scifigrl47:
(Okay, just one more! Since I reblogged squeelokitty’s reblog of my post, it is only fair I answer this ask publicly, especially since their original post was completely fair and addressed their particular concerns)
I actually totally agree with you. And the thing is? That sort of focusing on tragic backstory is almost exclusively a male privilege in popular culture.
Women don’t get to fixate. They’re expected to ‘get over it,’ and ‘get on with their lives.’ But two thirds of Batman media I’ve ever been exposed to has been “DEAD PAAAAAAARENTS.” Loki’s creeping “I’m the victim here!” mentality is from the same vein. It’s manpain.
What are the worst insults aimed at men? ”You fight like a girl.” ”Stop being a p—-y.” “You’re such a little bitch.” The c-word.
The worst thing a male can be called in our society is a girl. When we use Mary Sue, even in a ‘non-gendered’ way, we’re adding to that. We are using a distinctly female name as an insult. This isn’t a nonsense word. This isn’t an invented word.
Using the name genders the insult. And it is leveled as an insult. If someone says, “This character is far too fixated on their backstory, I find this boring and frustrating to try to read, and find their current relationship with character X to be more interesting,” that is criticism. “This character is SUCH a Mary Sue” is an insult. It provides no criteria. It provides no actual information. It is just a slur that you can level without having to provide any context. And by doing that, even if you use if on a male character, we’re tarring a character with a negative, specifically feminine brush.
If we have a problem with a character, I just wish we would address our particular issue, instead of using the term as a shorthand. Because it’s worse than useless, for the writer and the fandom at large.
