#but Tumblr does have this trend of spending way more time criticizing women queer people and bipoc than white guys

[oatmealaddiction]

While part of me loves the resurgence of interest in A:TLA since it dropped on netflix and the amount of people showering it with praise, another part of me is really bitter about it when I think about how shows like Steven Universe and She-Ra were treated by fandom.  Avatar is very good don’t get me wrong, but it’s not a perfect show. The character design kind of changes with whoever was in charge at the time so characters end up looking completely different even episode to episode (especially in the first season). There’s a lot of cultural appropriation that I don’t think was all handled sensitively, like the fact Zuko’s name is just made up because the writers thought it sounded vaguely Asian, and then the characters for his name change episode to episode so nobody knows how you actually spell it, or how African and Indigenous culture is just used to add more fantasy elements that don’t mesh with the asian aesthetic.  But these don’t really ruin the show for most fans, like we understand that something like Avatar was by design going to have certain flaws, and we give it a bit of leeway. MEANWHILE, I can’t tell you how many people completely wrote off Steven Universe because the animation looked wonky here and there or that Steven’s non-violent approach to solving conflict was some kind of endorsement of allowing bullies to abuse you (which I don’t see any of when people talk about Aang, despite it being the same deal.) In terms of She-Ra I see a lot of people just getting mad over redemption arcs and how certain characters are redeemed when they make the personal decision to turn around and do better, and they even cite Zuko as a better version, despite the fact that a lot of Zuko’s actions were arguably worse than character’s on She-Ra.  The big difference between these shows of course being that SU and She-Ra have an undeniably feminine quality to them. Lots of pastels and pink sparkles, lots of singing, less focus on action and more focus on interpersonal drama. They’re shows made by two queer women with a largely POC cast and a ton of queer representation. So that automatically means the quality is just lesser than Avatar because Avatar was made by two white guys right?  I’m not saying that Steven Universe and She-Ra are better shows than Avatar, but I’m saying a lot of the things people clock them on Avatar is also guilty of. But for some reason Avatar is the “Perfect Show” where everything is executed to absolute perfection and nothing can be improved upon, while SU and She-Ra are just cheap and shoddily made with their creators trying to push bad problematic messages onto the youth.  And I’m not saying “Avatar is bad, we need to criticize Avatar more” like, no, I love all the love Avatar is getting. It just makes me so sad that really important and really good shows like SU and She-Ra were just critiqued far more heavily without even half as much love, and I have a hard time believing the fact that both shows were created by queer women with a huge cast of women and men of color had nothing to do with that really heavy criticism. 

[ywhiterain]

@anotheralix wrote a post that can be summed up as “how about we ditch the double standards surrounding how we talk about female and male protagonists.” She even admit she does this herself with Clarke Griffin (100) and Elena Gilbert (The Vampire Diaries). It’s not a particularity nuanced post - but it wasn’t meant to be. It was a vent. A vent, in particular, how women are judged differently than men.

This is not a shocking rant. This is a self evident perspective shared by many women across time in different cultures. Look, I could get into the science and cite different articles and meta-analysis that back up the idea women are held to higher standards than men. But not everything is about meeting high standards when creating an argument. Sometimes you want to make short rant on your tumblr about sexism and move on.

But, see, @candyumberella responds to this post. Not a problem in itself. But how and what she says reveals that her issue is not with creating inter sectional spaces for women to talk about feminism. No, I think she hates that female fans sometimes really love female leads.

I’m going to take apart some of her arguments under the cut.

“I think it’s pretty telling that whenever people get uncomfortable with seeing a female character (espically the most privilaged white female character in a ‘verse whose narrative is based on and constructed around her privliage) criticized in any way, they knee-jerk respond with, "You wouldn’t do this with a white man!”

Let’s unpack this. There are two claims in here that I disagree with: female leads are constructed around her privilege and being critical of the knee-jerk response. I’ll with the second first, because it’s easier to address. Yes. Women, particularly women who have been influenced by feminist thought, tend to get frustrated when women are held to a higher standard than men. It happens. It’s annoying. And I believe it’s understandable. The fact that @candyumbrella doesn’t acknowledge that female heroines are held to higher standards is a glaring omission. If she took into account how misogyny and sexism hurts all women, her arguments about how women are treated in fandom would fall apart. I mean, even more so than pointing out the existence of The Golden Girls and its large fandom does.

The second part is that her claim, espically the most privilaged white female character in a 'verse whose narrative is based on and constructed around her privliage is not backed by any evidence at all. Now, @anotheralix doesn’t give powerful evidence herself, but that’s because it was a short vent about sexism. @Candyumberlla takes issues with this vent because of a weird ass Interpretation of All TV Based On One Sitcom. If you’re going to take issue with someone complaining about sexism, and how this post complaining about sexism is a problematic trend in fandom as a whole, you need some convincing arguments. Otherwise you look like a sexist apologist.

But here, I’m going to argue against her claim by pointing to Buffy. White female lead - skinny and blond to boot! But the premise of the worldview of Buffy isn’t that she’s the most privileged character in her world. She spends a good portion of it struggling against the Watchers Council (aka patriarchy) in order to use her own power on her own terms. Buffy being pretty and tiny and girly is the fucking point - because society sees women who look like her as empty shells. Buffy being the undisputed heroine of her own story is and was an attack on that worldview.

Buffy didn’t do great about race. It’s treatment of Kendra Young has not aged well, to put it politely. It’s peek manufactured whiteness. As for queer issues, while Willow/Tara was groundbreaking, but there’s as much to critique as there is celebrate. Fans of Buffy do this all the fucking time. There is nuance to be had and Buffy’s got plenty of academic and fannish work exploring that nuance. It’s failures and it’s successes.

But

It’s not about the injustice of misogyny so much as people wanting their female fave to not be criticized and using her gender as a catch-all reason why she shouldn’t be.

That’s a pretty unfair statement. Loving and being fannish about female characters can be an exercise in frustration in fandom. I don’t know how many times I went in the tags for Elena Gilbert only to see fans calling her a two-faced and manipulative in very gendered ways. Slut. Bitch. Whore. I’m glad a dude is beating her up and putting her in her place. Speak true to that ungrateful bitch, male character I like! This exists in fandom. It puts a lot of people on guard.

Critiquing a character like Elena is not as easy as doing one like Klaus. Because there is baggage there. Misogyny is a thing. It informs how women are framed and treated in the text. It informs audience expectation and reaction. Elena being white didn’t stop her from ending up with her rapist.

So actually, I see plenty of people accusing male characters of making everything about themselves–usually when they want to deflect from criticism directed against their One Special White Girl and do so by perpetuating the lie that ONLY White Men are the REAL Enemy, We Are All Allies Against Them, blah blah.

Because, shockingly, men and women are treated differently in both canon and fandom. I’ve seen @candyumberlla spend more time talking shit about Clarke, Elena, and Donna (Suits) than Oliver (Arrow), Angel (Angel), or Sam or Dean (Supernatural). Even Ted, the privileged white dude who informs all of her meta these days, is not treated with such distaste. She is gleeful about her interpretation of Clarke (she’s being humiliated and dethroned!) She gushes about the Fall of Elena and the Rise of Caroline. She might mock, say, Stefan Salvatore, but she doesn’t the same use belittling and angry language.

Misogyny is informing her meta. Because misogyny is a threat. It’s real. Her attack on female characters is built on centuries of female oppression.

Also:  –usually when they want to deflect from criticism directed against their One Special White Girl

Women and girls can’t just be tired as hell of white male dominance in their world? Critiques against male dominance in media are About Protecting That White Women. 

MOST privileged woman in a ‘verse appropriating and parasitizing those LESS privileged and LESS institutionally elevated than she–so she’s not the victim in this scenario, she’s the oppressor.

Prove it. When and how did Clarke, Elena, Veronica, Buffy, Rey, or any other white female characters target more vulnerable women. Hard mode: look their stories in context of a male dominated society with white dudes being the ones who generally created their stories. Remember internalized misogyny is not just those Bad Female Fans Who Like The Wrong White Female Leads and how much female creators in Hollywood and TV have to balance to just get women to talk to each other without it being about a dude. Honest mode: take into account how the leads have both built up and torn down the women in their lives. Put the narrative into a cultural and historical context.

so this parasitic stanning impulse is just white male worship transmuted in a different form that ~feels more like ~feminism and thus more morally acceptable ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Tell me more about how Clexa fans just love Finn. Or Xena/Gabe fans just thirsting for that dick. Bias is a thing. It influences how we think, feel, and react to things. There is no story that doesn’t fail on some level when it comes to systems of oppression.

But people finding personal power, meaning, or joy in female lead stories doesn’t mean they just really want the dick. Korra/Asami fans don’t tend think too much of Mako. Buffy/Faith shippers may have an opinion about Angel and Spike, but they’re generally more interested in the charged relationship between Faith and Buffy. Sailor Moon fandom does have a good chunk of het, but lesbian content and focus on friendship between women is one of the reasons it’s still beloved by many people.

Or, hell, maybe actually allow for the idea that maybe a het shipper is more invested in the female half than the male half and it’s not due to her status as a guy who was killed off and the fandom as a whole cheered.