Because Pointed Out The Sexism In Naruto Is Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel

[redbrunja]

molten_ghost has a challenge for us. There is a fuller explanation here but the short of it is that "we as fans tend to be soft against authors that we respect, even admire. Yet almost all examples of modern media contain themes that don't exactly mesh with most self-described feminists' concept of the modern woman."

Basically, participants would each pick one or several of their favorite series or one-shots (not necessarily fandoms) and find at least one example of undeniable, indefensible sexism. Preferably, a work that gets your hackles raised whenever someone badmouths it and ESPECIALLY if you would otherwise consider the gender dynamics to be perfect.

First off, How I Met Your Mother:

I love How I Met Your Mother: I love that it is actually funny, I love the unreliable narrator. I love former teenage Canadian popstar, gun-toting, scotch-drinking, cigar-smoking television anchor Robin Scherbatsky and I love puppet-master, pervy, shopaholic kindergarten teacher Lily Aldrin.

I wish half the shows on television had such nuanced, complex female characters.

What I don't love about How I Met Your Mother? The misogyny. Over and over again Ted and Marshall are mocked for acting in a stereotypically female manner (by each other, by Barney, often by Lily and Robin). Marshall getting an injury called 'dancer's hip' was good for a three-minute riff on how Marshal must have a vagina and injured himself at the last trip to the gynecologist which made me, personally, want to throw up.

Secondly, Soul Eater.

Now, I have over a thousand words of rough draft written for a meta post about Soul Eater's amazing gender dynamics and how they are made of win with pictorial, supporting evidence. So, I am pretty damn pleased with the way Okubo treats his badass ladies. His one, undeniable, indefensible piece of sexism?

The witches.

In Soul Eater, witches occupy the same role of that vampires do in Buffy: the perennial villain, sometimes they are the season's big bad and sometimes they're the mook the main character takes out in under thirty seconds. However, 'vampire' is a gender-neutral word and both men and women were shown being turned into vampires in Buffy.

'Witch,' however, is traditionally female-gendered word (the masculine form is 'warlock') and in Soul Eater all witches are female. Furthermore, they are born evil, with their insanity kicking in around puberty, to add in some nice issues with female sexuality, a la Arachne's slut-tastic body language with the Kishin, Medusa's attempted seductions of Stein, and Kim's sexual advances on Ox (the last two examples were storylines that I personally enjoyed thoroughly; that doesn't mean they aren't problematic when looked at both within the text and in a larger context).

Now, a word about Kim and Angela. At first glance, these two girls appear to be set-up to be subversions of the 'witches are evil' theme. However, they (unfortunately) do not undermine the idea that a witch isn't automatically evil at all.

While Kim is technically a witch, it is stated that her powers are regenerative in nature - that she is "unable to live according to the guidance of magic" like other witches. Basically, Kim is fundamentally different from other witches, to the point that she is rejected by them. Within the text this reads as Kim = 'only technically a witch', which means that she doesn't really fly as a subversion of the 'witches are evil' trope.

In a similar vein, you have Angela, who is too young to have heard of the call of the guidance of magic, i.e. destruction. It is suggested that she might not turn evil. Is that because she was raised by a loving, honorable samurai? Because she is now at shibusen, when she can be taught to use her powers for good and the pleasure in helping others? No. No, Angela might not turn evil because Kim is going to do magic on her to suppress her powers and if that doesn't work, we'll brainwash her.

Sid's whole argument for Kim and Angela staying at Shibusen boils down to "they don't really count as witches" which destroys any chance these two characters have for subverting Soul Eater's status quo of witches being irredeemably evil.

Witches don't have a smidge of agency in their villainy - it's a deliberate consequence of their power. Women getting power and then going crazy is a sexist trope with terribly long legs on it and I'm not pleased to find it in a manga that otherwise portrays women with both agency and power.