#l41n rants

[vierrel41n]

The way the dynamics between men and women are portrayed in popular media genuinely makes me so uncomfortable. I could talk about a lot of things

1. The “harmless nerd” trope

In which the man who is usually a social reject (like a nerd or just a quiet kid) engages in stalking and/or persistent pestering of the woman. Ex. Watching her with binoculars through windows, taking pictures without her permission, constantly making romantic advances towards her despite her clearly telling him NO, and so much more. And such behaviour are portrayed as sympathetic or not as creepy as they should be, why? Well he’s a nerd, there’s no way he could do any REAL harm! And in the end, the stalker is almost always rewarded for it in the end by “getting the girl”.

One thing I find really gross is how the movie will show the boys watching the girl in her home and for some reason they’ll have the girl performing strip tease for nobody in her own home?? Like she’s performing FOR the guys watching her and for the people watching the movie. You can obviously tell when the director is a man in these things.

An example of such behaviour is Leonard from the Big Band Theory. While he didn’t really stalk her he just wore her down until she finally agreed to date him. And another thing comes to mind was when they spoke about having kids and she told him she doesn’t want kids but he wasn’t happy about that. Eventually they did end up going through with it I just find it so weird and uncomfortable how the narrative constantly rewards him and all the other guys for their horrible behaviour.

2. The childish girl trope

Okay I think this is moreso a thing in anime but I really hate how the mannerisms, facial expressions, and even the voice of women in anime are meant to sound so akin to children? It’s so weird. And it’s even weirder how they sexualize it.

Like you’ll have girls who are explained by the narrative to be high school age to literal adults and you’ll have them acting like children and in the same way have 700 shots of them shaking their boobas everywhere and I personally think this is really weird. First of all, why can you only find them attractive or dateable if they look and act like a child 🤨? That is VERY odd! Looking at Toradora specifically. Secondly, is it IMPOSSIBLE for you to write a female character who actually acts like a human being? And for the male characters in their lives to treat them as such as well?

Even worse when you see how the male characters are portrayed compared to the women. Male characters are usually written to fit their actual age, they’re drawn to look their age, and others treat them like people too. They’re also usually taken more seriously in universe and by the fans. Girl characters on the other hand are portrayed in ways that are purposefully made to be appealing to guys which apparently means making them seem as young as possible??? And they’re often usually taken less seriously by the narrative and by the fanbase. Like I can’t count how many times I’ve seen guy characters peep at a female character or literally GROPE them and then the narrative plays it off as a joke. And more often than not, they face no repercussions and are also usually rewarded. I will expand on this in the next point.

This is why Studio Ghibli is superior.

You actually sometimes see things like this in western media too but I can’t think of any off the top of my head purely because I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore.

3. Women’s discomfort played off as jokes.

One of my favourite shoujo anime is Yumeiro Patissiere. I haven’t finished it yet but I do like it so far. HOWEVER there are a few scenes that genuinely made me so uncomfortable especially since this anime is marketed towards kids.

There was a scene in which the main character, Ichigo, goes with her classmates to deliver birthday cakes to some kindergarteners since it’s part of the school program. And while Ichigo is standing to the side watching as the kids get their cakes, a couple of the little boys (kindergarteners btw) flip up her skirt to peek. Obviously Ichigo is distraught by this and rightfully gets upset at them. Though the kids face no real repercussions, not even from their teacher who should tell them not to do stuff like that. And throughout the episode, the boys always refer to Ichigo as “strawberry panties” and make rude remarks to her regarding that.

Normally, I shouldn’t have to tell people that things like this are obviously morally wrong but I told someone online this since he kept on saying “it’s not a big deal” and after I said it, he replied “I’m not reading allat just don’t watch it then” 😐

Now such things are extremely common in anime and even in figurines of franchises where the woman is obviously distressed by someone trying to peek at her and it’s just seen as comedic or God forbid “hot”. And as usual, the perpetrator faces no repercussions.

An example I can think of in western media is in the Big Bang Theory where the guys made a robot thingy with a camera and Howard used it to peek up Penny’s skirt. All the guys were aware of it and all that was said about it was “you might wanna wear pants” or something idk. And then a laugh track. And when Penny finally goes off at Howard, as she should, somehow she’s in the wrong and Leonard comvinces her to apologize to him. Why should his fragile ego be prioritized over her literally being treated as a human being?

4. Sexualization of people who don’t want to be sexualized

I think this goes for most women generally though when I say this I mean women who are:

Police officers, nurses or doctors, veiling women like women who where hijabs or niqabs, nuns, flight attendants, firefighters for sole reason, even park rangers?

These are jobs in which women are constantly sexualized and harassed in workplace and society. Just search up “women’s police Halloween costume” or anything of the sort and see what’s there. You see it in films, in shows, everywhere.

But the one that really angers me are when women who dedicate themselves to modesty are sexualized. Like I said earlier, veiling women like hijabis and nuns. It’s the most disgusting and disrespectful thing ever. I see it more often with nuns. If they’re not depicted scary, they’re usually depicted as sexualized with outfits having slits in them or being body contour. Ugh it’s so gross. Literally nothing is off limits.

Don’t get me started on school girls. School uniforms are constantly sexualized in media and it’s genuinely worrying. Connecting this to my earlier point about how childish women are for some reason seen as more desirable, it’s concerning how much more women are portrayed as “sexy” the younger they appear in media. And it’s bleeding into real life too. I’ve seen plenty of stories where adults are disappointed when they find out the girl they’re talking to isn’t in middle school or something :(

Respectful portrayal of both genders really matters in media. Especially when a lot of media is catered towards children who are impressionable. People shouldn’t have to be told that things like this are also morally wrong in media as well but for some reason it needs to be said over and over.

I’ve left out quite a few things because this post would be too long if I kept going. But you can add onto the post if u want.

It’s late I’m gonna sleep gn.

[vierrel41n]

Hi guys this isn’t really one of my usual posts but there‘a smth I wanna talk about when it comes to representation in regards to black people in tv shows and movies. These r just my own thoughts as a Nigerian person so don’t grill me lol

Anyways when it comes to black characters in western media me myself I don’t feel especially represented. I don’t know how to describe it but western media usually just represents them with African Americans. Not that that’s bad but just me personally I have like zero in common with them other than the fact that we’re both black. What I really want to see is more diverse black cultures! Like I’m Nigerian! Also Black British so there’s that.

The only times I see like other African cultures being shown in western media if it’s some guy travelling to some small village in the deserts of idk somewhere and it’s like the worst rep ever 😭. They always portray them as poor or uncivilized. And while it’s true these villages exist, the portrayal is insane!!! I remember a movie I watched when I was younger I can’t exactly remember the name. This European adventurer guy went to some country in Africa(and of course it was a generalized caricature of what an African country is actually like) and like all the people in the villages were like spear carrying ritual performing people. Of course at the time I was a kid but thinking back on it it was like 😕

Anyways my main point is I don’t just want to see only one kind of black person on TV I don’t feel represented just because we have the same skin colour. I want to see more cultures and not just some generalized stereotype or caricature of what we are. And a better understanding of what village life is like fr fr. I’m planning on making a longer post about this specific thing like people’s perception of Africa. Like ‘mud huts’ and the whole ‘having no shoes’ thing because it annoys me so much 😭😭😭

Sorry I just wanted to talk about this. Also sorry if I worded anything weirdly I’m running on 2.5 hours of sleep. Church today was fire tho 👍🏾

[vierrel41n]

Can we normalize being nice again like actually 😭😭😭

You do ANYTHING!!! And people flame you. What happened why is being horrifically mean the new form of humour?! And if you understandably get upset everyone’s like “you’re so sensitive it’s just a joke 😒😒😒” IT’S GOING TOO FAR NOW!!! I was born to say X3 forced to say wsg gang :(((

Like people are constantly getting bullied off the internet and no one bats an eye. It’s really annoying to watch people switch up. They don’t know how to stop until the situation gets waaaay out of hand.

So can we normalize not berating people for fun please and thank you.