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We've been here so many times before, and these things need to sink in once and for all. They are playing characters. These characters are flawed. DEEPLY flawed, even. Particularly toward the beginning of the campaign, they are NOT going to be their best selves all the time. They are going to make mistakes, they are going to do things you may not personally like, they are going to be immature, they are going to argue with each other, there is going to be tension.

THIS IS HOW CHARACTER GROWTH HAPPENS. It is in its beginning stages right now. Most of these characters are just getting to know one another, and they do not all trust one another yet. All of them are flawed. All of them have work to do, all of them have room to grow. That is the POINT of telling a character-driven story. You can't beg for complex characters and then get upset when it's not always happy rainbow sunshine time.

Also, tension between characters is not the same thing as tension between actors. You don't need to parasocially step in on any cast member's behalf. They are quite capable of handling any issues amongst themselves, as proven multiple times in the past.

And my dad and brothers? Were deeply disturbed by the movie Jennifer’s Body. I was flabbergasted. It’s not scary! It’s not even that gory. But they were horrified by it. These men who grew up on 70s slashers were legitimately shook by 90 minutes of Megan Fox eating a few teenage boys, mostly off-screen.

Similarly, my all-male reading panel for my thesis? Were so disturbed by my synopsis of the film Teeth that they couldn’t even talk about it. One of them said he couldn’t look at his wife for a week after reading it.

Again, grown-ass men who study and teach media for a living. Who definitely watch and enjoy horror movies. One of whom was a huge Tarantino buff. We watched and read worse in his intro to mass media class! But one movie about a girl whose vag could bite was enough to haunt him.

Then of course you have things like the Gone Girl backlash–men yelling that Amy Dunne is evil and women clamoring to assure everyone that they know she is not someone to emulate–the backlash against Carol Danvers, and, more recently, the griping from MRAs against the upcoming film Hustlers, which is about strippers scamming their Wall Street clients.

My conclusion? Most men–at least most straight, cisgender men, who are both my sample population and most of the ones whining that Carol is a “villain”–are perfectly fine with, and desensitized to, media where men do violence to women (horror movies), or men do violence to men (horror and action movies). They’re even sort of fine when women do violence to women (“ooooo cat fight!”).

But they get intensely uncomfortable when women are depicted doing any kind of violence to men, especially in films that tilt the balance of power to the other side of the m/f gender binary beyond a single moment or scene.

So woman as flesh-eating monster with men as her preferred cuisine? Woman who responds to unwanted sexual contact by biting it off? Woman who frames her cheating husband for murder? Woman whose response to harassment–behavior that many of the loudest whiners know is both creepy and reflective of their own thoughts/actions–is to break something?

Too scary. Unacceptable. Disturbing. These men hate being presented with the idea, even in fiction, that their position of power is socially constructed, that it could easily be flipped the other way. It terrifies them.

In feeling that terror, they experience a tiny modicum of what living, existing, moving, being perceived as a woman in the world is like.

An adorable comic I found on reddit and wanted to share.

“When he died the ravens sat in the trees outside for a week, watching. Taking turns. A horde of raccoons tried to break into the house every night, tearing at the siding. Eventually they gave up, but it was unsettling.”

1. Is it possible cis people are using trans people as a scapegoat for their bad behavior?

2. Is it possible cis people are being fucking weird about gender again?

🚨 BIG ANNOUNCEMENT FROM SAM!!!

Tomorrow Friday, June 5, from 3-9 PM PT / 6PM-12PM ET: Sam will be hosting a special livestream for the last SIX HOURS of the Game Changer: Home Edition Kickstarter campaign.

Featuring special guests, more games, and a few final challenges... 👀

➡️ Join the live stream tomorrow

(5th of June)