I was accused by someone recently of being a chauvinist pig because i didn't want to watch The Hunger Games and claimed that it was because i hated stories and movies where a female is the lead and she beats guys up or is the number one computer whiz who beats guys up (and who usually happens to be good looking and bloody smart as well). I'm talking about stories like Salt, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Charlie's Angels, Blood+, etc. That got me to thinking.
I still don't think i'm a true MCP. Part of why i don't like such stories is because i find them incredibly unrealistic. An argument was made that my fantasy novels, anime, and video games are also incredibly unrealistic, but i think the key difference is that my stories are FANTASY ones. I have no qualms with fantasy worlds where females have a measure of dominance over men - for example the Aes Sedai in the Wheel of Time series where women have dominance (at least in the early stages) over men because only they could use magic. Oh, and Powerpuff Girls too.
(Oh, and i must mention that i like to cook and that i make my own sandwiches, thank you very much)
But those OTHER stories that i don't like tend to be set in the real world, bound by real world rules. There's no chakra or soul energy to back you up. So there is NO WAY you can look all pretty and slim and curvy (i.e. some fats there) and devoid of scars and muscles and still bash all the guys up in such dominant fashion using just martial arts (and these guys, being bodyguards, should have learnt some martial arts too). And this dislike for non-realism is addressed to male-dominated stories as well. For example, i've never really liked Rurouni Kenshin (the character not the anime) because he's so skinny and there's no way he can parry sword strikes full on with such a small frame. I'm not saying that women must forever be typecast into damsel roles - but if you want a girl to physically beat up macho guys, she's going to have to be uber-macho as well. Which usually also means physically unappealing.
So anyway, i'm not going to watch The Hunger Games either. To be honest, i think i overreacted a bit. The Hunger Games doesn't actually take guy bashing as far as the other stories mentioned above. In fact the story does seem to have a decent amount of realism in it. It was rather childish on my part. But i also think i overreacted because, whether or not it was intentional here, stories like The Hunger Games tend to be popular because of the same people - people who like the stories i mentioned in my first paragraph because of the trashy female-fan-service. In the case of The Hunger Games, i rather suspect that the author, being female, was probably "fan-servicing" herself.
And there is this particular person who likes trashy female-fan-service that kinda creates this interesting context for me. Let me describe this person: This person is MALE. He loves all the stories i mentioned in my first paragraph, seemingly more than those starring males. I interact with him quite a lot. I think part of the reason why he likes such stories is because he thinks that it is fashionable and "new age"/modern, therefore practically moral to not be an MCP - although he takes this to the point of becoming rather masochistically feminist. I also suspect that he was brought up in an environment where women WERE really treated like damsels in distress and unable to fight. Hence, to him, women are not really capable of doing much harm; so when a woman is a selfish aggressive bitch, she is just "strong-willed" and "fearless", and when she verbally abuses men using her "wits" she is "intelligence" and "wise". (This begs the question of whether this means he is actually the MCP...hmm.)
So this is probably the reason why i have such a drastically different mindset. I was brought up in an environment where women were never disadvantaged over men and never seemed like damsels in distress. I came into contact with these women-bashing-men stories at least as early as during my teens. And i also got quite a bit of verbal abuse here and there. So, to my mind, women are certainly capable of doing harm. Therefore, while I acknowledge that the two sexes are equal, i do get pretty cautious in granting affirmative protection to women that go beyond what is traditional and necessary, and i think that men who like women-bashing-men stories are just blind. Blind because women-bashing-men stories are treated as novel and interesting as compared to men-bashing-men stories - but after getting bashed all the time in the past, i just don't understand the novelty in it.
It all adds up. There are these women-bashing-men stories (whether mentally or physically) that seem highly unrealistic, yet are hugely popular because of the trashy female-fanservice they provide that would normally only appeal to females, yet appeals to certain men partly because of a mistaken conception of novelty and morality. Hence the overreaction. Anyway i'm off to study. Bleah.
