> female characters that are undeveloped and lacking any tragic flaws
You mean like Hunger Games or Twilight?
Or the male equivalent of Capt. America? (Or Harry Potter?) Steve Rogers is just your ordinary everyman who's underdeveloped and lacking in any tragic flaws.
I mean... at this point, even Hulk is missing out on his classic flaw of rage. *All* the Marvel characters have braindead writing these days, female or male. But plenty of the "good" ones (ie: Capt. America) were always like this from the start, its a trope in comic books for a reason because it keeps working. (Superman, Shazam, Capt. Marvel, Capt. America). For some stories, you don't need a flawed lead character, they could just "be good" and you can focus on other elements of storytelling.
But that's the kind of main character tons of people love and gobble up. Both male, and female, versions of it.
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But hey, I like my "Superman" stories. (My Adventures with Superman cartoon this year was excellent). Or perhaps for a more well-regarded character: Ang from "Avatar the Last Airbender" is pretty much your typical every-man / heroic type without any tragic flaw. (Etc. etc. Lots of good examples around all of writing. Indeed, Oedipus Rex is arguably one of the earliest "Lack of Flaws" character to maximize the chance that the audience take's Oedipus's side in his struggles).
Mary Sue / boring good guys / Superman types / Lawful-Good Paladins who just try to make everyone feel better can be done well. It just takes good writing to make them captivating. I personally think they're the hardest character to make work, but when its done well I enjoy the trope (especially because I recognize how hard it is to write).
I feel like some of the examples you list are a poor choice to illustrate your point.
Both Harry Potter (books so more than films, but in the films too) and Aang have plenty of flaws, and there's arcs and events that help them grow/develop.
It's been a while, but Katniss does have plenty of flaws and growth (and even some things she never overcomes about her self). Although, it's been a few years since I've read Hunger Games, I feel like she doesn't belong in the same category as Bella (which feels like a placeholder character intentionally). Tris from Divergent might be a good example though, but even there there's some growth.
Regarding some of the super heroes: they're all kinda "super" and very mary-sue-ish, I agree. But they still face challenges and difficulties they need to overcome, or the stories they're part of (rather than the character themselves) are otherwise interesting.
Most of the modern "strong female leads" are just boring (and this comes from a gay boy who LOVES strong women, my favourite characters are women: Sydney Bristol, almost every one from ATLA & Korra, Willow & Buffy, Halliwell sisters, Xena, Lara Croft, Jade from BG&E, women from Harry Potter, Aya from Parasite Eve games, an uncountable plethora of amazing female characters in Anime and manga, and I could go on and on and on, it's not like it can't be done, or hasn't been done, it has been done MANY times). The only challenge these modern Disney SFLs face is not believing in themselves (and as someone who struggles on and off with self esteem issues, I realise how difficult those can be, but also it's not "enough" to base a whole character around just that), usually with a sprinkle of "blame the patriarchy" in there too.
All this misandry and trying to portray any masculinity as toxic is just lame. It's very similar to Disney's queer coding of villains. I remember in my teens, while being a sexually confused and closed queer how sensitive I was to that bullshit and how awful and ashamed it made me feel. It's ludicrous how it's being done again, just the aggressor and targeted demographics are different now. I can't tell if that's just Disney's Modus Operandi, or of this is some type of bitter revenge writing. It sucked then and it sucks now, and it will continue to suck. We need to do better.
People mentioned elsewhere in threads that people complain about too many POCs. I've not seen much of this (maybe a few low quality posts online, but that's just racist drivel of a few small minced idiots, and rarely anyone cares about it). What people dislike is their liked characters' identities getting twisted to fit "modern audiences" (often it's MORE than just race). And the irony is, not even this mythological modern audience likes it because it usually ends up being a shallow self insert, so then down the line the audience gets blamed and called names). There's plenty of original PoC characters that are loved (of Disney: Mulan, Pocahontas, Aladdin/Jasmine, Moana, Lilo, Encanto cast). The whole "well why does it matter" argument is also a bit of a bad faith bait. If it didn't matter, why so bullishly insist on changing it?
> All this misandry and trying to portray any masculinity as toxic is just lame. It's very similar to Disney's queer coding of villains. I remember in my teens, while being a sexually confused and closed queer how sensitive I was to that bullshit and how awful and ashamed it made me feel. It's ludicrous how it's being done again, just the aggressor and targeted demographics are different now. I can't tell if that's just Disney's Modus Operandi, or of this is some type of bitter revenge writing. It sucked then and it sucks now, and it will continue to suck. We need to do better.
I disagree with a lot that you say, but I think I can agree with this paragraph.
The story of "Wish" needlessly shat on King Magnifico and I felt pretty uncomfortable about that writing. So I can agree that there's definitely an element of coding the Disney villain in a certain way.
Scar is the effeminate uncle. Ursula is coded as a drag-queen. Moving to the more recent movies: I can also agree that King Magnifico was coded as toxic masculinity (handsome, successful king), but they did a poor job in the movie saying why he actually deserved the punishment he got (or the betrayal of his wife).
That being said, its also just... how Disney movies always seem to have been written? Both the good and bad ones. Not really an excuse mind you, but for a happy-go-lucky musical for children, a lot of Disney Villains get rather harshly punished, and not all of them seem like they deserve said punishment.
> The only challenge these modern Disney SFLs face is not believing in themselves (and as someone who struggles on and off with self esteem issues, I realise how difficult those can be, but also it's not "enough" to base a whole character around just that), usually with a sprinkle of "blame the patriarchy" in there too.
Well lets talk about Live Action Mulan for example.
There's no "blame the Emperor" scene. In fact, the emperor is a badass who takes to single-combat on the frontlines. Maybe you could argue that the Bori Khan (the new name of the main bad guy) and his relationship with Xianniang / Witch / Hawk is a bit of a blame the patriarchy (female witch subservient to a warlord). But on the other hand, villains are often seen needlessly abusing their underlings (Darth Vader needlessly kills his officers. Megatron abuses Starscream, etc. etc.). So I'm not entirely sure if this is beyond the norm in these kind of settings.
People blame Mulan for a lot of faults and say its clear of Disney's issues today. But... has anyone aside me actually watched it? Its a crappy Chinese Kung Fu movie yes that has issues deciding if Wuxia is cool or not... and that's the main problem with it.
But if there's some level of "Woke messaging" going on here, I'm not seeing it.
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Edit: after further thought, Toxicly Masculine male villains were at least a thing since The Sword in the Stone, and Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. I argue it's not really a recent trope either.
You mean like Hunger Games or Twilight?
Or the male equivalent of Capt. America? (Or Harry Potter?) Steve Rogers is just your ordinary everyman who's underdeveloped and lacking in any tragic flaws.
I mean... at this point, even Hulk is missing out on his classic flaw of rage. *All* the Marvel characters have braindead writing these days, female or male. But plenty of the "good" ones (ie: Capt. America) were always like this from the start, its a trope in comic books for a reason because it keeps working. (Superman, Shazam, Capt. Marvel, Capt. America). For some stories, you don't need a flawed lead character, they could just "be good" and you can focus on other elements of storytelling.
But that's the kind of main character tons of people love and gobble up. Both male, and female, versions of it.
---------
But hey, I like my "Superman" stories. (My Adventures with Superman cartoon this year was excellent). Or perhaps for a more well-regarded character: Ang from "Avatar the Last Airbender" is pretty much your typical every-man / heroic type without any tragic flaw. (Etc. etc. Lots of good examples around all of writing. Indeed, Oedipus Rex is arguably one of the earliest "Lack of Flaws" character to maximize the chance that the audience take's Oedipus's side in his struggles).
Mary Sue / boring good guys / Superman types / Lawful-Good Paladins who just try to make everyone feel better can be done well. It just takes good writing to make them captivating. I personally think they're the hardest character to make work, but when its done well I enjoy the trope (especially because I recognize how hard it is to write).
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