This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I was following with interest the recent discussion here on the degenerate nature of hardcore anime fandom and I find that there are aspects to this that nobody mentioned. In this comment I'd like to call attention to one of these. Namely:
I propose the argument that feminist ideology has reached a level of cultural influence in the West sometime around 2008-2012 where unironic* depictions of conventionally attractive, sexually alluring, non-girlboss female characters have become taboo in the eyes of normie women**.
*Unironic in the sense that it's by no means done for the purpose of ironically conveying some politicized message about the sad reality of the male gaze, societal sexism etc.
**That is, women that are either lipstick feminists or conform to the norms of the (surely present) lipstick feminist women in their social circle. In other words, the big majority of women, or at least of young urban women.
Since the Japanese anime industry does not abide by these cultural norms, the consequence of this is that anime as a whole is increasingly suspect in the eyes of normie/NPC women, which has at least two consequences of its own. One: the male partners and/or friends of these women, who are usually cucky and normie-oriented betas, evidently adopt the same view, which contribute to its spread. Two: this provides an incentive to notice, thematize and even embellish the off-putting manifestations of anime fandom.
I'd make two more related observations as potential food for thought from this very forum.
@urquan has made a somewhat similar point before: resolute (male) attempts to counter-signal against the taboo on sexual display in a workplace setting are intensely off-putting to normie women. (The difference here is between intensely off-putting and, well, merely off-putting.)
This comment by @WhiningCoil also caught my attention:
Considering that the Berserk franchise contains excessive amounts of brutal violence, horror and gore, and as does Game of Thrones, plus not only "sexposition" but also explicit sex, rape, incest etc., I find it telling that it was a groping scene (which, it should be mentioned, was unironically accidental) that finally crossed the line in her eyes.
And finally a general point: this entire phenomenon has no female counterpart. That is, we see no similar widespread disapproval of (more or less) goonerbait cultural material directed at women. In fact, it appears to me that there is a general push to normalize it.
Yeah, "accidentally" put in there by the creators. That's the point; it's about as unironic as the porn clichés of "oops, my hot neighbour came out of the shower in only a towel and somehow got locked out of her apartment".
Why is there a groping scene in the show? For the male viewers to get their thrills. Which is fine, that's what these shows are about, but expecting women to watch it and go "nope, nothing to see here" is a bit much. I don't know if guys would be "this is unironic and accidental" about shows where the trope is that the hot male lead constantly ends up in nothing but a towel with some groping by the second male lead, but it's the distaff parallel (it would seem for cdramas the trope is "hot male lead in bath tub, some very light BDSM choking ensues"). This is unabashedly for the female gaze.
I said something similar last thread, but here goes again: Eva is in part a parody / deconstruction / reconstruction / modification / discussion of such cliches. The protagonist is an ordinary 14 year old who is suddenly asked to pilot a giant robot, and it's entirely unpleasant and terrifying. He's constantly around this extremely submissive girl who dresses in skintight latex, and then she walks out of the shower and he grabs her boob by accident like he's in a harem show, except it's awkward and disgusting and nothing comes of it, and then the girl dies and is replaced by her clone, which is part of a system of flesh puppets that a madman is using to melt the entire planet into a hive mind. Then a sexy assertive foreign girl shows up and constantly comes on to the main character, except he's too scared to respond and she's actually quite unpleasant to him and just acting out due to her psychological problems. There's also a hot irresponsible older lady who is a chronic alcoholic who hates herself and doesn't know how to interact with other people except through sex. And a hot scientist who is sleeping with the same man her dead mother used to in order to feel any kind of connection to another human being.
If you wanted an example of fanservice for its own sake, it would be hard to find a worse one than Evangelion. I could probably advance the argument that every single piece of fanservice in the show is both diagetic and serves some greater narrative purpose. Even if that's just "hey, remember what it was like to be a teenager?"
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link