By David Futrelle
In my travels through the manosphere, I regularly discover new ways in which men are oppressed by the evil gynocracy. They are mostly extremely dumb, but the one I found today is somehow even dumber than that.
Poking around in the Men’s Rants subreddit — a smaller and somewhat angrier offshoot of the Men’s Rights subreddit — I ran across a dude who’s mad that there aren’t enough scary female clowns in pop culture to balance out all the male ones. This lack of “scary female clowns in media,” toddfan420 sniffs, is “a massive layer of anti-male culture affecting us subconciously” by, presumably, making us think that all men are scary clowns, or something.
“It’s so trendy to be ‘scared of clowns,'” he continues,
But if there are no female scary clowns in media, than we cant rule out that this may be creating anti-male fear.
If a woman dressed as a clown and sat at a playground, people would bring their kids up to her. But imagine a huge dude clown just sitting at a playground…
I don’t doubt you, but that might have less to do with the scariness of Pennywise the Clown than with the fact that 95 percent of child abductions by strangers are carried out by men?
Tell me a huge part of scary clowns is not their maleness.
Well, some of it clearly is — and as I mentioned before it’s likely this is the result of the fact that men are, statistically speaking, more dangerous, more violent, more scary than women, and far, far more likely to commit violent crimes. I mean, it’s a lot more complicated than that, and I’m sure someone could write a dissertation or two on toxic masculinity and the rise of the scary male clown, but I don’t think the discrimination going on here is against men.
Nah, it’s against women, who generally don’t get the plum roles as villians in horror movies or in any other genre. Most heroes in movies are male; most villains are male. Still, there are some tremendous female villains in film history, and at least one of them is a clown. I believe her name is Harley Quinn.
If you google ‘scary woman clown,’ It’s all just Harley Quinn stuff. Women get to be sexy, while men have to be objects of fear.
Women “get” to be sexy? Female characters are expected to be sexy, even when they’re also supposed to be scary. And it isn’t feminists insisting that Harley Quinn has to be a sex object. Indeed, when Margot Robbie demanded that producers of Harley Quin: Birds of Prey ratchet down her character’s sexiness and ratchet up her scariness, male nerds lost their shit and boycotted the film, cursing feminists for intruding on “their” pop culture bailiwick. Because that’s the kind of clowns they are.
So in conclusion,
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@Paireon : you did not even scratch the surface. In that series of game, King Arthur is a women, who somehow got Mordred (a woman of course) with Morgan le Fay (still a woman). Any additional explantion would make it even worse.
The Frankeinstein Monster is a woman too. And Attila too.
They did their work to try to pull out historical heroes who are women to begin with, but the amount of historical sex change is rather amusing.
That being said, a lot of characters in it are various shade of horrific, and a lot are actual monsters who don’t look horrific until you see them in action and/or learn about all that they did. Most of the earlier games are marketed as pornographic, but you would play them for the horror game part, both because the sexy part are underwhelming and because the terrifying part are genuinely terrifying.
@Paireon
The anti trans* message consists of a few parts. First, there is part of one of the movies where it is stated that Bill applied for and was denied vaginoplasty, suggesting that Bill is a trans* woman. Next, the idea of misogynistic men jealous of women who dehumanize them is a stereotype of trans* women (which is why TERFs often claim that trans* women are the worst misogynists). And the idea of trans* women as killers or of stealing bodies of cis women is another stereotype.
I can see how modern cis audiences might not notice it, but there is a definite coding and stereotyping issue.
No sexy male clowns?
I give you Dr Rockzo the Rock n Roll clown.
You are welcome. ?
Oh,wait, i think he was a pervert too, having ruined his career because of his lust for underage girls, so still misandry I guess?
Btw, I so so so want to see some genuinely scary and not sexy female clowns. I would watch the shit outta something like that. Believe me,boys, it doesnt not exist because of lack of interest!
@Autistic Giraffe:
Scariest female villain who comes immediately to my mind? Dolores Umbridge; Voldemort is off the rack from Evil Overlords “R’ Us, but Umbridge has a terrible relatability because everyone knows somebody like that–although most specimens never get the opportunity to tyrannize more than the local PTA or homeowners’ association. (And yes, Umbridge’s particular flavor of saccharine passive-aggressive nastiness is thoroughly gendered.)
@Battering Lamb:
@Surplus to Requirements:
I know of at least one horror film that inverts the Final Girl trope: Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter–wherein a series of demure virginal maidens get drained like so many Capri Sun boxes; the Final Girl is the lusty wench (introduced being pilloried for public dancing) who’s sexually active (specifically with the titular hero; attaching herself to him proved a successful survival strategy.)
@Surplus: I could see that reading of Cabin in the Woods. Another horror movie I think is a good metaphor for the evils of capitalism and how it destroys good people is Would You Rather. Don’t want to spoil it though,since its fairly obscure as far as i know. I did see it on nervous and it may be available for rent on.amazon.
My favorite horror critique of capitalism is Society. It’s so delightfully bizarre. It really comes for the false notion that a regular person can truly join the elite.
It’s free to stream with an Amazon Prime membership, so go watch it, everyone. Although I should warn, it contains body horror.
@An Autistic Giraffe:
That is all kinds of confusing.
1. There has only, so far, been one episode.
2. It has no female villain in it. The women working for RDA that we see can be counted on two fingers, and Grace is on our side from the get-go, and Trudy Chacon quickly decides “I didn’t sign up for this shit” and rebels. Some of the Na’vi are somewhat hostile to Jake early on, but all of them are firmly on our side by the end of the film, and none (male or female) can truly be called a villain.
3. I don’t recall any of the characters being named Azula. If one of the Na’vi women had that name, it was a bit part, not a major character.
4. I don’t recall any of the Na’vi getting into a truly serious physical fight with Jake, regardless.
(If you’re referencing events in the upcoming installments, based on leaked information or something, please don’t. At least not without a spoiler warning.)
Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Not Avatar:Dances With Smurfs.
Avatar :the last air bender. The animated series, not the blue alien film. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth the time investment.
Surplus
Avatar the last airbender. Not the blue people. Azula is the 14 year old daughter to a Nazi type character who kind of loses her mind and becomes very blood thirsty before a meltdown
Tries to kill her 16 year old abused brother many times. This was a children show
I never saw Avatar: The Last Airbender, but the blue people movie was all kinds of racist. It was basically white saviorism distilled. White guy goes to uncolonized planet, joins their society, is accepted as one of them, does their stuff better than them without training. Sound familiar?
@naglfar
Oh I recommend avatar tbe last airbender and the spin off legend of Korra very highly. When my life gets really low I still watch the whole series of avatar the last airbender because sometimes the only person who can console you is uncle iroh
@Lainy
I’ll check it out if I get the chance. Thanks for the recommendation.
Another recommendation for Avatar:TLA.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the greatest TV shows ever made. It’s nearly impossible to describe how good it is.
@weirwoodtreehugger:
Omg,I saw that one! Definitely mocks the “someday I’ll be rich and then I’ll get to push my servants down the stairs” mindset. And so much body horror! Those with weak stomachs might not want to enjoy any meals/snacks while watching!
@naglfar
Might interest you that there is a fan theory that one of the avatars in the show named kioshi was a trans woman because she was quote “the tallest of any avatar and had the largest shoe size of any avatar” plus the warriors in her name are traditional women but they don’t discriminate based on physical sex alone to be come a warrior of hers. It is a kids show and was from the 2000s. Legend of Korra has more same sex relationships. But it was a good show. And it teaches like a base idea of Hinduism
Speaking of a female version of the Joker, now seems like a good time to (re)link this:
https://www.everywhereist.com/2019/06/i-tweeted-about-the-joker-being-a-woman-who-was-tired-of-this-shit-and-it-now-feels-auto-biographical/
I’m pretty sure that’s been linked here before, but it’s still a pretty good reinterpretation of the idea.
I see Livia’s already been mentioned, so I’ll add The Woman in Black.
When Barnum & Bailey used to run their clown college, the ratio of men to women per class usually averaged eight to one. I couldn’t find any recent figures.
Dolores Umbridge is genuinely terrifying because she is 100% real (much like one of the characters in Deep Space 9, whose name I have forgotten – a Bajoran religious leader).
@oppesablethumbs
Ah yes,Winn Adami.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recurring_Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine_characters#Winn_Adami
@Redsilk Phoenix—
I do kind of agree, though, with the argument that the essential horror of the Joker is that he’s a white man with a false sense of entitlement that allows him to argue that having “one bad day” was enough to justifies all his subsequent violent crimes, and that changing the character’s race or gender makes for a completely different character.
@Fabe, yes, that’s the one!
Stephen King’s Annie Wilkes is a wonderful non-sexualized female villain.
@Ohlmann – LOL yeah, I know, I’m a big fan of the Fate series, I just didn’t want to make my huge-ass post any bigger. 🙂 I’d class them more as dark urban fantasy than pure horror though, but that’s my take on it (Tsukihime and Garden of Sinners by the same group are closer to horror, I’ll admit). And only the first two Fate games have sex scenes due to being visual novels, but are also infamous among the fandom for how hilariously badly written those scenes are (they were there mainly to help sell the games due to conventional wisdom regarding indie visual novels). The irony being that the rampant genderbending and sexualization came only when Fate works without any explicit sex in them (so as to be accessible to wider audiences) started being released in earnest.
@Naglfar – I can see that now, but to be fair like I said I was still a kid then. I think I haven’t seen the movie since before 9/11 at least anyway. Should probably revisit it when I can (currently trying to watch all of the 3rd season of Castlevania on Netflix). I think one of the problems is that I don’t have that many prejudices to begin with due to always feeling like a stranger in a strange land, so sometimes I have a hard time detecting them in other people/works unless it’s pointed out to me.
@Demonhype – “I do cocaine!” LOL.
Oh, and Avatar The Last Airbender also gets a glowing recommendation from me. Just avoid the M. Night Shyamalan live action movie (just called “The Last Airbender” avoid confusion with Giant Blue Alien Native Cat-Smurfs: Electric Boogaloo) like the plague. The only person I know who liked it has very dubious tastes in movies to say the least (they also liked “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” in a non-ironic way, for crying out loud!).