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

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

It pisses me off too, only I dont have the energy (or the time) to participate in a rage war with a bunch of ignorant, ass-backwards hypocrites. A lot of my fandom friends and acquaintances are all over this though, and I love that. XD

Honestly what makes me rage more than all the male asshattery in that thread is the female asshattery. Nothing is worse than a misogynistic woman.

[goldengrimoire.livejournal.com]

Yes, many of the posts there make me cringe.

While it's valid to say that yes, part of the reason that Naruto is the way it is is because it's a Shounen Jump manga, written by a Japanese guy who is surrounded by a culture that tends to be more openly sexist than we are here in the West, that's just an attempt at an explanation as to why it is the way it is. It doesn't make any sexism or misogyny in the manga OK and I think that distinction escapes some of the people posting there.

It's a shame, because really, Kishimoto does have some good female characters, they just don't get nearly enough screentime. Sakura feels like a bit of a deliberate attempt to combat the weak shounen heroine stereotype, because she starts out as the typical weak link of the team but is *actually bothered by it* and works to improve herself. She just gets sidelined way too much.

[fani.livejournal.com]

What about Bleach? All the girls there kick their arse, HARDCORE.

[cherryfruit.livejournal.com]

Haha, I didn't even want to LOOK at the post or comments, since misogyny makes my eyes bleed.

[wicked-seraph.livejournal.com]

Mega-applause to autoschismatic, first of all :]

Grr. I hate when people try to make excuses for something that is so clearly sexist - I've seen some say something along the lines of, "well, he has female ninjas so he's not being sexist".

lolwut

That doesn't prove anything D:

[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.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

What I really liked about her post was the way she presented it--in a level-headed and rational way, using evidence to support her statements rather than just saying them, and the way she did give credit to Kishimoto for trying. Becuase I do have a problem when people don't give credit where credit is due (I also have a soft spot for Kishimoto because of my exposure to Bleach before Naruto).

It's all right to rage once in a while--I do it a lot--but it's really great when someone presents a problem in an educated way in order to call attention and not alienate people.

I think Theodor Kaluza will not be please with me for using his theories for fandom.

[devimelete.livejournal.com]

When a civilized, meta-ing argument goes down to just posting macros, the fail is like . . . like, triangulated, cubed, rounded off, and wrapped up in all five dimensions of fail.

I mean, the "it's a shounen manga, it is not meant for the teh ladies" excuse is so, so weak. Does this mean that we should encourage such mediocrity for treating half of his cast? This is like excusing Twilight on the grounds it is made for hormonal young girls, so they should enjoy Edward being a creepy motherfucker to Bella. To excuse the dominating male because it is what the young, tween audience wanted to read. I am willing to bet that if this was an opposite scenario with Kishimoto giving the women their due and marginalizing the men, then I can bet that there will be some serious criticisms heading at his direction.

And what I don't get it why people are saying that we are looking too hard into it. Don't we look "too hard" into other works of art as well? How many times have we analyzed the Batman comics, Jane Austen, LOST, Harry Potter, George Orwell, and many others. Why is it that it is always the Japanese works that are always put aside? What is wrong with dissection at all? This is the question I find most troubling, and I've noticed that no one seemed to take up that question.