Post by duckman87 on Nov 13, 2020 21:13:51 GMT
I'm usually turned off by claims that "X show is biased against men because it makes them all weak compared to women", but I think what people are spotting in this case and complaining about is something called Positive Discrimination. It's when a work of fiction writes its characters from a marginalized group regarding their gender, ethnics or the like, as being more skilled or smarter than the others. This is nothing new: in older shows, you had this one girl character, who was one of the few, if not the only prominent female, and the writers would make her the best at sports, the smarter on the team and/or the more mature on the main cast. It wasn't the perfect scenario, but it was somewhat understandable, because when there are fewer female characters and they’re not given attention, they tend to be seen as bland, boring or embarrassing.
Even the 1987 series and the comics did that sometimes: I remember a couple episodes where the boys and Webby were competing/trying a common goal, and Webby came off better in an attempt to make one of her few moments more meaningful; in one, they were trying to earn a merit badge for sealing, and she struggles harder for being a newcomer at the Woodchucks, and in another, the Gizmosuit shrinks in the wash (don’t ask!) and the boys keep trying it with clumsy results and ignoring her requests, until she gets a chance to wear it and is much more successful. Both were attempts to make one of her few chances to participate in the adventure more meaningful. And in the comics, there were those stories where Daisy was a journalist at McDuck TV and was much more competent than everyone else, and the Paperinika stories where she’d always beat Duck Avenger (the latter was very ill-received by Donald fans for robbing him of his glory, as he no longer won in the end). Those were attempts to make up for the fact that they were the few or only female characters in their backgrounds; though they had little effect, because in most appearances, their portrayals would be either unremarkable or embarrassingly old-fashioned.
Now, when it comes to Ducktales 17, one would think they could simply rewrite Webby as an equal to the boys rather than make her generally more competent and more skilled, same for shall we say Mrs. Beakley (I’d go as far as to say that the original Beakley might work in the reboot!). That would be an option, of course, but keep in mind some of these characters didn’t always have the best of the reputations. Being the only main female characters only made their portrayals throughout the original series more distracting, so they felt that they had to make up for that in the new versions. Plus, while the new show does have more of prominent female characters, they’re still technically fewer. That may sound ridiculous, but there was a similar discussion during Christmas two years ago, where our fellow member Hyaroo pointed out this: of the 60 main/recurring characters, 44 are males and 16 females, roughly 75%/25%, which also reflects in the main cast (six males, two females, just like in the original series), and in addition to that, this show is very action-oriented: most characters follow that pattern and even non-action characters get involved in kickass moments. As there far more of male characters, there’s a much wider variety amongst their characterizations.
I do think that there’s a tendency on how they portray the female characters, as if they were trying a little harder to make them impressive—while most men are introduced in mixed situations, from clumsy to neutral situations and sometimes through their qualities, when it comes to the women, there’s a tendency to introduce them by demonstrating their qualities and abilities: Mrs. Beakley is introduced demonstrating her cool, no-nonsense attitude, Webby’s introduced showing her skills, Lena’s introduced as this cool girl, Violet is introduced by her vast knowledge and so on.
That said, I think their portrayal is more nuanced than it initially appears – Della was built up as this amazing explorer and friend who made everyone happy, and when the mystery around her was solved, she turned out to be a deeply flawed person, who’s constantly called out on her choices and mistakes; and Mrs. Beakley may ooze awesomeness, but even she isn’t portrayed as always on the right. I think for those who aren’t particularly invested in the show and only gave it a quick look, it may appear that the women are portrayed as generally better and smarter, but the more I look into their dynamic, it’s not the case.
So, yes, this show does go a bit out of its way to make sure its female characters make a strong impression, and that can come across as a bit of Positive Discrimination. I understand that this can be distracting or even alienating for some people, but I don’t think it’s biased against men or tries to undermine in order to make the women look better. And considering that there are fewer female characters and that when they don’t make enough of an impression, they tend to be seen as bland or weak, it’s little wonder that they do so, and to their credit, they seem to handle it with a lot more nuance and subtlety than in older examples.