Brilliant piece. The connection between eliminating these gentle male fantasies and reinforcing traditional gender norms is something I hadn't thought about before. Its kinda wild how the critique became another way to police which emotions men are allowed to have in film. My brother used to love 500 Days of Summer but wont admit it anymore, which says alot about cultural pressure.
Thank you. I put immense effort into this series, and I was worried about how political it was going to get, as well as the chord that it was going to strike. So it means a lot that you at least one person received it well.
Is the MPDG really dead? You have provided some evidence that MPDGs no longer appear in Hollywood movies, but what about other media? In my experience MPDGs are common in Japanese fiction, at least (manga, light novels, visual novels).
Yep! That’s why I gave the example of Dress-Up Darling.
In other cultures where the trope hasn’t faced the same criticism, it still shows up. But it was never called a MPDG there. In the English-speaking world, in which it was criticized in the first place, it has been murdered.
I just find it really weird in this otherwise fairly insightful series that you seem to dodge the obvious conclusion that it isn't misogyny that is motivating a lot of the criticism, but rather misandry on the part of those levying the criticism.
The hatred of the MPDG is not directed toward men as an entire group, and therefore definitionally is not misandry. It’s instead directed at one specific fantasy that some men have had. This is not an ‘obvious conclusion.’ It doesn’t even make sense, really.
>There are multiple possibilities for the source of this hate, especially once it was being espoused by the very people who believed they were fighting misogyny: Was it hate for the soft, effeminate men who occupied these films? Was it hatred based on an idea that any idealized woman in art is a threat to every woman? Or was it actually just envy? I couldn’t give one solid answer because **I think it’s all true, in addition to the genuine misogyny that inspired the initial contempt**. People come to hatred all for their own reasons. But the hatred, itself, has impact
If you are willing to consider misogyny, then what prevents misandry from being a cause here?
Given that I could repeat the exact same words that I wrote above and answer that question, I'll have to assume that you're not here to be rational.
What's more likely is that you have an agenda. You're frustrated that I'm not arguing from the perspective of that agenda, and am instead telling you (accurately) that your narrative does not fit, here. I can't assume too much about you, personally, but I can speak from experience that every time I've encountered your particular agenda in the past, it's been espoused by deeply sad men who were, at one point, hurt by a particular woman and never recovered from it, and then made the mistake of turning that into a political cause.
I'm sorry if you personally have been through anything like that. Or even if not. However, you clearly cannot build a coherent argument that this has anything to do with broad misandry, and I'll tell you that I can't either.
I won't respond further. I hope that you find your way.
> Given that I could repeat the exact same words that I wrote above and answer that question, I'll have to assume that you're not here to be rational.
I don't think this is actually possible, in that hatred of "weak, effeminate men" isn't really the same thing.
> What's more likely is that you have an agenda. You're frustrated that I'm not arguing from the perspective of that agenda, and am instead telling you (accurately) that your narrative does not fit, here
Then you're free to point out how it doesn't fit, but you uh... don't.
> it's been espoused by deeply sad men who were, at one point, hurt by a particular woman and never recovered from it, and then made the mistake of turning that into a political cause.
I can't say this is particularly accurate.
The fact you pivot to this leads me to believe you aren't here to be rational...
> However, you clearly cannot build a coherent argument that this has anything to do with broad misandry, and I'll tell you that I can't either.
"You can't build a broad argument about this"
When did I claim in this specific instance to even be attempting to do so. I asked you a question, a pretty direct question, that you have utterly failed to answer.
> I won't respond further. I hope that you find your way.
A clear sign of being interested in rational discussion is refusing to have a discussion . /s
Brilliant piece. The connection between eliminating these gentle male fantasies and reinforcing traditional gender norms is something I hadn't thought about before. Its kinda wild how the critique became another way to police which emotions men are allowed to have in film. My brother used to love 500 Days of Summer but wont admit it anymore, which says alot about cultural pressure.
Thank you. I put immense effort into this series, and I was worried about how political it was going to get, as well as the chord that it was going to strike. So it means a lot that you at least one person received it well.
Is the MPDG really dead? You have provided some evidence that MPDGs no longer appear in Hollywood movies, but what about other media? In my experience MPDGs are common in Japanese fiction, at least (manga, light novels, visual novels).
Yep! That’s why I gave the example of Dress-Up Darling.
In other cultures where the trope hasn’t faced the same criticism, it still shows up. But it was never called a MPDG there. In the English-speaking world, in which it was criticized in the first place, it has been murdered.
I just find it really weird in this otherwise fairly insightful series that you seem to dodge the obvious conclusion that it isn't misogyny that is motivating a lot of the criticism, but rather misandry on the part of those levying the criticism.
The hatred of the MPDG is not directed toward men as an entire group, and therefore definitionally is not misandry. It’s instead directed at one specific fantasy that some men have had. This is not an ‘obvious conclusion.’ It doesn’t even make sense, really.
You say:
>There are multiple possibilities for the source of this hate, especially once it was being espoused by the very people who believed they were fighting misogyny: Was it hate for the soft, effeminate men who occupied these films? Was it hatred based on an idea that any idealized woman in art is a threat to every woman? Or was it actually just envy? I couldn’t give one solid answer because **I think it’s all true, in addition to the genuine misogyny that inspired the initial contempt**. People come to hatred all for their own reasons. But the hatred, itself, has impact
If you are willing to consider misogyny, then what prevents misandry from being a cause here?
Given that I could repeat the exact same words that I wrote above and answer that question, I'll have to assume that you're not here to be rational.
What's more likely is that you have an agenda. You're frustrated that I'm not arguing from the perspective of that agenda, and am instead telling you (accurately) that your narrative does not fit, here. I can't assume too much about you, personally, but I can speak from experience that every time I've encountered your particular agenda in the past, it's been espoused by deeply sad men who were, at one point, hurt by a particular woman and never recovered from it, and then made the mistake of turning that into a political cause.
I'm sorry if you personally have been through anything like that. Or even if not. However, you clearly cannot build a coherent argument that this has anything to do with broad misandry, and I'll tell you that I can't either.
I won't respond further. I hope that you find your way.
> Given that I could repeat the exact same words that I wrote above and answer that question, I'll have to assume that you're not here to be rational.
I don't think this is actually possible, in that hatred of "weak, effeminate men" isn't really the same thing.
> What's more likely is that you have an agenda. You're frustrated that I'm not arguing from the perspective of that agenda, and am instead telling you (accurately) that your narrative does not fit, here
Then you're free to point out how it doesn't fit, but you uh... don't.
> it's been espoused by deeply sad men who were, at one point, hurt by a particular woman and never recovered from it, and then made the mistake of turning that into a political cause.
I can't say this is particularly accurate.
The fact you pivot to this leads me to believe you aren't here to be rational...
> However, you clearly cannot build a coherent argument that this has anything to do with broad misandry, and I'll tell you that I can't either.
"You can't build a broad argument about this"
When did I claim in this specific instance to even be attempting to do so. I asked you a question, a pretty direct question, that you have utterly failed to answer.
> I won't respond further. I hope that you find your way.
A clear sign of being interested in rational discussion is refusing to have a discussion . /s