#entertain Kishimoto’s sexism by shipping underdeveloped het pairings with trad wife ideals for /feminism/ or ship sns like god intended?

[perpetualnova]

Thank you for responding! I know it was all over and incredibly long and I wouldn’t blame you for just saying “I agree” haha! Haven’t refreshed my dormant knowledge of Naruto in a bit so some of those points could be speculative and incorrect, my bad if that is the case. To put it bluntly: it reads gay because it is gay!

You brought up something I wanted to touch on that I glossed over. I definitely agree that there is in-universe misogyny and passive or undermined development for Kishimoto’s women. Most serve of the benefit or are connected to more powerful men in some degree so a woman’s more focused or impactful moments will always be eclipsed. And yeah, a few of his female characters are used almost for the sole purpose of dying to enforce reasoning for the future actions of men (Rin—> Obito, Kushina—> Naruto to some extent because of the dead mother trope; even if it’s not purely motivational on Naruto’s end, unlike Obito’s, the sentiment of women dying to further impact the plot still stands). Hell, I’d even forgotten the Tsunade and Konan information you just provided! So there is appropriate criticism of misogyny especially in the tropes women fill or their subservient purpose to the plot to uplift a man. It would be more beneficial to acknowledge other aspects of misogynistic details in Naruto as a whole instead of only focusing on how Sakura and Hinata are written because they aren’t the only ones affected by these writing choices. And to also understand that some characters are written with the intention of having certain unfavorable characteristics.

For sure, Hinata and Sakura could’ve been handled better; they could have had more motive or influences outside of Naruto and Sasuke; they could have had more moments that weren’t overshadowed by their impulsive, selfish decision making and outright refusal to understand or follow up on crucial information, but unfortunately they don’t and those were plenty in-character aspects to both of them. I guess the cognitive dissonance comes around when fans go the lengths of defending their characters portrayals while also saying they’re poorly written and declaring how misogynistic Kishimoto is. But even so, people are given valid reasons to dislike them that can’t be removed by baseless accusations of calling haters misogynists.

And I think the serious issue (besides misogyny and sexism) you’re referring to in the last paragraph was “inc*st”? Unless I just completely inferred something else entirely but final point because yeah, actually! The fandom really needs to stop trivializing an actual form of abuse with real victims as a “gotcha!” against a fictional ship. These reincarnated “brothers” don’t even canonically view their relationship as such, aren’t blood related, and that’s just not how reincarnation is meant to be understood here because it was the chakra, from my understanding; however, even if it were the soul, it’s well understood that relationships manifest differently in other lives so the argument is null. Like this fear mongering hasn’t dissuaded anyone from shipping SNS who has active reading comprehension. Anywho! getting off my soapbox haha

Hi Bella! This isn’t an ask I just felt like ranting a bit (a lot) because I’ve got a lot of Naruto feelings lately! No analysis just speaking from the heart so some of this might be up for interpretation lol but I’m mostly beating a dead horse here because what more can really be said?

The “so misogynistic it’s gay” phrase everyone likes to parrot is a complete disservice to Kishimoto as an author because how do you write Naruto and Sasuke’s dynamic accidentally when it’s essentially the driving force of the story? You don’t. And I don’t think he’s this raging misogynist people paint him as because he doesn’t really treat the other women with as much disrespect compared to S or H. He’s probably as misogynistic as the average male author or person out of willful ignorance but writing unlikeable and two-dimensional women, I would say, does not a misogynist make because not all of the women here are written with the level of contempt, sexism and mockery as these two. For examples: Temari was also strong, had a brash and unsavory personality and was labeled “scary” by Shikamaru but was a protective older sister and not unlikeable to readers. Ino, who also began as a “girl in love”, fell out of her crush with Sasuke and gained some perspective on her ambitions and affirmations after Asuma died (and she wasn’t the one to drop her friendship over a “rivalry” for a boy that didn’t return either of their feelings… I get it, I was once a kid too but Sakura still being just as childish in adulthood in regards to Gaiden? What a joke, anyways). Tsunade, Konan, and Kushina and all of their individual strengths do not revolve around the acknowledgement of men and their appeals. Their respective love’s, while tragic affairs, were openly reciprocated by their love interests and each aspect of their story was treated with some level of care. So at this point, Kishimoto simply didn’t feel like giving the same romantic grace to NH and SS because SNS was the entire point! of the manga!

The fact that the words Sakura and Hinata share of their shallow infatuations in their confessions are ignored or outright rejected (more than once mind you) actually ring true when they are frequently paralleled in text with how Naruto and Sasuke feel towards each other should be all you need to understand that! Because their devotion to another is believable! Their evolving, MUTUAL, bond and attempts at trying to understand each other throughout the course of 698 chapters is it! That’s the romance! It’s romantic as hell trying to grasp the deepest parts of someone, connecting with them in a way no one else is able to because of a shared experience through different circumstances and defending them when all others have turned their backs; protecting them, dying for them, “bearing the burden of their hatred” and proposing a romantic double-suicide where hopefully in the new world they are absolved of societies failures against their current selves and the ties still bind them (because they’re soulmates); not being able to cut a single person down because they’re your “one and only (friend)” and without them you’d finally be alone but you’ve seen and know what’s in each other’s hearts and you know they’ll never leave you and they’ll stand by you even at the cost of their life; having complimentary sun and moon symbols on the hands of the arms they both respectively lose together in a battle concluded by both of them communicating in depth how they view their relationship outside of simple labels. This is the single most important relationship in the manga. It’s impossible to ignore but OH do people try and draw incorrect conclusions about their connection and love for the other (that’s an entirely different rant).

And even if Kishimoto cared enough to spare a crumb of reciprocation from either male party towards their future “love interests/spouses” or even any sense of S or H actually understanding Naruto and Sasuke beyond attraction and personal convictions, that wouldn’t change; and ultimately kishimoto didn’t because he didn’t care to and that’s obviously not the story he was telling. Naruto as a manga revolves around the natural progression of SNS’ individual motives and aspirations laced with their mutual care and interest for the other. Their interpersonal connections with others mirror and influence their love and understanding of each other.

I think it’s a disservice to say Kishimoto can’t write romance simply because he didn’t develop those two “relationships”; like Minakushi is the staple blatant romance of Naruto (besides SNS) and both SS and NH fans constantly want parellel their bond, mimic tropes, or make banal and superficial comparisons of their favs to Kushina (and Mikoto too which screams insecurity here like please free them from the mediocrity, I beg) because they know it’s the epitome of love in regards to Naruto. But the closest comparison to Minakushi, trope wise, in my opinion, is literally SNS! And if either SS or NH fans had a single canon moment (written by Kishimoto) rivaling anything SNS have together they would be screaming romance at the top of their lungs but instead they cry “brothers/friends” to some of the most romantic text I’ve ever read whilst all they’re given by Kishimoto is eye sex(?) + (brotherly) forehead poke of rejection (“better than a kiss”; my ass) and “big strong hands” over my slave cousin’s corpse + silly contrived movie with imagery Naruto and Sasuke had first and both a plethora of cherry-picked panels taken out of context. It’s just embarrassing!

This comes from a place of neutrality for both S and H as characters tbh because I acknowledge they weren’t meant to be anything more than what we got. I just don’t like their fan bases praising fodder caricatures or their reductive ships because they “got the guy in the end” in extremely dysfunctional “canon” (lavender) marriages. If they would just let them be girl failures and pathetic in peace and regard them properly I wouldn’t mind. However, the constant character revisionism is annoying because I know I’m not missing some grand aspect to either woman. And they’re not “mothering” at all lol let’s be serious! They’re two cheeks of the same spoiled ass unfortunately and that’s just how they’re written— you’re not gaining feminism points for appreciating women written through a sexist lens like I’d argue that’s more misogynistic then just outright disliking them. Sorry! Kishimoto is an author, and like all author’s, he writes with intention. He wrote what he wanted to, how he wanted to and focused on what was important which was SNS. Laughably undeveloped or plain unlikeable characters be damned, Sasuke and Naruto were the main act and not the side show.

There are plenty of genre’s to choose from for interesting and developed female characters that aren’t contributing to male (and female, mind you) fantasies but unfortunately Shounen really isn’t one of them because there’s only isolated cases of actual decent representation across the board. But in regards to Kishimoto’s work, S and H got the butt end of the intentionally-poorly-written-stick compared to the other women and there’s no amount of personal head-canons no one legitimately subscribes to or cries of “you’re misinterpreting her character” that are changing that. My mind, and many other’s, has been made up because we see them for what they are and how they’re actually written.

Alrighty! Convoluted, possibly contradictory and very opinionated rant over. If you read this, you’re a real one LOL I hope all is well!!

i don’t think i have much to add, especially since you put it so well. i talked about the “so misogynistic that it’s gay” plenty of times before, and how nonsense and homophobic that take is, how kishimoto foreshadowing a romantic double suicide has anything to do with sakura being badly written? and that’s just one small example. people act like just because naruto and sakura are on the same team as sasuke, they must have the same importance to him, they expected both naruto and sakura to have the same influence over sasuke, but that’s not what’s written from the beginning, i believe the logic is “naruto and sasuke have a deeper relationship than sasuke and sakura, who has no room for development, that’s why they look gay (on accident)” but stopping at it is shallow, it’s not solely about their relationship being meaningful, while ss (or nh) isn’t, it’s about why it’s meaningful, and more importantly, only being meaningful isn’t enough either to be gay, it’s about why is it gay? why it feels gay? why so many people read it and think “that seems romantic”? naruto is a story that establishes some actions as romantic and then shows naruto and sasuke act exactly how it was established towards each other. did i mention anything about how lacking sakura and hinata are to talk about the nature of their relationship? no, because homosexuality is defined by who you’re attracted to, men are gay because they love other men, women are lesbian because they love other women, and it’s homophobic to say “actually, women are lesbians because they don’t love men”, it’s the same logic of telling a lesbian she just hasn’t found the right man yet. “naruto and sasuke love each other” and “naruto and sasuke don’t love hinata and sakura” are two facts that coexist and don’t have influence over one another.

i did mention that people say sakura has no room for development, but i disagree, sakura does have room for it, she has opportunities to be better, but she isn’t, it’s a deliberate choice from kishimoto, he simply doesn’t want sakura to be in the same position as naruto, he doesn’t want her to be important to sasuke, but giving naruto development while sakura remains inconsiderate (which is one of the reasons why sasuke dislikes her) isn’t inherently misogynistic. and even if he did want her (and hinata) to be better, that wouldn’t change how sasuke feels towards naruto and vice versa. and yes, i do agree with you that kishimoto writes sakura’s and hinata’s characters with mockery, as much as he writes ss and nh, but i believe he does that to leave no room for doubts, and yet… 🤦🏻‍♀️ for real, if people are already in deep denial of narusasu with naruto and sasuke being written that way towards each other while ss and nh suck, imagine if their relationship was written the same way but they were at least friendlier towards sakura and hinata (especially in ss’ case here), no amount of gay subtext would be enough to stop the homophobia and heteronormativity, the denial would be worse. but “sns shippers” really think they are allies when they help with this logic, that gayness is accidental and ss/nh only suck because sakura and hinata are women.

and this isn’t me saying there isn’t misogyny in naruto. misogyny in naruto is rin dying for male angst, is konan outdoing obito and not only dying, but being completely forgotten, almost erased from the story, is tsunade showing a fear of blood during her battle against orochimaru just so it weakens her in that moment and that is never mentioned again, is kushina wanting to be hokage and dropping that for no reason so minato could be, is even hinata being written solely for male wanking, but i can’t agree that naruto and sasuke not loving sakura and hinata is it.

5th and 6th paragraphs are very on point as well, emphasising them here because i couldn’t agree more. the double standards people have in relation to narusasu vs ss/nh is ridiculous and plain homophobia and, contrary to sakura/hinata stans try to say to scare people off by using serious issues, disliking sakura and hinata is not anti feminist or whatever, praising badly written female characters will only contribute to more of this kind of writing, so no thank you. i think i’m just repeating my and yourself at this point, but i feel bad to read a rant as big as this and only reply “i agree with everything!” hah.