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Why Are Certain Female Marketed Franchises So Disliked?

Yeah, I always did get a bit of that insecure masculinity vibe from the Twilight hatedom, like part of the mix was guys trying to shore up their masculinity cred by conspicuously disliking things associated with women.
 
helnae said:
But what about the adult male fandom garners that hate?
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Not sure, to be honest.

It could be a kind of externalized mysogyny, where those guys are reviled for liking something "girly." It could just be the last remnant of the hateboner that 4chan and similar sites had for furries a few year back.

Of course, the bronies actually are pretty noxious as a subculture, but not moreso than some other fandoms, so I doubt that's all it is.
 
sapphirenebula said:
Plenty of boy bands, actors, artists and musicians have been just as ego crazed as Bieber, and with subjectively less skill. Why does Bieber get so much built up rage that you imply?

I'm not defending him. Bieber is incredibly immature, but what do you mean about the Disney Channel stars? Most don't seem too bad and are easy enough to ignore if you dislike them.

The bad points of Twilight have also been touched on. Some subjectively consider it to be badly written. There are plenty of books like that. The second point, that it sets a bad example for children is also true. But plenty of media also does this as well.

Can you name a non female oriented franchise that gets this much hate and vitriol directed at it?

To go to an extreme, Grand Theft Auto doesn't provide a good influence either. The gameplay is subjective and repetitive.
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Justin Bieber gets more hate because the media makes a bigger deal out of him than they do most of the others - and he revels in it, even when he's on the news for getting his driver's licence revoked or whatever. Or at least that's my impression, I don't follow celebrity news I only get what shows up on the forums.

As for James Bond, none of what he does is portrayed in a *positive* way. Even during the Roger Moore movie era, his colleagues would grimace whenever Bond was pulling a "Bond". And in the modern era, Judy Dench's M threatened to fire Bond several times, and would have done it if he wasn't so damned good at his job. Also, the character has a motivation for acting like he does romantically - all the women he actually loved ended up horribly dead, usually right in front of him, and not by accident. No one wants to be 007 after they've had a few minutes to think it through.

Twilight, though? Is there anyone in-story that treats the Edward/Bella romance as unhealthy?
 
sapphirenebula said:
http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/fema...ale-leaning-fandom-come-in-for-such-criticism

A further commenter picked up the baton: "anything with a fanbase mainly composed of teenage girls - One Direction, Bieber, Twilight etc - gets tons of these uber-macho comments from people desperate to prove that they don't like this sissy garbage". As such you get "homophobic slurs aimed at the artists and misogynistic ones aimed at the fans".

That's put it far better than I ever could.

All of this has stayed with me, primarily because it has so many rings of truth about it. And you don't have to look much further than that Twilight saga for a whole clutch of evidence.

Putting aside the merits of the Twilight films for a minute - whether you love, hate or put up with them - the core demographic was female, and primarily teenagers. I don't think that's much of a secret. That was reflected in the casting, the publicity and the material itself, and the box office rewarded the choices that were made.

Let's assume for a minute (and this isn't the biggest leap I'll ever take) that there's a big bunch of people who don't like Twilight movies, as many of you don't. There's also a big bunch of people who don't like the staggeringly successful Rush Hour trilogy. But look at how the tone of the comments both franchises attract differs. You get vilified for liking one, and nobody seems to mind either way if you like the other.
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While I firmly agree that this is a thing that happens, that article is just terrible. It's full of bad examples and false comparisons, and obviously more concerned with making it's point than properly supporting it.

People hate twilight because it's fucking awful, ditto with Bieber. "Boy Bands" have been an object of ridicule since time immemorial, largely because they're crappy over-hyped bullshit cynically marketed to an audience that isn't expected to notice the complete lack of quality over their raging adolescent hormones.

If you want proof that it isn't about the gender of the target demographic, just look at the hate directed at the female pop stars the music industry throws at teenage boys. Brittney got the same exact shit in her day that Bieber is getting now, and for much the same reasons.

As for the comparison between Twilight and Rush Hour, I'm not even sure where to start on how bad a comparison that is. Rush Hour is an action comedy, staring two A-list comedic actors, one of which is internationally renown for his lifelong career doing great action-comedy films. Twilight is supposedly a serious dark romance staring a bunch of former underwear models whose acting qualifications can be charitably summed up by the phrase "six-pack abs." One possible exception to this is Robert Pattinson, who has publicly expressed his disdain for Twilight and claims got the part by deliberately playing it as over-the top as he could during casting in order to mock how ridiculous he thought the script and the character was.

Using that comparison to claim that people criticize movies aimed at a female fanbase more than those with a predominantly male fanbase is like comparing Cassablanca with Snakes on a Plane and concluding that movies with a black protagonist draw more criticism than those with a white lead. I seriously can't eyeroll hard enough.

To be fair, I've never actually seen any of the Twilight movies--but everything I've heard about them sounds like a bad B-Movie without even the sense to embrace it's schlockiness and not try to take itself seriously. I did have the opportunity to read one of the books once, but never made it past the first page because it was filled with the kind of poor grammar and typos one would expect from a 5th grader's bad slashfic.

The kicker though, is that I've heard more derogatory remarks about Justin Bieber and Twilight come from women than from men--particularly those who consider themselves feminists. My guess is they're insulted by this kind of substandard drivel being shoveled at them by the entertainment industry.
 
You know, I didn't actually mind Twilight. While it's extremely [Insert other "big" words here] far from a quality piece of literature, I got through it well enough. Except for New Moon, which is one of the few books I've read that I've actively disliked.

The main problem with Twilight, for me, was that it seemed to generate a now popular market for adding the supernatural to angst-ridden Young Adult novels.
 
@Dark Lord Bob Hate to say it, but that trick's been around for ages. When I was growing up it was crap like the Fear Street novels, or the Last Vampire series, but at least they had the decency not to portray ridiculously unhealthy relationships as "The Most Romantic Love Story Evar!!111"
 
... don't know how accurate this was/still is but the reason I always thought that girl oriented entertainment was inferior is that it tends to have a...
Ugh, I am having trouble putting this into words.

The shows seemed to be for younger kids, but still directed at older girls. I guess I have a stereotype that programing for girls (ages 1-13) is all more childish than for the same age boys.

Now for adults the issue is that the stereotype I have is that programs for women (age 20+) are... about sex... huh, usually you hear that men are thinking about that all the time, but most of the stereotypical woman's shows I can think of revolve around relationships and the implications of them.


Basically the reason I don't like what my memory calls "female marketed" programming is that it is made with the same ideals that everyone complains about applying to females.
Course I don't watch TV anymore so I don't really know what there is now, the examples cited sound more like "why are teenagers enjoying terrible things" which has always happened, and I did not find any live action shows entertaining when I was growing up (live action stuff was for the 13-20 group, it was the lest different between genders and all of it bad from my memory).

Now the specific thing called out, that the fans are seen negatively, is a problem. One of the many problems with the modern would that I would really like an answer for, but I also think it is such a complex issue that it would likely take generations to fix. Mostly because it is hard to change an adult mind and changing children requires influence over them. So yeah, that doesn't seem like it will be solved until marketers don't find the stereotypes useful/profitable anymore.
 
@E.I.G. That's pretty much it. Most entertainment that is specifically marketed towards a female audience is utter crap. There's the occasional exception, of course, but most of this stuff seems to be made with a patronizing and chauvinistic preconception of what women find entertaining. As a result it gets badmouthed because, well, it's crap and deserves to be called out as such.

You see the same thing in toy aisles, incidentally. Take a look at the regular nerf section, with it's awesome variety of cool shit, and then take a look at the nerf "Rebelle" line: A bunch of lame, clearly inferior products marketed towards girls in just about the most patronizing manner possible. Honestly the only way it could be worse is if Nerf's "for girls" products consisted exclusively of nurse uniforms and velcro bandaids.
 
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winchester said:
As for James Bond, none of what he does is portrayed in a *positive* way. Even during the Roger Moore movie era, his colleagues would grimace whenever Bond was pulling a "Bond". And in the modern era, Judy Dench's M threatened to fire Bond several times, and would have done it if he wasn't so damned good at his job. Also, the character has a motivation for acting like he does romantically - all the women he actually loved ended up horribly dead, usually right in front of him, and not by accident. No one wants to be 007 after they've had a few minutes to think it through.
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Oh bullshit. Everything Bond does, or had been doing before the Craig reboot, was always portrayed as positive. M threatening to fire his ass isn't a condemnation of if his actions, it's M being an obstructive boss that gets in the way of solving the problem because of red tape, just like every police chief in every 80s cop movie ever. We're always supposed to side with Bond no matter what he's doing, and against the people who disapprove of his actions. Him being a cowboy cop agent and a womanizer who doesn't give a shit about anything is the entire allure of the character.
 
winchester said:
As for James Bond, none of what he does is portrayed in a *positive* way. Even during the Roger Moore movie era, his colleagues would grimace whenever Bond was pulling a "Bond". And in the modern era, Judy Dench's M threatened to fire Bond several times, and would have done it if he wasn't so damned good at his job. Also, the character has a motivation for acting like he does romantically - all the women he actually loved ended up horribly dead, usually right in front of him, and not by accident. No one wants to be 007 after they've had a few minutes to think it through.
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of course people want to be Bond! That's the point of Bond! The only way he could be cooler would be if Steve McQueen played him!
 
sapphirenebula said:
Plenty of boy bands, actors, artists and musicians have been just as ego crazed as Bieber, and with subjectively less skill. Why does Bieber get so much built up rage that you imply?

I'm not defending him. Bieber is incredibly immature, but what do you mean about the Disney Channel stars? Most don't seem too bad and are easy enough to ignore if you dislike them.
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I always felt that the Bieber hate was an incredibly, massively effective demonstration of viral marketing.

Come to think of it, the same goes for FIM and Twilight.

I didn't hear of any of them until I started seeing people posting angry comments everywhere.


I would think that it's how the difference between now and the past is that the internet makes it easier for everyone to dogpile on "the next big thing" in an age when companies are putting out "the next big thing" every other month.

They make their product, create artificial hype that reaches everywhere because of the internet, and see what happens.

The same however also goes for any one person who just absolutely hates that product, and has a good idea of how to spread the word, and creates a bandwagon.

In some cases, it's a cultural thing. Trends are changing, people are realizing that female marketed stuff doesn't have to be historically bad anymore(Because while a lot of it isn't, just as much is.), and then there's the gender expectations of who can watch what, and who will like this or that. (Remember that CN exec who cancelled that one series because it had more girls watching it than boys? It's like that. Cultural baggage that needs to get lost at the terminal)

The problem is, while it's getting easier to get the good stuff out, it's also easier to get the bad stuff out.

A sign of the times I suppose.
 
*Raises hand* I actually liked the Jacob parts of Twilight, because Meyer fleshed out both characters and made a lot of their interaction sweet and pretty realistic. Edward can suck a dick, he's a creepy stalker with massive control issues and paranoia.
 
Rad said:
@E.I.G. That's pretty much it. Most entertainment that is specifically marketed towards a female audience is utter crap. There's the occasional exception, of course, but most of this stuff seems to be made with a patronizing and chauvinistic preconception of what women find entertaining. As a result it gets badmouthed because, well, it's crap and deserves to be called out as such.

You see the same thing in toy aisles, incidentally. Take a look at the regular nerf section, with it's awesome variety of cool shit, and then take a look at the nerf "Rebelle" line: A bunch of lame, clearly inferior products marketed towards girls in just about the most patronizing manner possible. Honestly the only way it could be worse is if Nerf's "for girls" products consisted exclusively of nurse uniforms and velcro bandaids.
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So you are saying most female marketed things are mostly bad? So have females enjoying fiction made for them before been living a hard life, where they should have focused exclusively on male or unisex franchises? I'd disagree with you that most female marketed franchise deserve to be mocked.
In your eyes, what would make a female franchise better?

Rad said:
While I firmly agree that this is a thing that happens, that article is just terrible. It's full of bad examples and false comparisons, and obviously more concerned with making it's point than properly supporting it.

People hate twilight because it's fucking awful, ditto with Bieber. "Boy Bands" have been an object of ridicule since time immemorial, largely because they're crappy over-hyped bullshit cynically marketed to an audience that isn't expected to notice the complete lack of quality over their raging adolescent hormones.

If you want proof that it isn't about the gender of the target demographic, just look at the hate directed at the female pop stars the music industry throws at teenage boys. Brittney got the same exact shit in her day that Bieber is getting now, and for much the same reasons.

As for the comparison between Twilight and Rush Hour, I'm not even sure where to start on how bad a comparison that is. Rush Hour is an action comedy, staring two A-list comedic actors, one of which is internationally renown for his lifelong career doing great action-comedy films. Twilight is supposedly a serious dark romance staring a bunch of former underwear models whose acting qualifications can be charitably summed up by the phrase "six-pack abs." One possible exception to this is Robert Pattinson, who has publicly expressed his disdain for Twilight and claims got the part by deliberately playing it as over-the top as he could during casting in order to mock how ridiculous he thought the script and the character was.

Using that comparison to claim that people criticize movies aimed at a female fanbase more than those with a predominantly male fanbase is like comparing Cassablanca with Snakes on a Plane and concluding that movies with a black protagonist draw more criticism than those with a white lead. I seriously can't eyeroll hard enough.

To be fair, I've never actually seen any of the Twilight movies--but everything I've heard about them sounds like a bad B-Movie without even the sense to embrace it's schlockiness and not try to take itself seriously. I did have the opportunity to read one of the books once, but never made it past the first page because it was filled with the kind of poor grammar and typos one would expect from a 5th grader's bad slashfic.

The kicker though, is that I've heard more derogatory remarks about Justin Bieber and Twilight come from women than from men--particularly those who consider themselves feminists. My guess is they're insulted by this kind of substandard drivel being shoveled at them by the entertainment industry.
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I agree with you here, the article could have been better written instead of making obscure claims and citing comment pages on they're own site.

foamy said:
Ahahahaha.
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helnae said:
:rolleyes:

I already know a number of the reasons for it. I just wanted to hear another person's opinion's on the matter.
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Some of the fans of the show are a bit enthusiastic at times, perhaps over-enthusiastic, and express themselves mostly online. Adult My Little Pony fans of either gender can be a bit uncomfortable wearing obvious merchandise outside for fear of being mocked so they likely use online persona's as an outlet.
I know some people cite pornography of the genre as another issue, and Rule 34 of non-human characters like in Sonic or Pokemon also almost always partially overlaps with the furry fandom which has many stereotypes and misconceptions attached to it online.

There are probably other complaints I'm missing but the biggest ones I hear claimed are 'They are all hard to avoid annoying people' by certain people online and 'They are all sexual deviants and paedophiles' by more malicious people.

Did I miss any?
 
TheLastOne said:


Twilight's fanfiction is getting made into a movie. Both might be popular, but they aren't popular on the same level. I absorbed most everything about Twilight through osmosis, finally reading up on it and watching the first movie when I got tired of people bitching. I couldn't tell you the name of a single major Walking Dead character.
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We're kind of the opposite. Jacob, not alucard...Edward, deadpan mcgee, mustache dad, Creepy mcrapey, Creepy CG baby, Addams family vampire.
 
Schwer-Muta said:
It's mostly I remember there being strong bad feelings around the Internet that KyoAni was working on that rather than <some series that targets MY demographic, and that KyoAni has always traditionally targetted>.

Just a general "keep making what I want you to make damn it" kind of thing. Some people would not shut up about it for weeks.
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Some people can sometimes be rather intolerant for various reasons, or no reason at all.
Here it sounds like these particular people were angry this KyoAni studio didn't use resources, time, and funding to make a different genre anime that they preferred. An example of this might be the reaction to the character roster for Super Smash Brothers 3DS and Wii-U. No roaster would satisfy every single fan, and certain characters on the roaster would be attacked for being viewed as 'taking a spot' such as the easier and quicker to design clone characters. Some people also attached to other attributes to complain about, such as the aesthetic that there were too many sword users.

Memphet'ran said:
Yeah, I always did get a bit of that insecure masculinity vibe from the Twilight hatedom, like part of the mix was guys trying to shore up their masculinity cred by conspicuously disliking things associated with women.
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The reverse of this happens certain times to. There was a "Real Men Wear Pink" movement for a time that emphasized men could wear pink or feminine colors, but some took it to mean that it took a 'real man' to preserve their masculinity while wearing feminine colored clothes.

The effects of this do seem to have stayed. I see more pink or salmon colored T-Shirts and formal wear, such as ties, in stores these days.

Citrakite said:
We're kind of the opposite. Jacob, not alucard...Edward, deadpan mcgee, mustache dad, Creepy mcrapey, Creepy CG baby, Addams family vampire.
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Have you read the book or watched the movie? Who is this 'we' you are referring to?
 
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