Does anyone else feel that much of the DB fandom enforces low standards?

[SupremeKai25]

I've never seen Mary Sue used for men. When a male character is poorly written we just say they're poorly written. When a female character is poorly written we use a made up term to contexualize their awfulness as distinctly female, yet we have no counter term: never is a woman distinctly associated with a term to indicate their well-written status.

The term Gary Stu is used instead, that is the male counterpart of Mary Sue. A lot of people claim that Future Trunks is a Gary Stu, for example.

[JulieYBM]

Like, I like brutal shit in fiction, too, I just don't go around suspiciously delving out brutality to those more marginalized than me in my fiction. If I thought this was a kink of his I wouldn't say anything of it--other than to criticize him of including it in a family film--but Star Wars is clearly a family-friendly franchise aimed at the lowest common denominator.

I've agreed with most of what you've said here in this thread, but I'm curious as to why George Lucas's hypothetical kinks towards torture porn would make his usage of it less problematic in your view?

I don't kink-shame, is all. What am I going to do if a guy likes to beat it to shit I'm not into? Talk about the moral superiority of my bimbofication, epar by orcs and other kinks? My objection to content is context. Star Wars is a mainstream film in a mainstream context, in which it appeals to an audience of children or otherwise ignorant adults. As such, it needs to be criticized when it does something offensive and thoughtless.

[LoganForkHands73]

Like, I like brutal shit in fiction, too, I just don't go around suspiciously delving out brutality to those more marginalized than me in my fiction. If I thought this was a kink of his I wouldn't say anything of it--other than to criticize him of including it in a family film--but Star Wars is clearly a family-friendly franchise aimed at the lowest common denominator.

I've agreed with most of what you've said here in this thread, but I'm curious as to why George Lucas's hypothetical kinks towards torture porn would make his usage of it less problematic in your view?

I don't kink-shame, is all. What am I going to do if a guy likes to beat it to shit I'm not into? Talk about the moral superiority of my bimbofication, epar by orcs and other kinks? My objection to content is context. Star Wars is a mainstream film in a mainstream context, in which it appeals to an audience of children or otherwise ignorant adults. As such, it needs to be criticized when it does something offensive and thoughtless.

Sure, but it isn't necessarily kink-shaming to be sex critical. You outlined a lot of great points about the way female suffering is fetishised in popular media, but included the asterisk that you wouldn't criticise it so long as it was made with erotic intentions and explicitly not made for family-friendly audiences? Even if I think it has every right to exist as a piece of cinema and I'm not going to shame the many people that got off to it, it's still okay to criticise crap like 365 Days for the way it trivialises abuse and sex trafficking, even though it's all clearly made to be sexually appealing. My ex partner introduced me to the BDSM/general kink communities and I noticed that the major content creators in it often deflect any critical discussion with the kink-shaming accusations. I'm no prude myself and I firmly believe that anyone can get off to whatever they want in the bedroom so long as its legal and consensual, but I was honestly disturbed by how a lot of the big Instagram kink-story accounts tend to target younger people and give them an exaggerated ideal of what sex is really like. I believe that's very worthy of criticism but nobody wants to hear talk about it.

I may have gone dangerously close into a personal rant there, but as you can probably tell, I may have issues.

All that said, I believe it's okay, sometimes very necessary, for media to present children with uncomfortable subject matter. In some ways, I think The Phantom Menace didn't go far enough in depicting slavery as horribly as it should be, which Attack of the Clones misguidedly tried to rectify. That was the only movie where Shmi was shown to be "tortured" but it wasn't presented in an erotic light. As a kid, I didn't think Shmi and Anakin's happy-go-lucky life on Tatooine was that bad in Episode I, so frankly, Lucas totally failed in presenting a very serious, all too real subject matter in a way that kids would understand. The Clone Wars TV series did a much, much better job at depicting the awful realities of slavery in a way that kids and adults could understand and be repulsed by in the Zygerian arc.

[The Bastard.]

I've agreed with most of what you've said here in this thread, but I'm curious as to why George Lucas's hypothetical kinks towards torture porn would make his usage of it less problematic in your view?

I don't kink-shame, is all. What am I going to do if a guy likes to beat it to shit I'm not into? Talk about the moral superiority of my bimbofication, epar by orcs and other kinks? My objection to content is context. Star Wars is a mainstream film in a mainstream context, in which it appeals to an audience of children or otherwise ignorant adults. As such, it needs to be criticized when it does something offensive and thoughtless.

Sure, but it isn't necessarily kink-shaming to be sex critical. You outlined a lot of great points about the way female suffering is fetishised in popular media, but included the asterisk that you wouldn't criticise it so long as it was made with erotic intentions and explicitly not made for family-friendly audiences? Even if I think it has every right to exist as a piece of cinema and I'm not going to shame the many people that got off to it, it's still okay to criticise crap like 365 Days for the way it trivialises abuse and sex trafficking, even though it's all clearly made to be sexually appealing. My ex partner introduced me to the BDSM/general kink communities and I noticed that the major content creators in it often deflect any critical discussion with the kink-shaming accusations. I'm no prude myself and I firmly believe that anyone can get off to whatever they want in the bedroom so long as its legal and consensual, but I was honestly disturbed by how a lot of the big Instagram kink-story accounts tend to target younger people and give them an exaggerated ideal of what sex is really like. I believe that's very worthy of criticism but nobody wants to hear talk about it.

I may have gone dangerously close into a personal rant there, but as you can probably tell, I may have issues.

All that said, I believe it's okay, sometimes very necessary, for media to present children with uncomfortable subject matter. In some ways, I think The Phantom Menace didn't go far enough in depicting slavery as horribly as it should be, which Attack of the Clones misguidedly tried to rectify. That was the only movie where Shmi was shown to be "tortured" but it wasn't presented in an erotic light. As a kid, I didn't think Shmi and Anakin's happy-go-lucky life on Tatooine was that bad in Episode I, so frankly,

Lucas totally failed in presenting a very serious, all too real subject matter in a way that kids would understand. The Clone Wars TV series did a much, much better job at depicting the awful realities of slavery in a way that kids and adults could understand and be repulsed by in the Zygerian arc.

Really, rewatch the Prequels, there's child killing in the classic fade to black after he puts the dick out scene and the first movie barely touched the fact that he was a slave, it still is a child movie even with those themes because he just treated very lightly, I watched as a kid and only the pod racing mattered, the rest was afterthought for movie 1.

[LoganForkHands73]

Really, rewatch the Prequels, there's child killing in the classic fade to black after he puts the dick out scene and the first movie barely touched the fact that he was a slave, it still is a child movie even with those themes because he just treated very lightly, I watched as a kid and only the pod racing mattered, the rest was afterthought for movie 1.

Dick-out scene? Huh?

But yeah, I agree, as a kid I remember finding everything on Tatooine leading up to the pod race incredibly boring. I'd often fast-forward through it if I could. In some ways, I can now see what Lucas was going for with it -- as uncomfortable as it is to say, life for serfs throughout history wasn't always 100% miserable, sometimes they were allowed to live moderately comfortable lives like Shmi and Anakin's decent-sized house, but to omit the bad stuff entirely ends up making it all look like a 1950s "Song of the South" style harmless slavery.

[The Bastard.]

Really, rewatch the Prequels, there's child killing in the classic fade to black after he puts the dick out scene and the first movie barely touched the fact that he was a slave, it still is a child movie even with those themes because he just treated very lightly, I watched as a kid and only the pod racing mattered, the rest was afterthought for movie 1.

Dick-out scene? Huh?

But yeah, I agree, as a kid I remember finding everything on Tatooine leading up to the pod race incredibly boring. I'd often fast-forward through it if I could. In some ways, I can now see what Lucas was going for with it -- as uncomfortable as it is to say, life for serfs throughout history wasn't always 100% miserable, sometimes they were allowed to live moderately comfortable lives like Shmi and Anakin's decent-sized house, but to omit the bad stuff entirely ends up making it all look like a 1950s "Song of the South" style harmless slavery.

Haha I should have written Lightsaber out .

For sure, we often forget he was a slave because he lived a simple, but not awful live by any means, don't know if it's because he simply didn't want to deal with a heavy topic in the prequel or because he was aiming for younger audiences. But just because there's child killing and slavery doesn't mean kids can't watch it, if that was a issue so would be DB and it's crude jokes but child watch it too so... And even if someone finds a issue with that them I think they are just a little bit too prude for my taste, my kid will definitely watch DB but not prequels because they are awful and some "adult" jokes and I put it that way because the jokes in these franchises are very light, only add another layer to the comedy for people of all ages to experience and have a good time.

Anyways, I really think Lucas just didn't want to deal with the shitty aspects of the heavy themes that he himself wrote for some reason and tried market the Prequels to a younger audience, it's not like the OT was some Schindler's list type of thing but it was more mature than whatever Jar Jar Binks was

[Planetnamek]

Pretty sure Lucas asked for a PG-13 but I could be making that up in my head.

I do know he did ask for a PG rating for A New Hope after the MPAA originally gave it a G rating, he did that out of fear that people would avoid the movie thinking it was just for kids.

[VegettoEX]

Dragon Ball discussion, please.

[JulieYBM]

We get so many storylines where it's "Gokuu and a male do stuff!" And it just leaves me wishing that official projects would have Gokuu partner up with a woman. Gokuu and Chi-Chi fight a strong guy who is trying to disrupt their vacation getaway! Gokuu trains Caulifla and Kale! Gokuu and Blooma have to hunt something down to save Vegeta! More boys comics and series need to normalize socializing with women without being weirdly othering of us.

[Matches Malone]

Gokuu trains Caulifla and Kale!

He kind of did that in the tournament, and I expect to see a lot more of it in the potential Sadal arc.

[LoganForkHands73]

Dragon Ball discussion, please.

Sure. I think Caulifla and Goku's interactions as a brief master-student thing were too precious just to keep in the ToP, I'd be terribly disappointed if that's all we got from them as a pair. Some totally platonic relationships await.

Feel free to set me straight if I'm out of line here, I've been on a fair few forums and I'm not used to admins interfering in conversations as much as you do, no offence. I get that this is a pure-and-local Dragon Ball forum, it's your website and turf, but is it such a violation to occasionally discuss non-Dragon Ball things if that's where the conversation leads? Considering that the topic of the thread is about the nature of fandom, it's only natural.

[Planetnamek]

We get so many storylines where it's "Gokuu and a male do stuff!" And it just leaves me wishing that official projects would have Gokuu partner up with a woman. Gokuu and Chi-Chi fight a strong guy who is trying to disrupt their vacation getaway! Gokuu trains Caulifla and Kale! Gokuu and Blooma have to hunt something down to save Vegeta! More boys comics and series need to normalize socializing with women without being weirdly othering of us.

That I can agree with, too often i've seen female characters presented as nags who never want anyone else to have any fun, sure sometimes that can be funny, but it's way overdone, and Chi-Chi definitely falls into that category.

[JulieYBM]

Dragon Ball discussion, please.

Sure. I think Caulifla and Goku's interactions as a brief master-student thing were too precious just to keep in the ToP, I'd be terribly disappointed if that's all we got from them as a pair. Some totally platonic relationships await.

Feel free to set me straight if I'm out of line here, I've been on a fair few forums and I'm not used to admins interfering in conversations as much as you do, no offence. I get that this is a pure-and-local Dragon Ball forum, it's your website and turf, but is it such a violation to occasionally discuss non-Dragon Ball things if that's where the conversation leads? Considering that the topic of the thread is about the nature of fandom, it's only natural.

It's a Dragon Ball only forum but Mike DOES give a lot of lean way so long as we adhere to DB as much as possible. I definitely go off topic too much, though.

[UI Peter]

snip

You're supposed to reply OUTSIDE the quote.

Other characters were said to by natural prodigies in early DB too, yey they still got effortlessly outclassed by Goku for apparently no reason

Because not all prodigies are equal. It simply means you catch on easily at a young age.
It still made no sense in the case of Dragonball until Goku was revealed to be a Saiyan

And Star Wars is about as great a fictional example of characters being good at using a plot device "just because" as you'll ever find.Even though that wasn't the case even in the 1st movie lmao The force is so vaguely defined that it's literally called THE FORCE.

The Force was given detailed exposition on how it works and what it exactly is in the OG trilogy, so this argument is purely false

I don't know why anyone feels they need some explanation for why any character is so innately good at something. Even with Goku's Saiyan heritage, that doesn't explain why Goku is so much more talented than Vegeta.

He isnt, actually

Goku is shown to be the more talented fighter hence why after the Saiyan arc, he's a step ahead of Vegeta.
Despite Vegeta being born with a higher PL and actually creating his on techniques instead of learning from others like Goku, but okay lmao

So if Videl were to just randomly become stronger than Zeno "just because", that would be okay with you?

That is exactly the case in the first movie which is so thinly written. It relies mostly on tropes because the world is so out there that the audience needs something familiar to anchor the story. Stories need a lot less explanation about stuff like this than you think.Luke is honestly more of a "Mary Sue" than even Rey, complete with being a self insert character. Hell, his name is LUKE S, and he grew up in the desert. Don't know if you know this but George LUCAS grew up in the desert. Luke is a great pilot of a military fighter jet despite us only having heard he was in dialog. How? He' s a farm boy. Most of his shortcomings like his temper and impatience come in the sequels along with the truth of his family. You using the term Mary Sue is such a bad faith argument that doesn't hold up to the slightest scrutiny.

This is pure BS, and its clear you either didnt really watch the 1st film or agruing in bad faith. Luke wasn't naturally better than most "just cause", he actually had to struggle and work to get to were he got and actually got bodied by Vader in their 1st fight (and was shown to have vehicle training as part of his job as a farmer). None of this could be said for Rey, who's shown to randoming be a master of many things at the start smh.
https://youtu.be/JN8Qm5o0oSY
Its your arguments that don't stand up to scrutiny, not mine. And no, making a character partly based on the author doesn't automatically make one a Sue.

A recurring theme in your responses is just telling me I'm wrong and offering no counter argument.
I did give counter arguments, you just ignored them

[UI Peter]

I've never seen Mary Sue used for men. When a male character is poorly written we just say they're poorly written. When a female character is poorly written we use a made up term to contexualize their awfulness as distinctly female, yet we have no counter term: never is a woman distinctly associated with a term to indicate their well-written status.

The term Gary Stu is used instead, that is the male counterpart of Mary Sue. A lot of people claim that Future Trunks is a Gary Stu, for example.

Exactly (though I don't agree with the accusation of F.Trunks being a Gary Stu).

Anyone who claims to have never heard male characters get called Sues or Stus is living in denial. Hell, even in this very forum, there's numerous threads debating whether or not which of the characters in DB are Mary Sues, look them up.

[VegettoEX]

Please be sure to check your posts for formatting, do not double-post, and otherwise adhere to the community guidelines - the attitude on display in these latest couple posts is unnecessary and unacceptable. Any further infractions will result in account strikes.

[SupremeKai25]

I've never seen Mary Sue used for men. When a male character is poorly written we just say they're poorly written. When a female character is poorly written we use a made up term to contexualize their awfulness as distinctly female, yet we have no counter term: never is a woman distinctly associated with a term to indicate their well-written status.

The term Gary Stu is used instead, that is the male counterpart of Mary Sue. A lot of people claim that Future Trunks is a Gary Stu, for example.

Exactly (though I don't agree with the accusation of F.Trunks being a Gary Stu).

Anyone who claims to have never heard male characters get called Sues or Stus is living in denial. Hell, even in this very forum, there's numerous threads debating whether or not which of the characters in DB are Mary Sues, look them up.

I can see why Future Trunks would be considered a Gary Stu. His Super Saiyan Rage transformation and Spirit Sword amp reek of bad fanfiction.

Goten and Trunks can also be seen as Gary Stus, since they achieved Super Saiyan at like the age of 7.

[Matches Malone]

Goten and Trunks can also be seen as Gary Stus, since they achieved Super Saiyan at like the age of 7.

Despite having access to Ssj, both Goten and Trunks have nothing to their name outside of fusion, so I don't think it applies to them. Future Trunks on the other hand has become the text book definition of a Gary Stue. He's able to fight side by side SsjB, Achieve a form of similar power, and get an attack that he had no business having, using it to destroy someone who should be completely out of his league, all possible just because.

[SupremeKai25]

Goten and Trunks can also be seen as Gary Stus, since they achieved Super Saiyan at like the age of 7.

Despite having access to Ssj, both Goten and Trunks have nothing to their name outside of fusion, so I don't think it applies to them. Future Trunks on the other hand has become the text book definition of a Gary Stue. He's able to fight side by side SsjB, Achieve a form of similar power, and get an attack that he had no business having, using it to destroy someone who should be completely out of his league, all possible just because.

Them having Super Saiyan at such a young age would be enough. Not only does that make them unbelievable prodigies, it also means they could wash anyone up to the Cell saga. As small children.

[Matches Malone]

Not only does that make them unbelievable prodigies, it also means they could wash anyone up to the Cell saga. As small children.

They wouldn't stand a chance against anyone from the Cell arc. Ssj is a multiplier, so multiplying weak base forms won't make much of a difference against the likes of the androids and Cell. They also couldn't hold a candle to the Saiyans, especially during the Cell games.