The Mary Sue

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Yaoi Huntress Earth said:
-In this article about the new direction of Playboy, it's kind of sad how much the magazine is bowing down to the feminists. I have to agree with The Amazing Atheist (despite being a lolcow) about why is it feminists are all about free the nipple and getting naked for photoshoots, yet throw a tantrum when they see a scantly-clad fictional woman. I think part of it is that they can't stand to see a man have something that appeals to them. Especially how disgusted the commenters get about CIShet white men.
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You would think Playboy and feminism would never have anything to do with each other...

The magazine that once had Harvey Kurtzman and Shel Silverstein working for them has come to this.
 
Yaoi Huntress Earth said:
I have to agree with The Amazing Atheist (despite being a lolcow) about why is it feminists are all about free the nipple and getting naked for photoshoots, yet throw a tantrum when they see a scantly-clad fictional woman. I think part of it is that they can't stand to see a man have something that appeals to them. Especially how disgusted the commenters get about CIShet white men.
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You've got it. Radfems view anything that might tittilate CIS men with the same disdain that 4Chan views leftist thinkpieces by some 20-something Californian named "Shekelstein".
 
Steamboat_Bill said:
You would think Playboy and feminism would never have anything to do with each other...

The magazine that once had Harvey Kurtzman and Shel Silverstein working for them has come to this.
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Those two men were geniuses. I remember hearing about an article the new Playboy had where someone was complaining about porn in visual novels (like Kawata Shojo) and how it ruins the experience.
 
Yaoi Huntress Earth said:
Those two men were geniuses. I remember hearing about an article the new Playboy had where someone was complaining about porn in visual novels (like Kawata Shojo) and how it ruins the experience.
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The frontrunner in highbrow if occasionally tasteless men's entertainment is now running articles on anime dating sim games.
 
Steamboat_Bill said:
You would think Playboy and feminism would never have anything to do with each other...
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I can't believe I'm having this conversation, but Playboy is actually relatively classy as far as porn magazines go. They have pretty much always paid top dollar for actual professional photographers, expensive outfits, scenery, etc. Hugh Heffner is on record saying something like "I never want any woman to feel ashamed of having been in my magazine." They make a point of it being more sultry than slutty (for the most part). Playboy is the "artistic" end of pornography. I'm being serious. Compare and contrast with something like Hustler, where they (used to?) let people mail in images of their girlfriend/wife/one night stand, and there's probably some photos of people that would likely be classified as evidence of some sort these days, even if you ignored all the gaping. Or so I heard...

Point is, if objectifying women is what they're trying to fight against, then they're going after the wrong people. But these morons can't be bothered to do research on a topic, now can they? They just follow the general consciousness. They're just salty that attractive women get attention and they don't.
 
[Insert Meme Here] said:
I can't believe I'm having this conversation, but Playboy is actually relatively classy as far as porn magazines go. They have pretty much always paid top dollar for actual professional photographers, expensive outfits, scenery, etc. Hugh Heffner is on record saying something like "I never want any woman to feel ashamed of having been in my magazine." They make a point of it being more sultry than slutty (for the most part). Playboy is the "artistic" end of pornography. I'm being serious. Compare and contrast with something like Hustler, where they (used to?) let people mail in images of their girlfriend/wife/one night stand, and there's probably some photos of people that would likely be classified as evidence of some sort these days, even if you ignored all the gaping. Or so I heard...

Point is, if objectifying women is what they're trying to fight against, then they're going after the wrong people. But these morons can't be bothered to do research on a topic, now can they? They just follow the general consciousness. They're just salty that attractive women get attention and they don't.
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Artistic or not, it's still porn.
 
Replicant Sasquatch said:
Honestly this is like the one opinion this idiotic rag has ever espoused with which I'm actually inclined to agree. Yes, while there are terms like "Gary Stu" I find internet communities judge female characters in genre fiction far harsher than male characters
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That's partly because men find it much easier to see the flaws in a poorly developed female character because they don't relate as well, so the errors are more glaring. But it's also because most women are by far much harsher critics than men are.
Replicant Sasquatch said:
"Mary Sue" is such a subjective and inconsistent buzzword of a term it's best to just remove it from your lexicon entirely.
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Nah, it is a useful term, that chick in the force awakens is a mary sue and I don't think anyone who wasn't being pedantic or contrary would have difficulty understanding what I mean when I say that.

Also, and this is a tangent, I'm not trying to pin this on you, that is exactly how sjws always start their thoughtcriminalising of things, it always starts off with thought pieces proclaiming the reasonable argument 'it's a dumb term that doesn't mean anything anyway, you shouldn't bother with it' and then next thing you know anyone who uses it is a bigot who is secretly a mass murderer. See sjw, gamer, pepe, attack helicopter, rape jokes, and now milk. Not that I'm saying you are doing that, I know you aren't, it's just something I realised when I read this comment.

Edit lol at the milk word replacement, how did that come about?
 
Ineedahero said:
Nah, it is a useful term, that chick in the force awakens is a mary sue and I don't think anyone who wasn't being pedantic or contrary would have difficulty understanding what I mean when I say that.
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That comparison is exactly why Mary Sue isn't a useful term any more. It's now used for any powerful character, even if the whole point of the character is to be powerful. By the way the term is currently used, Superman is a Mary Sue. Batman is a Mary Sue. Any character played by John Wayne is a Mary Sue.

A Mary Sue is a very specific thing, when the author (often of fan fiction) inserts an obvious wish fulfillment fantasy of themselves into something who then gets everything on a platter without deserving it or even when obviously a complete asshole.
 
AnOminous said:
That comparison is exactly why Mary Sue isn't a useful term any more. It's now used for any powerful character, even if the whole point of the character is to be powerful. By the way the term is currently used, Superman is a Mary Sue. Batman is a Mary Sue. Any character played by John Wayne is a Mary Sue.

A Mary Sue is a very specific thing, when the author (often of fan fiction) inserts an obvious wish fulfillment fantasy of themselves into something who then gets everything on a platter without deserving it or even when obviously a complete asshole.
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Yeah, that is what a Mary Sue is. That's why I used it to refer to that chick from star wars, the one who flies the millennium falcon better than han solo and is better with the force when she was unaware she could use it than a sith lord. Same franchise, different example - anakin in the phantom menace. Both characters are voids for their target demographic to fill. And while that's not exactly the same as the original fanfic based meaning, it has the same essentials, expanded for use in a broader context.
 
And Luke isn't one by those criteria? Going from farm hand to being good enough with the Force to single-handedly blow up the original Death Star in about a week?

IMHO, the term Mary Sue has become nondescriptive because it's "crept" through overuse to mean "character who's more powerful than I feel should be", like how "fascist" has become "person more to the political right than me"
 
TowinKarz said:
And Luke isn't one by those criteria? Going from farm hand to being good enough with the Force to single-handedly blow up the original Death Star in about a week?

IMHO, the term Mary Sue has become nondescriptive because it's "crept" through overuse to mean "character who's more powerful than I feel should be", like how "fascist" has become "person more to the political right than me"
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I was going to say Luke as well, but I haven't seen the original star wars in well over a decade, while I saw those other two movies in the past year. But from memory, yeah he was in the first movie. Not to the same extent as anakin, but still a mary sue.

Like Luke, this was remedied for anakin (though not as well) in the second movie, as flaws were introduced and there was more time to flesh out the character. Presumably the same will happen with rey in the next movie. That doesn't mean they aren't mary sues in their respective first movies.
 
TowinKarz said:
And Luke isn't one by those criteria? Going from farm hand to being good enough with the Force to single-handedly blow up the original Death Star in about a week?
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By those criteria, yes, Luke is also one. Literally any character in a somewhat unrealistic plot arc where he wins in a silly way is one. It's a ridiculous definition. There are plenty of reasons to criticize the original Star Wars. While it is treated as the equivalent of The Godfather or Casablanca by a population of pathetic nerds, it is mostly a half-baked, silly sci-fi romp that had pretty good special effects for the time. Mark Hamill was one of the worst actors who ever lived and his performance was ridiculous. It makes Shatner as Kirk look like a Shakespearean actor.

But he wasn't a Mary Sue by any reasonable definition. He was neither an author self-insert nor a wish fulfillment fantasy.

ETA: I should partly take that back, as like Shatner, he improved as an actor, and was pretty good as the Joker.
 
AnOminous said:
By those criteria, yes, Luke is also one. Literally any character in a somewhat unrealistic plot arc where he wins in a silly way is one. It's a ridiculous definition. There are plenty of reasons to criticize the original Star Wars. While it is treated as the equivalent of The Godfather or Casablanca by a population of pathetic nerds, it is mostly a half-baked, silly sci-fi romp that had pretty good special effects for the time. Mark Hamill was one of the worst actors who ever lived and his performance was ridiculous. It makes Shatner as Kirk look like a Shakespearean actor.

But he wasn't a Mary Sue by any reasonable definition. He was neither an author self-insert nor a wish fulfillment fantasy.

ETA: I should partly take that back, as like Shatner, he improved as an actor, and was pretty good as the Joker.
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Wait, you think Luke is not a wish fulfilment fantasy? The bored goofy farm boy who goes on an amazing adventure and finds out he's a magic warrior and makes out with a princess?
 
Ineedahero said:
Wait, you think Luke is not a wish fulfilment fantasy? The bored goofy farm boy who goes on an amazing adventure and finds out he's a magic warrior and makes out with a princess?
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Well, it's undercut when he learns the princess is his sister. Very few people have wish-fulfillment fantasies that include incest.
 
Steamboat_Bill said:
Well, it's undercut when he learns the princess is his sister. Very few people have wish-fulfillment fantasies that include incest.
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Lol, true, but that doesn't happen until the second or third movie right? The way I see it, Luke and anakin move away from the mary sue trope after the first film, and rey will no doubt do the same.
 
"The Empire Strikes Back" was one long exercise in humility for him... he doesn't save his friends, he doesn't master his art, the main antagonist kicks his ass AND inflicts a crippling injury on him AND fucks with his mind while his entire "side" in the revolution is on the run....
 
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