#Sexism in RWBY

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

Am I the only one who thinks the Cat deserved to ascend (ik he can't but idk make up deus ex machina that allows him to do so) more than Neo? Like Neo objectively did far worse things than Curious Cat. And Cat actually had a pretty good reason to he mad. He actually is a sad sympathetic character that was basically a victim of god brothers. But for some reason Neo gets a poetic ending where she just mary poppinses out of the story and main characters act like she was not torturing Ruby two episodes ago. While Curious Cat gets brutally killed off?? Like bro what???

Given the Curious Cat bullshit happening in the fndm right now it felt appropriate to find every ask about them and go through them all because I am tired. So fucking tired.

But honestly anon I was so so so hoping they would. I read the spoilers and saw the leek about what happened to curious and I was so hopeful it was wrong somehow but it unfortunately....wasn't. The curious cat really was made so sympathetic in the backstory section with the Blacksmith especially and it showed how hurt and broken they where with no way to deal with that pain and hurt and we're supposed to cheer when they are brutally murdered. Meanwhile the character that literally pushed Ruby to attempt suicide is allowed to be seen in sympathetic light and is framed narratively for the audience to feel bad for her and to be happy when she decides to ascend.

The uncomfortable implications we're getting is we're supposed to see the brothers as good and right because both of their victims (Ozpin and Curious) the narrative torments and hurts and beats down over and over and over again. Why? The brothers cause so much pain and suffering and yet the characters whom they caused the most suffering are framed over and over again as bad and wrong and deserving of what they got rather then the horror of what was done to them explored.

Their is also a massive amount of sexism in Curious vs. Neo that we can see happening over and over and over again even with CRWBY and how they describe the characters. The infamous character tier chart still makes me so mad with characters like James being sent to "Super hell" while Salem is significantly higher on the list because somehow she's not seen as being "directly" mean. The issue doesn't steam from the actual characters actions or backstories or reasons for said actions, all that matters is whether or not they're a uwu sad poor wittle girl who can't be blamed for her actions because she's just to uwu sad to be held accountable.

The amount of rage I feel every time I think about this is just through the fucking roof. Why does CRWBY get away with continually and repeatedly infantilizing woman and pretending they're to weak and sad or whatever other bullshit to actually have to face some fucking consequences for the sheer and utter bullshit they repeatedly pull.

Sorry sorry I know this is about Curious but damn their are just so many varying gross factors that pile up in regards to the shows decision on their treatment and deciding that being eaten alive is somehow a fate....anyone deserves. But CRWBY has made it crystal fucking clear that if you are neurodivergent or mentally ill and aren't a hot girl the narrative will magically cure of those problems you deserve every second of the suffering you're put through and that is disturbing.

[tumblingxelian]

So @matt0044 tagged me in a good post discussing some of the massive double standards experienced by women in media. In brief:

Men are allowed to be unlikable and even the fucking worst and will get mountains of meta about their emotional complexity and goodness.

In contrast, a woman cant so much as turn down a man she's not interested in, or be negatively impacted by trauma without being demonized.

Unsurprisingly a lot of this plays into RWDE's "Critique" of RWBY. IE, how they'll ignore Qrow and Jaune outright assaulting Oscar, but insist Yang attacked him because she was angry at Ozpin.

It also made me think of a recent 'complaint' regarding the excellent Sousou No Frieren. After the introduction of third main character Stark, someone said:

"To bad the author forgets about him after this."

Which flabbergasted me, as I knew the very next episode/chapter were were gonna get more of his backstory, motives ad emotional depth. I also knew of upcoming battles where he's every bit as much of a major character as fellow MC Fern. Let alone more stuff to come regarding backstory and old foes ETC.

But then it hit me.

Stark isn't somehow getting less attention than the women in the cast, he's getting the same amount. But to this person, this was him being forgotten about and maligned, because he was on the same playing field focus wise as women.

Which is rather akin to how most men perceive women as talking too much or over them if they speak the same amount.

Which also ties back into RWBY and how a lot of RWDE flip out about a female centric show... Focusing on women, and not their favorite male projection character who wasn't even advertised as an MC.

[invested-in-your-future]

Why are you so stuck up on the flaws? Plenty enjoy RWBY because they don't overthink or nitpick.

Ah yes, if I just ignore everything that's bad with the show, it will suddenly become good. Brilliant logic right here.

Got to love a show where if I applied that to some Volumes, the volume would be reduced to just the opening song.

Imagine NOT wanting to reasonably analyze the fictional work you like, while show remains outright malicious to both mental health and and tons of other things (like how it handled racism) that affect very real people in very real world.

[the-path-to-redemption]

Now this could be me and me overthinking it but do you think Cinder would fall under the "Dragon Lady" troupe?

Context: Dragon lady troupe are South Asian or South East Asian who are depicted as strong, deceitful, mysterious, and sexually alluring. They are stereotype as ruthless killers under Orientalist of how Asian Countries are scene as barbic

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DragonLady

https://www.hercampus.com/school/american/the-dragon-lady-the-lotus-blossom-and-the-robot-archetypes-of-asian-women-in-western-media/#:~:text=The%20Dragon%20Lady%2C%20a%20term,of%20the%20East%20as%20barbaric.

To me Cinder feels like she would fall under this troupe as we see her as seductive, ruthless, mysterious, and deceitful.

And before anyone get the torches and pitchforks. Yes I'm fully aware that Ruby and Yang and half Chinese because of their father is Chinese coded.

However keep in mind media tends to protray poc coded groups and people as "barbaric savages" who needs to adopted to western traditions and beliefs to save them. The person who "help" these people are white people or people who is half white and half of the "barbaric" people.

It make sound ridiculous and a stretch by considering the fact the RWBY is created by the pink washing capitalist Transphobia pedophile company. I wouldn't be surprise even if Monty was involved with creating Cinder.

Long Post Ahead

Just to preface this, Cinder (from what we see and know) are designed after the femme fatale archetype and has zero indication in the actual canon material or extracurricular materials (books, BTS, etc.) as being Asian coded. The story of Cinderella, while having multiple cultural equivalents around the world, is French if you still keeps it in the context of Cinder's creation. Her wearing or designed in East Asian-esque outfits are not indications of her being Chinese or Asian-coded, as we've seen Raven and Salem designed in a similar matter, and these are examples of Rooster Teeth's orientalism rather than making them representation of Asian characters. She's designed to be very white, with a white name, and a white allusion because they specifically used the "Cinderella" version of the story with the glass slippers.

Moving onto your ask itself, I can see why you would think of this particular trope when examining Cinder's characterization and role in the narrative. It's also very problematic that if Cinder was meant to be Asian coded, unfortunately she very much falls into the Dragon Lady Trope with Salem being the white person who "saved" her, while Cinder herself is the seductress who is the villain.

But I doubt that's the case; if anything, Cinder is one of many examples of RWBY's ill-advised portrayal of female characters, whether they're heroic or villainous; Cinder's role as the femme fatale is played out in very gross ways, mostly just focusing on her being "hot" and the "dangerous" is quite lagging behind (the biggest example of this is her stealth outfit being greatly modified from the concept art to being sexier and the multitude of ass shots).

Cinder is also another example of RWBY's extremely gross way of portraying disabled characters, with her being an amputee and visually challenged (temporarily mute) person who is dependent on a prosthetic of some kind, by making the majority of them bad guys. Specifically, bad guys who's disability strips them of humanity and signifying them as evil in a narrative while the good guys are able-bodied people who are justified in beating these bad guys. Which is a gross ass trope.

TL;DR: Cinder, while not originally designed to be Asian or Asian-coded, is still a very problematic character chocked full of bigoted tropes including, but not limited to, sexism, orientalism, and ableism. While I myself do not think that she falls under the Dragon Lady trope, Cinder is still very badly written and her existence in the narrative of RWBY is a blatant reflection of the writers' incompetent writings that should not be ignored.

[iamafanofcartoons]

https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/14fb0wl/frwby_rwby/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1

Behold, the most downbad display of meat riding!

I know that man! Jhavon Stevens! On facebook he's known for having multiple alternate accounts and has been banned from every facebook group on each account for being incredibly misogynistic and the biggest Adam Taurus fanatic.

But when May Marigold gave her V8 speech, he went on Twitter to rant that it was pandering and queerbaiting. He's also harassed VAs.

He's basically obsessed with Adam Taurus, hardcore Bumbleby Hater, promoter of "Monty's vision" and extremely homophobic towards anything and everything MlM.

Criticize Adam and he will get extremely aggressive. EruptionFang is NOTHING compared to this man. Interestingly, he's also a hardcore Jaune hater.

[roodllle]

I don't understand why people hate Cinder Fall so much. Like I never see the same amount of hate for characters like Adam, Tyrian, or even Salem.

[short-wooloo]

Not a coincidence that Cinder hate really took off when she became disabled/very obviously physically scarred, more openly angry, and stopped conforming to the conventionally attractive "sexy femm fatale" role

[foulfirerebel]

Funny RWBY thought

It's funny how some people will literally leap to defend/love Adam Taurus, the literal Gaston/Starscream/poorly written Kylo Ren of RWBY and discard every other Faunus character.

Source - a few people in a RWDE/HTDM argument. Centering Adam Taurus in the Faunus/White Fang subplot. Adam. Taurus.

I'm not gonna say more, it's too stupid to revisit. Especially if they have Cinder as a villain they could latch onto but don't. Gee, wonder why that is?

[archivyrep]

Power of the press, top-secret papers, and the media's obligation to "truth" in "The Post"

Daniel Ellsberg opens the safe which contains The Pentagon Papers at the beginning of the film. This is the only security stopping him from accessing the papers. Some time ago, I watched the 2017 film, The Post, a historical and political thriller film about the role of the Washington Post in publication of The Pentagon Papers. Critics were relatively positive, apart from criticizing the film’s…

[the-path-to-redemption]

What's extremely frustrating in the current writing for the main girls, but especially Yang, is the same pitfall in character writing that we've been seeing in recent years. And that's the inherent hatred and devaluation of femininity and the strength that can be found in more traditionally feminine traits.

I see a lot of people going "ugh strong female characters are so lame and Mary Sue and all they do is push the feminist agenda", and I'm just like, that's not true??? Because nothing about this archetype is feminist at all, it's actually misogynistic as hell.

By trying to write a "strong female character", the authors often forget the fact that these characters will still have very feminine ideas and traits to them, and that's not a bad thing. Being traditionally feminine isn't a bad thing, being emotional isn't a bad thing, being feminine period isn't a bad thing at all.

But the problem comes when everyone, including the audience, condemns those traits because they're not strong enough in comparison to more traditionally masculine traits, which includes punch stuff and be cool.

That's where the current writing for Yang fell so short: CRWBY is erasing her femininity and condemning all of it as weak, therefore she is weak and wouldn't be the "cool brawler" of team RWBY, even though that's bullshit. Yang in the earlier volumes was great because she was allowed to be girly while still kick ass, she didn't need to compromise being a girly party gal in order to be considered strong. If anything, Yang embraced her femininity and it was fantastic.

But now? She doesn't have any of those traits anymore because they're considered too feminine for a tough female character like her. And it cost so much of Yang's personality and enjoyable traits; she's no longer caring to her sister, she's not longer compassionately to anyone but Blake, she's not compelling at all, because her emotions aren't considered or expressed freely if it's not anger.

And where did all of those feminine traits gone to? They went to Blake, who is now reduced to a sniveling, shaking weakling who can't take care of herself without her strong, "manly" girlfriend next to her.

RT's writing is incredibly misogynistic, because they view femininity with weakness instead of exploring the strengths that comes with being feminine. Masculinity, especially toxic masculinity, is still the main factor of character writing in this show, and it sucks

[foulfirerebel]

Illia too. Some people seem to forget Illia was groomed and manipulated by Adam likewise.

Gee...I wonder what Blake and Illia may have in common?

I keep seeing these takes about Adam about how horrible and racist it was for him to be called an abuser and groomer.

But never once have I seen any sympathy from the same people about the girl he groomed and abused, who is the SAME RACE HE WAS.

[metal-berry]

RWBY die-hards are so funny tbh. They spent the past five years deliberately and vehemently gatekeeping the fndm to a ridiculously high degree, doing things like gloating that they were "purging" the fndm of all but the show's most ardent worshipers, launching vicious smear campaigns against anyone and everyone who said even the mildest bit of criticism and slinging baseless accusations of "sexism" and "homophobia" against them (even though an overwhelming majority of their targets have been queer or women or both, while an overwhelming majority of RWBY's creative team have been straight men with histories of open misogyny and queerphobia) they've bullied fan-artists off every platform, they've sent hate mail, death threats, rape threats, slurs, they've literally posted long lists of "rules" they expect fans to follow "or else" (and the rules include things like "you must fiercely advocate for my favorite ship" and "you must love my favorite characters and hate my least favorites" and "No AU's or Fix-it fics allowed" and then if anyone is caught breaking these "rules" they get labeled as "the HTDM" and viciously smeared and bullied out of the fndm, they've deliberately sought out popular fanworks and started viciously smearing and harassing the fan creators while gloating "if you criticize the product sold by a corporation, we get to coordinate cyberbullying campaigns against you as an individual artist who makes fanart for free, because those are totally the same thing in our minds so you deserve it!!!" They've swarmed YouTubers like penguinz0 or Hbomberguy and harassed them with death threats and accused them of "trying to kill rwby" (as if it couldn't possibly have anything to do with 1. Rooster Teeth being a horrifically abusive and bigoted company that every decent person decided to stop supporting, 2. "CRWBY" being comprised of and run by Rooster Teeth bigwigs including four of the five founding fathers of the company and several department heads, many of whom have open histories of extreme bigotry themselves, which bled into the show and caused extreme bigotry to be baked into the writing itself, and 3. *this exact fandom*, all of which together are enough of a poison itself, to the point where having a couple of youtubers say "so this isn't a good mix" was never going to actually affect viewership NEARLY as much as the Corporation and Fandom were already doing) and also can we talk about the horrific amounts of biphobia that gets leveled against the people who ship Blake with literally ANYONE other than Yang and ship Yang with literally ANYONE other than Yang?? Because my god the biphobia that exists within the Die-Hards in this fandom is off the fucking charts. The amount of specifically bisexual fans who have been viciously attacked because they did not list bumblby among all the queer ships they liked. The amount of times I've seen people say things like "the only reason anyone likes BlackSun is if they're homophobic" when a lot of BlackSun shippers are openly bi and ship them as a bi-for-bi ship. The amount of times I've seen people say things like "the only reason anyone PRETENDS to like Freezerburn is if they're trying to shove Yang with a random girl so they can force Blake to date a stinky MAN while using Yang and Weiss as shields to protect themselves from being caught as the homophobes they really are." The amount of times I've seen people attack fans who ship Blake with Ilia or Ruby or Nora, or fans who ship Yang with Pyrrha or Neon or Nora, because it *does not matter* if you actively ship a hundred queer rwby ships and write hundreds of fics about it and draw endless fanart of it, if you say "eh I personally just don’t care for Blake X Yang" or even if you say "I used to be a hard-core bumblby shipper but the way the writers chose to execute it left a lot to be desired and turned me off the ship" you get labeled a "Sexist Homophobe" and violently abused and bullied. It's fucking disgraceful, it's NO WONDER this fandom is fucking dead

When a fandom: a) posts strict rules detailing exactly which interpretations, headcanons, character opinions, and ships are REQUIRED in order to be considered "not a hater," b) viciously attacks and harasses every single person on the internet who does not follow those strict rules and labels them a "hater" because of it, c) slings baseless and despicable accusations of "sexism" and "homophobia" against these so-called "haters," because apparently they're too ignorant to pick up a dictionary and learn that "criticizing rwby" is not included in the definition of those words, while also completely ignoring or even *denying* the fact that most of their targets are queer women and most of our complaints are that *rwby is textbook sexist and homophobic and RACIST AND ABLEIST and was created and almost entirely written by openly sexist and homophobic and racist and ableist men, and you actually kind of have to have failed Progressivism 101 in order to not see it,* d) engages in open bigotry themselves by attacking marginalized people to punish them for condemning bigotry while using bigoted slurs and dogwhistles against them, and e) deliberately "purges" the fandom of every single fanartist, fanfic writer, theorist, meta analyst poster, or even shit-poster who DARED to express an opinion that didn't conform to the "rules" and therefore got labeled a "bigoted hater" who "laid down with the dogs" and was "guilty by association..."

The fandom dwindles away to nothing, and dies

And then the last remaining Die-Hards who got their wish and "purged" the fandom of everybody whose opinions did not 100% align with theirs, get all pissy whenever they see somebody like you acknowledge the empty void left behind

The fandom got so militant and zealous with their gatekeeping that there's just nobody left anymore, except for the few who turned Worshiping RWBY into a cult and violently kicked out everyone who didn't conform - but they consider that to be a "victory" so they attack every new straggler who walks into the vast empty field and says "there used to be a fandom here."

That post that was made five years ago about how it was time for the mega-stans to "purge the fndm" of everyone who didn't conform to THEIR view of the show? Yeah lol well they succeeded and I hope they're happy with their echo-chamber of circle-jerking Yes-Men who have been throwing all their hard-earned money at bigots and abusers while crying about the uncertain future of the show they turned into their identity, and I hope one day they realize that THEY contributed to Rooster Teeth's downfall far more than the critics ever did

Because fandom has historically thrived on diversity of opinion, including the allowance of criticism and the celebration of fanworks

So when a culty subsection of the fandom decrees that freedom of expression is WRONG and differing opinions are WRONG and writing fanfiction they don't like is WRONG and drawing fanart they don't like is WRONG and shipping ships they don't like is WRONG and not shipping the ships they do like is WRONG and liking characters they dislike is WRONG and disliking the characters they do like is WRONG and criticizing the corporation behind the product is WRONG and holding the product creators accountable for their hateful and ignorant beliefs is WRONG and choosing to withhold our money from those who have been proven to be abusive bigots is WRONG and therefore demanding change instead of letting them keep getting away with everything is WRONG, and so they are so totally justified in their efforts to deliberately cyberstalk, harass, and bully the "Arrogant, Entitled, Ungrateful" non-conformists until they've driven everybody away...

The fandom dies

And there's nobody left to BUY THE PRODUCT

*shocked Pikachu face* that RT went belly-up???

The Die-Hard Mega-Stans are the ones that killed RWBY. That's why they're so desperate to point fingers and bitterly curse the names of all the fans they deliberately ORDERED to "Stop Watching," "Stop Posting," "Stop talking," "Stop Writing," "Stop Drawing," "Stop BUYING," and that's why they're so fucking ANGRY every time they see proof that their mass gatekeeping, mass cyberbullying, mass smearing campaigns WORKED.

The fandom is dead because they fucking drowned it on purpose, and they refuse to admit that fact to themselves

What else can they do but lash out?

What else is there to say? You nailed it. I was there in the very beginning when the fandom was thriving and I watched the wasps slowly kill it. I remember all the creative au’s and how even rarepairs got content. It’s not even a husk of its former self, it’s crumbled dust.

[waheelawhisperer]

Look, I like shitting on Warner Bros as much as the next guy (God knows they've done so much to deserve it), but the way some of y'all (particularly in the RWBY fandom) are acting like the big bad media company killed poor uwu Rooster Teeth is baffling to me. Like... y'all are aware that RT had been bleeding money since at least the start of the covid pandemic, right? And when they weren't, it was because they were squeezing every last bit of unpaid labor they could out of their employees, to the point where there were multiple scandals over it and fucking Warner had to tell them to scale it back because they were literally violating employment law to a degree even the dogshit parent company couldn't tolerate, right? Their community manager posted in public, with absolutely zero self-awareness, that the company was making less money now than they were in 2011.

The writing was on the wall. Warner didn't kill RT for a tax writeoff like they did with multiple nearly-completed animated films, they killed it because it was so painfully mismanaged that it was, according to one of its own management-level employees, somehow making less money than it was thirteen years ago...

To say nothing of the bad PR that comes from, again, the repeated workplace abuse scandals, not to mention the sexual predators coming from within the company and its branches/affiliates and the documented instances of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry coming from a company that literally got its name because its initial proposal was too homophobic for the Texas state government, so instead of engaging in any self-reflection, it changed up the words a little bit so the name wasn't technically using a slur.

If I were a studio exec, I would've shut this cesspool down years ago and transferred any worthwhile IP to a different branch of my company.

That said, it's absolutely shitty that the employees found out the company was being shuttered and they were losing their jobs on fucking Twitter instead of from management. Idk if it's RT or Warner who fucked that up, but either way, it's awful for the workers. If you're going to fire someone, you need to look them in the eyes and tell them so.

[doomalade]

If you buy merch, buy a Crunchyroll subscription, buy the JL x RWBY movie, buy Arrowfell, or financially support RT in any way shape or form, you have the moral backbone of a jellyfish.

You are funding queer employees being called the f-slur.

You are funding Miles Luna tweeting out the N-Word when he was 23 (same time that V5 was releasing btw).

You are funding people like Vic and Port’s VA and the company culture that turns a blind eye and sweeps those things under the rug.

You are supporting a company located in Texas to avoid labor and union busting laws.

You are supporting over worked and under paid (or not paid at all) animators no longer having a job the second they’re talent has been crunched out of them.

You are supporting a VA of a character used in a queerbaiting ship that sexualized a 17-year-old.

You are supporting Miles who cuddled up with a body pillow of a canonically 16-years-old Ruby.

You are supporting a company that almost ran themselves into the ground, showing that they are incompetent with the finances they do have.

You are supporting a corporate deal between equally scummy companies.

You are supporting parasocial relationships with a corporate entity that only cares about profit.

You are supporting an in-universe minority civil rights group being turned into villains.

You are supporting the killing off of a queer coded character that was used in promotional material with the character they were shipped with, but the only mlm ship turned out to not be a thing at all.

You are supporting the minority characters and queer characters getting the least screen time of all.

You are supporting ableism, racism, sexism, queerphobia, and bigotry as a whole.

DO NOT SUPPORT ROOSTER TEETH.

DO NOT BUY OR PAY FOR ANYTHING FROM ROOSTER TEETH.

[ultraericthered]

I’ll be straight with you here: I think you seriously underestimate just how easy, how damagingly toxic, and how utterly prevalent bigoted double standards are in the online world, particularly in fandom. There is ample reason to believe that, yes, if the main protagonists in RWBY were not girls and instead guys who still said the same stuff, did the same stuff, and acted in the same ways that they do in canon, the amount of seething vitriol thrown their way by fans, haters, and critics would not be as widespread and agreed upon as what we see Team RWBY regularly recieving online. There are more “gender diversity” protagonist groups out there, and some even worse written male protagonists out there, who don’t attact anywhere near the ire and lambasting that Team RWBY does, and you just have to wonder why that could be. And yeah, the easiest answers will often not be the only answers or full truth, but they’re definitely existent.

“If all the genders in RWBY were reversed, RWDE would defend the protagonists relentlessly!”

That also implies that you yourself would be on the opposite end and bash the protagonists and defend the antagonists. Frankly that sounds more like projection than it does an actual gotcha or well thought out argument. Ruby Rose is not a real person. She’s a digital CGI model (created by a man) who’s movements and actions are at the whim of storyboards based around scripts that 3 men and 1 woman wrote.

People are always pulling this card, and every time it’s pulled, it’s annoying.

“Oh, you’d love/hate Kylo Ren if he were a woman!”

“Oh, you’d see Catra for the abusive monster she is if she were a man!”

“You wouldn’t care about Loki if he were black!”

“No one would love Bruno if he was fat with darker skin.”

Wow, all these accusations of bigotry sure are worthless, aren’t they? You haven’t made a point, you’re just being obnoxiously smug, “Oh, you think this character is poorly written and/or annoying to watch? Well, you wouldn’t if you just weren’t so bigoted! 😏😏😏”

That doesn’t mean people with bigoted double standards don’t exist, but 95% of these sorts of ‘points’ are bullshit gotcha cards.

[invested-in-your-future]

My mind keeps wandering back and forth between RT insisting "there's no discrimination in Remnant beyond faunus stuff" and like, fuckton of in-universe "jokes" that range between merely aggressively cis to outright transphobic.

Like even the most obvious ones like the reactions when Jaune comes to the dance in V2? Or whole Qrow skirt "joke"? Yeah right, inclusive world that is totally not heteronormative and totally without discrimination or discriminatory biases.

Also, Jacques and Cardin specifically existing already implies sexism, classism and toxic masculinity and all the other ugly things that come from gender stereotypes. You can't just have characters being "-ist" and then claim that the "-ism" just doesn't exist in this world. The specific character behavior patterns, beliefs, personality traits are learned through concepts that are intrinsically tied together with each other as something that exists within the social whole. Cardin even seeing Jaune as a target comes from somewhere. And even if we assume classism(And thus discrimination LOL) exists, while that explains Jacques motivations, his abusive behavior is not simply rooted in classism either, as he's literal walking toxic masculinity trope. So if we take RT at their word what could POSSIBLY make that make sense? What? did Salem somehow possess them to hurt team RWBY or something?

"There's no -ism in Remnant" reads more and more like "We don't want to have actual representation in our show nor have actual genuine stances on various topics at all, because we don't want to alienate all the bigots"