Why the Female MCU is Failing || Marvel Phase 5 is Collapsing

[@seamusoneill5765]

The problem with storytelling these days is that a bunch of people that don’t understand the art of storytelling have somehow ended up in charge of storytelling

[@gregowen2022]

Exactly. Gender aside, there are so many basic elements of story and character development missing from Marvel's movies. I think we could find some papers from a high school creative writing class that do better

[@knightmare_edits]

That the entire point, idiot. Modern storytelling is garbage and lazy.

[@znail4675]

@@gregowen2022 I think the people in charge doesn't think the script writers matters and totally ignore that part when it's pretty much the most important decider of a movie or series success. The people involved can also fail any number of times and still get hired as only actors gets blamed, never the people in charge.

[@安全保密]

Just never buy it, Customers are the root of all evil

[@dariusq8894]

What's sad is that prior to Disney buying Marvel She-Hulk was actually a well beloved character, at least in the comics. What made Jen different from Bruce is that she learned to enjoyed being a Hulk and explored both the benefits & disadvantages of the power. The key word here is "learned", and that's something modern female characters aren't allowed to do.

[@gregowen2022]

They definitely are not. The she hulk show is so sad because there was so much potential and originality to be had, but they wasted it

[@closeredge5198]

Agreed 👍

[@jamesbrice6619]

I loved She Hulk in the comics all the way back to The Savage She Hulk. The Disney show was an abomination

[@anthonymcgrath]

CONSUME NEXT PRODUCT

[@anthonyzullo]

@@gregowen2022 I personally LOVE she hulk in the comics and waited this entire time for her arrival. What a fucking sad sad sad thing they did to the character. They made her twerk...they took a legit, feminist super hero and ruined her. That shit is SAD! Fucked up part is, the show means less than zero for the outcome of the whole narrative. It made no sense at all...the best parts of the show was when the hulk was on screen...bruh. I honestly think Americam society, has started to say No to this feminist bullshit narrative that seems inescapable. I saw Endgame in theaters, first showing of the release. Packed, I mean PACKED! It was incredible energy....then the scene during the fight with all of the female characters on screen for...apparently nothing other than a shot together for female unity or something. My entire theater groaned loudly, me included. I knew in that moment that I think we're about done with the feminist metoo trend.

[@rubyarana1401]

One good example of a female character who wanted something and had to work for it is Moana. In the movie, Moana wanted to sail but she was never taught how, and the first time she went on a sail boat she crashed. But then she learns how to sail from Maui, and Maui thought that his magical fish hook was the only thing that made him Maui, and Moana helped him realize that that wasn't true. They both learned from each other and grew as characters. There's also a show I like called Xena the Warrior princess. This is a show from the '90's which stars two strong female characters, but they're both complex in their own ways and they work really well together as a team. Another great movie with complex female character is and Irish film called Wolf Walkers, which is also a huge favorite of mine!

[@gregowen2022]

Yes, Moana had such a great arc! The villain was really the weakest part, but the whole thing is so good that it doesn't matter. The character decisions make sense. No one is perfect or overpowered. The music is 90s Disney Alan Menken level quality. I'm young enough that I just watched Xena and Hercules for the action and didn't actually know what was going on, haha.

[@MikaelaMaverix]

Bro, Xena was the shit! Hercules, which was another show on air at the same time, was crap in comparison.

[@rubyarana1401]

@@gregowen2022 What was weak about the villain? Just out of curiosity. Also: I can't recommend Wolf Walkers enough, in fact I would love it if you did a video on what's good about in terms of the story.

[@metalspinda9594]

​@@MikaelaMaverix HEY! Shots fired bra! Hercules was *campy*, not crappy. Kevin Sorbo is the shit!

[@MikaelaMaverix]

@@metalspinda9594 I got nothin against Kevin but Lucy Lawless was badass. I think they aired back to back at one point and that's the only time I ever watched Hercules.

[@deedee2455]

One of my favorite female heroes is Mulan (the original animation, not the latest). I like her because she's doing that not for the fame and glory or wanting to change the world but simply because of her father. If she's not doing it, her family will fall apart. Caring and doing it for the family is one of the trait that make a feminine heroine.

[@gregowen2022]

That's a great example. I think that's one of the biggest things. Generally feminine traits include caring and nurturing. Mulan is powerful, but not in a conquering way, but as you said in a caring way. In many ways, that makes her a better character than a powerful man seeking glory

[@bengsynthmusic]

What about the girl in Peter Pan?

[@kokongkrants8490]

@ BenGSynth Music the flying nigga? hahaha any disney touches. movie fails.

[@bengsynthmusic]

@@kokongkrants8490 No no the girl in white.

[@alatielinara]

I love Mulan so much. Growing up it was one of my favourites cause it was relatable Disney heroine. I never related to the princesses, but Mulan wasn't only a good movie - it spoke to me on some personal level and I still cry watching it. And it is a really good movie. Live action one - I refuse to even watch it.

[@vernonhampton5863]

I have to say that of the female heroes you've mentioned, Kate Bishop Hawkeye is the one standout. She had trained herself for years following OG Hawkeye's exploits. Yet, on her first go round in the mask, it didn't go well for her. She's more lucky than good and needs Clint to teach her, even though he is old, deaf and rickety. They are the only ones with a good reluctant mentor relationship.

[@gregowen2022]

She was definitely the least hateable, but also forgettable. I'm not lying that I could not remember her name.

[@nagillim7915]

@@gregowen2022 - in fairness, i often forget Clint exists too so... 🤗

[@afnd4603]

Kate Bishop's show was so dull it made her instantly forgettable. Great cast but horrible writing.

[@paulwoodford1984]

The actress is a good actress though, shame she’s in a marvel show. She was amazing in the true grit remake and she was in one of the best high school coming of age films win The edge of 17.

[@ClarkBK67]

While in theory you’re right. But we didn’t get to see that training or that character growth. They choose to introduce her to us after it was done and she was already Hawkeye’s equal. The tension was less about learning the skill and more about proving to the man (Hawkeye) that she learned it.

[@lance134679]

Well said. Female heroes need to actually go through a hero's journey, not a fake one like Captain Marvel, where she was the exact same from beginning to end, and the only thing she needed was to realize that some men were holding her back and then stop letting them hold her back. I mean that literally - she had tech installed to literally suppress her awesome power that she had all along.

[@garrynewby1442]

Legally blonde is a good female led film and in my opinion the progression of the lead character of a how female superheroes should be written. The lead character came from a privileged background and never had to work hard for anything and decided to pursue a career path as a lawyer to impress the love of her life No one took her seriously and she was like a fish out of water as she entered a world she wasn't familiar with. What made her work was her determination, kindness and staying true to what she is even when others thought she was crazy and working harder at being a lawyer when she got knocked down by evil pranks and comments

[@lunarvision]

Don’t forget Heathers!

[@thuhuong8838]

The important is Elle Wood is kind, and gentle and girly. It is like we are being judged by Hollywood now for being feminine without having to make a statement about it

[@laurens.8475]

If you want a comic-to-comic comparison, Sailor Moon straight-up hits this out of the park as a perfect counterpart example. She starts out as a bumbling crybaby who is COMPLETELY incompetent in a ton of ways, and by the end of the entire storyline she can literally purify and rebirth the universe. Her end-game "fight" against Sailor Galaxia was about facing the fear of total annihilation, and providing empathy and unconditional love to someone who had succumb to the darkness and had lost their humanity as a result. When brute force failed, expressing moments of vulnerability are what saved the day instead. Edit: Keep in mind that Sailor Moon only grows into this end-game state because her friends are there to support and shape her growth. So, she became powerful because they were by her side, not in spite of them.

[@alexandresobreiramartins9461]

Very good take on Sailor Moon. I've recently (last year) watched the whole series (didn't care for the remake, a bit soulless IMO) and totally understood why it's one of the most loved and popular anime in history. Deservedly so.

[@jofujino]

Yes, I agree. Another interesting example to explore is the Powerpuff girls. It obviously helps to appeal to girls through its cute character designs. But it also rarely places much emphasis on the fighting monsters part (sometimes even ending the episode right before the fight). Interpersonal drama, their own fears, doubts and differences, doing mundane things with superpowers, and the kooky cast of misfit supervillains all get much more spotlight. It was about being superGIRLS whereas other popular series in the genre were about being superHEROES.

[@coldchillin8382]

I grew up on Marvel comics particularly Spider-Man. I watched Sailor moon, powerpuff girls and hell even cardcaptor Sakura. Yea they were pretty girly, but also well written shows. I liked how they could still be feminine school girls during the day, and kick the bad guys ass. Especially Sakura because it often wasn’t just a hack and slash beating the bad guy, but had to use strategy in sealing the cards.

[@alexandresobreiramartins9461]

@@coldchillin8382 Me too!

[@Rosefire]

I am thrilled to see you commented on Sailor Moon, my first Anime show. It had the sparkling magic that reminded me of classic Disney fairy tales combined with action and drama. She certainly had to work hard over 200 episodes to overcome her fear and laziness, but her newfound courage was a boon with her natural gift of empathy and kindness. And she acknowledged many times how much her friends gave her the fortitude to carry on. I remember in the second season when Sailor Moon was told her friends would be released from captivity if she handed Chibiusa over to the Black Moon Clan. Usagi admitted she was tempted to do because Chibiusa was a frustrating child, but then Usagi immediately felt remorse and shame for even thinking about handing a child over to the enemy and decided to go fight Rubeus on her own. It's those kinds of things reveal the inner moral compass of heroes.

[@geishasha]

This channel will take off when Mrs Owen, his younger smarter cuter partner, takes over.

[@gregowen2022]

Facts. For now, she claims to be content being my beautiful muse.

[@kevynhansyn2902]

​@@gregowen2022you can just admit it man, your dice rolling is horrific and she rolls better than you. So as it goes, looser gets filmed. It's all your Gaming books behind you and dice rolling creative story time.

[@dubletar7351]

😂🤣😂

[@jameswhittingham8027]

The female me will love it. I’m almost certain.

[@clarkvaughan]

Captain Marvel was no Spiderman. Ever.

[@TheTypicalChad]

I can confirm that pretty much all I think about in public is how I would react in that moment to an active shooter and honestly its comforting to hear I'm not the only one. great stuff as always Greg I don't know how you find the time with your big family but I hope you keep making videos, you're quickly becoming one of my favorite youtubers always love your takes bro. (p.s. you would have definitely won that fight lol)

[@gregowen2022]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Oh yeah, we are ALL secretly planning to be an action hero. I don't think it ever goes away, haha.

[@killgriffinnow]

“Pretty much all I think about in public is how I would react in that moment to an active shooter” America Moment.

[@JennySparkz]

@@killgriffinnow I on the other hand am more of a "brightburn" type😈💀🦸

[@williamjenkins4913]

@@killgriffinnow“Pretty much all I think about in public is how I would react in that moment to an active -shooter- stabber” Edited for Inclusivity

[@lmcb8447]

​williamjenkins4913: there aren't a many active stabbers as active shooters nor as much victims from stabbings than shooting nor are the victims damage way deeper from stabbing than shooting...

[@genevievermore7930]

“Biblically” made me cackle. I‘ve always loved a good “bumbling girl-next-door type goes through a growth arc and is finally appreciated for who she is” story because for years women have had a lot of “this is what you’re supposed to be and if you’re not you’re a failure” kinds of media pushed at us. Men, too, but I feel like women have been primarily targeted (especially by the beauty industry) because we’re prone to be insecure about our looks and to misconstrue our values as people more. A lot of us grew up seeing men always being “the main character” while women are more often sideline support. I know I did. I struggled a TON with self worth, body dysmorphia about weight, and generally not feeling “good enough” throughout my entire teenhood and early 20s. I *loved* the animated Mulan as a kid. That, to me, was a well balanced, well told story that did the “strong lead woman” trope right. It didn’t seem like her growth arc was unfathomable and she’s definitely a flawed character with pressures on her that I could *relate* to. No one can relate to these perfect characters the MCU is pumping out (unless you have a seriously inflated sense of ego I guess?). None of these success stories they’re pushing at us feel “earned” to me. If you can’t put yourself in the shoes of, relate to, or at least see redeeming qualities in a character, why should you care? I don’t know anyone who genuinely feels like they were born great and have no room to grow. But we all wanna believe we can achieve greatness starting from where we are. The stories have no depth anymore and there’s no payoff to following these characters. Just feels like satire at this point to me. It’s MORE entertaining to hear commentary and rhetoric surrounding these movies and shows than to actually watch them.

[@lolita_cat]

@@josiahswanson1 just read it lol poor lady poured her heart out in that post, it's the least you could do

[@christopherherr7561]

@@josiahswanson1 I mean it's not that long to read lol. It took me like a minute, spare one for the lady.

[@josiahswanson1]

I did it you guys and that was pretty worth a minute or two of my time..

[@gregowen2022]

Success! Comedy is always goal #1 I totaly understand. I think the feminist movement started really well by telling women "you don't have to be a housewife or something 'traditional' you can be anything, even a doctor or lawyer" which is great. Then sometime it turned into "if you're just a housewive and not a doctor or lawyer, you're failing and setting women back 100 years". It's a total pervesion of the original message. I agree, these new female characters are not inspiring, in fact I could see that they are almost demoralizing to women. It could present a message of "you're never going to be this perfect so why try". Well, if they are going to make garbage, we can all have a good time over here laughing at them

[@mikewaterfield3599]

Clearly you never heard of Red Sonya, Ellen Ripley, Charlie Baltimore, Sarah Conner, anything starring Joan Crawford, Scarlet O’harra, She’Ra, Princess Leia, Molly Brown, Murphy Brown, Josephine March, I could go on. Female leads, indeed “strong female characters” are nothing new. Only Disney and modern WOKIES think this is new since 2016. Going back to the 1930’s strong female leads have been around. Granted they almost always relied on cleverness and flexibility as opposed to a bull charge. My personal favorite will always be Siguorney Weaver’s “Ellen Ripley” here I am a gay man identifying with a straight woman and mother who doesn’t “look like me” or represent my demographic. We have several things in common, being aviators, and working in environments that require us to remain calm and calculating at all times. For the record that film debut was in 1979. Do not kid yourself. They have always been there even in action flicks. Gina Davis played a double agent in an 80’s style shoot ‘‘em up as Charlie Baltimore for crying out loud. The difference is Disney in particular seems to think women should never have a “hero’s journey”. About the only true “Gary Su” I can name ever is Will Weston’s “Westley Crusher” of Star Trek TNG. He was universally despised by the fan base to the point where most peoples favorite crusher moment was when he got bayoneted. No one likes a Mary su regardless of gender or genre. Hence why Rhee Larson, MaReySu, and Amazon’s abomination of Guy-Lad-Sorta-Real are so despised. Top it off with having badly written caricatures played by untalented anthropomorphic planks of wood with the emotional range of a Furbee and well the fan base walks away.

[@Rosefire]

As a woman watching your video, I say you have hit the nail on the head by describing the female fantasy as having control of one's surroundings. My heroic fantasy isn't hitting terrorists over the head with a BBQ sauce bottle; it's helping a woman give birth to her triplets in the back of the car during a snowstorm or knitting 5,000 blankets for charity overnight and then getting an interview in Reader's Digest. But here are some other examples of controlling one's surroundings, be they heroes or villains: 1. Lady Tremaine has little domination over other people in "Cinderella". The chateau has fallen into disrepair but instead of managing the house, Tremaine "manages" Cinderella by bullying her into being the all-maid for them. 2. Cher in "Clueless" gets a power high through makeovers and matchmaking, but her plans backfire so she gains humility when she learns to stop controlling other people. 3. Sarah in "Labyrinth" has the internal conflict of being tempted to stay in her dream world eternally, or sacrifice her fantasies to save her little brother. She doesn't use a sword to slay Jareth; she gains victory over him by saying aloud, "You have no power over me".

[@gregowen2022]

I forgot about Labyrinth! Such a fun movie, and yes she was an excellent heroine. I'm so relieved to see women agreeing with the points. My wife agreed, but I think she likes me so she's nice to me. Another commenter described it as "men want to rule the kingdom and women want to rule the palace" and I thought that summed it was nicely

[@Here_is_Waldo]

That's interesting. I play D&D with some women, and they often have just as many BBQ sauce throwing characters as men. I always just assumed the power fantasy was fairly similar for most people.

[@destroyraiden]

@@Here_is_Waldo And as a fem gamer I'd say the same I like Femshepard in Mass Effect to me she's a great lead woman and all the women on the Bioware forums would tell Bioware when they messed up like putting FemShep into a skin tight sexy dress almost all of us hated we modded, drew, and told BW what they could've done and how it wasn't good they managed to mix with her some fun that was very much geared towards the women playes like with the Garrus + FemShep tango scene only she gets this but they also kept the hand to hand combat & many other things as we all like to be the strong, agency, hero you tried too many side lining our FemShep we'd let you know and we fought between games with the male players they wanted to add in sexism add in removing her agency add in sometiems occuationally doing something out of like like FemShep cracking a Krogans skull open with her thighs we'd be like no bro she'd either get the kane or else she'd creatively use her enviroment to fight the 9 foot tall exceptionally beefy for a Krogan character you made up for this exercise. It's not about controllng your enviroment it's about being the hero but as gamers we've had a lot of time to think on this. Movie watching women may not know what they want as they've never been asked and when asked will not be able to give you an instant response they need time to mull it over actually see in full detail whats out there cuz what many of us fem gamers found is we pick a character apart we separate them so we can enjoy following them as the hero we unconously find 1 or more aspects to the male lead to become close to him and then we're his shadow while he does xyz we actually for the most part aren't him, can't relate to him as a whole person and it's not until you put in some deep thought that you figure this out which means you need to make male and female characters that meet traits women like and mold that into a person. or you need to involve women in every step of the process writing, opinions on everything, play/watch testing & feed back and act upon their feedback, this is why the game called the Last Of Us has a ton of women who love & hyper relate to every female and the main men of the story to the point women had enmeshed with Joel and couldn't sperate who they were when playing as him due to Naughty Dog involved women all the way through the process even in playtesting & other opinions so it hit women so hard they were shocked by how they could just be any one in there at all times like the thing was tailor made for us. This second strategy was proven to work my other suggestion we do not have proof of so really it's back to hollywood in the case of TV & movies to involve women who are TV or movie watchers & who consume the products to make the products for them. The same held with the second game in the last of us women of their boards told them keep the violence in, make women suitable for their environments like no stick women they're redicuous, and abunch more but what they did was check those boxes and I love it we kept the violence & it's consequences in & we got Abby a woman tailor made for her environment very cool now men hate her but she's fantastic she can wield a hammer into a zombie's skull and I'm going to believe it! According to gaming studies done in the 90s 30% of women who played game consoles also played & enjoyed violent content which means if you were to make a violent game you find women for your test group in that 30% (which has grown since the 90s btw but they won't redo the stats) and so you don't go to tick toc or the sims and ask them what game do they want from you the violent game maker? That's not what you do but it seems TV & movies do it this way they ask their moms & sisters who may not even consume products of heros or RPGs what do they want in such things and call it research & call it done but cause they don't want to waver from males.

[@carljohan9265]

On the note of BBQ sauce weapons, when you think about it, isn't that something you would describe as "positive masculinity"? The fact that the majority of guys dream about a moment where they can be a hero and save people is, in my opinion, something that is fairly indicative of the male mindset (and something woke people desperately wants to sweep under the rug). Btw, your comment also reminded me of a great scene in the anime My Hero Academia, where you see the internal thoughts of one of the female heroes, and she says to herself "Ever since the first time I saw someone doing hero work and how happy that made everyone around them, I've been thinking: Who helps the heroes when they are hurting?" It's such a beautifully feminine way of thinking and the way it plays out in the scene is also great.

[@alexandresobreiramartins9461]

So, as you have just demonstrated, women don't need to demean mean to be bright and empowered. But it's sad when, for Disney, power means muscles and bright means born perfect as a man.

[@annana6098]

I really loved Mulan. If you sit down and try to apply strict reality to how quickly a woman can physically improve, they might have stretched the reality--but it doesn't feel insane in the movie. They don't have her arm wrestle the biggest guy and win, she can't magically bench press her horse or something ridiculous, she just gets better and she gains skill and knowledge and uses the intelligence they showed her to have from the beginning to put the skill and knowledge to use--and she earns the respect of her peers. That's something every woman wants. She didn't beat it into them, she didn't lord over them until they admitted defeat, she got better and as actual decent people they recognized it and respected it. They had the moment of doubt near the end, as most stories have the darkest hour, but all her friends came through for her, and then she uses a girly little fan to disarm the bad guy and blows him up with fireworks. And then the Emperor and everyone thank her and show respect, and her father tells her he's proud. I don't feel like her personality changed at all in the movie, she just got the chance to grow and do what she thought was right, and become the woman she wanted to be and not what she was expected to be. And nothing about it felt to me like she was adopting a super-masculine caricature to become the hero like "female superman", she was just a woman doing her best to fit in and help her peers.

[@rob7977]

My wife's favorite Marvel production was the Netflix Daredevil series. If Marvel wants to save itself they should really revisit what made that production so good: great story, likeable characters and of course the Marvel action. Thanks for another great video!

[@WEIRDxGRIM]

Shamely for the next daredevil serie, looking at what they did to daredevil in she hulk and they dropped that daredevil is kind of going to be like that in his serie and i bet that she hulk is going to make a appearance and steal the camera.

[@MikaelaMaverix]

Oh yeah, I really liked Daredevil. Karen Page was such a great female character too and she didn't need to know how to fight like Daredevil to be vital to the story.

[@gregowen2022]

Thanks for watching! Daredevil was great, and I htink partly because they weren't trying to tie in to the MCU so much. It was just a good stand alone show instead of a cheap set-up to get you to watch the next cheap set-up to get you to watch a movie

[@Tyler_W]

That's exactly what made Marvel popular in the first place, and that's what they need to return their focus to (and better writing) if they want to salvage the franchise. Unfortunately, as things stand right now, the upcoming D+ Daredevil series has a bunch of the CW Arrowverse writers on board, so my hopes aren't exactly high unless Marvel miraculously learns their lessons and quickly pivots back toward a more positive direction. My only consolation is that no matter how they might massacre my boy, Matt Murdock, they can never take away those phenomenal three seasons of Daredevil (and a serviceable and adequately entertaining Defenders appearance) from us.

[@paulwoodford1984]

The new series will be aimed at kids they have announced

[@robertbeisert3315]

They don't make movies that are true, and that is why we're tuning out. All artistic endeavors that are well-received by the public reflect some truth about the universe. Heroes reflect the virtue and excellence to which we all should aspire; villains reflect the darkness that dwells within all of us, which we must oppose both within ourselves and out in the world. It is the truth of these things that makes them sell. By creating heroes that do not reflect virtue and excellence, alongside villains that seem less than evil, they remove the grounding truth that speaks to our souls. Without it, it's all just a bunch of noise and color.

[@robertbeisert3315]

A Mary Sue does not reflect virtue and excellence, because they do not demonstrate any of the humanity that empowers them. It is not Tony Stark's inherent goodness that is compelling, but rather his drive to be virtuous and excellent despite his nature.

[@gregowen2022]

Every video someone manages to say what I took minutes attempting to say and more eloquently delivers it in a few sentences. This is perfect! It's exactly why these characters don't resonate

[@robertbeisert3315]

@@gregowen2022 I've been obsessing over Philippians 4:8 these days

[@gregowen2022]

An excellent verse to obsess over

[@cubist12]

It's funny that when you call stuff like this out, the response from many is the predictable 'your a (sexist, racist, whatever-ist)' or that this is done so that people can see themselves on screen or something to that effect. But, as you pointed out, these characters are absolutely unlikable and vapid. I was *so* disappointed with She-Hulk because I saw it as a character that could be as charming and likeable as Tony Stark along with the 4th wall breaking of Deadpool. There was sooooo much opportunity there with that character. Unfortunately, they decided to make Jen the epitome of 'girl boss' and she just came off as extremely tone deaf, selfish, and self-loathing. There was really no difference between Jen and She-Hulk too, as much as they wanted to make us think there was a difference. And, in the end, when they had the opportunity for this character to show a more flawed, vulnerable side? Nope. She rebooted the whole damn show at the end - almost literally. It was so, so stupid.

[@gregowen2022]

Right? See themselves? Who saw themselves in she-hulk? You're right, it had amazing potential. It's getting overdone these days, but I still have a soft spot for self-aware comedy. They could have had a hilarious likeable character, a less vulgar Deadpool. But they were terrified to let their precious heroine show a single shred of weakness.

[@FredBstar3K]

​@caitlyncarvalho7637that's because Ripley is likable, isn't condensending, doesn't put any of the male characters down, isn't selfish and above all is actually an inspiring character and as a guy she is among my favorite female characters alongside lara croft and samus aran

[@znail4675]

@Caitlyn Carvalho You need to watch the Alien movies again. Ripley is a civilian starship crew member. She gets some basic instructions about shooting a rifle in the second movie, but she is hardly equal to the marines, but do OK as most of the hordes of aliens gets killed by the marines and sentry guns before she is the one left.

[@SpeedyKQ]

They could have made Valkyrie so much more interesting and relatable if they didn't just drop her drunkenness on the floor. It looked like she was going to have a real character flaw to overcome. For her first two scenes she is clearly struggling with alcohol, then after that she is completely sober and badass, with no mention of it ever again.

[@alasdairwatson712]

I realise that I may be going off topic, since it deals with non-Marvel series, but the valid points and problems which you have raised exist in Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings Rings of Power”. Galadriel was portrayed as “a girl-boss”, dubbed Guyladriel by some wit, who could defeat anything while her male colleagues were laid low by it, could kill orcs while riding upside down, easily avoid all arrows and survive a pyroclastic wave from a volcano and yet the result was a character devoid of charm, diplomacy, tact and was generally unlikeable and arrogant. The writers of the movie “Dungeons and Dragons.Honour (I’m British) among thieves” have openly stated that they have “emasculated” the male characters in order to make the female ones look good. Is it me or is this condescending?

[@gregowen2022]

It's wildly condescending. They are giving women a participation trophy by showing a character whose "struggles" are fake and easily overcome. It's the sexism of low expectation. They are saying "we put it on easy mode so you can feel powerful". If they had emasculated the guys in D&D for comedy, that would be fine because that game usually gets silly and it could have worked. Doing it to empower women is insulting to them

[@patfer1189]

@@gregowen2022 Well- it is not unlike what is seen in forced in some aspects of life, for example military recruitment for special forces: it is not that those women who applied became better to meet the standard; it is that the standard of entry/training was lowered so someone could feel better without earning it or use it merely as political optics. But sticking with the entertainment industry, what is sad is that Hollywood used to know how to write "strong female characters" as it did with characters like Ripley and Sarah Connor in the 80's and 90's. Even characters like Catherine Banning were strong female characters without ever being Mary Sues. But now, with the rare except of a Wonder Woman or Justice League (the good one, not the 2017 one), writers of hero/superhero films are afraid of nuance or any indication that a female character can be flawed or weak in personality, strength, maturity, etc. Rey is a perfect example of this modern cliche as in the first half hour of the first film is presented as a drifter yet two minutes later she is somehow an ace pilot, and later has powers ready to go, and later grabs a lightsaber and already knows how to fight with zero training while having no issues going against someone larger and physically stronger like her on mere strength as she fights him using brute force rather than any strategy. The last, recent good female strong character I saw written was in the miniseries "1883". The character of Elsa is arguably the protagonist of the story as she also serves as the stand-in for the audience discovering this world, however having an integral role in the events that unfold. Yet she is learning, discovering, making mistakes, and evolving throughout the story and nothing she does is unearned or out of the blue. Her initial involvement in key aspects of the story is because she is a skilled horse rider, which in context of the story, time, and place it makes sense she would have learned at a younger age, but everything else is learned, overcome, or earned in the story and never beyond her abilities. And as such she works as a character. But these characters now seem the exception, not the rule. All Marvel had to do was promote variety in its ranks: they already had a Mary Sue in Captain Marvel- they didn't need to make every character the same. And unlike other studios without a centralized creative process and development, they knew well they were going to end up with essentially a group of copy pasted characters while eliminating older ones and gender swapping them.

[@mikewaterfield3599]

HOW DARE YOU! That series has as much in relation with Tolkien’s work as the underside of my scrotum. Amazon’s abomination “the Pronouns of Power” should never even by distant proxy be referred to in relation with “the Rings of Power” one was written by a titan of English literature and the second most translated book after the Bible. The other was written by JarJar Abrums flunkies who after ten years their one accomplishment was a partial credit in a cancelled Kurtz Trek (anti credit if there ever was) film. Amazon created an abomination, no more, no less.

[@alasdairwatson712]

@@mikewaterfield3599 When you say ‘“the Pronouns of Power” should never……be referred to in relation with “Rings of Power”’, by “Rings of Power” I assume you mean “Lord of the Rings”. If so, I agree with everything you say (except the part about the underside of your scrotum and only because I do not know and, with all due respect, no desire to know, what that is like). I only included the words “Lord of the Rings” with “the Rings of Power” to state the title accurately; I have just noticed that I did not even do that properly because I left out the colon.

[@mikewaterfield3599]

@@alasdairwatson712 its fair, it just makes my blood boil how Amazon tried name association. Doubly so given how Amazon either ignored canon entirely or desecrated it. As far as I am concerned it was a bridge too far. Nerd IP after nerd IP desecrated. Problem is this time it was sacred ground.

[@gabriels.1121]

I think the women writing these characters are projecting. They want that instant gratification, they want to be see as powerful as men, and they want to show everyone how wrong they were. I think it stems from being taught that sexism is affecting women greatly and we will never have the same opportunities as men (which I don’t think is true). They want so badly to be the same as men, they are willing to sacrifice the box office numbers. The thing is, women aren’t the same as men. Doesn’t mean we aren’t equal, but we are different, each complex human beings, with our own strengths and weaknesses

[@gregowen2022]

Precisely. "women aren't the same as men" is so true and that's heresy to these people. It's such a disservice to women to hand them men-themed things but pink colored and expect y'all to like it. And yes, sometimes the writing feels a little spiteful.

[@williamjenkins4913]

A bit back I had a lady seriously trying to argue that women are just as strong as men and it struck how misogynistic people like her and the MCU writers are. They only put value in male types of strength. If they truly valued women they would be talking up emotional perseverance and empathy. They would not need to delude themselves about women being as physically as strong as men because they wouldnt tie their value as a person into it.

[@sacha8uk]

​@@gregowen2022 If women and men were the same, then there would not be any equality or inequality problem between them: being equal is not the same as being identical. If everybody was a man or if everybody was a woman, there would be no gender inequality; we need to recognize each gender's strengths, weaknesses, motivations, etc. and let them express themselves equally, not identically.

[@oscarzapatajr2]

I agree, men and women have the same value, but we are not the same, we are complementary, this is important for attraction and living together, this has work well for thousands of years, and trying to change this via culture is risky

[@gabriels.1121]

@@oscarzapatajr2 Exactly. For every deficit a gender has, it has just as many strong suits. Male and female do compliment each other, which allows for the functioning of society

[@sandaliovirenees6991]

It’s so nice to find other people that think the same it really is. I can already tell this community is amazing! First timer to this channel cheers to more great content 🤟🏾🍻

[@gregowen2022]

Thanks for being here! I'm happy to say the comments here are really great

[@oscarzapatajr2]

Is cool to use popular culture to discuss ideas, politics and the current mess we have in society 😁

[@Ash-ep1nz]

I recently read a manga called CHAINSAW MAN.. a superhero series that's available online to read and somehow it has incredible female and male characters..the charecterisation and character development is remarkable. I have myself given up on MCU since 2021 but Chainsaw Man showed me the true potential of superhero storytelling. I recommend everyone reading this to give CHAINSAW MAN manga a try.

[@alexandresobreiramartins9461]

I've switched to manga and anime decades ago. Likewise, Asian series/movies are leaps and bounds better than their Western counterparts, because they're not plagued by the woke disease.

[@Natta44]

I just think in general Asian story telling in media (manga/anime etc) have deep ingrained messages and teachings and inspirational goals. It's a part of their culture. Western teachings are more about stand on others to get what you want, if you look at history it stacks up 😂

[@alexandresobreiramartins9461]

@@Natta44 Yeah, it didn't to be like that, but now in the Me West, that's what we get, unfortunately. I'm not in favor of the extremes of collectivist culture like in Japan, but anime and manga often criticize that, while highlighting its positive aspects.

[@floragraves5167]

Not a good comparison as that’s a horror and you can find a lot of good female representation in horror. Chainsaw man is great tho

[@jtmann2002]

Spot on. I don’t know why they saw everyone’s reaction to that cringe and forced scene at the end game that lined up all the women characters, and said, “yea, let’s double down on this”. A lot of people should lost their jobs over this, and the first head to fall needs to be Feige’s. Phase 4 is a complete head scratcher and the rot starts at the top. It’s very sad to see, but oh well, I’m getting older and should probably be focusing on my career more anyways.

[@sohaibhamdan2114]

Yeah we rlly didnt need a scene like that it was cringe af

[@TheHawkssong]

Just found your channel, I as a African American woman fully agree with everything you expressed in these two videos. They think we are stupid and the points you bring up about them not writing the character fully to get an investment from the audience. Arcane comes to mind, and the amazing writing a women characters. thank you for these breakdowns I have learned so much.

[@gregowen2022]

I really appreciate you watching! I won't pretend to fully understand because I'm 'mayonnaise is spicy' white, but even if can see the obvious pandering. I have to imagine that it's wildly insulting

[@Nunnyahbizhen]

Japan pretty much knows how to grab the audience with strong women and men in a way that makes sense and doesn't make you HATE the character. This goes for some of their villains, which are written so well that I even have a hard time dealing with the fact that they have to be defeated for the protagonist to succeed. One example I cherish to my heart today is the female protagonist of Read or Die. She is a shy character who loves books but has an ability to control paper and make them into weapons, shields, and the like. She isn't a rude, forceful, condescending person, in fact she is very shy and inward focusing but is confident in what she can do and what she has to do to defeat an enemy. I love her because she represented shyness, which I had, yet confidence, which I grew into but not at the cost of having to down or belittle someone else. On a longer note I grew up as a tomboy, I enjoyed TMNT, Thunder Cats, He-Man and She-Ra. But I also loved MLP, Care Bears, and Rainbow Bright. Now I am in the minority when it comes to race and female interests because most girls my age at the time loved female-oriented things such as baby dolls and the like. The only doll I remember asking for was a Disney Ariel Little Mermaid Doll. I enjoyed being able to enjoy what I wanted to enjoy; however, I was not a fool in thinking that I could out do a boy in physical activities. Some of my favorite characters that I loved in certain fairy tales had weaknesses but used cunning, trickery, or flexibility to overcome an opponent that was strong physically. Brer Rabbit is a black-folklore character that demonstrates using cunning and being quick witted to overcome his more powerful adversaries. The problem with these writers is that they only focus on and see power in the physically strong that they can't write a character that succeeds in another way. Most well written female characters of older mediums didn't succeed physically but by using their brains to outthink or trick an adversary. Being able to weaken a strong foe is an accomplishment in itself. Too bad these morons are so blinded by their own hubris and egos to see the truth.

[@gregowen2022]

I've been making a list of anime to watch and do a video about finding out why everyone loves it so much. I'm told constantly how good the stories are and that they put characters and story above all else. It sounds amazing

[@M星の水晶]

@@gregowen2022 As someone who practicalIy grew up with anime I would personally recommend series like Kino's Journey (2003). Honestly a master of world building. Especially the 2003 version. Banana Fish. Weird name, I know, but it's a fantastic story made in the 80s. But is a great example of proper modernization of an older series. Same with another series called Dororo. Gun slinger girl (2003). A series that my mind Immidietly went to when I first heard about the black widow movie. You'll understand why if you see it. Then we have SnowWhite with Red Hair and Princess Tutu. For an interesting loose adaptation of a known fairy tales. To Your Eternity is... honestly a series that does a pretty great job in manipulating your emotions. You can understand the formula, but even so the writer knows how to change it up JUST enough that they can get you to feel the way they want to even though you know what's going to happen. Lastly, the power fantasies done in quite the interesting way, Psycho Mob 100 and One punch man. The creator ONE, just knows how to write characters and character development really well. And those with female powerful leads, Blood the last Vampire (a movie) and it's other... spin off? Alternate reality? Blood+ and Blood C. As well as the Hell Girl series. Read Or Die is also really great as suggested above. The girl may be shy and awkward, but she is technically in the Power Fantasy ganre. As she does fully master her powers from the get go. And they don't mention it. but this got a TV series. Which feels like if the characters from Charlies' angels can control paper. You can pick and choose any of these base on your taste. (some have trailers. Others you might just need to watch the first episodes.) These are just what I think would be great research material.

[@TrafalgarWaterDLaw-dl5cm]

The secret is none of them are mary sues. And in cases where they are it narratively makes sense like those manga/anime a protagonist SUDDENLY has powers. Or narratives like one punch man where he defeats everyone in one punch could be blant and boring. But no it explores the complexety of the protagonists mind when you are so strong no one challanges you anymore and how monotone and depressing it can get etc. Also the fact protagonists dont need to shit on others to be belivable. Traits make sense and they arent good at EVERYTHING.

[@thabomos1317]

@@gregowen2022 oouuhh vinland saga is an amazing series you should definitely check it out

[@williamjenkins4913]

Thank you for reminding me of Read or Die. As a total book nerd she has like the coolest power.

[@SquirrelGamez]

You're 100% right about the lack of personality and how forced it all is. What sucks is in the comics, those same characters have PLENTY of personality. She Hulk and Captain Marvel are among my favorite Marvel characters... in the comics. As cool as it was to see them in the MCU, I still feel disappointed. I'm very much in favor of representation, but this isn't representation, it's lazy bad writing.

[@Briaaanz]

I think the MeToo Movement had some dirt on some higher ups at Disney, which led the way for some of this.

[@ultimativerHexer]

Original Charol Danvers/Miss Marvel was a great character in the comics. I loved the storyarc where the discovered that she was an alcoholic and left the Avengers to figure out how to cope. It was auch a great story and it really made me Care for Charol. The Hawkeye comics where they switched between Clint living in the apartment house and Kate living in a Camper with Pizza Dog as some Kind of hero for hire was also really great. I loved it! The She-Hulk comic of the 80s were hillarious. The show got that right in Part, but there was still a lot of the bitterness left. Plus, Jen never really developed into a character in her own right. Though I hope this will happen... With the MCU the feminisation feels like younger sibblings wearing the clothes of their older brothers. It's not fair to those great Heroines! Maybe they will one day give us movies that do those women justice. Hopefully even Monica Rambeau gets the glory she deserves. Does anyone remember that Comic, where Black Panther, Luke Cage, Blade and Brother Voodoo fought vampires in New Orleans and Monica saved the day in the final battle by turning into sunlight? Great Comic! That would be the All Black MCU movie we all should watch!

[@daniell1483]

Great point about how men and women envision "power fantasies" differently. Evolution has just shaped us in different (not better/worse) ways. Guys tend to see conflict externalized, while women seem to prefer a sort of internal conflict.

[@samanthajeffers9339]

You know, I loved the first Wonder woman because she trained, yet still wasn’t great at first, she was a little naive towards men, feminine in a classic way, and grew and learned during the movie. I loved her movie. It didn’t feel forced

[@mks9469]

Mulan (the cartoon-not the remake garbage) was my favorite character!! She was just a normal girl. For the sake of her family, her loved ones she risked her life. She was scared and unskilled--but she was smart and resourceful and over came and trained and learned her skills and maximized her strengths in order to over come her weaknesses. And yet she was still a woman and soft hearted. I loved that character and movie. Plus the move had Mushu!! And that was a total plus. 😂

[@znail4675]

Mulan is a perfect example as it can be directly compared with the remake where she is a perfect girlboss.

[@jeremyjean-pierre4977]

The male fantasy va female fantasy argument is really interesting. I also wish I’d have control over my life but I’d choose to be instantly badass over that any day. I have an inkling it’s the opposite for my sis, I’ll have to ask her. 8:13 Princess Diaries 1 and 2 are the only princess movies I willingly watched with my little sister, I have good memories of these two.

[@anonymousllama8038]

The two Avatar series and Arcane are shows that come to mind when it comes to female characters people actually like and care about. The women in these shows are diverse (but not forced) and have their own stories and obstacles to overcome. They’re strong and have had to work for what they’ve achieved and learned.

[@Seancarter2010]

People weren’t really a fan of Kora

[@renaterrier935]

​@@Seancarter2010 yes, but you can't say Korra never struggled or failed.

[@AbuTate69]

​@@renaterrier935 yeah but it can't work well in the placement of the ideology of the show take aang for example he grows as a charecter via skills, emotion and thoughts. Korra on the other hand knows ¾ of the elements has dated someone in the 1st season and would rarely think of others. The true reason why it fell was because nickelodeon was in a rush for greatness being its biggest downfall.

[@joshmidd]

Hey, fine video Greg. I see you are an intellectual and make some fun assertions to listen to. Great humor and memes too! I would like to watch more of your videos, but I couldn't help but notice that your audio comes in a little before your video pretty consistently. It is bothersome and I would be greatly appreciated it it were corrected. Thanks, and happy editing!

[@nalaka3488]

I never really considered the male power fantasy thing, but you’re absolutely right. That is something we do lol

[@gregowen2022]

Haha, we ALL do it and I'm relieved so many guys in the comments are confirming it

[@wayando]

I was never aware of it ... But now that I have been told about it 😂😂😂 ... It's so true!

[@alispeed5095]

@@wayando Same, l didnt realize until this vid spelled it out. Crazy how oblivious we can be lol

[@Merchantic]

I'm rewatching Attack on Titan at the moment and only from your video do I realize that Eren and Mikasa reflect the Male and Female power fantasy respectfully. Eren wants to be able to kill every titan that exists to free humanity. His goal is lofty, ambitious, worldchanging. and Mikasa wants to do anything in her power to protect Eren, aka a focused endeavor on controlling her surroundings.

[@EyeKahnography]

I really liked Kamala Kahn's story as the exception to this rule. She was terrible at heroing, struggled with identity and went through the learn the power to be yourself and had more dimension than they wrote so many characters with. Also had the same reaction to the Pepper Potts moment. Powers does not convey knowledge. I really wish they'd stop doing that.

[@gregowen2022]

I didn't watch Kamala, so I left her out. Also, I hear most people echoing your thoughts on her, plus her family was apparently really great. The trouble is that their seemingly most likeable character had the lowest viewer numbers of any of their shows. They will have to almost re-launch her with The Marvels to get the audience to care

[@robinthrush9672]

Which is ironic compared to her chameleon-esque nature in the comics; being so poorly defined that her personality is different in each of the books she's in.

[@sarahrobertson4629]

I read/collected superhero comics seriously in the 1980s. I liked Black Canary more than vol. 1 Wonder Woman because BC had to train harder so was more impressive in what she could do while WW was involved in politics I didn't know much about. On the other hand I loved vol. 2 WW - she was my age and new to the world. Also the world building made more sense. I was always turned off by skimpy or skintight costumes though am no longer bothered by bare arms and legs (it does make movement freer). Today, as someone who does have some fight training and a lot of mesomorphy, I'm fine with women knowing how to fight. On the other hand, women who speak up/whistleblow are often disliked and I personally relate to that - the personal risks when women challenge the status quo are more salient than "woman can do stuff!". Modern female superheroes don't really challenge the male power structure because they are following a male trajectory, taking male roles, like second-wave women wanting access to male-dominated careers. I'm not sure you can have female superheroes tackle serious women's issues because audiences would find it hard to take - a lot of people want to pretend there aren't any anymore. And yet how many women learn how to fight who haven't been abused? A woman who already knows how to fight probably has one hell of a backstory. TBH I'm not sure what kind of realistic story you can give female superheroes - they all upset too many people. I guess the only safe story is the beginner growing into her power, but then there's still the question of why does she even have or want that power?. With Marvel the cliche for female superheroes used to be "with great power comes great insanity". It's nice seeing them move away from that, at least. I wasn't aware all men thought they could kick ass without training - testosterone is a hell of a drug.

[@garrynewby1442]

Another good example of a female character in modern times is Ladybug from Miraculous. She has powers but she isn't as powerful as Cat noir or some of the enemies she goes up against. She wins by being smart, improvises and works along side Cat noir. She isn't an overpowered character that solves everything on her own she asks for help when she can't solve certain problems on her own. She has good and bad traits that make her relatable, she's shy, creates messes that she takes responsibility for(volpina), she becomes jealous of a girl that ends up dating a guy she has a major crush on and listens to her mentor and grows as a result of his advice and eventually takes over his role as the guardian. The sad thing is that female characters were written pretty similar to this about a decade ago and it worked really well which is why I can't understand why modern film writers can't continue to do this

[@nagillim7915]

Modern writers want instant emotional gratification just like most of the rest of us. Plus i don't think they're really writing male or female power fantasies with these characters. What they're writing is the girl boss power fantasy in which the perfect all powerful woman comes along to shame all the men into subordinacy by being better than them. I understand why it's a power fantasy for them but it's not very relatable to regular people of either gender. Most of us aren't in competition with each other, neither at home nor in the workplace. Most regular person jobs are about cooperation and not about crawling over one another to win. I think it comes down to the fact there are 2 kinds of feminism: there's the feminism that wants to change the world to accommodate women in being their authentic selves and there's the feminism that wants to liberate women from all obligations, restrictiond and responsibilities. The girl boss fantasy comes from the latter feminism, which has always been the feminism of wealthy career-minded women. The former feminism has generally been the feminism of regular non-elite women and the latter has almost always managed to throw the former under the bus whenever there has been any divergence of values or goals. It can do this because elite women have the ears of men who have societal power and the regular women only have the ears of the regular chumps who have to work for a living and have no real power or influence. If you look at the history of women's activism this dynamic occurs again and again, like working class women's attempts in the 1800s to push for labour laws that would have allowed them to take time out of work for pregnancy and other fertility related issues and to work fewer hours and take more frequent breaks so they weren't wrecking their bodies trying to keep up with men in factory manual labour, which middle class first wavers blocked believing that it would reflect badly on them in the clerical and academic jobs they wanted to break into if they weren't treated exactly equal to their male counterparts.

[@spinlok3943]

Could you do like a top strong female characters done right video? Like Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor and whatnot?

[@gregowen2022]

I love that idea! My initial response is always Elizabeth Bennett, so that's three right there! And it's now in the queue

[@spinlok3943]

@@gregowen2022 Awesome! Maybe even follow that up with a worst examples like Rey to compare and contrast?

[@ClarkBK67]

This is a good idea. I agree with the critique here and think supplementing it with positive examples is great idea. And I agree with your two examples. In a way there is something uniquely feminine in both their arcs. They both came into their own because there was no one else to rely on. Ripley was alone on the ship, Sarah had lost Kyle and was tasked with protecting John herself (between 1 and 2 when her transformation was amazing).

[@millymitch8842]

@@gregowen2022 I'm a little late to this conversation but I also was wondering if you would consider Katniss as a good female character as well. Especially in the books, she strikes me as flawed and eventually grows so to me she is a good character. Would love to know if you would agree she is done right and could make it into this type of video.

[@ishangimhan6112]

you really hit nail on the spot with last topic. (male power fantasy) they are giving wrong thing to wrong audience

[@gregowen2022]

Complete mix up. Men and women are different and want different things. They can deny that reality all they want, but it's only to their own financial detriment

[@sarahsisk7298]

You hit the nail on the head when you said women like to watch their character grow in their environment. That’s definitely the entire appeal for me in a movie. I love to watch characters overcome and interact with other characters in interesting ways. Male or female character, the appeal is the same. I love the superhero characters because they have this huge responsibility to contend with and still have to find a way to interact with their world in an effective manner. I.e. Spider-Man having to interact and overcome as Peter Parker just as much as spider man. Etc so these new characters that are just instantly awesome are definitely a huge turn off. They just took the story out and left us with just a bare naked shell of a human

[@Kizzy-qb9si]

It’s been a bit since watching million dollar baby. From what I remember, the dynamic between the female boxer and her coach was fairly interesting. That dynamic changed from the beginning of the movie to the end.

[@penguintaco9038]

I like Kate Bishop as a new Hawkeye. I say her heroes journey moment was realizing that being a hero and what not wasn't as easy or as glamorous as it sounded.

[@kalevipoeg6916]

This is true...every guy thinks they are the hardest of hardasses that ever hardassed. There is that internal image of self as being SO much tougher than they are, which is why you get little 5'8", 5'9", buck fifty guys with no real fighting experience thinking they can take someone half a foot taller and 70 lbs heavier, all things being equal. I know because it's happened to me many times - I'm not a small guy - 6'2", 220 lbs and I've put 120 lbs over my head with one hand before so not exactly weak - and I've had these little guys trying to fight me before and it's just so stupid - not only because REALISTICALLY if I really lost my shit on them and went at them with the intent to kill, they're NOT walking away form that without at minimum extreme if not life threatening injuries, but because it's POINTLESS. Fighting is stupid. Proves nothing. Physics 98% of the time determines the winner because let's face it, MOST men are not trained warriors - they're just dudes who maybe lazily curl a 30 lb dumbbell a few times a month, do some pushups and call that working out. They've never had to ACTUALLY fight anyone bigger than them before. I have. Anyone who HAS actually fought knows fighting isn't glamorous or fun and NOBODY walks away looking cool like in the movies. You just end up in a heap on the ground grunting and sweating and punching at each other. Even in the MMA. There's no cool kung-fu spin kicks - no, no, 99% of the time you end up just wrestling around on the ground swearing and grunting and you both look REALLY dumb. Also, there's always the element of chance - any random punch to anyone's temple DOES have the ability to burst a blood vessel if it connects in just the right way and then you just die of a brain bleed. You can work your little biceps or pecs out all you want but you'll NEVER take a punch better for it. That's the other reality. One moment of dumbassery and you are either dead or you are a murderer if it goes the wrong way. Even I gave another kid a concussion with a single punch when I was in 8th grade - had he died, my life would have ended then and there, effectively. Another guy who went to the high school I did punched another guy in the temple, that EXACT thing happened - broke a blood vessel - head hit the ground, and he did not wake up. He died. The guy was suddenly a murderer, 30 seconds later in a COMPLETELY preventable tragedy. Because he wanted to look TOUGH. Doesn't matter who wins, you both lose. Every time. But ANYWAY, all men think they're the hardest. Or mostly all of them. Those who have actually FOUGHT before know what's really going on, know their limitations and know when to avoid it if they have any sense. Generally I wouldn't think it would be a good idea to fight at ALL, much less against someone the size of Shaq - 7'1", 300 something lbs - INTUITIVELY I know I'd lose that fight badly just due to physics - a lot more mass behind every punch, longer reach, longer arms which makes for generally more travel distance per punch which means harder hits and one hit would ROCK you harder than you'd even believe - BUT there's even in me some INTERNAL part that says "yeah but if he were attacking my wife I'd kill him no matter what" - HOW that would happen that internal part doesn't know but it just is SURE of it. Find a gun or whatever, it says. Hit him with a rock, bite out his jugular, whatever it takes, it says. That internal part is in EVERY guy, even if it's not really that realistic. So yeah. I don't see that in women. My wife is a foot shorter than me and a tiny fraction my physical strength - and she never has that notion that she could ever do anything if I wanted to hurt her - not that I would - but she often has even SAID she feels like if I get mad and raise my voice when we argue that I'm scary even though I've never so much as raised a finger to her and never would - in HER mind no matter how gentle I've been with her she's ALWAYS aware of that difference between us, and I've found that hurtful before because I know, as any decent guy knows, that I never even THINK of hurting her - I'd give my life to protect her - but JUST because of the sheer difference in physical size and strength she ALWAYS has that insecurity there if we get into a verbal argument, and sometimes she'll mention it and it'll blow my mind because to ME, that shouldn't even be a consideration because I KNOW I'd never hurt her. That's the difference. Women are KEENLY AWARE of their limitations. Men are not. Men ALWAYS think they're badasses somewhere inside. It's why we get into so many more fights than women. Not that some women never fight - not saying that - but have you ever seen a really tiny girl attacking a really huge girl and actually thinking that'll turn out well? I haven't.

[@gregowen2022]

It is crazy that we ALL feel that way though. But you're right, even if you win a fight, you look awful at the end and you might end up breaking your own hand.

[@attilamarics3374]

Tbf, its more about when you say "ill beat you up" you either follow up on that or you look like a weak ass moron. Im not a big guy, but I wont back off, and I have seen much bigger guys screaming like a girl and running. Its not enough to act tough. A lot of times you can even see in their eyes that they are weak. Its not even a challange even if they are much bigger.

[@mylesleggette7520]

Testosterone is a hell of a drug...

[@williamjenkins4913]

I actually got to live the "badass" fantasy. A 300lb roid monster attacked my family and after he tossed my two brother like rag dolls I managed to take him out. A little bit of fighting dirty and a whole lot of luck made me look like a literal movie hero according to my friends and family that were there. So as someone that has lived out the fantasy let me tell you it still fucking sucks. Violence sucks. Knowing what it feels like to knock someone out with your bare hands sucks. I still have the occasional nightmare about everything that could have gone wrong.

[@VaporeonEnjoyer1]

@@gregowen2022 I'm guessing you two didn't get your beat up by high school bullies as you're both tall. I'm 5'7, I got my ass kicked a lot. In no universe am I fist fighting someone over 6ft. That's why I just walk away from any confrontation and have a CCW permit if I'm not being allowed to walk away.

[@bongo_baggins]

I love how they keep instructing us on how to react when the time comes. If you need to prime your audience on how much they're supposed to love the thing your creating, then you're not creating something good. "You're going to love this! You will find this just as iconic and epic as the last time, in fact, YOU WILL LIKE IT MORE THAN THAT ONE. IF YOU DONT, YOU'RE A TOXIC PERSON AND WILL BE CANCELLED." Try harder.

[@cristela4034]

Yeah, I love being told how to think or forced to like things. When has that marketing technique ever worked?

[@josephcorbin8073]

This was a well done breakdown/criticism with superb flow and fantastic wittiness! Guess I'll have to check out more. Cheers!

[@gregowen2022]

Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy the others

[@SuperDranger]

Never stop holding a mug, ever. For some weird reason I like it

[@gregowen2022]

I promise I won't, because when I do for some reason I start to talk like a bad newscaster

[@Selrisitai]

A "Mary Sue," to be a bit pedantic, is a result of all of the characters around her, not necessarily herself. It doesn't really matter that they're good at everything, are witty _and_ have a strong moral compass (e.g., Tony Stark immediately after getting out of the cave in the first Iron Man movie). That's still not a Mary Sue, or Gary Stu in the case of Tony Stark. What makes these chicks Mary Sues is how _everyone else treats her._ Specifically: Good guys are obsequious and fawning, while anyone who dislikes her is a bad guy or stupid. It doesn't alter the character to be perfect, it alters _the world around her_ so that nothing she does can be wrong, via popular opinion. In other words, it's a narcissist's wet dream.

[@gregowen2022]

It is, and it tells you a lot about the writers who are clearly writing these women as self-inserts. They want the obsequious fawning for themselves

[@guygadbois3010]

If per feminism you blame all your problems on men, once men are removed from the picture, women have to be portrayed as perfect or the premise that men are the source of all their problems is undermined. To borrow a phrase from Thanos, in feminist writing 'the Mary Sue is inevitable'. And its just kind of odd to be making combat-focused power fantasies in a country where women don't even have to register for the draft.

[@gregowen2022]

That's exactly it! If the women aren't absolutely stupendous, it doesn't make sense to blame the guys

[@Atogatog-j9v]

I can kind of believe that Pepper Pots would be able to fight, mostly because she is with Stark and he would probably train her a little. Probably as a way to defend herself.

[@mew10521]

I don't know about that, any woman not all would runaway with the armor

[@silver2therescue1]

this explains so much. I haven't been enjoying the MCU since Phase 4 started. It just felt bland and aimless and I didn't feel like I was really rooting for anybody. I was just going through the motions. I also noticed they'd constantly tear down the male characters (which really doesn't help appeal to either audience because men don't like being torn down and women don't like men being torn down either) to prop up the new female characters that were exactly the same character but female. Now I know why. It's not just with the MCU either, I've noticed other shows that take male fantasies (not just power fantasies) and have women characters doing them. Overall, yes Hollywood is very out of touch with what people want and only listen to Twitter also that bit about men's power fantasies is so true XD

[@gregowen2022]

They refuse to believe that *gasp women don't actually want to be men. They want to be their own thing. When you really get right down to it, it's a bit bysoginistic for writers to pitch male fantasies to women. "We're the best, so you want to be strong like us, right?" eww

[@silver2therescue1]

@@gregowen2022 yeah I hear ya. And it really shows that they aren't listening to audiences at all because even women are saying they don't like this. I don't say women don't like it because I think "I speak for women". I say women don't like it because I know women who SAID they don't like it

[@richdurbin6146]

A great example of what you're talking about is a comparison of animated Mulan vs live action Mulan. One undergoes her heroes journey whilst the other is a born superhero.

[@sterlingjones1187]

Another awesome and informative video! Look, I think it's safe to say that current moviegoers (or the majority of them) could care less about the gender of the protagonist or antagonist. What they DO care about: What's the story? Is the story good? Are the characters good? etc. What amazes me (in a disturbing way) is seeing how Marvel (oh hell, lets throw LucasFilm into this as well) keeps repeating the same mistake over and over again. Okay, I'm going to "date" myself. I'm an 80's kid. In that time, I watched some AWESOME characters. A few of those names were Ellen Ripley (Alien/Aliens), Sarah Conner (T1/T2), Princess Leia (Star Wars), Lindsey Brigman (The Abyss, if you're wondering). Yes, all of these characters I mentioned are women, BUT that's not the reason why they're great in my opinion. They're great because they're human, not perfect. I'll quickly explain. In Aliens, Ripley does NOT want to go back to LV-426 and she's suffering from PTSD. Sarah Conner in T2 falls to pieces when she sees the T-800 coming out of the elevator at the psych hospital. She's also cold to her son, John, initially. Leia couldn't save her home planet. She had to watch Alderaan get destroyed. I hate to say this, but these characters couldn't be created today...and I find that sad. Here's the question that's left me scratching my head: How is it that Hollywood of "yester-year" figured out how to write good characters who are female, but today's Hollywood can't? 🤔 P.S.- I've slowly come to despise the term "Strong Female Character" due to what's been "produced" under that label: Capt. Marvel, Rey, Elizabeth Banks' Charlie's Angels, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call, etc. I find the term, honestly, limiting to the potential growth of a character who's female. Of course, this is just my opinion...I could be wrong. 🙂

[@69SalterStreet]

I never thought of it in quite those terms, but you’re right. I always thought of it as them writing women as men, and maybe that’s a part of it too. The characters (besides all having the same rude personality) have little femininity. The act and relate to others in a VERY masculine way.

[@gregowen2022]

It's really weird when you see it, you see that it's almost every one of them. The really messed up part is the signal that it sends to the women they are pandering to. They are saying "being masculine is strong". What an insult to ladies

[@williamwebb4905]

Good Stuff! Appreciate the gender-difference discussion. Women in my life like pro-sports because there is the arc of player development. Which mirrors what you said about a strong character *male or female* facing adversity and learning to adapt and overcome.

[@phenomenal-xv4ey]

You should watch some channels that ask women what they rate themselves and you will be surprised at how many women rate themselves a 10. I think it is men and women prioritize different things because it is in our biology. Women prioritize looks because that is what men are attracted to and men prioritize skills and ability because women admire that. So many women will overrate their looks (look at the body positivity movement...every woman is beautiful) because they know that better looks will get them a higher quality mate. While men overrate their skills because nobody wants an incompetent man.

[@Kubinda12345]

I agree with you but there are two characters by which you're wrong; Kate and Yelena. Kate is master archer and martial artist but she also messes up a lot. She's also totally wrong when she think that Jack - her stepfather - is a killer while he's just an innocent kind guy and when she find out, she apologizes to him. And she appeaciates her hero being her mentor and learns a lot from him. Those are things that the likes of Shuri wouldn't have done. And while Yelena makes fun of Natasha, she often shows weakness and she can acknowledge her mistakes. Also but of them are genuinely funny and neither of them are OP or even stronger than their predecessor - Clint and Natasha - which is great.

[@thorodinson6625]

I could see a bit of arrogance in Riri at first, but that changed to paranoia and nervousness around wakandans to straight up fear when in Talokan. Hopefully they improve on her, cuz I believe this one is even more likable than in the comics. In the film, she just acknowledges that she's black and smart. In the comics, she literally forces her teacher to discourage her cuz of her skin. I see potential in Riri, tbh

[@luanaevangelista8045]

Promising young woman is a great movie to talk female arcs and birds of prey, while still being a girl gang with only "hot leads", is much more empowering than captain marvel because women do not seek to take control alone. We feel powerful when other women are around us. It doesnt mean we cant do anything alone, but the point isnt that. Anyway, great video!

[@zoeevans543]

4:30 Ant Man's daughter is not terrible. She does do some activist work, but it is never shoved down our faces and it doesn't seem anything beyond your standard rebellious teen activism. Especially considering they live in Cali. And as for "building the quantum machine in the basement." She had help from Hank and Hope, it is stated she has a talent for it, but she had help from two already established brilliant people too. Also, it took time to do, its not like she built it in one night.

[@donaldvonglitchenberger4108]

She built it over the summer in her spare time lol

[@BiggieTrismegistus]

Cassie Lang is an absolutely loathsome character.

[@JoelAdamson]

A famous female (and feminist) psychologist once said that where men fight or flee, women also tend and befriend. That's from the era when writers knew how to respect and explore the interesting differences between men and women.

[@Shrimp4Life]

Great video! It really is a shame that the MCU has taken a ton of very interesting and unique characters from the Marvel comics and condense them down to one or two boring, obnoxious, and played out character traits. There was real potential for She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel considering how well written the comics are but, unfortunately, the MCU dropped the bag yet again. Keep up the amazing content, love to see your channel growing!

[@gregowen2022]

Thank you so much for the encouragement! Yeah, I was especially dissapointed in she-hulk because it could have been a deadpool style comedy without the R rating. But you can't take yourself too seriously for that and they took Jen way too seriously

[@marcakins3373]

I recently found your videos and you are speaking absolute TRUTHS ….keep up the great work, long live cinema /tv show criticisms

[@MrATPCO]

More than this they've twisted a key concept in the entertainment industry: escapism. A movie or a tv series are useful for make you forget about your worries or issues, at least for a while, so, what's the point to make, let alone watch, them if, nowadays, they constantly preach and remind you about these latters, real or imaginary they may be?

[@MikaelaMaverix]

Yes, this is my beef with modern movies. I don't watch them to get political propaganda shoved in my face...

[@gregowen2022]

Yes, exactly. If a movie is basically just MSNBC with some cgi and action scenes thrown in, what's the point?

[@PinkRanger1105]

Lol I feel attacked. I just commented on a different video of yours and went into a whole tirade about how Captain Marvel’s powers weren’t “earned.” Then I clicked on this video and you pointed out exactly what I, as a woman, like to see in female characters - growth development that is earned. Removing our struggles is a removal of our womanhood. We are emotional creatures by nature, so if you just make us all beefed up “girl bosses” from the get-go, then you’re essentially saying our emotions-a vital part of who we are-makes us weak. And if I’m not mistaken, isn’t that what Jude Law kept beating out of Captain Marvel? Idk, I can’t remember jack from that movie…

[@dewulfe9913]

great insight, great delivery, great summary...keep them coming!

[@gregowen2022]

Thank you so much! Will do

[@gudspellar3605]

There are points you make, but it feels like you grab the blanket and pull it over more characters than it applies to in each point. Kate Bishop and Yolanda both nailed it for me and I look forward to seeing how those characters grow. She-Hulk would be your best example of poor writing harming a character. Rather than her rage being different due to the entire hormonal make up of men and women being different... it was written as women face and deal with anger better because the world is so unfair for them. Threw away an entire area to explore and shape a character for the sake of a writers ego. I did not like the pilot for Ms Marvel but watched it with my niece and nephew. The backstory and character development there turned out to be one of my most memorable MCU stories. I think it's not a male vs female thing right now. There are too many stories and too many weak writers. Looking at Star Wars we see that Boba Fett and Kenobi were trash, while Andor turned out spectacular. I think that shows it's not a problem with writing females, it's a problem with writing stories. This is a time we have The Last of Us, House of Dragons, Arcane, Andor, Ted Lasso, Lockwood & Co, and WandaVision as examples of how well things can be crafted. Also... I give Black Panther 2 a large bit of grace. How do you craft a story when your movie is written and you tragically lose a young actor had a generational magnetism.

[@ttrev007]

i am not sure about immediate area but having to earn power i agree with. It feels empty and unreal when a character is just awesome, even if they are given extraordinary power they need to earn the ability to use that power. What makes them feel even weaker is when you make all the characters around them weak to boost them. Surrounding them with other powerful people who compliment their powers makes the more powerful. Team work is an essential skill to learn to make you powerful. The Marry Sue character is pathetic

[@gregowen2022]

Yeah, the Mary Sue character is awful and I would imagine has to be insulting. It's like "you girls can only be powerful if we put it on easy mode". How is that an empowering message?

[@ioefhsof25913]

this video is surprisingly good, nice demeanor followed by good logic with some examples to back it! great work

[@gregowen2022]

Glad you liked it. Thank you!

[@DavidMartinez-ce3lp]

Bucky should've gotten the Shield to continue his redemption arc. And Cap could've been with him to the end of the line symbolically. Would've made for some great writing.

[@DavidMartinez-ce3lp]

@EL JAY I also think that Bucky needs a new Superhero alter ego since Winter Soldier is the name of him as an Assassin. He needs to be able to move on from that. Sam has his Falcon alter ego, and he doesn't need a new identity. That was never his arc.

[@lathikap9287]

Iron heart's character making vibranium detector for her school project without she ever coming in contact with vibranium 🤣🤣.

[@RaneEirlys]

Dang my whole life I thought I was male but if you're right, I'm a woman. Thanks for the eye opener dawg lmao

[@TheHeavenlyCzar]

I can forgive Shuri in the black panther. The actor who originally played as black panther passed away and did a phenomenal job as Tchalla. Nothing we see could live up to him, and we all forget that they kept delaying the production of the movie for pandemic and the actress delaying production on top of that because she didn't want the shot. I do wish they relied more on her tech know how than the heart herb but I will chalk that up to just poor writing.

[@cubist12]

Honestly, I don't get the Hawkeye hate. 😆 Of all the characters that D+ popped (or pooped) out, Kate Bishop was probably the least annoying and actually had vulnerabilities and growth. My only gripe with that show was them doing Kingpin a little dirty at the end there.

[@deedee2455]

Kate Bishop is alright. She's one of phase 4 character I want to see again.

[@Tyler_W]

She's the one "siccessor" character I actually kinda sorta liked, wbich is saying something, because if you think of all of the negative things claimed about her in the show, those are actually accurate descriptions of her in a lot of the comics. She's absolutely insufferable, and the Kate/Clint combo in many comics is exactly the awful emasculated male/"self-evidently awesome" female dynamic we see in movies today. Kate was very talented, but she actually needed Clint in order to learn the ropes, and she actually respected him and bis mentorship like an actual, halfway decent and realistic human being would act if they got the opportunity to learn from their childhood hero how to do the things their hero is a veteran at. Hawkeye was pretty low stakes and low key, which I can appreciate some pepple might have found boring, and I do think it does have its flaws, but this, not Wandavision, not Loki, was the best and most competently made D+ Marvel series.

[@Abzy467]

And I’ll tell you this if this is how the build up is towards secret wars it’s gonna be one hell of a let down

[@ScoobyLi]

I think Wonder Woman would be a good recent example 😅

[@silvermatter1739]

I agree with everything that you’ve said. You put it into words perfectly. The only grip I have is that (At least in my Freind groups) do generally like to see progression in character’s, and not just them being OP from the start. It’s part of the reason I love Shonen anime like One piece and Naruto, seeing someone at the very bottom grow to be one of the most powerful in their world and attain their dreams.

[@biiyen8458]

while I do agree with your statement, character progression from the Shounen genre doesn't directly apply to the Superhero genre. Take Tony Stark for example, he was smart from the get-go, he perfected the Ironman suit in a single movie but what hooked the audience into liking him was his change of heart and the way in which it happened because you sympathized with Stark losing Yensin.

[@nishatehera1883]

Amen Brother!! You made some interesting points and I personally am not in to Marvel or Fantasy type movies at all but I'm sooo over this senseless 'woke' warrior mess!! Your right, even as a (brown) woman I feel all of it is sooo unrelatable. In my every day Real life, I'm either getting some form of praise, complimented, greeted or just totally left alone. Being even a women of color in todays world really isn't that difficult for me at all. I wont act like there aren't things that I feel like I can't or shouldn't do as a girl that's 5''5 and 130 pounds (for self preservation) like walking outside at night by myself for example or even during the day in certain places. I am hyper aware of the fact, what can be very normal for a Man, can be a very dangerous situation for a woman. However, I still do not agree with this whole woke situation. Its just full of ego which makes certain movies come off very unnatural dull flat purposeless and uninspiring. Like you mentioned, women do love a good build up and progression. I think that's why most women do not watch 'corn.' Don't get me wrong I Love a good sex scene but I like to see the entire process of what lead to the big climatic sex scene verses movies where in the first few minutes its a huge easy sex fest. The build up actually makes the climatic scene that much more appreciated noticeable stimulating and impressive. I do not care to see any Movie where the woman just starts off great, really strong, flawless, powerful and better than all her male counterparts just because she is a female. There is really Nothing 'woke' about it.

[@gregowen2022]

There are definitely differences in men and women and varying races and it's cool to highlight those in a show or movie to influence the story somehow, but you're right that when the entire story becomes about that, it's terrible. I can imagine that being pandered to and talked at isn't fun, so I'm not surprised that minorities aren't into the new Marvel. Like you said, race comes up sometimes in real life, but not all the time, but these shows want to talk about it constantly like it's the only thing that matters about a person

[@cary4603]

The could introduce Rogue from the X-Men when she was a villain to take all of the leads down and reset things, But I am afraid they may mess her up movie wise also. Marvel had a good run. Everything ends.

[@anthonyd.1428]

Well, it is comforting to know I'm not the only man who thinks how much could I lift in order to crush a terrorist or ninja with a car. Yes, I often think of being brave and heroic in times of peril. Once, I dreamed of being an old man like Santa claus figure that grew into a Hulk claus to protect a lady from a gang of thugs. So yes, we really do think like what you described.

[@BlackDouglas1000]

Women are driven by the desire to gain security. Men are driven by the desire to provide security. It is almost like we should work together as a team or something. 80's movie recommendation just because...Romancing the Stone.

[@victornovak8558]

I like women heros. But not at the expense of making a male hero look bad.

[@gregowen2022]

I don't think anyone does, not even women and the ticket sales are proving it

[@JIBARO2000]

Dude, I have been binging on your videos for the last 3 days...I have finally found someone who can articulate in an excelent professional way, why force diversity is not only bad, but generates laziness in the creative process. Keep them coming!!!

[@-Ryu]

No, no. The M-C-Uterus is a good idea. Let's use that from now on.

[@gregowen2022]

I agree, M-C-uterus stays!

[@johnwandrisco3686]

My girl, who is much more left then me, went on a tangent the other day about how women in movies don’t feel like women. It’s some big exaggeration to make her feel empowered. Obvi I don’t know but from her perspective you hit the nail on the head.

[@clarkvaughan]

Wow. That's really a strong statement. The only thing worse than pandering is pandering and not getting it right. That's what she's saying.

[@gregowen2022]

I'm looking at these characters thinking it must feel for women like Marvel is letting them hold the flashlight and telling them they helped. It must be wildly insulting.

[@whateveryousay8510]

When ever I daydream about a huge power fantasy is always about being a loved queen with beautiful dresses, not a brute, massively powerful warrior. The way I see it, in male power fantasies, men are followed and respected because they're strong; in female power fantasies, women are followed and respected because they are loved. Just look at every shounen and every shoujo, or barbie movies

[@oscarzapatajr2]

Female power is being loved and probably also being sexy and desired, men power is being strong and competent, a super heroine that is strong and competent at the expense of being feminine, liked and desired Is a not attractive to either men nor woman

[@vincent121987]

wow very good man I agree. And i never thought about power fantasies that both genders experience are different. Its a good argument to use.

[@witchrich2365]

I think that we've been conditioned to think that women don't have it in them to fight without prior training. Like they are not inherently good at fighting. If they are put in a situation, we think their first instinct would be to hide. And once they get the power, they won't know how to use it just like that. I think this is less of a women's power fantasy and more of a reconditioning of how we view women's power. It's basically showing that women can and should tap into those instincts more. Feel that inner awesomeness and know that deep down, you can do it. And I don't know how many women you have talked with, but apparently, your generalization is not absolute. There are women who feel empowered with watching these. They get out of their head and into their body, thinking they can do anything. It really is more of the society telling them that's being unrealistic which knocks them off their fantasy.

[@gregowen2022]

I'll absolutely concede generalizations aren't absolute, which is why I pointed out that I was about to make some. However, women who are empowered by the MCU are in the minority, and the ticket sales show it. Other people have compared it to the WNBA. It's not a value judgement or comparison to the NBA, it's just the fact that the demand is lower for that product, like the demand is lower for the new direction of the MCU

[@witchrich2365]

@@gregowen2022 Catering to that demand is actually not excessive though. Like not all the female characters are shown to have that power fantasy. They only consist of Carol and She-Hulk. The other women all trained to get to where they are skill-wise. And these two women are the only characters who have feminism as their central theme. And so, I get that the demand for this storytelling may be low, but I don't think that their effort is excessive.

[@williambillycraig1057]

Incredibly smart, funny, and insightful; you earned my subscription.

[@gregowen2022]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you're here

[@witchrich2365]

"CHARACTERS ARE MEASURED AGAINST THEIR MALE COUNTERPARTS" I think this one is pretty much a response to men not liking if women who are playing by THEIR rules being able to compete, even win, against them. Jennifer can throw boulders with one hand just like Hulk (in case some people think that she couldn't do it for some reason), and throw it farther. Bruce also gets annoyed but does not really get angry about it. This is what She-Hulk is tackling. There's a whole bunch of guys getting sick of women being able to do the same things as good or as better as the men, and they are threatened by this. Even the guys took her blood sample and injected it into themselves thinking that Jennifer did not deserve this power. I do agree that we need NEW heroes instead of retelling of old ones. However, the rise of successors from minority is not an inherently bad thing. Your "Non-BIronAry Person" and "BlackTain America" are exactly what their stories talk about. Falcon does not want to accept the shield BECAUSE of people who don't think he doesn't deserve it. Viewers may have wanted for Steve to be the only Captain America, but the way the story unfolded was that CA was a necessary icon of hope and that there needed to be a successor. Steve himself chose Sam yet people refuse to accept him. Riri Williams never said she wanted to be like Tony. She just happens to be another technological genius who creates her own suit to allow her into combat. If anything, she's more similar to Shuri than Tony. The Marvels isn't out yet so we can't say that it's shoehorned like in Endgame. If anything, it is like the Avengers where characters from different shows unite into one team. Carol is from Captain Marvel, Monica is from WandaVision, and Kamala is from Ms. Marvel. We also have seen their origin stories and now we'll see how their stories converge.

[@gregowen2022]

There are probably some guys who are threatened, but they shouldn't be. All this competeing with men and doing things on men's terms only sends the message that we are superior. Text loses tone, so I want to be clear that I do not agree with this, but it is definitely the subtext of these movies and modern feminism is general. Fight like a man. Compete with men. Go into career fields dominated by men. Write fictional characters that are better then men. It's all saying that men and masculinity are superior. You don't compete below yourself, as that proves nothing. Modern media compares women to men, not men to women. The message is that men are the gold standard, and everyone should be very concerned about how young women interperet that message and begin to despise their own femininity, which is rarely celebrated

[@childless-gato-lady]

It is not a modern construct. People have been comparing women to men (and find women lacking) even before Darwin, who stated that that men “more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman [with] a more inventive genius." But I do agree that women should not be compared to men when women are demonstrating traits such as courageousness, leadership, inventiveness, good at STEM. Instead women should be encouraged to be (where their calling takes them) a STEM history maker like Katherine Johnson or Hedy Lamarr, be adventurous like Nellie Bly, be courageous like Sybil Ludington, fight like Andrée Borrel, be a power broker like Muriel Siebert, or lead like your favorite woman queen or head of state. In fact I think it would be great if those comparisons just went away and women could be courageous, smart, or whatever she is proficient at without being seen as interior to her male colleagues or seen as intruding on men's sphere of influence. Alas, (and I know this firsthand from working in a tech field), women are not there yet.

[@witchrich2365]

@@gregowen2022 oh yeah i absolutely agree! However, it is important to note that the first examples of MCU women being compared to men were Peggy, Natasha, and Hope were written by MEN. It was men who believed that women could be equal by making them compete with men. When it was the women who actually wrote Captain Marvel and She-Hulk (the characters who are outright feminists and competitive with men), they are actually writing their competitiveness with men as part of their flaws. Carol grew from seeking Yon-Rogg's approval to having nothing to prove to him. Jennifer grew from seeing the She-Hulk as Bruce's power to seeing the She-Hulk as her own power.

[@BiggieTrismegistus]

After She-Hulk throws a bolder further than him Hulk picks one up and throws into orbit. "Hulk is the strongest one there is". Regardless you missed the entire point of the discussion because you're desperately wedded to your unfounded belief that men are threatened by strong women. In reality what's happening here is that women don't see a problem with characters being presented as wonderful right from the start because have a vastly inflated view of themselves. Thus their power fantasies consist of them already existing as a perfect being and the world shifting around them to recognize their perfection. Women don't see personal growth and overcoming obstacles as worthwhile goals so it's only natural that fictional women designed to appeal to female audiences would behave in the same way.

[@witchrich2365]

@@BiggieTrismegistus By perfect do we mean free from story flaws or personality differences? Because these women have both, and so do the men. While Tony got humbler and responsible, he still retains his sharp tongue and confidence about his skills. While Steve is awakened about the new world, he still retains his friendly demeanor. While Carol rejects control and embraces her humanity, she remains confident with her cosmic power and serious about her duties. While Jennifer embraces her new powers as her own, she remains boisterous and assertive. Story flaws are the ones that are changing. Differences in personality don't because that's what makes them who they are. These traits are neutral as they may go positive and negative at certain points in time, but they are not inherently bad.

[@katyavinogradova7688]

Thank you for giving this perspective! It never occurred to me that the current Mary Sues are still the male fantasy - but you're right! That's what the problem is. They are male characters in female bodies - and the most primitive male characters at that. For the best dramatic effect, all the characters should be flawed and should go through change for us to care about them. And that's what Phase 1 of Marvel was all about - letting us watch Tony Stark, Thor, Steve Rogers grow into their superhero selves. That's why they still hold a special place in our hearts - because we've watched them grow and change. That's why Tony's sacrifice hits so hard in Endgame - because we know where he started, who he was in the beginning. And with the Mary Sues they start out as perfect and continue to be perfect - what's interesting about that?

[@briankirkkelly]

Made me think of the quote from Godfather, "Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men." Which is why we a programed in our DNA to think about how to use the BBQ sauce as a weapon at the box store...

[@nejuan6339]

Nice video. I don't know/care anything about the MCU or super heros but thoroughly enjoyed hearing your take. Hella funny as well.

[@gregowen2022]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it

[@e13kid]

There are some exceptions but for the most part I think you’re right. A good way I think of the differences between male and female power fantasies is men want to rule the kingdom and women want to rule the palace.

[@gregowen2022]

Damn, that is a beautifully succinct way to put it.

[@stephanledford9792]

This was very interesting and approached from an angle that I hadn't thought of before. I don't see Marvel pulling this out of its decline because I don't think the bosses at Marvel see this as a problem with their product, but instead see this as a problem with their audience.

[@diegodelsol1309]

"Not all women think they're 10s." Someone should tell this guy about tiktok. Or maybe not.

[@dason5408]

I like your presentation style. I look forward to more content from you soon 👍

[@gregowen2022]

Thank you!

[@dason5408]

@@gregowen2022 Cheers 👍

[@witchrich2365]

I think that we should be comparing these female characters with male characters in the MCU as well, not ones from different franchises. These women have fewer appearances outside their solo shows, so we'll only be looking at the first installments of the men. Tony and Thor had no weaknesses beside their character flaws. They basically win, almost not struggling in battle. Bruce struggled in controlling the Hulk, but transforming into the monster made him invulnerable. Scott was an exceptional thief and struggled using his suit in training. Strange did struggle fighting other sorcerers but never lost a battle. Only Peter and T'Challa lost some fights IN THEIR SOLO MOVIES. Natasha lost multiple fights, surviving just because she had back up. Wanda lost to Hawkeye and struggled controlling her powers which branded her a criminal. Hope lost to Ghost. For once, Carol was the first titular female MCU superhero, and she's bashed for winning her fights just by "punching harder." Yelena, Sersi, Kate, Kamala, Jennifer, and Shuri also struggled and lost in battles.

[@neoteraflare]

Women and men power difference is so good in Wheel of time. Men had to grab and force the power to their will while women had to immerse in it let it flow through them so they lead it like Po lead the Cannon balls in Kung fu panda 3.

[@RRTNZ]

Well done Sir. So many KZbinrs have given similar takes I was expecting to yawn and tune out, but you put an interesting spin on it, and the presentation was genuinely funny. And the power fantasy comparison is spot on ! This was a cut above. Nicely done, I'm subscribing.

[@gregowen2022]

Thanks for subscribing! If I can get you to chuckle, it's a success!

[@SoOkwerd]

This video was soo well done. I was shocked when I noticed that this channel only has less than 10k views. Anyway. Great video and analysis

[@gregowen2022]

Glad you liked it, and I appreciate the encouraging comments. That is helping to push to 10k!