaus whom he enables at every turn when he thinks there's a ghost of a chance he can get something out of it. When he does act against Klaus, he's just as selfish and ruthless about leaving lots of death in his wake; we haven't actually seen him try to be better since his EPIPHANY

[percysowner]

One of the reasons I love Sam, and the writing for him frustrates the heck out of me, is because he has real, legitimate reasons for man pain and yet he just kind of soldiers on. Jess was fridged to start him on his journey, but she was more than that. He keeps remembering her at least through the end of season 6 when his Hell self tells him to go find Jess. We saw Jess for maybe 10 minutes tops, but Sam still thinks about, remembers and loves her

[pocochina]

Yeah. Supernatural is such a big offender on this front.

I think that was why Sam didn't click for me earlier? Because *so* much of his development in those first couple of seasons is really reliant on fridging, and so I kind of wrote him off? Like, "if all you have to tell me about him is stuff that has nothing to do with him, whatever." It didn't feel like it was really about his damage until S3, at which point I latched in for good.

Instead all of these things become about how the affect DEAN, which is where my frustration comes in.

Ugh, yeah. My impatience with Type 3 up there started way before I saw the show, but Dean is the worst offender on that front I have ever seen. Like, the idea that I would have an ounce of sympathy for him in Levee - "it's so hard for ME to lock up the deviant, deny him medication, and let him die in agony, CRY CRY" - says a ton about how much MAN PAIN writers expect to get away with, and how dependent it is not just on maleness but on social power hierarchies.

Sam has every right to show the pain