Get Your Rifles, Boys & Girls - It's Hunting Season

[redbrunja]

autoschismatic  has an amazing and absolutely dead-on article about Kishimoto and his kunoichi and the problems therein. This has also brought all the misogynics to the yard.

Basically, they're saying, 'so what if Kishimoto is sexist? It's just shonen manga, it's made for boys anyway (implication: it doesn't matter if boys are taught that women are less than), you're just thinking too hard about this.'

As I'm sure you can all imagine, I look that as meekly as Maka would, because everyone knows that girls can't be kickass in shonen manga lololol.

Comments

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

I think she makes a good argument about sexist behaviors and why Kishimoto can send some bad messages, especially considering the majority of his demographic IS a younger male population. And I greatly disagree with some of the people who have replied.

However, what I feel she fails to take into account is the idea of artistic expression. What is to be said about an author that simply imagines his main characters as male? Should he force himself to have female characters that he isn't enthusiastic about? If he doesn't have female characters, he probably WILL get flak for it. But on the other hand if he has characters that he doesn't really care for then he isn't likely to write them to his best ability, and will also be criticized. I feel like there's a very fine line.

While I admit that he DOES marginalize his female characters, and that IS rather sexist. It's his artistic expression. It's the job of the parents of the children reading it to remind them what's wrong with it.

But it works both ways. When the time comes, it's MY artistic expression to write a story about Amazon's smiting the enemies of Hyppolita.

So, in short, while I feel it's important, there just isn't anything that can be done about his artistic choices. All I can do is adjust mine...or choose not to read it.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

However, what I feel she fails to take into account is the idea of artistic expression. What is to be said about an author that simply imagines his main characters as male? Should he force himself to have female characters that he isn't enthusiastic about?

To me, this feels like a more sophisticated version of the 'it's shonen, it's always been this way, there isn't a problem' argument.

A while back where I talked about this - about how I tended to envision characters that were white for my original fiction and then write white characters. Now, I could just go, 'this is how I see them, there's nothing racist about it,' but I didn't. I looked at how white-washed my stories were and went, 'you know, there is a problem here' and made a conscious effort to write more PoC. Because my 'artistic expression' is molded by my culture just as Kishimoto's is - but that doesn't mean that I have to swallow and repeat everything my culture tells me. I can choose what I agree with and make a conscious choice to change what I don't agree with.

So, in short, while I feel it's important, there just isn't anything that can be done about his artistic choices. All I can do is adjust mine...or choose not to read it.

You're right in that I can't make Kishimoto write a less sexist society, you're wrong about there being nothing I can do besides not reading it and writing my own things - I can critique it. I can say, 'hey, this is problematic and here's why' and I also go, 'just because Kishimoto is a product of a sexist culture doesn't mean he gets a free pass to be sexist'.

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

"To me, this feels like a more sophisticated version of the 'it's shonen, it's always been this way, there isn't a problem' argument."

Looking back at my post, I can see why you'd think that. Although I intended my statement to put more blame on the individual, instead of just chalking it up to a societal trend. If the "It's the Culture" argument was valid, then we wouldn't see things like Soul Eater. Also, by that logic we wouldn't see multi-ethnic characters in Bleach.

Just to clarify, because I am honestly confuzzled, what you're saying is that by not making the conscious choice to have female characters with a stronger, less sidelined role, it's sexist? Don't get me wrong! That would be a good thing! It's just that it seems like there are SO many different sides to that. It seems to me that there are an infinite number of issues that could be raised. Everything from religious appearances to lack of ethnic diversity could be problems.

For an extreme example, an author wants to write a book entirely about an alien race that asexually reproduces. Is this somehow anti-human or anti-sexual reproduction because no human characters appear, or because no sexually reproducing characters appear? Or is a book that takes place in the Mughal empire racist because there are no white characters?

Also, for a less-extreme example. What if a writer wants to write a book about a society that is entirely female or entirely male, is this sexist?

Or, am I just totally missing the ball here? Are you saying that whether or not an author HAS female characters isn't important so much as the fact that they are all treated the same or they all act the same?

And you're right in that you can critique it, I forgot about that pathway.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify, because I am honestly confuzzled, what you're saying is that by not making the conscious choice to have female characters with a stronger, less sidelined role, it's sexist?

Well, yes. Kishimoto wrote a sexist series and while I think he tries, he doesn't do a very good job of giving the ladies their due. And my point about choosing to put more of a misrepresented group was me saying that ow one writes is not static or unchanging and that making a deliberate effort to change an aspect of your imagination that is dissatisfying is not somehow against an artist's 'vision.'

I'm not saying that women should be in every story or that people who reproduce sexually should be in every story - but it should be a conscious choice. It shouldn't just be 'oh, I never thought of any of the characters as females or having sexual parts, lololol'.

If someone was writing about asexual aliens, I would assume that they had a purpose to do so - if someone wrote a society about all women or all men, I'd assume they'd put some thought into it - why are there no men/women, what does that mean. And if the answer is 'there's no men/women because men/woman are evil' I would go, 'yeah, you know, it's sexist.'

It basically comes down to awareness and skill in writing. You should be aware of the fact that you don't have men/women/sexually reproductive being in your work, and you should have a damn good reason why.

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

Okay, that really clears things up. My original point in posting was that, although I agree with Autoschismatic in general, I felt her argument was incomplete without taking that viewpoint into consideration. Thanks for clarifying!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.