By David Futrelle
So the guys who get mad about imaginary tiddies are mad about imaginary tiddies again — or, rather, the lack of them. This time they’re mad about the lack of huge gazongas in Netflix’s reboot of She Ra, the 1980’s He-Man spinoff that none of these dudes ever watched in the first place either because they weren’t born yet or because it was a show for, ick, girls.
But now that the reboot’s showrunner, Noelle Stevenson, has posted art of the new (less busty) She-Ra and her (less busty) Princesses of Power, the He-Babies have suddenly decided that Western Civilization is at stake — and that the original She-Ra’s ample cleavage must be defended at all costs.
Here are the new character designs that have caused all the commotion:
https://twitter.com/Gingerhazing/status/1018926076389556224
(You can see comparisons of the old and new characters here.)
Some critics of the He-Baby movement have suggested that these guys are angry because they won’t be able to fap to a kids’ cartoon any more. But I don’t think that’s it, at least not for most of these guys. (I imagine that most dudes with an 80’s-cartoon-lady fetish would do much better, fap-wise, with Jessica Rabbit or that one gal in the Heavy Metal movie.)
But it’s also not about the art. She-Ra, like He-Man, was pretty shitty, art-wise, with crudely drawn characters and laughably minimal animation; whatever you think of the character design, the art for the new show is a lot more sophisticated.
So what are these dudes mad about? Having read through several hundred comments on the “controversy” posted on Reddit’s KotakuInAction subreddt, it’s pretty clear that for some of them, it really is about the tiddies: the female characters in the reboot, in addition to looking a lot younger than the originals, are also notably less busty.
Some of the complainers were pretty upfront about their boob fetishes. (Click on screenshots to see the comments in context on Reddit.)
Others were slightly less direct, complaining that the female characters in the reboot all “look like men” — with some complainers throwing some open transphobia into the mix.
And there’s the rub. The He-Babies see the smaller breasts less as a problem in themselves — there are plenty of other busty female superheroes to fetishize — than as a symbol of the new showrunner’s “agenda,” which the He-Babies (and their few female allies) see as an distinctly untasty mélange of feminism, trans advocacy, and pro-fat-activism.
Some saw a more specific agenda — an attempt by the lesbian showrunner to fill a cartoon world with characters who look just like her (and that maybe she wants to fuck). Yep: while some of the He-Babies are complaining that the main characters are being desexualized, others are insinuating that they are being re-sexualized in a creepy lesbian pedophile way.
But these dark insinuators aren’t the only ones who think it’s somehow nefarious that the new characters are teenagers. In their mind, it shows that those in charge of this show for children are coming for … our children?
![TheOutsid3r- 37 points 1 day ago In a way it's a necessity for them to do so too. If you look at many of the old left, the 68 student movement, various activists and protestors. Most of them never had children themselves, many of them are outright antinatalist. So they have to recruit other peoples children, have to go into the schools and universities and try to indoctrinate them. permalinkembedunsaveparentreportgive goldreply [–]md1957[S] 19 points 1 day ago I get your point. In a sense, it's their way of passing on their ideology and mindsets, creating new "children" in their image. In that way, they seem to be hoping, they could become as gods be immortal.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cf7r8tf9y7go8po.png?resize=531%2C809&ssl=1)
For others, the real problem isn’t that the show is aimed at kids; it;s that it’s also aimed at adults, as part of an insidious plot to keep them in a perpetual state of arrested development.
One surprisingly large subset of the complainers seemed to be less bothered by the breast-reductions of the female characters than they were about the decision to transform the show’s main male character, Bow, from an overdeveloped, mustachioed white man into a black teenager.
And while I didn’t see any of the commenters on Reddit explicitly calling this “white genocide,” well, it wasn’t hard to tell that some of them sort of wished they could, and were biting their tongues only because Internet Nazis have learned that using the g-word about race-swapped cartoon characters and interracial couples in tv commercials makes them look like the hysterical racists they like to deny that they are.
For some, the fact that the original white character was a redhead made it somehow even more white-genocidey. (Never mind that showrunner Stevenson is herself a ginger.)
Yes, the person who refers to switching a character from white to black as “blacktarring” is accusing others of racism.
It’s no coincidence that the most vehement complaints about the new She-Ra can be found on KotakuInAction, the former GamerGate hub on Reddit that has kept on with its defacto GamerGating despite the original movement’s disappearance from the headlines, with its focus widening to comics and movies and TV shows as well as games.
But even by KotakuInAction standards this reaction is extreme. The standard GamerGate/KotakuInAction complaint is that eeeevil females and other so-called SJWs are invading the sacred male spaces of video games, comic books, Ghostbuster movies. (Granted, none of these spaces actually “belong” to men, but these guys have convinced themselves they do.)
But She-Ra? This was a show from the 80s aimed at girls, and watched by girls. These guys can’t even pretend it “belongs” to them. So they come up with other excuses to get mad about it. Hence the talk about female “role models” and supposedly insidious SJW/feminist/lesbian/trans agendas. Because god forbid a female superhero not be shaped like Barbie.
So why do these guys care about She-Ra’s cartoon boobs so much? Because it’s not about cartoon women; it’s about real women. As one game designer put it on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/why_wolf/status/1019453220224040960
Yep. GamerGate — and the amorphous cultural backlash that followed it — was always about reinforcing traditional gender roles and restricting the range of what is considered appropriately feminine. The girls in the She-Ra reboot are feminine; they’re just a different kind of feminine, one that doesn’t cater to the male gaze. These are characters that a lot of girls can identify with, not idealized versions of one narrow and conventional kind of femininity.
Angry He-Babies: this show is mot for you. It never was for you. Leave it the hell alone.
As a large breasted woman I welcome a ‘flat’ She Ra. IRL having large breasts is a bit of a nightmare and the only way to avoid unwanted attention is to wear extremely large cover ups.
I looked up April O Neil, and there are pages and pages of white women dressed as her, and quite a few animations of her, all white looking, so as usual white racists reacting to something that doesn’t appear to even exist.
The April from the original comics looked a LOT like Cher. When she appeared on the cover she usually had a light brown complexion.
@ Nequam – thank you! No excuse needed.
That takes me back. Pogoing in a bin bag, and dyeing my friend’s hair blue with food dye… except it stuck because she’d previously peroxided it.
I’m not mad about the new She-Ra or anything and I know squat about animation, but I do remember as a kid that I really liked how serious, or even downright severe, the women in She-Ra and He-Man looked all the time. They looked like adults to me, REAL adults, and I’m actually surprised to learn today most of them were supposed to be teenagers.
Off-topic (… so early inna morning…)
op-ed from the “intellectual dark web” (Washington Post)… some igno-right moron defending the white supremacist idea of rolling back birthright citizenship….
… and yet they eternally cry that mainstream media doesn’t give the bigot base any air time… yeah, right….
@Weird Eddie
You know the 10 Steps to Genocide? That proposal, if enacted, is a major fucking step. Scary.
I also noted that Anton wasn’t shy about his motives: he’s afraid that children of immigrants won’t vote Republican (and why would they, given how obviously anti-immigrant the GOP is) so its pretty much a white supremacist asking for a power grab at the expense of millions.
Scumbag.
April O’Neil in the Mirage comics was white. The frizzy hair is an 80s big hair style, and the character says so herself (telling the TMNT that she went to a New Wave salon). However all the people whining that April is black now can STFU, because through all the incarnations of the TMNT only two things about April have remained consistent:
1) Her name is April O’Neil.
2) She’s a friend of the TMNT.
That’s IT. Her age, occupation, backstory, fighting ability, connection to the TMNT’s origin, even her humanity have all changed over the comics, cartoons and movies. I’ll wager nobody crying about ‘gingercide’ complained that in the last cartoon April was a genetically engineered teenager who was immune to mutagen and had psychic powers.
The he-babies are whining about Glimmer being plus-sized too.
This pretty much sums it my feelings on the whole thing. Although I am a little… ambivalent about the art style. Granted I didn’t watch either show back then, nor will I watch this now, so my opinion doesn’t really mean jack, but this design looks a lot like a fusion of the Avatar art style with a hint of the CalArt style of Steven Universe. I never really liked either one.
But that’s personal taste. From a guy who admittedly had zero investment. I was never the audience. These guys gnashing their teeth as if they were somehow lifelong fans of She-Ra: Princess of Power fans is just hilarious. I remember something very similar when that godawful Jem And The Holograms film came out. We all remember Jordan Owen, that creepy bathtub weirdo who made The Sarkeesian Effect? I remember he was livid about how much of a betrayal that film was (although part of it was probably him failing his audition to do the music for it).
And all I could think was… wait, you watched that show? Dude, you’re younger than me and I was too young to remember it! I couldn’t help but get one of those “false nostalgia” vibes from it, like he watched them as an adult and thought Jerrica was hot and became obsessed with it to the point that since it originated from the mid-80s, he may have half-remembered some reference to it from childhood and filled in the rest. I mean, I remember watching a Sailor Moon episode or two, but I’m not going to backfill a deeper nostalgic connection upon revisiting the series in my 30s.
Actually, along that same track… I find the whole idea of fandom to be a kind of off-putting thing in general. Even the more culturally accepted ones, like sports teams or music groups. It’s just… bizarre to me to be so attached to a product or person or group of people that you get your face painted or wear an elaborate costume or howl at the top of your lungs. And this is coming from one of those sorta Aspie-types that is fascinated by the minutiae of the things he likes. I own a copy of the Sharpe Companion, that’s how much into Sharpe I am. But I don’t go around dressed like I’m a member of the 95th Rifle regiment circa 1809.
*shrug* Could just be my aversion to crowds and noise.
Ugh. I can’t count the number of times people have described me as “the one with the big boobs.”
Once your breast size goes past maybe a C or D cup, all anyone sees is boobs, I guess.
I seem to remember hearing that the original animations were rotoscoped with bodybuilders using exagerated movements. Regardless, it always seemed Uncanny Valley to me.
Off topic, so feel free to ignore, but my memory and google have collectively let me down.
I’m writing what is rapidly turning into an essay in response to an old friend’s FB post where she seems to be swallowing parts of the TERF narrative whole. While being relatively ignorant on the subject, I’m trying to be a good ally and tackle this myself, rather than making trans and NB folk deal with it (and give her the impression that what she’s saying is ok and feminist).
I want to discuss with her a cartoon I saw a while back. It was by a trans woman who had a job that was something to do with cameras (memory, aargh!) and she was sharing her experience of her treatment in work before and after she transitioned. I could have sworn I bookmarked it, but nope!
Could anyone point me in the right direction? I’m already mining Everyday Feminism and I’m going to suggest she reads Cordelia Fine’s excellent books (which, while not directly about transgender issues, will hopefully help with this whole biology thing – plus they’re really enjoyable reads, as Fine has a sardonic wit and isn’t afraid to use it). Any other tips for resources welcome.
Regardless of whether I actually share it with her, I’m finding it useful in refining my thinking so I’ll know in future what I want to say beyond “people are people, why does that bother you?”.
Thanks.
Yeah, it’s amazing how many misogynistic dudebros suddenly are coming out of the woodwork as being secret She-Ra fans. Orrrrrrr they’re filthy goddamn liars who are just using this to attack the ESS-JAY-WUBBLEWS. Which means it must be a day ending in “Y”
(Not that I’m saying that you have to consume a media product to criticize these sorts of changes, not that their criticisms are in any way legit. But when a lot of their identity is tied up in “Women invading our boys only club and Cultural Marxisming the hell out of stuff we like” it’s pretty rich that they feel perfectly okay with doing the same to media aimed at groups that aren’t them.)
Nonsense! All media is aimed at them! 😉
As a fully accredited nerd, I hate nerd gatekeeping so much. “This is ours, you’re not allowed to touch it” is bad enough when the gatekeepers genuinely value the thing in question. But when it’s something which, in truth, they probably formerly looked down on, or ignored entirely? Fuck that noise.
I got into a brief youtube comments argument over a video complaining about “Thundercats: Roar” which seems to be a new parody of the old show. The video-essay blamed “SJWs” and “Post-modernism”. I agreed that “Thundercats: Roar” seemed bad, but the video doesn’t really establish the connection to SJWs. The video creator replied to my comment, and I but ultimately didn’t have anything better than “If you can’t see what I see then you are blind!” (heavily paraphrased). I think what he wanted to say is that SJWs have made people cynical about things, including the original Thundercats. Which is technically true sometimes. Obviously progressive want people to think critically and to de-construct and to question media, norms, and institutions, which I guess could lead to terrible parodies…
Eventually I left a comment complaining about people complaining about SJWs and getting it wrong, as if they live in an alternate reality. A week later I looked at his final comment and left one pointing out how we ironically share a similar frustration: the feeling that the other guy is stuck in their own deluded bubble and we can’t reach them.
My theory is that these people consider the version of nerd culture they are most familiar with to be sacred and untouchable; thus criticism is blasphemy. They have an identity based around “nerd” media and so criticism and change feels like a personal attack.
I admit to being a fan of the old show, and while I think the original definitely has problems/didn’t age very well, it still holds some nostalgia value for me.
I’m glad to see that they have diversified the characters for the remake. Hopefully the stories and writing for the new show will be a lot better too (And it’s likely that the new Glimmer won’t be a total ditz, like the original was!) I’m sure it helps that they don’t have to frame the whole show around selling toys, like the original He-man and She-ra were.
I’m going to bet that most of the guys screaming about “SJWs!!” never really watched the original. Or, if they did, they never really paid attention to the messages it was trying to send.
I am sorely tempted to troll KotakuInAction with “Hey, I thought you creepy incels LIKED whacking it to girls too young to have breasts yet. Or does that only apply to Japanese animation?”
You might be right about that, but I did a side-by-side of those stills against some from Avatar, and I’m still seeing greater polish on the latter–cloth folds more realistically, shading is more organic. Of course, it might also not be totally fair to compare virtually anything to A:tLA. It’s like shouting, “Hey, you ain’t Mozart, so [bleep] off!” at a concert.
It’s also possible that, since these are preliminary releases, the final product will be more polished and with a bit more depth.
And the character designs, as I’ve said, are still infinitely better than their predecessors. Betting the writing will be better than an 80s cartoon, too. (They weren’t all bad, in retrospect, but they ain’t hard to beat, either.)
OT: Lordy, there are tapes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump-tape.html
I think any comment that uses SJW and believes that is somethink else than an constructed insult, is not worth reading.
About the chance, I, too have problem to switch from the old form to the new, (I miss every old doctor for example) but if the material is good than I can acept the chance. (I normally need somethink more than a few pics to get me)
And the original She-Ra was in the 80s, nobody takes that away from them.
There is nostalgica that doesn’t hurt (I can say that I think originals are mostly better than coversong for example) and there is that.
Sorry I doubt many of those guys above are fans.
@PocketNerd: there is a disconcerting tendency in anime to give female characters ages that seem rather younger than they should be given their physical development. (Or, more likely, supposedly the right age but with the disconcerting combo of really stacked + childlike face.)
And then there’s Eiken, but that’s its own special fuckery.
@ Victorius Parasol
yaaayyyyy!! Takes me back to the declining days of Nixon… when we heard the same phrase used!!!
I saw the sudden outbreak of She-Ra hate show up on my Twitter feed and mentioned on my Tumblr dash last week. Personally, I saw a little She-Ra when I was younger and enjoyed it as much as I would any cartoon, though my heart belonged to TMNT at the time. Probably saw about as much He-Man, as well. I did like the He-Man reboot a lot when I was in high school, though.
One of the comments that got me, though, was one guy who said that the ability for kids to distinguish between a male and female is a fundamental aspect of character design, and I was like… what? I got my BFA in art with a special interest in comics/illustration and I don’t remember that being a thing. Where are your priorities, really, when you think if a kid can’t tell if a character has a penis or a vagina you should scrap the whole thing?
Anyway, I’m actually kind of excited to watch it with my 2 1/2 year old, whose name she happens to share with the main character. Purely by coincidence; I forgot what She-Ra’s real name was until I Google searched what we decided to name our child to see who else might have the same name.
I admit to being a fan of the old show, and while I think the original definitely has problems/didn’t age very well in some cases, it still holds some nostalgia value for me.
I’m personally not 100% sold on the new art style. (It looks a bit too over simplified to me, I guess? Probably easier to animate though, so there will be a trade-off there.)
That being said, I’m glad to see that they have diversified the characters for the remake, both in body size and ethnicity. In the original show, most of the reoccurring female characters looked like adult super models with pretty much exactly the same body type. Madame Razz is one of the few exceptions. Netossa is the only woman of color I remember on the old show, and she is only in a handful of episodes. The original has diversity issues, for sure.
Hopefully the stories and writing for the new show will be a lot better too. It sounds like the new series is in good hands with Noelle Stevenson. I’ll probably check it out, even though I’m really older than the target demographic now, lol.
I’m going to bet that most of the guys screaming about “SJWs!!” never really watched the original at all. Or, if they did, they never really paid attention to the messages it was trying to send. For its time, it really had some fairly progressive messages. (Even though it also had its flaws!)
*Sigh* Getting tired of asshole dudes coming out of the woodwork to yell and complain and scream “SJWs ruined it AAAAAAALLLLL!” every time a remake that doesn’t 100% pander to them gets made.