@Fallow How about you stop using logical contortions first, sunshine, then I'll stop "putting words in your mouth" by interpreting what you said in the only logical way any sane person would. But ok fine, let's run through this. Let's dive down that rabbit hole--behold, literal quotes: "She didn't say she wanted "less white men", so there is no comparison to "less black men". She said she didn't want ONLY white men, and probably because she wanted people representing something other than white males to publish an opinion of the film so fans other than white males would develop a curiosity about seeing it." What's the diff? What is wrong with "only" White men? Why can't their opinions make people develop curiosity outside of White Men, since you, explicitly, said that this is to attract fans OTHER THAN White men. "Maybe more women and minorities will want to go as well. And that's good for everyone, because the white men who aren't incels might not have to owe their girlfriends a favor to get them to go see a comic book movie if women actually felt like there was something worth seeing." Again, why? Why would minorities and women NEED to see minorities and women in a movie to want to go see it? You are by default assuming minorities and women can't or won't go see a movie without minorities and women as the central characters. The fact that MILLIONS of Blacks went to see Aquaman, which stars a Samoan and a White chick as the central characters and a Black guy as the VILLAIN, disproves this. The fact millions of Blacks went to see The Dark Knight which has literally no major Black characters disproves this. "CM is clearly (among other things) a film designed to appeal to women, and you want to know why only having men review it might not be a great idea." How? Nothing in it "appeals to women" unless, again, YOU assume having a female lead inherently will attract Women, despite the fact that movies have had basically all male leads and attracted female fanbases before. Hell, Brokeback Mountain had a plot focusing almost exclusively on homosexual men and the bulk of the audience who liked it were women...or men like me who like weepy tragic romance stories. Meanwhile, Star Wars has a gargantuan female fanbase, and all of the central characters both good and evil, save one, were men. "Your representative rage at an entire move about one comment made by an actress in that movie is reason enough for anyone to question the intelligence of letting white males be the only ones with an opinion - because it is so often such an overblown and ridiculous opinion." And this is just explicitly racist. Because If you changed the wording to ANYTHING other than White men people would call you a Klansman. The fact that it's somehow acceptable to preach openly discriminatory concepts as long as they're aimed at White men, preferably straight ones, is just reason number 811709 why the Current Year sucks.
I'm sorry - have you seen many James Bond films? You're asking questions that you ought to know the answer to. Bond is accused by his boss several times of being a misogynist. So you aren't being clear in what you expect. Did you want youtube clips?
James Bond isn't a specific "character", from what I gather. Granted I've only ever seen the movies, I don't know about the book continuity or how it reflects the movies, but what I am fairly clear on is that it's inferred and, I believe, outright stated by the movie makers that "James Bond" is a code name for the main operator on a mission. I know for one that Lazenbe (I misspelled that, my bad) outright states in his movie that he's just the new James Bond. You can argue it's an "aside", a break the fourth wall moment, but combined with other aspects like Q aging while Bond doesn't or how whoever "Moneypenny" is changing between movies as well as Bond's physical appearance and mental makeup changing DRAMATICALLY between movies this makes perfect sense. I don't recall Casino Royale, very clearly anyway, but if memory serves it was kind of an introduction to this new Bond, and if so then it could just as easily be said to be literally THIS new Bond being introduced instead of a soft reboot. And I know that a 90's cartoon probably doesn't count but the tv show James Bond Jr., while saying he was the "nephew" of James Bond, also pretty explicitly puts forth the idea that James Bond is just a code name and this kid "earned it" (i.e, became the new major agent somehow) after his uncle who was the previous one was either killed or retired. Just a minor point, but yeah the prevalent fan theory is that "James Bond" is just a code name.
You're implying I should have memorized the dialogue... Well, I disagree. Here's the deal Fallow, I'd rather search through every post in this thread to see if what I'm looking for is there, than have a tedious back and forth with you. So don't worry about it.
There's billions of people in the world, and truth is stranger than fiction. So there's probably millions of people who love Mary Sues, who've never even heard the term. Just as musicians, because of their training, hear music differently than non-musicians, Authors view stories differently than people who don't even know what passive sentences are.
Are you asking because you didn't read this? First, I didn't say anyone needs to see themselves in the movie in what you quoted. So why are you asking that question? Again, you're reading something other than what is said. But since you brought it up, name a super hero movie that made more than Black Panther. By making the film attractive to a wider audience, more people went to see it. All movies attract diverse audiences. But the relative proportions of different types of audience members varies by movie type, and EVERYONE is aware of this. Movie studios have also realized that the old concern that women and minority heroes are going to drive off white male audiences is false (Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Tomb Raider, Blade), so there is only more money to be made by making films that attract a larger audience. Some women, for instance, may have no interest in super heroes in general but may enjoy seeing a female one - which means you get your usual audience plus a bonus group. It isn't racist to say having only one group write all the criticism is a bad idea. When only one group is in charge, portions of that group have disproportionate power. So what you were supposed to understand that if you only have white men writing criticism, that means that the sub-group of idiot white men becames disproportionately large compared to how many idiot white men reviews there would be in a field of diverse reviewers.
A non-confrontational person would have asked politely for more detailed information instead of making more vague complaints that you weren't properly spoon fed. It's as if you don't want an answer, just more fodder for argument. "Bone to pick", indeed.
Now I'm going to ignore you. Seeing as how I'm a "confrontational person," I hope you consider it a favor.
Me too. And the old 1981-made-for-TV performance of the opera La Cenerentola I watched on DVD two days ago was way more enjoyable (my face almost hurt from smiling and laughing) than the 4K UHD "glory" that was Aquaman yesterday. [Edit: how can Marvel keep hitting it out of the park, and DC can barely match the worst of Marvel? Where did the people who made the Dark Knight movies go? ] Is Cinderella a Mary Sue? At least in Rossini's version, she's freaking perfect, and God him-or-her self (not some mere fairy) bends the world and make things right for her. But it's still marvelous good fun. Better than the Disney version of the story -- Angelina (Cinderella) falls in love with the prince thinking he's a servant, and turns down the "real" prince's offer of marriage!
So... NOW will you link to her words? You've accepted that she didn't say what you originally accused her of saying. Before I engage any further, I'd like you to link to her actual words that you're objecting to. You don't have a lot of credibility in the paraphrase game, I'm afraid. But, assuming she did truly say that she doesn't want exclusively white men reviewing her movie, then the equivalent you're trying to make would be someone saying she didn't want exclusively white women reviewing her movie, or exclusively black men reviewing her movie, or exclusively Asian women reviewing her movie. Or you saying you don't want exclusively Jewish men reviewing your book. And, no, I don't think that'd be racist. If someone says they hope their work would be reviewed by a diverse audience, how is that racist? I read a couple of the links you provided earlier, and one of them quoted the actress as saying she wanted more seats at the table. She wasn't trying to take seats away from white men. She was hoping to include more seats to make sure others could sit as well. I can't imagine anyone operating in good faith objecting to that.
I haven't seen any versions except Disney and even they got it wrong. I've read more versions and one thing they always omit which was necessary to understanding the story was that the Prince had to see Cinderella in rags before he made her his bride. Cinderella can be first seen as something beautiful by the prince but he has to also acknowledge her in her real life setting and then make the choice. Fairy tales are sometimes metaphorical lessons/morals/truths. Cinderella stands for a person who's status can never be redeemed by anyone but a prince.
For Cinderella to be a Mary Sue, wouldn't all the people around her have to like her? Her entire family hates her.
But the family are the bad guys. I think villains are allowed to hate a Mary Sue... in fact, I'd say villains hating a character, to an extreme and unrealistic extent, is a big part of Sue-dom. Sues have the ability to make villains mouth-frothingly mad despite the complete innocent sweetness of the Sue.
Rossini does this: the Prince changes roles with his valet, and they visit Cinderella's home to invite the young ladies there to the ball. The Prince and Cindy each fall in love with someone that appears to be a servant, and the Prince is heartbroken to learn, from Cinderella's step-father, that Cinderella is just a crazy servant with delusions of upper class birth. It's a low point for both Cindy and the Prince when he leaves: both think the love they discovered is lost to them. Then God intervenes ... And in the end everyone loves Angelina (Cindy): she convinces her half-sisters and step-father to accept her forgiveness and be her family, and everyone is happy at the end. Group hug!
Cindy's family in Rossini's version don't hate Cindy, they're just petty, prideful, and selfish. Still, it's fun to watch the Prince, in the role of servant, almost breaking out of character to beat the tar out of her step-father. He's very passionate, and will be a good balance to Cindy's innocence and overly-kind heart once they take the throne.
I don't think a Mary Sue has to tick all the boxes, hun. Just have a majority of them ticked. I would say Bella from Twilight was more of a Mary Sue than Cinderella.
Of course only a few were discussed, but I was talking about the ones presented on the first page or so. Sure, but unless we can settle on one, I think people will just keep talking past each other. I personally don't see an issue with that eliminates it from most popular fiction. The term has been pejorative and regarded as the mark of a bad writer since its inception. It would be logical for it to be pretty rare in traditionally published fiction, especially successful fiction. I can't recall a post like that, and like you I haven't watched them all and my memory is hazy. But I do know that he got captured and left in death traps often enough for a trope to be named after it. To me, getting captured is enough of a loss/setback that any character it happens to isn't a Sue, whatever else they might be.
This probably doesn't interest anyone but me, but "Mary Sue" is the generic name i use in my reservation computer to block off tables for VIPs/emergencies. Nobody at work gets the joke.
People will continue talk about what they always do when the topic of Mary Sue arises: their concept of a Sue, the characters who exemplify their concept, and why they disagree with other concepts. You've already made it clear that you don't. I don't understand the notion that because Mary Sue is most commonly used as a criticism, it should never be aimed at popular fiction. Not to me. Not by a long shot. Especially if his capture allows him to uncover more of the villain's schemes and look badass while escaping. At that point, it's just a dramatic stage for wish fulfillment.
Sure. That gets us nowhere, though. It's not that it shouldn't be aimed at it, it's that the label usually just doesn't fit. The quality controls in place in the various entertainment industries usually weed Sues out. Wish fulfillment isn't the primary issue with Sues, or even necessarily an ingredient, though. Lack of tension and conflict is. And things like capture or defeat provide tension and conflict. Notions of how the character "looks" strike me as an odd metric to go by. They're incredibly subjective, and when I've seen them in practice they seem to be based in large part on how the person perceived the character before the incident in question. They also come off as a really cynical reading of fiction and dramatic structure.
What the various definitions largely fail to do is demonstrate a positive Mary Sue definition that is actually discreet from descriptions of other types of heroic or positive characters. The only delineation that seems left are the negative definitions.
