"Why the concept of Mary Sue is sexist"

[zanzibar]

I read this and thought it was interesting. Mary Sue is a concept that comes up in PlaneShift from time to time, and this is a perspective I hadn't considered before.


http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/post/13913540194/mary-sue-what-are-you-or-why-the-concept-of-sue-is

[Illysia]

Interesting thought but I disagree... My problem with Sues are the story breaking elements and it doesn't matter the gender. The "wish fulfillment" aspect isn't the issue, it's the "Why are you prostituting my time for your personal fantasy?" that is the problem. I might stick out that I never really liked batman that much anyway.

[Phantomboy86]

The term for a guy sue is Marty Stu or Gary Sue, and is applicable in all situations where it'd be a male under the sue catagories. Do the research XD

[Aramara Meibi]

* Aramara Meibi did the research for you.

Without further ado, I give you the original 'Mary Sue'.

http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/dark/1000/marysue.htm

[Illysia]

The article comments on the Marty Stus but she still disregards them as being equally disliked. However, I am suspicious of any writer that embraces Mary Sues. Whether it is a sexist term or not, Mary Sues are typically badly written characters that can be easily excised from the story, to the story's benefit I might add.

[LigH]

The 28th Chaos Computer Congress 2011 faced a similar threat ... "militant feminists" claimed that the "Balls of Steel Award" would be sexistical, and that hackers would have to use genderified terms (= "[fe]male"; a concept that hardly exists in english at all - faintly comparable to "boy/girl friend") and to use a female quota for ticket sales...

Well, such a request is hardly realistic. At first, the number of women who are interested in "hacking" (programming down to a certain abstraction level, regarding optimization and security measures) is in fact rather low, so you can't enforce women to be interested in it just to comply a quota. Furthermore (and not only due to this first fact), an enforced genderification is contrary to the attention on the subject, and the more complex a topic is, the more important is the attention on it to understand it. And lastly, the "Balls of Steel Award" was already given to a quite satisfied woman who cared more about its proverbial meaning than its sexual one.

Don't you all agree that nitpicking on the surface has only one purpose – distracting from the content?

[Korumak]

From some one from the old schol who has been righting fan fiction for... well lets just say early 90's and leave it there.
Mary sue is actual a "newer-slang" term, we used to call it "Author Insertion" stories.  Some can be very good if they keep into the context of the world, and not Brake the rules of the world. "Ie show up as a god, slay the series villian, render 50 volumes of manga mute, and 200 episodes useless.

Some good, some bad.  I like the well written ones my self.  But then thats me.  For every Good bit of fan fiction theres 50 bad ones.
A way to see it is the author puts some of them selves into it and have allowed you to peek into their fantasy if you wish, you may even share the same fantasy.  Its definitely not for everyone, and I have actually written standard Fan Fiction, Author insertion, and Cross over ones.  So i been there done that, and like its been said before Fan fiction isn't for everyone. (no i haven't written PS fan fiction... yet)

[derula]

Don't you all agree that nitpicking on the surface has only one purpose – distracting from the content?

Says someone who can't stop correcting other people's typos or grammar mistakes all the time...

And not to appear too surface now, I'm going to add that the linked article is quite deluded and facepalm-worthy in my opinion. Sexism is, according to Wikipedia, "the application of the false belief that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas". If anything, the term Mary Sue works the other way around, implying a gender for a given set of characteristics that one might consider negative. Why would anyone think that calling someone a Marry Sue would have anything to do with sexism? Yes, it is an inherently female term, so what? "Homosexual man" in an inherently male term, and is that sexism now? And does it matter whether that term is more or less common than "homosexual woman"? It's not like anyone said that all women were Mary Sues.

Not saying I disagree with everything in the article. I like strong, female characters in stories, and I'd like to see more of that kind. But to be honest, it is quite dangerous to write stories about strong female characters who aren't Mary Sues without being called sexist by someone else in some other way.

Also, what LigH said.

[Aramara Meibi]

did none of y'all read my link?

The term 'Mary Sue' comes directly from a piece of Star Trek fan fic published in 1974 (so it's not as newer slang than you think) in which the character Mary Sue exhibits all of the characteristics we apply to the term.

Yes, the story is a parody of the phenomenon. But to say calling someone a Mary Sue is sexist against women would be like saying calling someone a Benedict Arnold is sexist against men. Those who use the term Mary Sue correctly know very well it can be applied to male wish fulfillment author avatar types. We also know that not all Author Avatars are Mary Sues. For example, Killgore Trout.

[Elkarway]

did none of y'all read my link?

The term 'Mary Sue' comes directly from a piece of Star Trek fan fic published in 1974 (so it's not as newer slang than you think) in which the character Mary Sue inhibits all of the characteristics we apply to the term.

Yes, the story is a parody of the phenomenon. But to say calling someone a Mary Sue is sexist against women would be like saying calling someone a Benedict Arnold is sexist against men. Those who use the term Mary Sue correctly know very well it can be applied to male wish fulfillment author avatar types. We also know that not all Author Avatars are Mary Sues. For example, Killgore Trout.

I miss you, Aramara.

As far as Planeshift, Mary Sue comes up probably more for male characters than female characters in PlaneShift.  At the very least it's about even.  I'd say it's definitely not sexist here.  Hell, Nurahk was called Mary Sue a few times... Mostly by me...

[Korumak]

I just translate it in my head. "Thats a mary sue" = "Thats a author insertion story"  Its like me running around trying to make everyone use Neo-Paganism terms... after a while you just mark it up as common language and self translate.

oh an yeah its "Newer slang" because it wasnt adopted till late 90's by small part of the fan fiction culture, even today its not that used, except by someone who 'wants to start an argument.' so you just got to 'ok next post please'.

[Zalya]

I read the article a few days ago, and was going to comment but then I realized that I really just don't care XD

[Gilrond]

Yes, I think this subject is just given too much undeserved attention.

[MishkaL1138]

I'M A MARY SUE AND I KNOW IT *wiggle wiggle wiggle*

[Illysia]

I wouldn't say that it is undeserved attention since a Sue is a good way to kill a story, but it is a fairly easy problem to deal with. I simply don't read stories with Sues that can't be somehow overlooked.